Caecilian Jungle

The Caecilian Jungle is a star-shaped, lush region inside the Beyond, filled with ancient treasures.

Background
''Woods. Water. Wind. Rain.'' These Attributes define the Caecilian Jungle. Other people utilize harsher words. ''Death. Destruction. Monsters. Madness.''

Covering more than 500 square miles, the Caecilian Jungle is dense with trees, underbrush, rivers, fog, and rain. Natural and mechanical creatures stalk its shores, lie in wait along the branches, and wing their way down upon prey in the dark of night.

Why go at all then? Why enter its borders and risk life, limb, and sanity? The jungle has treasures to be found, ancient gods to be awoken, and wonders to be discovered. Despite the fact that there are no known reports of anyone returning from a visit to the Caecilian, believers continue to plan expeditions to its tangled innards.

Makeshift camps have sprung up at various points around the edges of the jungle. Typically created by people who canceled their trek at the last minute, these camps are paces of shelter and information sharing. They sell jungle maps that point out the locations of various god and features, but every map is different from camp to camp (and sometimes even within the same camp). Explorers can also purchase slightly used tools, as well as great quantities of tifo fruits, a bitter podfruit that's extolled for its ability to calm nerves.

There are believed to be at least five wonders within the confines of the jungle:

• Le Temple de Frogue: A giant stone temple of a humanoid frog rests in the middle of a swampy river. A fertility symbol, the frogoid invites explorers into her temple through the open doorway between her legs. Her lower levels are covered in the deep swamp that surrounds her. Frogs, newts, and flying fish, and other amphibious creatures flock to her.

• The Wild Garden: A wall of electricity 10 ft. high surrounds a carefully tended garden of genetically enhanced carnivorous plants. Members of the Sarracenians, a group of scholars that studies and worships unique plants, often claim that the Wild Garden is their mecca.

• Archeol: In this miniature city, each building stands no taller than a human's knees. The inhabitants are sometimes said to be supernatural beings, sometimes mechanical, and sometimes just very small humans. Clearly, someone still uses the city, but they're either invisible or adept at hiding.

• The Malingering Valley: This deep, dark cut through the earth is always an unnatural shadow. Cold springs that run underground erupt regularly in spouts of cold water, ice steam, and small creatures carried from the depths.

• The Westwind: This jungle element is ever moving within its area, a corkscrewed tornado that carries trees, animals, and all manner of debris in its circular grip. Changing in size depending o what it holds, the diameter of the Westwind can be as small as a human or as large as 30 ft. across. Its destructive path is easy to follow, as it's strong enough to rip trees from the ground and drag large objects for long distances.

If you could look at the Caecilian Jungle from the air, you'd see that the vast forest still holds much of its original shape: an oblong star with five points. along the edges, where the forest meets the rest of the world, the trees are taller and darker, close enough and tight enough to create a living wall. At the widest section of each point, right before it joins the center of the star shape, sits one of the five wonders. Although the jungle is overgrown and tangled now, it seems to have been the careful creation of loving - and very large - hands.

The Trapped Man:
Rumor has it that a man named Rorvic is trapped within Le Temple de Frogue, held prisoner by the king. Rorvic knows the location of a vast hoard of valuable treasures and secrets of the past.

The Blue Ache:
A terrible disease called the Blue Ache has broken out in a village south of the jungle, and the Sarracenians say the cure is a rare leaf found only in the depths of the Caecilian.

The Seven Pyramids:
Seven vaguely pyramid-shaped devices of unearthly metal are thought to be keyed to the Caecilian Jungle. These numenera devices hail from some other world, but if gathered, they gave a pair of users (it must be two individuals) strange control over the very nature of the jungle, suggesting a clue to its origins. The pyramids were gathered by a woman named Daiwesi 400 years ago, but then, for reasons unknown, they were scattered across the Ninth World. They haven't been recovered since.

The Pit of Horrors:
Within the confines of the jungle lies a dark pit of unknown depths. Machines appearing to be little more than an elaborate mass of mechanized blades and almost serpent-like mouths lurch out of the pit form time to time, grab whatever living creatures they come upon, and drag them down into the pit, never to be seen again.

The Undying Tribe:
A tribe of humans in the jungle lives a savage existence of cannibalism. For reasons unknown, these people don't seem to age past maturity. Their violent lives are often cut short, but some have reportedly lived hundreds of years.