>>/12714/
> MAGIX LOL
...would be the short official answer.
My answer: this is how they created the world:
> hey we read Tolkien and played lots of DnD we should make our own campaign setting!
> great idea!
Then they outlined the continent and started poking around:
> here be giant mountains
> there be desert
...
and they drew a map what they could use for an rpg. Then they started to think about why everything looks how it looks. Why stuff is there where they placed it. And they started explaining the background in reverse.
> This is now and it looks like this because previously was that...
Then they had to explain the previous step and took one more step into the past to figure another explanation for that and another. With this process it's impossible to create a plausible explanations for realistic thing which wasn't really a requirement in the first place so they generously used "magic" as an explanation.
Which leads us to their long official answer. Well I'll still keep it short.
The history of Ynev is arranged into Nine Eras. Ynev's present is at the end of the Seventh. Like in every medieval fantasy the magic is slowly sipping out from the world. In the beginning everything was dripping from magic - even the creatures of those ages produced magical power, like some kind of a hormone - so it was much more hip to use magic 24/7 which was more powerful too. In the Third Era Elves, Amunds and the Dzsenns (I think it should be Jann in English) fought a destructive war in that area which turned into a desert, following the annihiliation. I read somewhere the winds blow out of it's central region, I'm not sure if only towards the sea or in all direction.
So it's magic.
Feel free to add your garlic. In the future I'll write (or rather: copy) some linguistic stuff as well if everything goes well.