Taina Mixed Forest Hills

Place

Place Name:

Taina Mixed Forest Hills

Biome:

Mixed Forest Hills

Size:

Unknown

Continent:

Unknown

Subcontinent

Unknown

Geography

It shouldn’t be surprising to hear that the landscape of the Taina Mixed Forest Hills is primarily made up of… hills and forests. The former are really what makes the Taina region unique from the others on Taerel, there are hills everywhere you look, to the point where avoiding them really is impossible. This used to be a mountainous area many ages ago, before the first kin’toni even saw the light of day, and perhaps even the zu’aan. As time slowly crawled by, the erosion demolished these mountains and carved them out into the hills that can be found all over the Taina area today.

The “hill” status of some of the landforms that can be found here is debatable. There is almost no flatland, everything is either a hill, or at the very least a small hillock. The tallest hills of the region lie in an area of ambiguity between being a hill or a mountain, as they are nearly three hundred metres tall, which is where the border lies according to the zu’aan geographers. There was a dispute between the clans based around a landform’s status as a hill. Due to a set of agreed-upon laws developed together by the Taina region’s kin’toni clans, it’s only possible for one clan to claim a hill for themselves, never a mountain.

Mountains are considered to be the nature’s property, thus allowing all kin’toni clans to carve and dig into it, if they so wish. This hill in question was exactly two hundred and ninety-five meters in height, so it would classify as a hill, letting one kin’toni clan claim it for themselves. Something quite peculiar happened though, the other kin’toni clans began piling earth and rocks on the top of the hill, desperate to make its height go over a thousand feet, and thus let them mine the newly-formed mountain for resources.

What valuable resources could be hidden in the Taina area? All of the hills are like miniature stockpiles for treasure, and while the metals found there aren’t fancy or expensive, they are incredibly useful to the kin’toni clans, who require these metals to forge and build. Iron is the big one everyone competes over, and for a good reason. Firstly, iron is necessary to create reinforcements for the tunnels the kin’toni dig in the hills. While other metals may of course be used, iron is by far the most reliable. It’s not only for structures that the kin’toni need high amounts of iron, weapons tend to be forged from it to, though bronze and copper sometimes replace iron in this regard.

Silver and gold can be mined out of the Taina hills as well, but they aren’t really utilized as much as the tougher materials, despite the fact that they are visually prettier. The clans of the Taina region seem to be in an arms race of sorts, afraid that one will attack the other and gain control of the hills, which would simply allow them to take this lead and push it even further, until they are fully dominant.

Plants

The forests of the Taina Mixed Forest Hills are just as impressive as its geography. Even though the Taina region has a similar climate as the Certai Woodland way further towards the East, the flora of the two areas are radically different. The wy’il tree does not exist in the Taina forests, but a similar tree type which does is the xer’kela. The xer’kela is a tree with extremely thick bark that’s coloured a hazel brown. Unlike its Eastern relative, the xer’kela’s bark can actually be chopped down by a kin’toni with an axe of average strength in about thirty minutes, which is nothing compared to the impenetrable wy’il, which can take hours of work for a single kin’toni.

On top of being softer, the life cycle of the xer’kela is also significantly shorter, with trees only taking a couple of years to go from a seed to a behemoth of the forest, an attribute which also makes planting them a lot more attractive, as a kin’toni who planted the seeds can see the trees reach full growth in a relatively short timespan. The xer’kela are merely the tallest trees of the region in a vast array of the different flora that the Taina forests have to offer. The akhela trees are famous not because of their majesty and height, but because they are one of the few trees in the area who have fruit that’s consumable by the zu’aan.

The fruits that the akhela has to offer taste quite good as well, making them top priority for zu’aan gatherers. The uluvi trees on the other hand, are utilized by the population of the Taina mixed forest hills for the polar opposite reason. The uluvi emit sap that’s poisonous to both the kin’toni and the zu’aan, causing nasty rashes and burns that last for a couple of days on touch. Naturally, the tree was used as a means of self-defence and fortification. Smearing the wall of a fortress in the sap of the uluvi guaranteed that no kin’toni would climb over it, because the pain from the poison would be too extreme.

Zu’aan gatherers aren’t just limited to fruits, there are bushes of berries growing everywhere in the Taina forests. The majority of them are sour, but not inedible, so they are often mixed with sweeter-tasting foods to give the dish a tiny bit more variety. Nevertheless, there are some berries, like the ark’oma, which tastes amazing by itself. The result is that a lot of the gatherer teams the zu’aan send out into this region look for the spherical blue appearance that the ark’oma possess, as the demand for them is incredibly high among the zu’aan of Western Taerel.

Partly because there are very few forests in the West compared to the East, and the Taina forests manage to be one of those few exceptions. The ark’oma berries are still considered an exotic food among the zu’aan, which means that only the rich and powerful can actually afford them in practice.

Animals

Since the Taina Mixed Forest Hills are rich in flora and vegetation, it’s quite usual to see animals from all corners of Taerel flock to the area, especially those from the North. Aumat, despite usually preferring colder climates, migrated towards the South with the dawn of the ice age. Of course, a whole bunch of them stayed in the North, but there are a couple handfuls of them in the Taina forests, which is no surprise because it’s much warmer than in the harsh North. These tusked beasts stomp through the Taina hills, often destroying bushes and uprooting trees in their unstoppable primal rage.

A more peaceful kind of animal, the lo’tu, is one that can be found grazing over almost the entirety of Taerel. The Taina region is now exception, as the lo’tu really enjoy the various plants found here, seemingly the only spot rich with nature in Taerel’s West. Being a relatively short animal specie, their diet is limited to the grass and berries that they can scavenge, forcing them to compete with other animals over an already limited supply of resources. The aumat, for example, have an additional advantage since they’re able to reach the taller branches of trees and pick them clean of leaves and fruit.

But the lo’tu are incapable of that, hence why their numbers are lower here than in other forests of Taerel. Some creatures that inhabit the Certai Dying Woodland also live and reproduce in this region, despite the two being very far away from each other. The akh’zol prosper here because the climate is reminiscent of the Certai region (though a slight bit warmer) and the forests of the Taina area are littered with bugs and small critters too, all of which are seen as prey by the ruthless carnivorous reptiles. Despite their tiny size, the akh’zol can be an annoyance even to larger herbivores like the lo’tu.

Their bites hurt. A lot. Few animals and kin’toni are willing to experience the agony from an akh’zol’s bite, so they tend to stay far, far away from the territory of those fearsome little monsters. Of course, it’s also worth to mention some of the insects that have settled in the Taina forests, and that provide nutrition to the akh’zol. The ruu’bi are the chief pollinators of the flowers that grow here, and are wildly important for the flora of the Taina region to keep blooming. Not all flowers require insects to be pollinated, but some rely on the ruu’bi and would go extinct without their presence.

While they aren’t insects, the vai’ra are fierce creatures that are capable of repelling even the fearless akh’zol. With an enormous stinger on one end of the body and two razor-sharp fangs on the other (both of which are filled with poison), even zu’aan have to approach them with outmost care and respect. A bite or a sting from one of these beasts won’t kill a kin’toni or a zu’aan, but it can severely injure an akh’zol, sometimes to the point of incapacitation. The va’ira are not to be messed with.

Place

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Taina Mixed Forest Hills

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This article is written by piggytheastro. Copyright 2026 piggytheastro. All rights reserved.