The Shadow Desert, often just called the Shadow, may be the most inhospitable region on the world of Eamon.
The vast Floating Island which hangs above it blocks out all light and precipitation, leaving the center of the desert not only in perpetual, ink-black darkness but also highly desiccated. Strewn across this dry and deadly blackness are enormous debris fields created when veins of non-floating stone were shed over the millennia from the mass above, and chunks ranging from small stones to castle-sized boulders still sometimes rain down. Those brave enough to venture into the waste believe that even slight sounds or vibrations can trigger stone-falls, and move as quietly as possible through the desert.
Closer to the perimeter beneath the edges of the Floating Island, conditions are less deadly but no less unpleasant. The collision of the prevailing winds with such a massive wind-barrier (as well as the cool air below it) produces violent and near-constant storms that reduce the landscape below to wind-blasted, dimly-lit swamps. Rain falling on the windward side of the island runs off in great miles-tall waterfalls that add to the water-logged conditions.
The only small settlement in the region is called the Knife and is located below a long cleft in the island said to be shaped like a blade.
