Vissias was a nation in southern Enroth, located south of what would later become Blackshire. Vissias was destroyed shortly before the Silence.
Alanna, the beautiful daughter of Alan, the mayor of Aliant, was murdered outside the council hall one night. When her grieving father received a message that accused his fellow council members of the crime, he ordered them put to death. While one of them was captured and killed, the other four fled to Vissias, begging for sanctuary. Whe Alan's forces followed them and demanded that the "killers" should be handed over, the Vissians refused. Fighting broke out, and by the end of the day, Alan's son Michael was also dead.
Blinded by grief and rage, Alan activated a powerful weapon of the Ancients that he had kept for safekeeping.
"The wrath of heaven poured out of the artifact, instantly slaying both armies to a man and filling the land with poison. Fire rained onto the town of Aliant, burned the green fields of Vissias, and wrought ruin for hundreds of miles around. Uninhabitable for centuries, the formerly lush lands of Vissias and Aliant became the vast desert known now as Dragonsand."