Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)

2026-05-20T13:24:13Z

(via JWB)

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{{Infobox Region
|Name = Noasom Temperate Coniferous Forest
|Other Names = Unknown
|Biome = Temperate Coniferous Forest
|Size = Unknown
|Continent = Unknown
|Subcontinent = Unknown
}}

==History==

====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==

Although Noasom is primarily a forested area, it has a very large number of rather large clearings, most of which connect to each other. Taken altogether, they’re almost like islands of land amidst a sea of trees. These clearings usually come about by forest fire — but occasionally, you’ll come across one that was manmade, and still houses the remnants of an old zu’aan village. The abandoned villages of Noasom seem to be remnants of a somewhat advanced civilization. There is no electricity in them, but there are many other things associated with civilization that they possess.

Such as basic plumbing and a few steam engines attached to things which seem to be farming machines. All these things have been damaged by disuse and the elements, but it seems as though they could be repaired by someone with the proper tools. No such tools exist in Noasom itself, though, except for the heavier ones. All the other tools were carried away when the people that once lived in these villages left. Even in the blacksmith’s and carpenter’s workshops, you’ll find nothing left of these craftsmen’s presence except their enormous, empty shelves, and enormous, empty furnaces.

Surprisingly — except not really that surprisingly, when you think about it — there are plenty of roads running through Noasom. These roads are in a nearly unusable state, unless you have nimble steeds and pack animals, but they do exist — albeit in a crumbling and fissured manner. If you wanted to repair them, it would take you a very long time — almost longer than it would take to just build new roads. The Zagezwar hide in the deepest part of Noasom’s forest. In these parts of Noasom, the trees grow extremely thick, as though to make up for their sluggish growth speed by their thickness.

There’s no safer place to hide in Noasom, if it’s a hiding place you’re looking for — these thick forests are quiet and still, simply resonating with the aura of Noasom’s mysterious disease. Even those men who wander into Noasom for short periods of time will stay far away from these portions of the forest. The Deep Forest of Noasom is much damper than any other part of Noasom. More rivers run through it, and less sun and wind gets through the thick canopy, while rain is still free to descend. The damp nature of the Deep Forest is probably why the trees grow so thick here.

And as the forest here gets thicker, the place gets damper, and the forest gets even thicker… the shrubbery can only get so thick in a certain place, granted, but the Deep Forest can still increase in size and cover more land. Since creating a clearing in the middle of the Deep Forest would be more likely to give their location away, the Zagezwar clan dug their houses into the sides of hills and sometimes into the sides of the trees themselves. This arrangement lets them use their crowded space slightly more efficiently.

==Plants==

The trees that grow so thickly in Noasom are the dyharvarakas, and their powers lie in their roots. Their roots are also the cause of their sluggish growth — the growth of a dyharvaraka isn’t actually that sluggish at all, when you consider how much of its growing energy is spent in growing and moving a multitude of roots as thick as its trunk. If any plant could be described as a powerhouse, it’s the dyharvaraka. It grows about twice as many needles as other conifers, and it grows these needles about twice as large as the needles of other conifers.

The more sunlight it gets, the better. The dyharvaraka also drinks up enormous quantities of water, so much that it’s possible to get enough water to fill a large jar by simply chopping one of them down and placing the jar at the base of the fallen trunk, which should be pouring out gallons of water over the next few minutes — the exact quantity depending on the size and age of the dyharvaraka in question. Of course, to chop down a dyharvaraka, you’ll have to get past the immense amount sap that lies just underneath its bark. It’s very hard and sticky, and it makes these trees difficult to cut down.

We haven’t even gotten to the roots yet. I need to bring up the trunk and branches first. The trunk and branches of a dyharvaraka will, like a sunflower, bend and turn so that the maximum number of its leaves are facing the sun. This mobility and flexibility of the tree is mostly due to the immense amount of sap mentioned earlier. While this sap is indeed very hard and sticky, it’s not as stiff as ordinary wood, and bends quite easily. This lets the tree move its limbs about without snapping. But if the limbs do happen to snap, the sap will flow into the wound, and seal it up.

Over time, most of the sap will actually transform into ordinary wood. Right, now for the roots. The roots of the dyharvaraka have ensured that dyharvarakas are the only species of tree in all of Noasom, by choking out the roots of every other tree that they find. The roots will grow in all directions, searching for enemy roots to grow around, squeeze, and choke the life out of. And the choked roots will die, and their parent tree will die with them. dyharvaraka roots often grow and wrap around themselves, or other dyharvaraka roots.

But dyharvarakas roots are immune to themselves. They’re too tough to be choked like other roots. (Incidentally, if a tree has unusually strong roots of its own, it’s probably immune to dyharvarakas.) But when they do wrap around themselves, these roots can create huge lattices of roots that cover correspondingly huge stretches of ground. You wander through Noasom, and suddenly find that the ground beneath your feet has turned into wood. If it was a little smoother, you could make a ballroom out of some of these lattices.

==Animals==

The illusive Bagmurha is a tall beast with a body and head disproportionately small in comparison to its legs. They walk in the shadows of Noasom, eating the needles of the trees that surround them. A bagmurha’s legs are long and brown. Their bodies and heads are also brown, but they’re a couple shades darker. Despite the great size of their legs, however, bagmurhas cannot run. The most they can do is climb, by standing on their back legs and reaching their front legs up into the highest limbs of a tree, hoisting themselves up when they’ve got their front legs in a secure position.

It’s an odd defence, but a practical and somewhat graceful one, and most certainly a calm and collected one. They’re only a little less graceful when descending from the tree. Another thing that the legs of a bagmurha have to do is to be able to get into a position where the head can touch the surface of a pool or river that the Bagmurha is standing beside. It takes several motions to get to such a position, but the bagmurha is able to do them. First it bends its back legs, and rests them on the ground, so that its back knees are touching the ground.

(The knees of a bagmurha have particularly thick skin, to prevent it from being too uncomfortable to sit on them.) Then the front legs bend in a similar manner. After that, the back legs bend again, so that the bagmurha rests on its hips; the front legs again bend in a similar manner when this is done. Finally, the head of the Bagmurha is close enough to the ground to drink. Bagmurhas are in a relatively helpless state when drinking, so they always look around very carefully before they get down on their stomachs. It takes them about twice as long to get back up again.

While Bagmurhas do not ever suddenly lay down and die, stricken by the invisible plague of Noasom, the five legged rodents called Zaraxes seem to exist only to perpetuate the rumour of the plague: a zarax’s primary defence is its speed, but its secondary defence is to play dead. When it can’t run away from its predator, it will suddenly stop, collapse, and stink as though it’s been dead for months. If you’re a zu’aan or a kin’toni sick of these filthy vermin playing dead on your doorstep, giving them a good kick and punting them into the distance is a sure way to get them to stop stinking and start running.

Since they think they have enough of a headstart to get away from you. But sometimes, when a zarax lies down and pretends to be dead — it just actually dies. And it’s not even just because something went wrong with its defence of playing dead. Even young zaraxes will sometimes lie down and die after waking up and munching on some food. Clearly, whatever plague is in Noasom affects zaraxes too. Not that they seem to care — they carry on living and mating in Noasom anyway.

{{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 = [[Zagezwar 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]]

Noasom Temperate Coniferous Forest - Revision history

Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)