Northern Shara is a land cleft by war, where the implacable argons rose from the underworld to invade the surface world. Using immense, crawling drillers and terraforming machinery, the argons aren't trying to conquer Shara. Their exact purpose is unknown, but it's clear they want to expunge all life and transform the land, not rule it.

Shara has its stalwart defenders, though. They've gathered at the Amani fortress-city of Kaiator, the largest city in Northern Shara. Kaiator has survived thirty years of incessant attacks from the Argons. Even as the Argons ruin the surrounding lands and mass armies at Kaiator's steel walls, the city hasn't fallen.

Yet.

Northern Shara is a vast battlefield dominated by a brutal war between the argon invaders and the defenders of the Valkyon Federation. The continent's largest city, Kaiator, is an oasis of safety and an engine of industry, its massive magma-fueled factories churning out arms and armor to aid the war effort. Within Kaiator's walls, the forces of the Valkyon Federation plan counterattacks against the argon menace in northern Shara, sending column after column of fresh troops northward to do battle against the creatures from the underworld.

When those armies march north of Kaiator, they see lands under active argon terraforming. The invasion began with a great tear in the earth where the first swarms of argons emerged—an area now known as the Black Cave. The argons patrol there to this day, guarding the entrance to their mysterious underworld while sending out armies to darken more of TERA.

Further south are the massive terraforming machines, which brave soldiers from Kaiator attempt to sabotage or destroy. So far the machines crawl forward unabated, but they remain a prime target for Valkyon Federation forces. The only respite in Northern Shara is the arctic plain that surrounds Kaiator itself—and even it isn't totally safe. Rumors abound that fierce wendigos ambush unwary travelers and sometimes entire patrols.

The great rift that marks the barrier between northern and southern Shara shelters a more temperate clime, where giant frond-trees can blot out the sky at times—and hide the mad cultists, hostile nature spirits, and native tribes that existed in this place long before the Valkyon Federation's armies marched here to stop the argon armies.