Denold Dry Forest

Place

Place Name:

Denold Dry Forest

Biome:

Dry Forest

Size:

Unknown

Continent:

Unknown

Subcontinent

Unknown

History

History by Age

Genetic Age: 3E 2950-3E 3000

The nearby mountains stop almost all rain from falling upon Denold. Underground rivers prevent the land from dying entirely, but it’s still extremely dry here. The only way for a passerby to get water is to cut open a tree, which is somewhat difficult. Apparently much of Denold was once a shallow lake, fed by rivers that once flowed from the mountains to the west and have since dried up. The general consensus of the historians is that these rivers were diverted by the zu’aan empire at some point in order to flood the lands to the west of the mountains. Cut off from its source of life, the lake began to drain. Due to the reduced water levels, there began to grow in the dwindling lake a species of coniferous tree that has long roots with which it sometimes lifts itself up off the ground.

Now able to grow in the middle of the lake, these trees drank up the last of the water. The land became arid, but thanks to their long, deep roots, however, these trees were able to tap into the underground rivers and survive while all other trees died. There used to be a flourishing city here at one point, called Tyrista. It was built right beside the lake and seems to have been abandoned at the same time that the lake dried up. Not much is known about this city other than its agrarian nature. Remnants of brick buildings crumbling to dust can be found elsewhere in Denold, though never in the place where the lake was or where the river that flowed out of the lake was.

Geography

As already stated, the main geographical features of Denold are the city of Tyrista, the dry lake it stands by, and the dry river it stands by, as well as the underground rivers that keep the trees alive. The underground rivers are fairly easy to map out by examining how green the needles of the trees are. If the tree is dead — there are large sections of Denold composed entirely of dead trees, called ‘deadstripes’. Then there is no water in the earth beneath it. If the tree is struggling to live, then there is either a river close by, but still at some distance, or the river is deeper beneath ground than average.

If the tree is in peak health and flourishing, then the river is so close you can probably even hear it river rushing along if you press your ear to the ground and listen carefully. Nobody has examined these rivers yet, and nobody knows for sure where they come from, or where they go — they probably come from the mountains to the west — and nobody knows for sure whether they contain fish. They’re a mystery. The mountains to the west are next to impossible to scale, and have no passes. There used to be a waterfall that sourced a river that ran into the now-dry lake, but this waterfall, of course, no longer exists.

The trail the water took after landing in the basin of the waterfall, however, can still be traced, which is how we know that there was a river running into the lake. If you trace the trail of the river that used to come out of the lake, after long days of journeying along the dry riverbed, you’ll come to a river in a different land, a much greener one. You’ve left Denold far behind, of course. There are two types of weather in Denold: hot and dry with barely any wind, or cold and dry with barely any wind. There is no spring or autumn in this place, and of course there is no rain.

Other than the wood of the trees and the plunder stashed away in Tyrista, there is almost nothing of value in Denold. Unless you value a certain rare type of reddish-grey stone, which the earth in this place is full of. The ground contains almost no metal or jewels, there are no animals in this place other than she'alras, there are no special plants or herbs with useful properties — really, there’s hardly any reason to live here at all. Even if you did manage to squeeze a market for the stone into existence, how would you transport it? There’s no river on the surface to ship it down.

Maybe… maybe it’s time that someone went down into the underground rivers to see if they ever lead out to the surface, or to see if they contain some other thing, anything at all, that would make success in this dry forest possible. Semi-valuable trees alone won’t make a fortune. Besides, they can’t be regrown. Or… maybe it’s time that someone went up into the mountains, and sent water cascading back into these lands. Surely, it’s possible?

Plants

Since the ground in Denold is either a layer of solid stone, a layer of looser stones, or a dusty type of sand — if, as you travel here, you notice that the ground you stand upon is even remotely suitable for growing crops in, you are no longer in Denold. There are trees here, admittedly, and thus one might be tempted to say that the place isn’t entirely infertile, but it is. These trees have all been here for centuries. It would take decades of watering a sapling by hand for its roots to grow deep enough to reach the underground rivers. In the shadows, on the roots of these trees, you can sometimes find the hardiest types of moss, which will rob the trees of their water in order to grow themselves.

The trees, fortunately, have plenty of water to spare. These mosses are typically a dark red colour, but they all also have small green patches that gather in sunlight. The trees themselves are almost exclusively of the species known as tathuywns — so named because roughly half of them will grow to stand on their roots like legs. A man can walk underneath them and admire the interweaving roots that sometimes create interesting patterns. These roots can also spread out so wide that you can sometimes find entire clearings that basically have a floor made of wood. You can also find nearly perfect stairways made of roots that go up hills.

Tathuywns tend not to grow all that tall, since the wood of their trunks is solid and heavy — their roots can only hold up so much weight. They do grow quite thick, however. Due to their levitating trunks, tathuywns are also quite tricky to cut down. You either have to cut all the roots, which are extremely tough, or you have to build a sort of scaffolding on top of the roots. Or you have to balance on the roots as you saw at the tree. Axes are mostly ineffective against their great girth, but I don’t think it’s any easier to keep your balance when swinging an axe as compared to using a saw.

But cutting one down is usually worth it, so long as you don’t die in the process — the hearts of these gigantic trees are full of water and their wood, which you get a ton of from cutting down a single tree, is durable. Besides the tathuywns, there are also some ordinary ika. They tend to grow on the western end of Denold, where the underground rivers are closest to the surface, but you do find a couple elsewhere, in small clumps here and there.

Their roots also tangle with each other in similar manner to the tathuywns, but these pines never levitate. Occasionally, a forest fire will spring up, but the most it will usually do is scorch the moss or take out a tree or two. tathuywns have fairly fire-resistant bark, and the pines are too rare to help fires spread much.

Animals

She'alras. No, really, that’s it. she'alras. Black she'alras, light brown she'alras, dark brown she'alras, grey she'alras, silver-white she'alras, even some mottled green she'alras — she'alras. They’re one of the only animals capable of easily getting at the water stored inside the trees. And all the other small woodland animals capable at getting the water, they drive off. The only competition they have for food is amongst each other. They’re shameless robbers. Any predator that wants to eat she'alra will have to travel a day’s journey or so into Denold and go for a long time without water before even seeing a she'alra.

The only animals really capable of accomplishing this feat are eagles, but even eagles avoid Denold unless food is very scarce elsewhere. Thus the she'alras generally live a fairly comfortable, predator-free life. The diet of the she'alras consists exclusively of pine cones. There’s nothing else to eat, other than an insect or two, or moss, but even insects are scarce and who wants to eat moss? So, pine cones it is. Every summer, the trees bear an extremely large amount of cones. Of course, there’s no way these cones will ever begin growing in this arid land, let alone become full-grown trees — so the she'alras always have plenty of food to fight over.

She'alras are notorious hoarders in addition to being shameless robbers. Life is an eternal game of capture the flag for them, with the flags being pine cones. Gather the cones, fight someone and take the cones he’s gathering, get attacked for carrying too many cones, hide the cones, forget where you hid the cones, eat someone else’s cones, remember where you hid the cones, fight someone who found your cones. Then go nurse your broken legs back to health because the she'alra who was stealing your cones was bigger than you. Fun times! Visitors to Denold should watch their pockets when out in the wild.

This is because the she'alras are not above stealing from kin’tonis or zu’aan. There’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you see a she'alra scampering away with your knife in his mouth. Nor is there any feeling quite akin to the volcanic rage that comes upon most men when they find their backpacks almost entirely empty. Even the crumbs and underwear are gone! But the one thing the she'alras left untouched is the poop they left behind. Occasionally, the she'alras will attempt to form some sort of wacky court, where the king gets all the pine cones and redistributes them to his subjects.

It usually ends in the strongest subjects ganging up and taking significantly more than their fair share — usually everyone’s share. The king demands it back. Then the gang of she'alras kicks the king off a cliff. When they get back to their stockpile of pinecones, there is, of course, not a single cone in the pile. Then the she'alras will begin to argue amongst each other until there is no semblance of order whatsoever, and everyone goes back to taking and hiding all the cones for himself. Of course, even during the time of order, everyone was already doing that.

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	Kelwori Kin'toni Clan

Place

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Denold Dry Forest

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