Under Qatar: The Eldritch Vault

"You know the door to Hades is in my cellar, right?"

The old man laughed recklessly, wheezing between each breath in a way that made my lungs ache.  He feigned humor, but in his eyes I could read the nervousness.

"Lo, I've been down there but three times.  Once as a child, jess lookin' at the big door.  Agin as a young man, fightin that curiousness until the pee ran down my leg warm and full. Hehehee.  The last time, though, I leaned real close...and damned if that door didn't bulge out, all creakin' and warpin'.  Like it was dying to open for me.  Beggin' to have me come within..."

Qatar, the Whispering City

Just at the edge of the Great Desert squats a strange city built around an oasis.  The water is hardly more than a large mud puddle, and sandstorms turn the sunlight into an odd purplish glow upon the sickly clay dwellings.  But desert dwellers flock there nonetheless, for there is black cacti growing all around the Whispering City.  The visions gained from the powdered cacti's use are very popular among the empty headed as well as the greatest of magi.  In fact, people have flocked to the site for centuries, a fact attested to by the layers of ruins upon which the city is built.