Personal System Calendar: Year 00015, Day 1-28, Month VI: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6859, 1st to 28th day of the 6th Month
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Arrival of the Eastern Beastfolk Tribe
Meanwhile, back in the Village of Maya, another matter of importance had arrived just after the team had left the ports of Kirka. It had already been vaguely discussed beforehand by the beast folk chief and council elder, Chief Tamba, who represents the Beastfolk of the village.
A group of their brethren were coming to Maya Village. They came from a different coalition of tribes, called the Eastern Beastmen Tribes. But how had they managed to find out this information? Simple: they too had their own way of long-range communication, similar to how humans trained birds as messengers to travel between destinations. For the Beastmen, though, only a few were ever chosen to handle this delicate task, since the creatures they used were bonded to track only two specific things: the handler who was bonded to them, and the intended target. These were bugs about 2-3 inches in size, called the Seekers. They tracked their target using a blood sample taken beforehand from the person being sought, drawn by the handler or by the bug's own bond. The Southern Beastmen Tribes used this same kind of bug to communicate with beastmen who were far from their reach.
Their father, the Great Chief Madok Kotoko, had sent word to the village using this method, directed specifically to Tamba. This kind of communication wasn't used frequently, it was reserved only for emergencies, since the Seekers were small enough to attract predators far larger than themselves, especially while they are airborne.
The emergency message that came through was necessarily brief, summarized down to only the most important information that was needed to convey the message, since a Seeker could not carry any more weight than what was proportional to its own small body. What the message conveyed was that some of the Eastern Beastmen Tribes had been gravely injured after reaching the walls of the Great Chiefdom of the Southern Beastmen Tribes' capital.
As the story went, summarized by their father: the EBT coalition had been attacked by a combination of nomadic humans and other species, namely Oruks and goblins (Gobu, male goblin; Gobi, female goblin).
Before the arrival of these possible guests, or more accurately refugee migrants, the Chief of the Kotoko Clan and Village Elder Council Tamba, his two brothers Rakatan and Banog, along with Chief Gagar of the Lokoroko, had gone to the Elder Council to explain their fast-approaching situation, along with some background on the territories that had formed the Beastmen Tribes making up this coalition of clans.
First was their own Southern Beastmen Tribes (SBT), located in the Kingdom of Ogind (Region 11). August and his party had already been there, and the village held an alliance with them, though not in the formal sense humans usually associate with the word. It was more that the relationship between the Southern Beastmen Tribes and Maya Village stood as something informal but deeply strong, built on blood debt and honor rather than the long trail of paperwork. Next was the Western Beastmen Tribes (WBT), located in the Federation of El (Region 8). Though called the WBT, the Federation of El's territory actually sat directly north of Ogind, but since they were the closest coalition to the west relative to the others, that was how the name had come to stick. Then came the Central Beastmen Tribes (CBT), located in the Kingdom of Fantosia (Region 9), which sat beside Region 8 to its east and shared no direct border with Ogind. As for the Eastern Beastmen Tribes (EBT), they were located in the Barbari Kingdom (Region 10), further east of Region 9. To its own east lay the Great Mountain Ridge of Arkanus, which divided the central continent, and to its south lay the great forest known as the Wraithfrost Expanse. This forest was the Northern Great Forest, it is one of the Great Forests of Arkanus that forms that superb woodland living organism. In itself it was divided into a Northwestern Half and a Northeastern Half, with the Barbari Kingdom sitting atop the northwestern half. Lastly, the Northern Beastmen Tribes (NBT) were located in the Sovereign Kingdom of Yuri (Region 6), north of Region 9. All the regions from Region 8 through 11 shared some form of border with the great forests.
From the west and southwest, the Lonelywood Forest and the Lonely Forest of Shadowfen bordered the Kingdom of Ogind (Region 11). The Federation of El (Region 8) also bordered the Lonely Forest of Shadowfen to its west, and the Witherbough Reach to its northwest. The Kingdom of Fantosia (Region 9) bordered the Widow's Thorn to its northwest and the Hushfen Barrens to its north-northwest. The Kingdom of Barbari (Region 10) bordered the Wraithfrost Expanse to its north.
AN: (Calling the forest a "living organism" wasn't meant literally, at least not in the way a person might assume at first read. No one believed the Wraithfrost Expanse, or any of the Great Forests, was some singular sentient thing with a mind of its own. The comparison came from scale alone; a woodland vast enough to house millions, if not billions or even trillions, of differing beasts and creatures across its reach, all of it interconnected in a way that made the whole feel less like scenery and more like something breathing.)
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The Sixteen Great Forests of the Former Capital Region of Arkanus (Reference)
Geographic Reference of the Great Caldera's Encircling Great Forests
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Overview
The Former Capital Region of Arkanus is ringed by sixteen forests, arranged not as a perfect circle but as an irregular, intertwined band of wilderness encircling the Great Caldera at its center. There are no clean borders between adjacent forests; each territory bleeds into its neighbors, and the true boundary between one forest and the next is marked not by any visible line but by the sudden shift in the woodlands canopy, a change in dominant tree species, undergrowth, and resident beast population signals that a traveler has crossed from one forest's dominion into another's.
The sixteen forests fall into three tiers by size and standing: four Great Forests at the true cardinal points, four Minor Forests at the intercardinal points between them, and eight Sub-Minor Forests filling the finer gradations between those. Despite the tiered naming, "sub-minor" is a matter of relative scale only, even the smallest forests in this system rival or exceed entire kingdoms in area.
The Great Mountain Ridges
A single, continuous mountain range, the Great Mountain Ridges, cuts through the Former Capital Region, running along a north–south axis through the heart of both the Northern and Southern Great Forests. Rather than crossing through the Great Caldera itself, the range bends and confirms itself to the Caldera's circumference before continuing on its path, tracing an arc around the crater rather than through it.
The resulting shape resembles two vertical lines meeting a circle at its center: —O—. The horizontal strokes represent the Great Mountain Ridges, and the O at the center represents the Great Caldera itself. Because the range runs directly through the North and South Great Forests before curving around the Caldera, both of those forests are effectively split into two distinct halves:
- The Wraithfrost Expanse (North) is divided into its Northwestern Half and Northeastern Half.
- The Sunrot Canopy (South) is divided into its Southwestern Half and Southeastern Half.
The Western and Eastern Great Forests, Shadowfen and the Emberlight Wildwood, are not crossed by the ridge line and remain as unified territories. In effect, the Great Mountain Ridges divide the entire continent into two halves along this north–south line, with the Great Caldera sitting at the exact midpoint where the range yields to the crater's own circular geography before resuming its course.
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The Great Forests
Four Great Forests occupy the true cardinal points, each commanding 5,000,000 km², the largest and most powerful territories in the ring.
- West — The Lonely Forest of Shadowfen — 5,000,000 km². Unified, not bisected by the Great Mountain Ridges.
- North — The Wraithfrost Expanse — 5,000,000 km². Bisected by the Great Mountain Ridges into the Northwestern Half and Northeastern Half.
- East — The Emberlight Wildwood — 5,000,000 km². Unified, not bisected by the Great Mountain Ridges.
- South — The Sunrot Canopy — 5,000,000 km². Bisected by the Great Mountain Ridges into the Southwestern Half and Southeastern Half.
The Minor Forests
Four Minor Forests occupy the intercardinal points between the Great Forests, each spanning 2,500,000 km², smaller than the Great Forests, but still vast, established territories in their own right.
- Southwest — Forsaken Ashen Glade Forest — 2,500,000 km²
- Northwest — The Widow's Thorn — 2,500,000 km²
- Northeast — The Gloomroot Thicket — 2,500,000 km²
- Southeast — The Sunken Myrewood — 2,500,000 km²
The Sub-Minor Forests
Eight Sub-Minor Forests fill the remaining points of the ring, each spanning 1,000,000 km². Though smallest in the formal hierarchy, each still commands territory and population rivaling a kingdom.
- West-Southwest — The Lonelywood Forest — 1,000,000 km². Site of Maya Village.
- South-Southwest — The Weeping Vale — 1,000,000 km²
- South-Southeast — The Blackmarrow Deep — 1,000,000 km²
- East-Southeast — The Cindergrove Forest — 1,000,000 km²
- East-Northeast — The Thistledown Wilds — 1,000,000 km²
- North-Northeast — The Palefang Thicket — 1,000,000 km²
- North-Northwest — The Hushfen Barrens — 1,000,000 km²
- West-Northwest — The Witherbough Reach — 1,000,000 km²
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Total Encircling Territory
- Four Great Forests (5,000,000 km² × 4): 20,000,000 km²
- Four Minor Forests (2,500,000 km² × 4): 10,000,000 km²
- Eight Sub-Minor Forests (1,000,000 km² × 8): 8,000,000 km²
- Combined forest territory: 38,000,000 km²
Together with the Great Caldera itself, the full Capital Region spans approximately 40,000,000 km², placing the Great Caldera's own area at roughly 2,000,000 km².
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The Tribal Confederations
These tribes had formed coalitions that eventually grew into massive tribal confederations, the North, East, West, South, and Central Beastmen Tribes, forming something like a massive gathering of differing clans, roughly equivalent to a human kingdom, though technically not one. It was more along the lines of a Chiefdom. If the Great Chiefs were to ever convene and merge, they could form a truly massive bloc. For example, if the Southern and Northern Beastmen Tribes became allies and decided to form a union, that merger could become a kingdom in the true human sense, though in their case, as with the SBT, it would still be called a Chiefdom.
But if all five tribal coalitions decided to unify altogether, they would become more than just a small chiefdom, they'd be the strongest Beastmen Chiefdom in all of the north, one that would be called the Unified Confederate Chiefdoms of Beastmen Tribes of the North.
Currently, Beastmen clans and tribes still live scattered across human kingdoms, mostly unstructured and unorganized. There were a few exceptions: like the above mentioned NBT, SBT, WBT, EBT, and CBT among them.
But why was this the case for the current Beastmen generations? Simply put, the last time they had all unified, they'd razed many human kingdoms and the kingdoms of other species, which had caused these other species to retaliate, first in small organized groups, then later as something larger. It wasn't until those other species had set aside their differences and banded together, forming a united front, that the Beastmen were finally brought down to the scattered, unorganized groups they are now, with only a few managing to form coalitions across their ancestral lands, lands that the humans of Arkanus had either occupied outright, or that other expansionist species like the Oruks had laid claim to, or which the Beastmen had simply lost to them over time.
Examples of this pattern could be seen in the attack against the EBT, and in the failed attempt by the Berdeng Oruks, alongside similar allies of human bandits and goblins, against the SBT.
Now, to explain why the Eastern Beastmen Tribes, or a part of them, were being redirected here: a message had arrived a few weeks ago, expanding on the first. Put simply, the Southern Beastmen Tribes' Chiefdom had been overwhelmed by the sheer number of refugees that arrived through their gates seeking refuge.
In short, the Eastern Beastmen Tribes coalition had been destroyed in its entirety and was now scattered into different groups. The group that arrived at the SBT doorstep numbered in the thousands, refugees from a Chiefdom whose capital city no longer existed. They had been ordered to abandon it and flee from the war entirely. Most of their warriors had stayed behind in the war zone, fighting to defend those too weak to flee alongside them.
Now as for the actual cause of these invasions, all they could confirm from the second message was that the attack had come from a combination of odd allies, nomadic humans, goblins (Gobi and Gobu), and an Oruk horde. It was a situation eerily similar to the one caused by the Berdeng Oruks, led by Warlord Agroba da Kill Mongar, except this time the attackers had succeeded in their siege of the Eastern Beastmen Tribes Chiefdom.
The Berdeng Oruks might well have succeeded too, had August not been there to intervene. This time, there was no August to help them. The Eastern Beastmen Tribes weren't so lucky.
The refugees had exceeded the SBT's already meager housing infrastructure, and it was only now becoming clear that some of them had been redirected here, to Maya Village, which currently hosted an independent group of only two clans (a coalition typically included at least seven clans to form a small Chiefdom of Tribes, similar to the SBT).
The information Chief Madok had given them, both times, was admittedly vague, which was why Chief Tamba, the first time, could only offer the council a rough picture of what was coming to Maya Village.