Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)

2026-05-20T13:07:20Z

(via JWB)

New page

{{Infobox Region
|Name = Ech'tas Thick Ominous Woods
|Other Names = Unknown
|Biome = Thick Oinous Woodsminous Woods
|Size = Unknown
|Continent = Unknown
|Subcontinent = Unknown
}}

==History==
===Historical Overview===

Ech’tas is a crossroads. You’ll find all sorts of people travelling through its paths: both zu’aan and kin’toni armies, both zu’aan and kin’toni merchants, both zu’aan and kin’toni wanderers. But there is one thing that all of these various travellers do not do: stray off the paths. Have you seen a map of Ech’tas? No? Well, it doesn’t have any real maps, so that’s probably a good thing. There used to be men who sold maps of Ech’tas for a living, but then everyone else realized that the people who bought these maps seldom returned.

So many people were led astray by these maps that when a man offered to sell a certain wanderer a map in the fifth year of the Third Era, that wanderer drew his sword and beheaded the merchant. For some reason, Ech’tas’s map merchants completely vanished off the face of Taerel when the tale of that decapitating wanderer spread abroad. There used to be a prosperous zu’aan city in the depths of Ech’tas, once upon a time. It’s said that the rulers of that city liked the air of mystery that their labyrinthine borders gave to the land, and that, for that reason, they refused to cut their forest down or mark proper paths in it.

As a result, the hidden city of Ech’tas was never a favourite destination for most merchants. But the few merchants who did know the paths of the forest made a fortune dealing with the hidden city; the city likewise made a fortune dealing with the merchants. Then came the Vorusk kin’toni clan, and all trade and prosperity immediately ceased. Men, both zu’aan and kin’tonis, still travelled through Ech’tas along the primary roads that they knew well enough to not get lost on, but now they always travelled with extra weapons and extra companions.

And no one went to the hidden city, for rumour had it that the city was under siege by the kin’tonis. The rumours soon changed, saying that the city had fallen. But then a new rumour started, saying that the Vorusk clan had been greatly weakened by the siege. The [[Zagezwar Kin’toni Clan]], at that time infamous for their extremely nomadic lifestyle and their potential to suddenly appear anywhere in Taerel, had heard vague rumours about the city in the Ech’tas. The leader of the Zagezwar clan, Zagez himself, decided to take the city for himself — this turned out to be a mistake.

The Vorusk clan, though small, was not weak in the slightest. Zagez was the first to fall in that battle, and most of his clan fled. The Vorusk clan lost faith in the walls of their city and fled as well. Some members of the Zagezwar clan returned to the city and found it abandoned. These kin’tonis eventually formed the Ormis clan, and began raising up the city to be a place of prosperity once more. The Ormis clan left the city unnamed, but men from other lands refer to this city as Ormis City, after the [[Ormis Kin'toni Clan]] that now controls it.

===History by Age===

====Stone Age: Before 1E 0====

====Copper Age: 1E 1-1E 2200====

====Bronze Age: 1E 2200-1E 4400====

====Iron Age: 2E 0-2E 700====

====Ancient Age: 2E 700-2E 2200====

====Middle Ages: 3E 0-3E 2050====

====Early Modern Age: 3E 2050-3E 2600====

====Industrial Age: 3E 2600-3E 2700====

====Machine Age: 3E 2700-3E 2800====

====Atomic Age: 3E 2800-3E 2850====

====Space Age: 3E 2850-3E 2875====

====Information Age: 3E 2875-3E 2900====

====Genetic Age: 3E 2950-3E 3000====

====Awakening Age: 3E 3000-3E 3415====

====Twilight Age: 4E 0-4E 500====

==Geography==

The paths in Ech’tas are of two sorts: there are the paths that you know well, and the paths that you will get you lost, possibly killing you by starvation. Generals pay their guides handsomely, since it’s better to hand out some extra gold than to lose a whole army. Usually these guides are soldiers in their army, but a general will hire a local if in a pinch. There are some men who claim that they know every path in the Ech’tas. Most of them are lying, of course, or else overconfident. Three successful ventures in and out of Ech’tas along random paths does not guarantee that you will be able to do it a fourth time.

But there are really a few men who know all the paths. Most of them are kin’tonis, who have the benefit of indefinitely long lifespans and sometimes better mental faculties than zu’aan, but there are zu’aan who know the paths too. These men are without question the most powerful beings in Ech’tas: they can disappear like wraiths into the forest and reappear anywhere twice as fast as anyone else could get there. Do not cross them or else you’ll never be able to walk safely in Ech’tas ever again. The two rivers that flow through Ech’tas are decent guides for travellers, if you stumble across one.

Walking along their shores is a slow but steady way to escape the forest, if you’re lost. The rivers don’t make very good roads, unfortunately: the waters are too rough in most places to ride a boat down, and in those places where they aren’t so rough, the speed of the water still sees to it that the only direction you can travel is downstream. They also wind and turn a lot. Don’t try to swim across unless you’re one of the few people who actually knows where you’re probably going to end up. There are several bridges built over the rivers, but they’re difficult to tell apart from each other, all being built in the same style.

Double check to make sure that this landmark is actually the landmark you remember it to be, or else you’re going to end up lost somewhere. So what’s the big deal about getting lost in Ech’tas? You can just keep walking in one direction until you escape, can’t you? Well, yes, you can, but that’s a trickier enterprise than one might think. First off, these hills are rich in iron and magnetic materials: compasses won’t work, and neither will most electronic devices, if you happen to have one of those in these dark ages. GPSs are particularly busted in this place. Second, the terrain seems designed to turn you around.

If you try to keep walking in a particular direction, what with the trees constantly forcing you to adjust your position and heading ever so slightly, you’ll probably go far off course and be heading in a completely different direction within a few days. Using the position of the sun as a direction marker can help, but the sun rises late and sets early in Ech’tas, thanks to the mountains that surround it. If you're lucky, you might stumble across Ormis City when you're lost. They welcome both zu'aan and kin'toni travellers, but they'll charge rent in the form of blood from zu'aan while they stay.

(They'll protect you while you stay, too, but if you decide to leave, that protection no longer applies and they don't bother to stop anyone hunting you down. Sometimes the Ormis warriors themselves hunt you down.)

==Plants==

Cutting down one of the sydl'ikias that Ech’tas is basically made out of, is no simple task. Their bark is tough as nails, their branches as sharp as thorns. So if civilizations now past had ever decided to cut down the forest of Ech’tas, they’d probably have had a rough time. Burning down the forest might be an option, if these trees were normal oaks and not sydl'ikias. sydl'ikia bark seems to be almost entirely fireproof. You’d have to strip every oak entirely bare of bark, and that’s harder than just cutting them down.

Their leaves burn well enough, but how is burning their leaves helpful to anyone? So, yeah. Get used to the labyrinth, it’s here to stay. Fortunately, sydl'ikias don’t seem to like spreading their seeds across rivers or mountains or roads, so these trees won’t be interfering with the paths already made, nor will they be suddenly making advances towards villages on the borders of Ech’tas, like an army of trees bent on covering the world with their kind. Some rich men buy sydl'ikia saplings, and plant them as hedges around their homes.

They make very stylish hedges, and very tough ones, too. The mere thought of climbing through their thorny branches is probably going to deter thieves. Only the nimblest will be able to get through without seriously injuring themselves, and even then it’ll take them a while. And when it comes to actually getting an army through them — they’re tough enough to stall even a well-equipped general for a few hours. Most armies will go around them rather than try to cut through the bark of a sydl'ikia hedge. On the downside, you can’t position archers on top of your living, growing ramparts.

It’s possible to find edible roots and berries in Ech’tas, and even in the winter, skilled foragers can find enough to stave off emaciation and starvation. The most valuable find for a forager would be the saxk'kaa. The name is a bit of a misnomer, since the saxk'kaa doesn’t actually have any leaves. It grows in rotting wood and decaying foliage, like a fungus — botanists and mycologists still argue about whether it’s a plant or a fungus. The mycologists say that it doesn’t perform photosynthesis and feeds on decaying matter, and that therefore it’s a fungus.

The botanists point out that in every other aspect apart from its leaves, it resembles a bush. So why is it called the saxk'kaa, if it doesn’t have any leaves? It’s because those silver leaves are actually petals. During autumn, these silver petals give way to silver berries that contain the healthiest nutrients that the saxk'kaa has absorbed from its rotting feasts. The taste of the berries varies a lot depending on what the saxk'kaa was planted in. But, generally, it tastes really good. And ikimathu aren’t like other berries.

Other berries, you can eat a whole bucket full and still want more to eat later that day. ikimathu are much heartier — a grown man can live off a bucket of ikimathu for a surprisingly long time, especially if the saxk'kaa was growing in rotting meat.

==Animals==

The forests of Ech’tas are home to both dangerous and harmless animals. To live in Ech’tas, an animal needn’t be a fierce bird with the ability to go for years without food, or a small insect that can eat things that no one else can eat. While you can find these hardy birds and these scavenger insects in Ech’tas, you can also find something like a mishridia, which would probably die out if given half the chance. If you’re in the habit of looking to the sky instead of to your feet — perhaps you’ve been ambushed by warriors dropping from the trees too many times or not fallen into sudden pits enough times.

You might spot a lanky, grey, furry creature hanging from the limbs of trees. These lazy things are mishridias. They can drop to the ground and dash about when they’ve a mind to, but they generally don’t have a mind to, and just sit in the trees, eating the acorns of sydl'ikia and basking in the sunlight. mishridias are very careful to keep themselves clean. That’s their defense mechanism, you see: they keep clean, so they don’t smell bad, so that predators don’t smell them while they’re hiding. It’s kind of clever, but anyone looking for a mishridia with his eyes will still be able to find them pretty easily.

mishridias have lots of offspring to compensate for their relative helplessness. Don’t try to pet the baby mishridias. They’re a lot fiercer than their parents. Another interesting animal that lives in Ech’tas is the shk'aere. shk'aeres live on the backs of larger, fiercer animals than themselves, often with their whole families. And they have large families. Their host can try to dump them off, eat them, kill them all — but they generally don’t succeed. Those animals that are able to succeed in killing shk'aeres, are, after all, not animals that shk'aeres generally ride on.

After their host has grown tired of trying to kill them, the shk'aere and his family will comb and wash their host, removing insects and otherwise keeping its fur clean. They’ll also grab any food that their host walks past — regardless of whether that food is mushrooms, berries, insects, or other things more disgusting — and (after snacking on it themselves) they’ll offer it to their host. Any other task that their host seems to need done, the shk'aeres are happy to do it, whether that’s caring for its young or helping in the hunt. Eventually, their fierce, grumpy host will probably grow used to the travelling circus on its back.

In return, shk'aeres demand protection and food. If they don’t get these things, they leave. But these are roughly the same things they provide for their host, so it’s a fair demand, I guess. It’s possible for a zu’aan or kin’toni to enlist the help of a tribe of shk'aeres, but you better have a lot of food on hand.

{{Template:Controllers
|Stone Age = Unknown
|Copper Age = Unknown
|Bronze Age = Unknown
|Iron Age = Unknown
|Ancient Age = Unknown
|Middle Age = Unknown
|Early Modern Age = Unknown
|Industrial Age = Unknown
|Machine Age = Unknown
|Atomic Age = Unknown
|Space Age = Unknown
|Information Age = Unknown
|Genetic Age = Unknown
|Awakening Age = Unknown
|Twilight Age = [[Ormis Kin'toni Clan]]
}}

{{NeartoDesktop
| Centre = {{PAGENAME}}
| North = Unknown
| Northeast = Unknown
| East = Unknown
| Southeast = Unknown
| South = Unknown
| Southwest = Unknown
| West = Unknown
| Northwest = Unknown
}}

{{CrossSiteAttribution
| User = [https://www.fiverr.com/ejn_worldweaver Xerxes Worldweaver]
| Holder = Xerxes Worldweaver
}}

[[Category: Places]]
[[Category:Xerxes Worldweaver's contributions]]

Ech'tas Thick Ominous Woods - Revision history

Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)