Tias Bowl

You move down from the dunes and savannah, the scrubgrass and dust, following the road down a gradual slope, towards the greenery you believe at first must be a mirage. Plantains, Coconuts, Citrus such as limes and oranges, all are present amongst the trees you are approaching. Such a thing seems impossible. Yet as you move down the sloping road into the shadows of the trees, reaching out to touch them you find they are real. They are all too real. After days upon days of travel, the burning heat, the scrub, the sand, with barely enough food and tack to keep yourselves moving after the gnoll raid, you've made it. You made the journey without turning back, an implausible feat. Kalesh and the dangers of the very well connected and violent individuals in power within the Kaleshin Caliph are far behind you all now.

"What did I tell you my friends! I knew we could make it. Its all real Kevjak I promise you, and so long as we do no harm to the plants themselves, the bounty is for any and all travelers through the area. Welcome to the Tias Bowl my friends. Come a small creek or stream I hear. Let us find water, refill our skins, drink cool and deep, and rest for this day out amongst the food forest we find ourselves in. Osina can wait until the morrow, let us eat, rest and recuperate after our journey amongst shade, fruit and water."

Elijah 'Thornfingers' Parinja to his traveling companions Kevjak, Isabella and Avalyn.

The Tias Bowl is a region that provides great refuge from the surrounding savannah and desert, a depression in the land within which you will find a large natural aquifer where the rains and ground water flow, an oasis known as Osi. From here the Lyris River flows south and west, eventually joining the Tian River to flow to the Sea of Sails. The Tias Bowl has many small creeks and streams flowing from smaller ponds and resevoirs at its outer edges that flow forth into the Osi, which then feeds the Lyris. The region itself covers some 5245 square kms (or 2025 sq miles) of land, and is a veritable forest, a day of greenery, shade, water and food a plenty. It is the emerald gem of the Osinim Principality and the heartwood city of Osina is found here deep in this paradise forest on the eastern shores of the Osi. The Osi is less an oasis and more almost a lake, so large it is. Almost 290 sq kms (or 112 sq miles) this resevoir of water and the Lyris River it feeds, whilst they do experience shrinkage in the dry season, even with many of the creeks and streams above ground that feed the Osi completely drying out, the region does not ever have a loss of fresh water. The underground aquifers are simply to full, to robust to truly and fully drain.

This is helped by the fact that the region is lower than the rest of the surrounding terrain, which of course does mean bouts of flash flooding over the short rainy season are not uncommon. It is why Osina is a heartwood city above any other reason, and a rare one at that, entirely contained in the canopy and trunks of the trees of the heartwood, with no structures built or grown at ground level. Other smaller settlements in the region, the two villages or the several lone homesteads of families whom make their living as foragers and forest caregivers, whether or not they are Woad Elves, are all built or grown similarly, kept off the ground. Thought the entire bowl does not truly flood, not enough for risk of drowning or being swept away, the water will get up to the calf or knee in some lower spots, and the Lyri Crocodile, an aggressive predator that lives within the Lyris and Osi, they will roam between these pools or swim the smaller creeks or streams and amongst these semi flooded areas, unseen killers waiting for some fool antelope, warthog, leopard or potentially humanoid to get to close to make a meal out of. Of course leopards will hunt the crocodiles as well as humanoids, and thus, though the region is a refuge from the sand, sun and sheer parched desperation of the desert and scrubland, it is not without its own dangers. However these dangers are exterior and far easier to plan for, be wary of, and contend with than the risks of starvation or dehydration.

Type

Oasis