Jungle of Orrm

The forest of the black hunters

Written by Snowcatsnek/Silent Paw

The Jungle of Orrm is a tropical monsoon climate rainforest. It's a very dense jungle, difficult to navigate for most humanoid creatures, with it getting the most dense around water sources like lakes or rivers, to the point where you have to cut through foliage to make your way through the jungle. During it's rain season, which last for about 5 and a half months each year (from autumn until mid-winter), there is quite a lot of rain in parts of the region. The dry season lasts from roughly mid-winter until the end of summer. The deeper parts of the jungle are vastly unexplored by most humanoid races, part from some lumbers, hunters, alchemists or doctors who are brave enough or rich enough to be send out to the jungle. It's inhabited by wild animals, plants, and lizardfolk tribes and tabaxi clans. It's located in [DIRECTION OF LAND], and [DIRECTION] of Ravensnest, bordering Drossmoor, [a savannah grassland] and the United Sultanate.

Tropical

Like most tropical rainforest, this forest is also characterized by a warm and wet climate with no real substantial dry season. The mean monthly temperatures are around or exceed 18°C(64°F) during the whole year. The annual parcipitation is no less than 168cm(66 in) and can exceed 1000cm(390 in), although typically it lays between 1750 mm(69 in) and 2000 mm (80 in). The jungle of Orrm usually falls into the higher spectrum of this, with the annual parcipitation being between 190 cm(75 in) and 240 cm(95 in), with peeks exceeding well over 1525 cm(600 in). The heaviest rainfall that has been witnessed was around 2500 cm(985 in).

Layers

A tropical rainforest typically has a number of layers. Each different layer comes with different animals and plants that have adapted for life in that particular area.

Emergent layer

This layer contains a small number of very large trees, called emergents. Those trees generally stand above the canopy below, usually reaching up to 50 to 60 m(165 ft to 200 ft), and few trees reaching up to 75 to 85 m(245 ft to 280 ft). This layer is inhabited by a large amount of airborne creatures, like gryphons and dragons(green or black), as well as bats, apes on monkeys in the top of the trees.

Canopy Layer

The canopy layer contains most of the tree of the jungle. Typically, those range from 30 m(100 ft) to 45 m (150 ft) tall. Most life is found in this part of the jungle, with a mostly continous cover of foliage blocking most of the sunlight and serving as a cover for rain. Animals like snakes, apes, and various others life in this layer. In addition to that, it is astimated that the canopy layer is home to roughly half of the plant life of a forest as well. A similar plant life is found in the emergment layer, although in the canopy layer it is more diverse.

Understory layer

This is the part that is between the canopy layer and the forest floor. In layer, a number of small birds, as well as small snakes and lizards are calling this their home. This of course attracts various predators as well, like jaguars, boa constrictors, leopards, tigers or various other. Most seedlings that will grow into the canopy will be found here, resulting in an equally dense fooliage. This results in the fact that only 5 - 10% of the sunlight falling onto the jungle is actually present here.

Forest Floor

The forest floor, which is the ground layer of the forest, receives only 2 - 6% of the sunlight. In this parts, only plants that can live on low light levels actually grow here. This results in the forest floor being rather clear of plants and various other vegetation, although it's still difficult to manoeuvre due to the various sizes of roots from the trees and small elevations or hills. An exception to this are riverbanks, lakes and/or swamps and clearings, where large portions of light come through and usually a dense undergrowth is found, especially near water sources where it can get dense enough to have cut through various plants to make a way through. A lot of fungi are found here which take care of the plant and animal waste other creatures would not take part in.

Connection to the Feywilds

It is said that the jungle of Orrm is connected to the feywilds. While the connection probably is not very strong, various beasts connected to the feywilds have been sighted, like Displacer Beasts, and various people mysteriously vanished from their party, not to be found anywhere. While the various beasts and plant life that seeps into the jungle from they feywild is hard to dispute, arguments have been made that those who had adventurer or travel companions vanish on them might just claim so by shock and in reality might have been attacked by the various animals, eaten by plants or attacked by the various tribes in the jungle.

Flora and Fauna

The rainforest of Orrm inhabits a large array of flora and fauna, such as mammals, like primates and felines and other families, reptiles, like snakes, turtles, chameleons and similar, amphibians, like various fish, alligators, waterborne snakes, birds and invertebrates, as well as various plants, fungi and insects.
A lot of this variety is thanks to the amount of refuges this rainforest offers. Plants and fungi can grow in places unaccessible to animals, while that in return offers a hideout for various animals.
Throughout all layers there are small elementals found called "Chwinga". They are small, usually a half to one foot high, resembling small animated doll-like elementals wearing masks with faces, usually those of animals. None of these masks are the same, with that varing vastly between them. They hair is usually quite wild and unkempt with slender and lean limbs. Their presence is usually foreshadowed by small natural phenomena, like harmless insects or pleasant flowery scents. They are entirely harmless, tending to hide in trees and stones when threatened, which makes them hard to pin down as well as difficult to harm, thanks to their expert hiding skills. It is rumored that one of the tabaxi tribes brought them into this jungle, but it is also likely that they inhabitated these lands even before that.

Soils

Because of the soil containing a poor soil quality, because of the rapid bacterial decay and the concentration of iron and other materials in the ground, the soil appears in a bright reddish-brow colouration. As a result of that, most trees have their roots near the surface of the ground because of the ground containing not much nutrional value deeper down. [The soil quality might be changing if there is a mountain with volcanic activity in the past, an outbreak far in the past might have enriched the soil quite a lot, which would also make it possible for tribes to turn to agriculture. Otherwise this would not be the case]

Humanoid uses

Forests are a great source for lumber, plant products such as exotic fruits, herbs, exotic poisons and other life, as well as animal products such as meat and hides. Orrm is no expception to this. The jungle has been subject to various lumber camps over the years, such as hill dwarfs or leonin from the savannah grasslands, and also varing humanoids from all around the world.

Lumbering

Lumbering, especially from the hill dwarfs, was once a continuous problem but has slowed down over the recent years. Cause of this is [a rare tree] that was found in great number decades ago. It was highly valued by all kinds of people for it's unique look, a white-goldish colour on the inside, as well as it's unique scent which was found to be quite invigorating yet oddly calming. Those trees usually stood amongst the tallest of them all, and their ages is said to be almost 100 elves lifes long. At the time where it was actively lumbered, it's value only equalled to gold. When the tree stood before extinction, a godess called Nylea declared, in a for her unusual act, a symbol of this forests live essence and shall it extinct, so shall the forest and all the lives - humanoid, plants and animals - with it.
[This might be part of it's own article later on, which then would be replaced by a symlink to it. Also Makuta IGNORE THIS PART IF YOU READ THIS YOU BAKA OR YOU WILL SPOIL YOURSELF fhaeRage ] Show Spoiler

A bit more than half a decadae ago, Tymeriar The Eternal thought to expand his land, Drossmoor, into the surrouding jungle area. He amassed quite the army for this, trying to seize these parts for himself as fast as possible. The invasion was quite short lived though. As they made it through the found [the rare tree] and quickly chopping it down. Not even a second after this, all hell seemed to break loose among the army consisting of largely black half-dragons, some green half-dragons and even fewer dragonborns of the same colours. The air filled with hatred, disgust and an overwhelming feel of vengance while within minutes the once large army got decimated by single arrow shots, perfectly placed in the dragons bodies, by a signel creature: an Avatar of Nylea. She herself decided to defend this jungle. As Tymeriar's armies number seemed to quickly reduce, and facing such a mighty enemy, he had to admit defeat and order his men to retreat. Meanwhile the forest creatures started to act very aggressively towards anything that was not naturally part of the jungle. At the same time a mist started to settle in the jungle, which in and of itself was a rare occurence. Tymeriar circled this mist in the sky but soon after impatient got the better of him and he flew back to Drossmoor. After some time, the mist disappeared again and what happened to those humanoids that lived in the jungle is shrouded in mystery.

Poaching

Poaching is also a big problem in Orrm. Various animals live in the jungle that are hunted for their unique and beautiful furs or their tough and rare scales. A lot of humanoids find their ways into the jungle, thinking they could make a quick full purse of gold.
There are also those that hunt the locale tribes, like the tabaxi tribes, for either their fur or keeping them as pets, not realizing or being ignorant to the fact that those are intelligent creatures themselves. For example, rumours have it that Tymeriar The Eternal has various humanoid pets, and some of them are believed to be tabaxi part of a tribe that vanished out of the jungle so he could keep them.

Tribes

There are various tribes, mostly lizardsfolk and tabaxi tribes , living inside of the jungle. They are mostly secluded to the outside world with minimum contact to any other humanoid races. Especially the tabaxi tribes have turned very secluded over the past years, compared to before [The Happening?]
The lizardfolk always have been quite secluded, being more aggressive towards other humanoids who invade their territory. They tend to avoid interacting with them unless absolutely necessary. Even with that, it's quite dangerous to attempt to travel through their parts for it is rumoured that they hunt other humanoids for food and hide. It is also said that they think of halflings as a delicacy.
The tabaxi tribes are considered more open to invaders. While they also tend to hunt those who mean them harm, they do not feed on them and let the jungle take it's natural course. Sometimes they put bodies of dead invaders in the understory of the jungle for the various predators to feed on. Otherwise they tend to secretly "guide" those who simply travel through the jungle safely out of it and away from their main territory.

Temples and abandoned camps

There are various different temples and camps throughout the jungle. While most of them seem abandoned, some of the camps either have their origin in travellers, adventurers or the lizardfolk tribes moving to a new part of their territory. The temples are [largely unknown in origin and it is unknown whether they are lived in or not, or what happened to whoever build those temples.] But it is known not to enter those temples, as it often results in certain death even by just entering one of them.