>>That desert continent also has a moat, full of sharks and cubozoans, even before the terrestrial hazards get a crack at infiltrators ;)
Yep. List the most venomous creatures on earth and you can be sure that flotillas of them are patrolling the desert continent's beaches or lurking in toilet bowls to give you something to remember them by...
"... They ne'er cared for us yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear us." -- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1