The attach animals are insects called ziggers. They are essentially giant centipedes and millipedes. The people of the Quartern use pedes for their mounts and as pack and work animals.

They have white skin and white hair and mine for their living. The last quarter is the White Quarter, filled with salt plains and the local people, called 'Alabasters'.

The Red Quarter is to the northwest and is filled with red sand dunes and occupied by a tribal society- they tend to be the most volatile and dangerous on average. The Gibber Quarter to the southeast is very poor and underdeveloped- communities scrape and live in settlements along drywashes. Most rainlords and stormlords come from this Quartern. The land is divided into Quarterns- the Scarpen Quarter, to the southwest, where most of the large developed cities are and the where the stormlord lives. Everyone else lives like normal, getting their daily water allotment from the reeves and sacrificing water to the Sunlord, who they believe is the source of the water powers that keep their cisterns filled. People with just water sensitivity are called 'reeves' and are mostly administrative and holy. A 'rainlord' has lesser power over water, and are used in governing and maintaining cities and water supplies. People with water powers are rare, and stormlords rarer still. The strongest of these, called 'stormlords', can draw water vapor out of the distant sea and cause rain in strategic places to fill the cisterns of the cities.

A trilogy of novels by Glenda Larke about a society that exists in an extremely dry climate, and get their precious water through people with power over water.

The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke