The Great Eastern Desert is an area of desolation left at the end of the Great War occupying roughly half of what had been Old Ethshar. This area was created when all the demons of emptied out of the Nethervoid and ravaged General Terrek's Eastern Command on their way to decimate Old Ethshar. At the same time the heartland of the Northern Empire was turned into the Great Northern Desert. Part of the reason the Great Eastern Desert persists is that several meters of soil were simply obliterated in the process of that final conflagration, destroying the top soil along with several layers of subsoil. In several places an escarpment remains between the desert below and the land above, though in some places this has eroded away.

Shan on the Desert sits at the edge of the Great Eastern Desert.