Kimgaraughemaw Orchard
History
Historical Overview
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
Kimgar is a lush, wild, tropical place. But you can still find remnants of the city that was once built here. The airstrip is particularly obnoxious, since it’s large and was extremely well paved — cracks, and therefore plants, have yet to appear in it. The aircraft hangar, just beside the airstrip, of course, is completely empty. It has neither tools nor aircraft, not even a single crate of anything. It’s completely empty. Like the airstrip, it has no cracks and no plants growing inside of it. Just cold concrete. Sometimes men without homes camp in the hangar when there’s a storm brewing.
But something about the empty, foreign, ancient air of the hangar repels visitors. On the largest shore of Kimgar is the harbour. It’s not particularly large, and it looks even smaller compared to the shore it sits on, which is rather large. What with the reefs and all, it’s always been difficult to take a boat to Kimgar. Hence the small harbour. There was never much demand for cruises in these particular waters, either; while it may be tropical, there are other, far less stormy places to go, if it’s a cruise you’re looking for — it rains in Kimgar every other day and storms every third.
Next to the harbour is the city. Nobody’s quite sure what the name of the city used to be, since the inhabitants of the city wrote in a pictographic script that nobody seems to be able to read anymore. Unlike the airstrip, the hangar, and to some extent the harbour, the city is in shambles. It was clearly not well built, at all. What remains of the concrete reveals it to be of the cheapest and most worthless kind, and certain members of the Xiteke clan speculate that the roads had to be repaired every year, to say nothing of the buildings.
Still, some parts of the city are looking a little better than they used to — the Xiteke and the zu’aan that followed them have decided to settle here, and every day the city gets a little cleaner and a little more civilized. Old buildings and roads are repaired, new buildings and roads are constructed, and the quality of both repairs and constructions only improves as the years go on. Every now and again, someone discovers a corpse of one of the island’s old inhabitants, the ones that lived here after the kin’tonis were released, but before the Xiteke came to Kimgar.
Apparently these zu’aan were unable to survive after being cut off from the outside world. Nobody knows why they were unable to survive, but some have suggested that they had grown too used to the luxuries and conveniences of the world and were unable to function after these things had been taken away from them. Others suggest that there was a plague of some sort — not an uncommon occurrence in the tropics. In any case, all corpses are respectfully deposited into the local graveyard. Somewhat respectfully, anyway. The respect gets a little old after the fifteenth corpse.
Plants
Are you the kind of hippie that only eats fruit in this apocalyptic world? Are you sick and tired of all these non-fruit-eating-people walking around who want meat and blood instead of sugar and juice? Are you allergic to anything that isn’t a fruit? Well, have I got the island for you. Kimgaraughemaw. The whole island is one big orchard — except for maybe the airstrip. Everywhere else on the island, you can walk for maybe thirty seconds and get to a fruit tree. They grow everywhere, even in the city. Apparently Kimgar wasn’t always the fruity paradise it is today.
Apparently there were no fruit trees on the island when it was first settled and apparently nobody thought of planting fruit trees until a good hundred years later. But when they were planted, boy, did they grow quickly. The constant storms will even harvest the fruit for you, though perhaps that’s not what you wanted. It’s good for spreading the trees, though. After men realized that fruit trees loved it here, they went and grabbed seed bags of every kind of fruit seed they could get their hands on. Then they walked into the middle of the forest, threw a couple seeds in a couple directions.
And then went back home after their bags were empty. Fast forward a couple hundred years, the fruit trees have choked out all the other trees on the island. Something about their being more efficient at getting nutrients out of the earth or something. Or maybe it’s just that they’re so much better at spreading their kind. The animals on the island love fruit, and are happy to spread its seeds. And then of course there’s the storms, spreading the seeds whether the trees want it or not. Besides the fruits which you can find in any self-respecting tropical orchard.
You have a couple of the more unusual kinds which you can’t find just anywhere, foremost of these fruits being the crottial. A crottial fruit comes in a hard shell like a coconut, but the shell isn’t hairy like a coconut and it isn’t a sphere like a coconut. Instead, it has a smooth, stony texture, and a roughly triangular or upside down pyramid shape. It has three ridged surfaces on its sides and an even ridgier top surface, the latter of these being the face of the fruit that connects to the branch. These ridges are often used as inspiration for decorative carvings in Kimgar.
Of course, the real value of a fruit is in its insides, not in its shell. The crottial, when cracked open, has many pods inside, which grow downwards from the top to the tip. These pods are typically plucked out of the shell and eaten. They’re very stringy and tough to chew, though, so some people just juice them and then throw the pod husks away. Crottial juice, like that of most other fruits, is quite sweet. It has a kind of sweetness akin to the smell of a rosebush, if you can imagine that.
Animals
The animals on Kimgaraughemaw were quite affected by the introduction of fruit to their ecosystem. Before the arrival of fruit, they preyed mostly on grass, leaves, fish, and each other. When the fruit arrived, however, the animals reacted in strange ways. One carnivorous species in particular even turned entirely herbivore. Entirely. This species was the hubrosser. hubrossers’ teeth are extremely sharp and it’s clear that they were fierce predators — could still be fierce predators, if you annoy them too much. They’re much smaller than zu’aan and kin’tonis.
But they’re still extremely aggressive if you approach them. A hubrosser will never run away; perhaps it’s beneath his dignity. These sharp teeth are now used to crack the hard shells of coconuts and Crottials, and other hard-shelled fruits. The way in which Hubrossers slit open the top of a Crottial is quite similar to the way in which it used to slit the throats of lesser creatures. A hubrosser has a long body covered in typically black fur, with a long black tail with white markings. Its eyes are exclusively dark blue, never any other colour.
It no claws whatsoever and is not particularly strong — not compared to zu’aan, anyway. It’s much stronger when compared to the small forest creatures which it’s still quite capable of hunting. Its killing power lies in its teeth, which are long and sharp. The rest of its power lies in its stealth and its patience. Nothing has ever bested a Hubrosser in a waiting game. Not that fruit is typically good or bad at waiting games, since it’s hard to play a waiting game with a piece of fruit to begin with. Don’t try to steal the fruit of a napping hubrosser.
Even in sleep, its senses are still on point, and it often gets so hostile after it sees a thief sneaking up on it in its sleep that you have to kill it before it can slit your throat. Of course, if you’re of the small and timid type of woodland creature, you can’t exactly strike back, so it’s probably not a good idea to try and steal a piece of fruit in the first place. The other kind of creature that was most affected by the sudden arrival of fruit to the island of Kimgaraughemaw, was the nuzoplin. It’s not that it had to suddenly change its diet.
Either because the fruit was just that tasty or because the fruit trees killed off all the other plants — Nuzoplins are fishing birds — but the nuzoplins had the clever idea of using fruit as fish bait. They taught it to their children, and their children learned to use the trick as well. This is why nuzoplins on Kimgar are so much fatter than nuzoplins in nearby areas. This trick of using fruit as fish bait is clearly not a part of their instincts or genetic code, since a nuzoplin raised apart from its parents never exhibits the idea of using fruit bait even if provided the fruit.
Fat nuzoplins taste pretty good, apparently. I’ve never tried one, though. Most people haven't. Even the fat ones are hard to catch.
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 | Xiteke Kin'toni Clan |
| Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
| Unknown |
|
Unknown |
| Unknown | Unknown | Unknown |
This article is written by Xerxes Worldweaver. Copyright 2026 Xerxes Worldweaver. All rights reserved.