Mwangi Jungle
Verdant, fathomless, mysterious, and boiling with life, the Mwangi Jungle is the largest tropical rain forest in the Inner Sea region. Stretching some eight hundred miles end to end and half that in width, its green boughs contain uncountable worlds.
The Mwangi Jungle might be more accurately called the Ocota Drainage Basin. Persistent easterly winds force damp air from the Eye of Abendego into Garund to smash into the mountains surrounding the jungle. Rain then falls, as much as twelve feet of water each year. It collects in Lake Ocota, a massive inland sea in the center of the jungle, and then drains through the Vanji River back out to the ocean.
All this water fuels a profusion of greenery and a unique ecosystem. The jungle’s trees typically grow to heights of 100 to 150 feet, and individual giants can double that in size. Their height and density create unique layers in the forest. At the top is the canopy layer, a thick carpet of greenery 100 feet in the air, branches woven together with lianas and creeping plants, on which countless animals and some peoples live without ever touching the ground. Birds, monkeys, frogs, snakes, and an infinite profusion of insects occupy the canopy. Below it is the understory: darker, more shaded, home to larger beasts such as pythons and leopards, as well as a great many ferns. And then comes the forest floorwhich almost never sees sunlight—home to greater beasts, most famously crocodiles and forest elephants, both of whom stay near the rivers.
The rain forest is unforgiving to the unprepared. The dense greenery and hidden sky can render navigation nigh impossible, and travel of any sort is a grueling task of sweat and blood. The swiftest travel is by the rivers, though constant rapids, swift currents, and hidden sandbars make “swift” very relative. Those attempting to travel overland find their way blocked by sudden ravines and thorny shrubbery requiring a machete to pass. To travel even 10 miles a day may prove a herculean task. The jungles also host countless poisonous plants, venomous insects, and hungry predators, ranging from the relatively mundane (leopards, cobras, and crocodiles) to the more unusual (saurian mokele-mbembe or demonic kishis). More lethal than any predator, however, are the jungle’s diseasesparticularly mosquito-borne malaria, which kills more travelers than any other jungle danger.
Permanent residents of the jungle, such as the simian charau-ka or Kallijae elves, have their own ways of making travel easier and avoiding predators, but even they rarely venture far from their home territories. As a consequence of this, the Mwangi Jungle hides countless secrets. An ancient city may lie buried in the jungle a half-day’s trek from a thriving trading post, completely hidden by the terrain. Anything in the deep jungle, away from the rivers, might lie undiscovered for centuries.
The Mwangi Jungle might be more accurately called the Ocota Drainage Basin. Persistent easterly winds force damp air from the Eye of Abendego into Garund to smash into the mountains surrounding the jungle. Rain then falls, as much as twelve feet of water each year. It collects in Lake Ocota, a massive inland sea in the center of the jungle, and then drains through the Vanji River back out to the ocean.
All this water fuels a profusion of greenery and a unique ecosystem. The jungle’s trees typically grow to heights of 100 to 150 feet, and individual giants can double that in size. Their height and density create unique layers in the forest. At the top is the canopy layer, a thick carpet of greenery 100 feet in the air, branches woven together with lianas and creeping plants, on which countless animals and some peoples live without ever touching the ground. Birds, monkeys, frogs, snakes, and an infinite profusion of insects occupy the canopy. Below it is the understory: darker, more shaded, home to larger beasts such as pythons and leopards, as well as a great many ferns. And then comes the forest floorwhich almost never sees sunlight—home to greater beasts, most famously crocodiles and forest elephants, both of whom stay near the rivers.
The rain forest is unforgiving to the unprepared. The dense greenery and hidden sky can render navigation nigh impossible, and travel of any sort is a grueling task of sweat and blood. The swiftest travel is by the rivers, though constant rapids, swift currents, and hidden sandbars make “swift” very relative. Those attempting to travel overland find their way blocked by sudden ravines and thorny shrubbery requiring a machete to pass. To travel even 10 miles a day may prove a herculean task. The jungles also host countless poisonous plants, venomous insects, and hungry predators, ranging from the relatively mundane (leopards, cobras, and crocodiles) to the more unusual (saurian mokele-mbembe or demonic kishis). More lethal than any predator, however, are the jungle’s diseasesparticularly mosquito-borne malaria, which kills more travelers than any other jungle danger.
Permanent residents of the jungle, such as the simian charau-ka or Kallijae elves, have their own ways of making travel easier and avoiding predators, but even they rarely venture far from their home territories. As a consequence of this, the Mwangi Jungle hides countless secrets. An ancient city may lie buried in the jungle a half-day’s trek from a thriving trading post, completely hidden by the terrain. Anything in the deep jungle, away from the rivers, might lie undiscovered for centuries.
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