Kalieq'u Shrub Swamp

Place

Place Name:

Kalieq'u Shrub Swamp

Biome:

Shrub Swamp

Size:

Unknown

Continent:

Unknown

Subcontinent

Unknown

Geography

Constructed quite close to the former capital of the zu’aan empire, Alra is naturally also quite close to several highways. This puts it in the crosshairs of basically every single wandering kin’toni clan, and therefore necessitates both constant vigilance and a strong defence on the part of its citizens. Accordingly, Alra has constructed a high wall surrounding the whole of Kalieq’u, since fortifying the whole of Kalieq’u was a better option than just fortifying the city or just fortifying Alra. Had they just fortified the city, the farms outside the city would have been vulnerable.

Had they just fortified Alra, they would have either had to dig the foundations for the walls in swampland, or had to deal with the wall collapsing in a couple years, both these options promising to cost the treasury more than just constructing the wall about the whole of Kalieq’u. Still, short term, the smaller wall without the foundation seemed more promising. Only by the intrigues of the Ser’cer clan, who naturally desired to plan long term, were the plans for the wall changed to encompass the whole of Kalieq’u. These walls now completed and ever under guard, Alra began to grow even more.

Or a little bit more, anyway. It never grew that quickly; it might be more accurate to say that it never shrank. New farms sprang up every so often and new immigrants arrived every now and again, new children were born occasionally and a few new noble families arose during the centuries. The northern walls are the most heavily guarded, since they face the highways. The southern walls, which face a lake, are less heavily guarded, as are the eastern plains-facing walls and the western mountain-facing walls, but there’s a barracks there, ready to send reinforcements to whichever of the southern, eastern, and western walls need them.

The northern wall is about as long as the other three combined, and has its own barracks. There’s a lattice in the northern wall which lets a river through into the swamp. This river is the source of all fresh water in Alra, since the swamp water is dangerous to drink from. It runs through the heart of the city, but once it gets out of the city, then it enters the swamplands. There’s a lattice in the southern wall for letting the swamp drain, but it runs noticeably slower than the water that goes through the northern wall. Nobody’s quite sure where the extra water drains out.

Within the walls, Kalieq’u is divided into several districts. The northern district is the district of Alra, where the city is built. To the east of the city is the northeastern market district, which contains a large village about a twentieth the size of Alra, and a large market square. Most artisans live here, as do the miners, since this is also where the mines are. Then there’s the eastern district, the farming district. Not much more needs to be said of it. Finally, there’s the southern district — the uncivilized swamp, which is by far the largest of the four. Within the swamp are a few buildings and a few farms, but for the most part it’s a desolation of rotting trees and rancid water.

Plants

A great effort has been made by the rich elites of Alra to discover ways of farming the swampland soil of Kalieq’u. Farmers were doing this in the years before the kin’tonis appeared, though with barely enough success to keep doing it. Only after the kin’toni appeared did the rich of Alra began investing in farming — mostly because one didn’t simply go to the market and buy a basket of eggs and cake for his morning feast anymore. What an inconvenience. The results of the initial investments were encouraging. The latter investments of today have yet to produce anything quite as spectacular, but they still promise to make themselves worthwhile.

Still, it is pretty difficult to top a tree that drinks up swamp water cheerfully and grows three different kinds of fruit to boot, or a water-loving grain that you can harvest twice a year, or a kind of root vegetable that you can somehow use to make sugar, which is a most necessary commodity. These were the results of the initial investments. And before that, the farmers were growing another kind of grain in the swamp, which doesn’t grow quite as fast as the new kind of grain, but is a lot healthier and heartier. New investments reveal new ways of farming old foods, which, as was said, is encouraging but not spectacular.

The elyaw tree’s three fruits are all somewhat similar and somewhat different simultaneously. The first fruit, dubbed “ta'el”, has a hard, brown shell with a tangy, chewy center. It’s not particularly sweet, but that just means you can stick it in both sweet and savoury gourmet dishes, so no complaints on that front. “tva'el” is a bright orange fruit with a surface similar to that of ta'el, but this surface isn’t hard; rather, it’s extremely thin and peels right off. Tva'el is as tangy as ta'el, but sweeter by far, and juicier by far.

Its flavour, apart from the tanginess and sweetness, is also much stronger. “mya'el” has the same flavours as both ta'el and tva'el, but it has neither sweetness nor tanginess of its brethren fruit, having rather a texture similar to that of a raw steak and an orange, steak-like appearance. Opinions on mya'el are somewhat divided. The chinril grain, the one you can harvest twice in a year, is simple to grow. You throw the seeds into the swamp, drive all the fish away (or catch all the fish, whatever), and then wait. During the spring, stalks of what appear to be reddish grass will arise from the waters.

During the summer, the reddish grass ripens into reddish grain; during the autumn, the grass ripens again, assuming you didn’t cut it down. During the winter, the Chinril rots to nothing. Then in the spring you throw more seeds into the swamp and repeat the process. It’s that easy. Harvesting the grain is generally considered the hard part, because it means you’ll have to get your feet wet in what might be an extremely deep swamp. Some farmers have boats to help them harvest. Also, if you were wondering why Kalieq’u was called a shrub swamp, all you have to do is look at the yyalis.

These are the roots that you can turn into sugar. They’re native to Kalieq’u, but nobody realized you could eat them until recently. You have to pluck them in their first year of growth, though, otherwise they harden and become the entirely inedible shrubs you see all over the swamp.

Animals

The swamp birds are worth studying. Though the insect population of Kalieq’u itself is limited, there are also the insects that live in the nearby lake and in the other swamps nearby that lake, so they always have plenty to eat. As a result, though, they never stay in Kalieq’u year-round. The birds seem to rotate every season, with a different species coming to the walled shrub swamp for a different purpose during the different times of year. “The sirinias soar” has become a saying in Alra, meaning “things are looking up”. This is a reference to the sirinia bird, which comes to Kalieq’u in the spring, at the first thaw.

Sirinias have sweet songs and great appetites and furious tempers. They fly into Kalieq’u from the south, and fly away to the north when the summer rolls around; during their stay in the swamp, they almost entirely depopulate the region of bugs of all kinds, and drive off any other birds that dare share in their feasting. This is also the time when male sirinias court the attention of female sirinias. They don’t nest or mate in Kalieq’u, though. They save that for when they get to… wherever it is that they go when they go north. The old capital of the zu’aan empire, maybe.

Maybe a little further north than that: sirinias can also fly very long distances. The summer is when all the bugs in the swamp hatch from their eggs, recovering nicely from their annual decline in numbers. This is also when the fish grow to a decent size; this is also when the haravils appear. Haravils are primarily fishing birds, but they’ll snatch up an insect if they see one. Haravil beaks are strange things — at the tip, they’re narrow and sharp, as though for catching and slicing up fish, but near the head, they’re quite wide, as though for storing fish.

Which indeed they do. Sometimes they have as many as three sliced-up fish in their mouths at once. Overall, a good tool for a father who needs to feed a mate and seven hatchlings. The autumn, when it rolls around, sees the arrival of the crothuria: swift, shadowy, nocturnal, carnivorous birds that always fly in formation and like turning your helpless livestock into skeletons before your eyes. The way to protect your livestock from these large black birds, is to keep them inside at night, or, failing that, cover their bodies and heads with a blanket.

A crothurium will not bite through a blanket, blankets also seem to disrupt the heat patterns which crothuria use to find prey. During the winter, the crothuria give way to the tiny white and grey Jidel bird. Winter is when Jidels mate, and they’ll often dance together on the snow before and after doing so. It’s quite the happy sight. Baby Jidels hatch quickly, and learn to fly even quicker, since the Jidels need to be off before the Sirinias return in the spring, kicking all other birds out of their territory.

Historical Timeline of Ages

Age Name	Dates	Controller
Stone Age	Before 1E 0	Unknown
Copper Age	1E 1–1E 2200	Unknown
Bronze Age	1E 2200–1E 4400	Unknown
Iron Age	2E 0–2E 700	Unknown
Ancient Age	2E 700–2E 2200	Unknown
Middle Age	3E 0–3E 2050	Unknown
Early Modern Age	3E 2050–3E 2600	Unknown
Industrial Age	3E 2600–3E 2700	Unknown
Machine Age	3E 2700–3E 2800	Unknown
Atomic Age	3E 2800–3E 2850	Unknown
Space Age	3E 2850–3E 2875	Unknown
Information Age	3E 2875–3E 2900	Unknown
Genetic Age	3E 2950–3E 3000	Unknown
Awakening Age	3E 3000–3E 3415	Unknown
Twilight Age	4E 0–4E 500	Ser'cer Kin'toni Clan

Place

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Kalieq'u Shrub Swamp

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This article is written by Xerxes Worldweaver. Copyright 2026 Xerxes Worldweaver. All rights reserved.