The Ghost Roads

    The Huo were not the first dynasty to rule Liangyu. Centuries before, a great sorcerer and united the petty kingdoms. He built a mighty city in the midst of the realm to serve as his capital.

    From this city he established great highways radiating in many directions. Broad and level they were, and those who passed along them found their journey shortened beyond what should be possible. For long stretches the highways were bordered by trees which provided shade and shelter. Their leaves remained even in winter. Where the roads passed through mountains, tunnels were carved, lit by starspeck lanterns set within the rock. Mighty bridges carried the highways across rivers and valleys. Inns were established along these roads, and arsenals for the army's use.

    The sorcerer's descendants ruled for a time but gradually fell into decadence. In the reign of their last King, the upkeep of the Roads was neglected, and the rituals which prevented monsters and supernatural entities from haunting it were forgotten. By the time the Huo restored the kingdom, the Great Roads were already ill-omened. The trees which lined them were overgrown, keeping the road in a perpetual shadow. Strange creatures stalked the avenue. The inns and arsenals were abandoned. The Huo attempted to retake the roads, but it soon became apparent that whatever magic had been used in their construction made them a magnet for fell things. An area swept clean of monsters one day would soon be infested by creatures even more hostile the next. Fortunately the dangers never seemed to stray too far from the highways. In the end the Kings of the Huo contented themselves with dismantling large sections of the roads, but many still remain in remote places.

Lao Wan

    Within the northwest confines of the forest, the land rises to an outcrop of rock. Along the crown of the hill is a circular wall of megalithic stones nigh unthinkable in their size. Within the circle are the remains of an ancient city. Three great highways, paved with hexagonal slabs, spiral in toward the center, with curving side streets branching out from each. The doors are low, about waist high, but wide enough for a man to lay stretched out between the posts. Generally a massive stone is used for the lintel but some utilize a shallow arch with curious indentation, presumably decorative.  The layout of some buildings seem to be based on a triradiate symmetry, ranging from simple triangles to Koch snowflakes in the fifth iteration. These generally have small triangular windows, often alternating in direction. What roofs remain are held up by corbel vaulting. A significant minority of other buildings have curved walls and sprawl seemingly at random. Each chamber has its own dome and is lit by an oculus, with a circular receptacle on the floor beneath, presumably to catch water. Some buildings are constructed of stone blocks, others seem to be a type of concrete. A few seem to have been carved from the rock of the hill itself, and these often lead down into broad chambers below. Aside from these, no buildings appear to have had multiple levels. No staircases exist, and both the lower caverns and the battle platforms around the walls were accessed by ramps. Short cylindrical stools seem to have been the chief piece of furniture, at least of what has survived.

    While here and there, detritus blown in by the wind has managed to pile in drifts and give some headway to flora, the city has shown remarkable resilience in the face of both weathering and nature's reclamation attempts. Certainly none of the other ruins within Lin show this degree of preservation. It is perhaps a testament to the scale of the construction as well as to its quality. Or perhaps some other force is at work here.

    Who or what built this place is a matter for conjecture. What few surviving examples of art remain seem to be of the abstract variety, geometrical oddities which somehow cause dizziness and nausea if stared at for too long. As for artifacts, the city has been picked clean by scavengers, but perhaps there is some secret door or obstructed passage which the looters managed to overlook. Two types of artifacts which come from here are of particular note, perhaps. One is a gun of some bright green metal, surprisingly untarnished. It projects a ray which immobilizes a target while it is on them. If held for more than five minutes the subject dies. The other is a disc, somewhat thicker in the center. Balance it on your bare forearm and it will warm and glow, emitting indecipherable sounds with a vaguely musical quality. Prolonged use will leave the holder fatigued.

Apemen of the Central Highlands

    When the gods set aside the Imavant, not all of the apes chose to enter the appointed sanctuary. Preferring to take their chances in the wide world, various groups split off and established enclaves in diverse places. One group, known as the Yeren, migrated to the forest of Lin, which at that time was considerably warmer than it is today.

    They destroyed the remnants of the serpent-men and established cities in the forest. A few of their ruins remain today, mostly scattered watchtowers or underground arsenals. They are recognizable by their distinct architecture, made of seemingly unhewn stones fitted together seamlessly. The windows and doors are half-moon arches without upright lines. Curving buttresses support the larger buildings, almost all of which are capped with domes. The largest extent of ruins is Yuán Chéng, a city notable for its sculptures and monumental structures.

    For unknown reasons, the Yeren civilization began to decline. Records scavenged from Yuán Chéng tell of political unrest and societal decay. What once was a unified commonwealth soon dissolved into petty gangs squabbling over the ruins of their once great realm. Over time the forest began to reclaim its own, and the once-proud simians retreated into the highlands to dwell in caves and drystone huts. Not as flawless as their ancestral structures, the gaps between the stones here are packed with earth to keep out the mountain weather. The various settlements cling to the mountainsides, harboring dwindling populations. Most of the villages seem as hostile to each other as they are to the outside world.

    The few human tribes that live in the forest have little contact with the Yeren, and purposely so. The simians have been known to raid settlements and haul away food and captives. Yeng policy tends to avoid the apes as much as possible. The mountains are comparatively sparse in useful timber and a conflict with the psychic nonhumans is not worth it. However, some lumber camps close to the foothills have reported losing supplies to the simians, particularly iron tools. It is probable that skirmishes will occur the closer the Yeng press in toward the forest's heart.

Winter in the Bear's Realm

There are few bears left in the forest of Lin. But the She-Bear has been there longer than any man remembers. Her territory is on the western outskirts of the central mountain range.

She is enormous, leaving her claw marks on the highest trunks. Each of her droppings could fill an oxcart. Her urine gathers in fetid pools before subsiding into the earth. Her roar is deafening and her wrath cataclysmic. Great tufts of her red-brown fur can be found throughout her territory, caught in the branches or lying in clumps along the trailside. Her footprints become ponds or flower meads.

In the winter, she withdraws into a great cave to slumber. As she slumbers, She dreams. A curtain of mist draws around Her territory. The lands within become strange and surreal.

The nature of Her dreams will alter them.

If she is at peace, she will simply dream of her mountain slopes in winter, deep snows blanketing the familiar trails under the half-light of a slate-gray sky. But her memories may wander into summer, and you'll round a bend to find yourself blinking up at green leaves and bright skies. Cubs play in the sunlit groves and must be avoided at all costs.

If the Bear dreams of her infancy, the snow vanishes. The air remains chilled, but the mountain's slopes are warm, almost hot, and covered with soft fur. The sky becomes a distant cave roof, and the trees are enormous stalactites. They are cold, slightly damp, and rough to the touch. The light is dim but never fully dark, as though snowy light is filtering through some unseen opening. Around the den, steaming milk will gather in stone-lined pools. This is the Dream Milk, which so many expeditions attempt to bring back to the real world.

If the Bear hungers, enormous and succulent fruits grow on leafless trees and lie in piles amid the snow. Mushrooms spring up in scattered patches, and rich tubers poke up through the turf. Rivers of sweet things, syrups and sorghums and molasses, flow in impossible uphill courses. Cartoonishly fat cattle with swollen limbs and bellies amble about. Fish plop out of streams and wriggle on the banks. The cliffs are dotted with the hives of enormous bees, dripping with honey.

If the Bear lusts, the climate shifts to resemble late spring. There are flowers everywhere. Great he-bears stalk around the mouth of the den, awaiting her call. Sometimes they spar with each other in titanic combat. Her cadre of old lovers include bears long extinct, legends long forgotten. They are fit and strong and very much opposed to your presence. Mercifully these memories are from her youth, so the brutes conjured up are of a large but not impossible size for bears. Their deaths (or yours) will not bother Her at all, but the den itself must not be entered.

If she is restless or uneasy, the sky will darken and a bracing wind sends curling serpents of fog to wind through the trees. Shadows move on the edge of sight and strange noises sporadically puncture the deep silence. Although no outright attacks occur, you are constantly on edge. Sleep is difficult and the strain on your nerves intense.

There are few things the Bear truly fears anymore. But, reaching back in her memories, her nightmares will conjure the Hunters, faceless humanoids (and stranger shapes still) in furry rags. They wield flint spears and shoot flaming arrows. Cruel traps will be hidden along the trails. Enormous packs of slavering wolves will haunt the slopes. Forest fires will rage, rivers will flood. The wail of cubs, lost or in pain, will echo incessantly over everything.

So why go there?

The dreamscapes themselves and the things dreamed in them disappear when the Bear shifts moods or wakes. But dreamed things taken by outsiders will persist through the shifts and will gain permanence if brought out of the Bear's territory and into reality. (This must be done by outside intervention. Creatures or objects within the dreamscape cannot and will not leave of their own accord.)

Despite the great danger, expeditions are made every winter. Both furs and food are vital in the winter months and can be had here in abundance. Dream milk will never spoil, and it promotes health, fertility, and wisdom. Drinking it also prevents nightmares, something particularly helpful during the full moon. Prolonged usage causes hair and nails to grow at double the rate. The honey also has an energizing effect and may boost speech, charisma, and intellect.

The risks entailed in gathering these things is high. Even beyond the dangers of the terrain and the strange logic of the dreamworld, the resources also attract scavenging parties from the great apes who dwell in the central highlands. These often prove formidable. Their mental powers allow them to predict the Bear's next mood and, roughly, the amount of time until the next shift. Their camp also functions as a mobile pocket of base reality within the dreamworld.

While for years she has had to make due with mouthfuls, the rise of the Swine God and his brood has finally given her prey of a size commensurate to her appetite. She has been slowly extending her territory toward their rutting grounds, inevitably bringing her close to the foresters' encampments.

[Inspired by noisms' Behind Gently Smiling Jaws setting.]

Dark Rain

    When I say that the forest wages war on its despoilers, I do not mean that in a merely figurative sense. Of course there are the vines and saplings that spring up at a seemingly supernatural rate in any plot of cleared ground, the seeds of millennia finally seizing their chance at a place in the sun. These are difficult enough to deal with. What I am referring to is the Dark Rain.

    I am at a loss to classify it as tree, animal, or machine. It walks on eight monstrous legs, arched like those of a spider but cased in bark-like skin. Where the legs meet, a massive trunk towers up into leafy branches. Here and there among the branches is a leafless bough, shorter and oddly straight until it splits into two backward curving arms, connected at the ends by a vine-like rope. It is, in fact, an organic crossbow. (Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the crossbows the Liangyese use are manmade imitations of this.) It can load and fire quarrels grown and stored within a hollow tube inside the leafless bough.

    The number of weapon-boughs varies with the age (and hence the size) of the thing. The boughs have a limited range of movement so aiming often requires the tree to turn or bend. When one bough is out of bolts, it twists around to aim the next bough at its target. From this fact comes another of its names, the Twister. A common song of the Foresters contains the line "And then the twister comes. Here comes the twister." 

    How the creatures sense their targets is unknown. Generally a dark rain will patrol along a seemingly random path, attacking only those who pose a serious threat to the forest. The Yeng are such a threat, but lately the boars of the Swine God have also been targeted. In the past, each twister hunted alone, but lately there are rumors of several working together to coordinate attacks on Yeng outposts-- and darker whispers of organic trebuchets that move and fire of their own accord. If true, these tales indicate that the war is about to reach a new and deadlier stage.

The Strife-of-Tongues

    Tei Pao looked uneasily at the clearing, a circular patch of open space somehow devoid of trees or brush. A clump of rocks lay near but not quite at the center. Otherwise low grass covered all until it reached the edge of the surrounding forest. He held up his hand to signal Huin behind him. The mercenary stopped short with a surprised huff and glowered at him. "What is it?" he whispered.

    Pao didn't turn. "I don't know," he replied in a low tone, "but something feels off."

    "To hell with your feelings."

    "Why are there no trees-- hell, no shrubs? Nothing but grass." He paused. "There aren't even any fallen branches. How is that possible?"

    A handful of birds drifted lazily out from the canopy and began to descend toward the floor of the clearing. Tei Pao glanced at them, then back to the clearing. "The whole thing looks far too circular to just be random. I don't like it. I say we go around."

    The birds settled quietly on the ground and began to peck around. Huin snorted. "We've been hacking through the undergrowth for hours, and when we finally reach open ground--"

    Suddenly and silently, bright red tendrils erupted from the floor of the clearing a few feet behind the birds. There were half a dozen of them, long, thin, and sinuous. Each one arced forward and grasped at a bird, grabbing at the heads. Two birds managed to take wing, but the pursuing limbs shot after them like a frog's tongue catching flies. In barely enough time to even register what was happening, the two men watched the red streamers wring each bird's neck, breaking them, and then flinging the carcasses far into the trees in one continuous motion. Then they silently slithered back into the ground. Soon, only the grass remained, but with a few scattered patches of feathers or specks of blood.

    Without a word the two men turned and moved back along the trail they had just made.

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    An unknown civilization in the distant past buried unageing monsters in the earth to guard their graves. Sages aver that the ancient and proper name for these abominable things is Strife-of-Tongues. The woodcutters of the Yeng call them Lickers.

    Each licker is housed inside a spherical casing made of some substance with the look of bone but the feel of stone. Whether this is its natural shell or its arcane cage is unclear. It is thought that the sphere amplifies vibrations in the soil, helping the Strife-of-Tongues locate its victims. The sphere and the organism inside is generally found two or three yards beneath the surface. A system of roots grow down through tiny apertures in the lower half of the sphere to anchor it and presumably to take in nutrients. The top of casing contains ten to twelve larger holes, each about two inches wide. These are for the use of the "tongues", red prehensile appendages of a leathery texture and impressive strength, anywhere from ten to twenty feet in length. They bore swiftly through the ground and burst through the surface to strike at anything that comes within their range.

    Smaller animals such as birds or mice are killed as quickly as possible and the carcass thrown outside the circle. Larger creatures are given a warning to frighten them away. This generally consists of the tongues snapping at the intruder like whips, or perhaps wrapping around the leg and attempting to drag it back towards the edge of the circle. If the trespasser persists in its encroachment on the licker's territory or attempts to fight back, the attack of the tongues becomes lethal. They may attempt to constrict by wrapping around the ribs and squeezing. Or they may try to grab the head and snap the neck. Occasionally they get creative and grab two of the creatures limbs, then pull each in a different direction until flesh and bone separate.

    Any remains will be pushed or hurled outside the circle. The licker keeps its territory (considered to be anything in the range of its tongues) meticulously free of most debris, so as to not impede its detection of intruders or the mobility of its tongues. Branches and other deadfall from the trees are cleared away, and any sapling that grows higher than a few inches is also uprooted and cast out. One thing that the licker will not interfere with, however, is stone. To be sure, if it is hit by a stone weapon, it will retaliate if possible. But if a rock lands on its territory, it will send out a tongue to feel it, and upon feeling its texture, ignore it thenceforth, accepting it as just part of the landscape. It is thought that this is some innate programming in the creatures' behavior by whatever wizard first dreamt it up, so that it would not attack the megalithic stones used to build the burial chambers that they were (generally) placed to guard.

    These dolmen-like structures sometimes still exist within the licker's circle, although occasionally the ravages of time or changes to the environment have wiped them out or buried them far deeper than their rooted guardian. The few of these tombs that have been explored and looted have yielded curious artifacts but very little clues as to the nature of their builders.

    Larger debris such as fallen trees may tax even the great strength of the tongues, and it will take time for them to clear them. They may start a fire by means of friction and retreat below ground, leaving the log to burn to a more manageable state. Such blazes can easily become larger conflagrations should they reach the surrounding forest.

    There seems to be no limit on the lifespan of these organisms. Any tongue that is cut off will regrow within a matter of weeks, although it may take up to half a year to reach its full length. The few that have been killed were ones which were partially unearthed due to earthquakes or landslides. The casing once broken (a difficult task), the creature within appeared to be little more than a pink pulsating blob of indeterminate shape. Any attempts at communication via mundane or magical means proved unfruitful. Once dead, the strife-of-tongues quickly decomposes, releasing a foul-smelling vapor which contains bacteria highly lethal to any who breathe it in.

    Fortunately the territory of a licker is usually fairly obvious to spot and avoid, being a near perfect circle of grassland within a forest, often with a megalithic tomb toward its center. A submerged licker is incredibly difficult to combat, but should you manage to destroy all of its tongues you should be free to access the dolmen and plunder it.

Lin Flora

    In the darker parts of the forest, perpetually shadowed by the interwoven branches above, are infestations of dream moss. While not unique to Lin, it is most common here, and the local variety is the most potent. Dream moss emits a vapor which causes vivid hallucinations, almost inevitably of something hostile to the victim. This may take the form of a natural beast, an enemy combatant, or some nightmarish chimera from the depths of the subconscious. You may even face an apparent duplicate of yourself, with all your skills and abilities. In the combat that ensues, the effects of the illusion are so intense that one will take actual physical damage-- not to mention whatever harm one causes or receives in the real world while they are gripped in the nightmare's delusion. Despite the sinister nature of the visions it induces, dream moss is sought out and collected by some of the foresters, who sell it to apothecaries as an ingredient.

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    The lulun, or faefire mushroom, glows softly with a blue bioluminescence. Upon detecting passersby via vibrations in the ground, it releases a gas which causes first euphoria, then overwhelming calm, and finally a deep and dreamless sleep which can last for hours. During that time it will send out a vast amount of spores in the direction of the sleeper, so that as many as possible will be carried away by the sleeper when they wake and leave. Not necessarily harmful in itself, but in a place like Lin falling asleep in the open is rarely a good idea. Luluns are widely sought for their use as a sedative.

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    The purple terror is a plant which grows in the canopy and sends down vines to suck up moisture from the ground. They are commonly found near ponds or streams. The vines are prehensile and terribly strong. If a creature is caught by them, they will wrap around it and pull it up into the air to trap it. There are tiny, sharp protrusions which stick into the victim and drain its fluids into the plant. Purple terrors can be noted by the bright and beautiful purple flowers that blossom in the canopy-- and by the bones of man and beast caught in their tendrils.

    The purple terror and the lulun often grow close by each other, the purple terror predating on those who fall asleep in the lulun's circle. This still works to the lulun's favor as the victim is hoisted high in the air by the vines, and its spores are dispersed by the wind over a wide area.