Our House is surrounded by miles and miles of desert.  Nothing so pure and clean as the desert.  There are three types of desert in our world: the badlands (earth and rock), the sand dunes, and the chaparral.  The badlands  surrounds the House, the dunes are northwest of the mountains, and the chaparral is northeast of the mountains.  The mountains surround the Valley.

The dunes are inhabited by a type of dangerous, ravenous creature, the scarab.  If you stop moving, they will swarm you.  The dunes a bit farther south, where the dust and rock join with the dune lands, are safe. 

Why have we chosen the symbol of the scarab beetle?  The scarab is the symbol of Ra, the Sun God of the Egyptians.  In his scarab aspect, Ra was called Khepera.  Scarab beetles lay their eggs in dung, which they roll into a ball and roll into a hole.  The revolving ball of dung represented the rotation of the earth, rotated by a celestial scarab, Ra, and also represented the movement of the sun and its daily resurrection.  The opening and closing of the scarabs colorful wings symbolized night and day. The Egyptians saw the scarabs disappear into the earth, and later come back out as if resurrected (like a phoenix), and immortal.

 As for us, we may have been born and raised in a really crappy situation, but we were reborn by divine intervention.  It fits. 

However, the scarabs inside are not like the myth.  They were there before we knew anything about it.  They are used mostly as devourers of death and decay.  And they work great for some bored teenagers out for a dare to see how long someone will stand still out in the dunes.

The Valley is surrounded by towering, black mountains.  Nestled in the valley is a whole new sort of lifestyle.  Out in the desert, our existence is about surviving and overcoming life's trials.  In the valley, however, life is about interacting and finding harmony in life.  We have tree elves, pegasus that live on the mountains, the Marine forces, an ogre, gargoyles in the huge gorge far to the northeast, angelics to the far northwest, giant wolves, and other things.  This place is bursting with green life, a welcome change for us desert-dwellers.  The Valley is our vacation spot.

Past the entrance and the cradle of the valley lie villages of people, and a vast inland sea that used to be the Dark Territories.  There was a war in the Territories and the survivors, the people who chose the Light way of life, moved and settled in with the villagers.  Some bad Territories people used to raid and attack the villages, and lives were lost, so there is some unrest in the new settling.

The old Territories people had a story of their origin:  A gray wolf ran across the Dark Territories, and wherever he kicked up dust clouds, a village was created, and little dust-devils he kicked up became the ones who wandered the Territories.  The earth of the Territories was flat gray, with no running water (they dug in the ground about a couple of feet to get water, very shallow), so Territories people were usually covered with the gray dust, and became to be known as the Grey People as well.  They cover themselves even still with gray dust or mud for ceremonies, like funerals.  Their old symbol was the gray wolf.

Beyond the Valley, the Dark Sea (the inland sea that used to be the Dark Territories which is now the boundary of the Darker Territories and the rest of the light world) and the Dunes, is the tall, white tower of the angelics.  Our angelics are almost useless.  Their purpose is to generate the Light and positive energies, and that they do well, however you can't call them on a crisis.  They are like the stoic figures of the Saints in Renaissance paintings, looking tall and doing nothing.

Near the edge of the inland sea and the end of the Valley is a narrow passageway of huge, towering cliffs.  There live the cliff-dwellers, the gargoyles.  They prey on the herds of animals that migrate between the cliffs from the Valley to the Wilds beyond.  That area is mostly unexplored.

Why do we have villages?  Are these alters?  No, they are called frags (short for fragmentary alternate personalities).  They are as substantial as the trees and grass and walls of our House.  They are like scenery, but are more of a manifestation of our own inner conflicts and issues.  If one was taken into the House and raised up like a real person within us, yes, he or she would become an "alter."  An example of this: Gideon is a real person within us, but his Marine forces are frags.