The Forest of Lin

  While Mutsai is the headquarters of the Yeng, the great bulk of their resources come from their extensive holdings in the Forest of Lin, northeast of the city. The forest was granted to the Yeng by royal edict when they were raised to noble status. At the time, the forest was a relatively unexplored tract of wilderness, little understood. Even today, after a century or so, there remain vast swathes that are outside of the Yeng's direct control. Yet they jealously insist on their claim to the entire forest and will brook no rival to enter.

The forest itself is immense, a remnant of the primeval forest which once dominated the entire coastline before rise of the sea and the coming of men. Level around the perimeter (for the most part), it begins to rise as one goes further in, culminating in rugged and forbidding mountains in the heart of the wood. While the Yeng have not succeeded in conquering that area, they have established a great ring encircling the edge of the forest. This boundary is perhaps a few miles in width and is patrolled by automata shaped like beasts of prey-- bears, tigers, packs of wolves and so forth. Humans whom these beasts find within the boundary are set upon and attacked without mercy. The only exceptions are those bearing a certain type of talisman which the Yeng create. This apparently marks one as a non-hostile and allows safe passage among the wooden watch-beasts.

Such passage is necessary from time to time, for the absence of humans from the boundary has created a haven for animals of all kinds, and deer and other such creatures flock here to escape from hunters. At times their numbers swell too greatly and they become a threat to groves of newly planted trees, and must be culled. And of course, where there are prey animals one will find predators. Living panthers and lynx slink among the wooden ones, and while these are permitted to help keep the herbivores numbers at a healthy level, at times a predator will become a danger to humans and must be sought out and put down. And, rarely but not unheard of, stranger and more deadly things lurk among the shadows of the boundary.

The only safe route through the boundary, officially, is the river Yun. Travelling up river by galley requires a permit from the Grand Lodge, bearing the Seal of the clan. Any vessel found on the river without a permit will be confiscated by guardsmen and the passengers imprisoned. Unofficially there may be a way in along the southeast, where an undulating stretch of land known as the Bubble holds an extensive cave system.

There is another path which leads into the forest but it would hardly be described as safe. An ancient Ghost Road from the Mi Dynasty breaches the western border of the wood and continues to the ruins of a city about twenty miles within.