Post by KayKay on Dec 23, 2018 4:28:39 GMT
“Even as far as a week’s journey away, the forest of Tartarus looms across the horizon like a vast mountain range. The sun rises behind the impenetrable forest, transforming the trees into an ominous black wall silhouetted against the golden sky, hiding unseen horrors within.
At the forest’s edge, the scale of the trees is unfathomable. Each trunk is wider than two city blocks, and their twisted web of exposed roots – creeping across the earth like cancerous growths – are wide enough to carry a multi-lane highway. Craning your neck straight up, you see that the trees seem to stretch endlessly into the sky, the canopy lost in the clouds far above.
As you resume your journey towards the dark jungle beyond, the world around you seems to change. The forest appears to grow inch-by-inch, pushing the horizons of Southern Farrago and Northern Migma further west. Though you have yet to touch the forest edge, the motionless trees cup around you as though you’re descending into a bowl, squeezing what was once North, West and South behind you.
By the time you reach the first of the gigantic roots, the forest edge now enshrouds what was once North and what was once South. The true north and south – Farrago and Migma and No Man’s Land, the rolling dunes, the distant mountains, the sun, stars, and clouds, all exist at the end of a tunnel of towering foliage and monoliths of wood. And with each step further, the tunnel continues to shrink, until finally the entire outside world has been contracted into a single brilliant point of white light, surrounded by innumerable and vast trees.
And with a single, fateful last step, that light is swallowed up forever. You are surrounded by nothing but the dark, alien forest, and yet you have yet to walk past the first of the trees. In a sudden surge of panic you backtrack the way you came, hoping for the light of the outside world to return.
But the light will never return. Tartarus is everywhere; north, east, south, and west, and any direction you run will only push you deeper into the abyssal forest.
There is no escape from the prison of the titans.”
Description:
Originally growing from the Sahara, before merging into the equally desolate landscape of No Man’s Land, Tartarus is a massive primordial forest far beyond the scale of anything on Earth. Its titanic trees can be seen from over fifty miles away, and their vast canopy of twisting branches and huge leaves plunges the forest floor into darkness, alive with bioluminescent undergrowth alien to human eyes.
Tartarian Trees:
These massive plants are the most notable of all the features of Tartarus. Reaching anywhere from three to six kilometers in height, Tartarian trees rival mountain ranges in height. From the canopy, it is impossible to see the ground with human eyes, as the distance and lack of light is too great. From the ground, the only indication of a canopy at all is the specks of sunlight peeking through gaps in the leaves that make up the otherwise dark ceiling, like starlight in the night sky.
The pillar-like trunks can reach three hundred to seven hundred meters in diameter (the size of well over three Manhattan city blocks), and are enshrouded in a thick blanket of aerial roots. While they strongly resemble the parasitic strangler fig at a glance, these roots are natural extensions of the tree that can be seen growing down from the twisted branches of the canopy, forming smaller, secondary trucks that provide additional stability and support for these massive titans.
Their twisted roots, as wide as multi-lane highways in some cases, spread across the forest floor like spiderwebs, making travel on foot for small creatures difficult. The rough bark of Tartarian trees make for easily accessible hand-holds however, allowing even unfit individuals to scale the walls of wood that may block their path. An observant eye may notice that the roots connect to other trees – every single Tartarian tree is in fact the same organism, connected by an unthinkably vast root system in the forest floor, deep below the earth, and even in the canopy.
The branches and sometimes roots of the understory and canopy are just as thick as those on the forest floor, or even thicker yet, some measuring well over fifty meters in diameter. They can be sturdy enough to bear the weight of several terataurs, and are often used as nests. Further out from the trunk, the branches grow small enough to be used as handholds for more dexterous terataurs, though even the smallest twigs of a Tartarian tree are still as thick as a log. The branches, roots, and trunk are further home to all manner of fungi and flowering plants that take root in the trees.
The leaves of Tartarian trees resemble ferns at a glance, apart from their sheer size. Anywhere from twelve to twenty feet long, the blades of these leaves are wide and thick, weighing an average of three hundred to four hundred pounds. Brown, dead leaves cover the forest floor in a thick blanket, though they easily retain enough strength for humans to walk over without breaking.
The Forest Floor:
Unique to Tartarus, the forest floor is actually barren, devoid of grass or moss. The soil is black from decomposed leaf matter, though the soil is completely covered in a blanket of brown, fallen leaves, each with a surface area wide enough to hold a truck – as well as the occasional twig, each as wide as fallen logs.
Humans are like ants in Tartarus, and nowhere is this more apparent than the forest floor, where the space between trees can measure over a kilometer and even the smallest of foliage still towers over the average person like small trees. The ground is covered in a web of exposed roots, creating a labyrinth that makes linear travel difficult without being forced to climb up and over the twisting, knotted walls of wood and bark. Inhabitants of Tartarus usually travel along these roots rather than attempting to climb past them, using them as roads and highways that can offer some measure of visibility over the forest of undergrowth.
That same undergrowth is alien. Beyond being large enough to serve as a forest itself for human-sized visitors, with stems like tree trunks and leaves like a canopy, the plants and fungi found here are multicolored and strangely shaped. The undergrowth resembles a primordial ocean more so than it does a typical forest.
:
At the forest’s edge, the scale of the trees is unfathomable. Each trunk is wider than two city blocks, and their twisted web of exposed roots – creeping across the earth like cancerous growths – are wide enough to carry a multi-lane highway. Craning your neck straight up, you see that the trees seem to stretch endlessly into the sky, the canopy lost in the clouds far above.
As you resume your journey towards the dark jungle beyond, the world around you seems to change. The forest appears to grow inch-by-inch, pushing the horizons of Southern Farrago and Northern Migma further west. Though you have yet to touch the forest edge, the motionless trees cup around you as though you’re descending into a bowl, squeezing what was once North, West and South behind you.
By the time you reach the first of the gigantic roots, the forest edge now enshrouds what was once North and what was once South. The true north and south – Farrago and Migma and No Man’s Land, the rolling dunes, the distant mountains, the sun, stars, and clouds, all exist at the end of a tunnel of towering foliage and monoliths of wood. And with each step further, the tunnel continues to shrink, until finally the entire outside world has been contracted into a single brilliant point of white light, surrounded by innumerable and vast trees.
And with a single, fateful last step, that light is swallowed up forever. You are surrounded by nothing but the dark, alien forest, and yet you have yet to walk past the first of the trees. In a sudden surge of panic you backtrack the way you came, hoping for the light of the outside world to return.
But the light will never return. Tartarus is everywhere; north, east, south, and west, and any direction you run will only push you deeper into the abyssal forest.
There is no escape from the prison of the titans.”
Description:
Originally growing from the Sahara, before merging into the equally desolate landscape of No Man’s Land, Tartarus is a massive primordial forest far beyond the scale of anything on Earth. Its titanic trees can be seen from over fifty miles away, and their vast canopy of twisting branches and huge leaves plunges the forest floor into darkness, alive with bioluminescent undergrowth alien to human eyes.
These massive plants are the most notable of all the features of Tartarus. Reaching anywhere from three to six kilometers in height, Tartarian trees rival mountain ranges in height. From the canopy, it is impossible to see the ground with human eyes, as the distance and lack of light is too great. From the ground, the only indication of a canopy at all is the specks of sunlight peeking through gaps in the leaves that make up the otherwise dark ceiling, like starlight in the night sky.
The pillar-like trunks can reach three hundred to seven hundred meters in diameter (the size of well over three Manhattan city blocks), and are enshrouded in a thick blanket of aerial roots. While they strongly resemble the parasitic strangler fig at a glance, these roots are natural extensions of the tree that can be seen growing down from the twisted branches of the canopy, forming smaller, secondary trucks that provide additional stability and support for these massive titans.
Their twisted roots, as wide as multi-lane highways in some cases, spread across the forest floor like spiderwebs, making travel on foot for small creatures difficult. The rough bark of Tartarian trees make for easily accessible hand-holds however, allowing even unfit individuals to scale the walls of wood that may block their path. An observant eye may notice that the roots connect to other trees – every single Tartarian tree is in fact the same organism, connected by an unthinkably vast root system in the forest floor, deep below the earth, and even in the canopy.
The branches and sometimes roots of the understory and canopy are just as thick as those on the forest floor, or even thicker yet, some measuring well over fifty meters in diameter. They can be sturdy enough to bear the weight of several terataurs, and are often used as nests. Further out from the trunk, the branches grow small enough to be used as handholds for more dexterous terataurs, though even the smallest twigs of a Tartarian tree are still as thick as a log. The branches, roots, and trunk are further home to all manner of fungi and flowering plants that take root in the trees.
The leaves of Tartarian trees resemble ferns at a glance, apart from their sheer size. Anywhere from twelve to twenty feet long, the blades of these leaves are wide and thick, weighing an average of three hundred to four hundred pounds. Brown, dead leaves cover the forest floor in a thick blanket, though they easily retain enough strength for humans to walk over without breaking.
The Forest Floor:
Unique to Tartarus, the forest floor is actually barren, devoid of grass or moss. The soil is black from decomposed leaf matter, though the soil is completely covered in a blanket of brown, fallen leaves, each with a surface area wide enough to hold a truck – as well as the occasional twig, each as wide as fallen logs.
Humans are like ants in Tartarus, and nowhere is this more apparent than the forest floor, where the space between trees can measure over a kilometer and even the smallest of foliage still towers over the average person like small trees. The ground is covered in a web of exposed roots, creating a labyrinth that makes linear travel difficult without being forced to climb up and over the twisting, knotted walls of wood and bark. Inhabitants of Tartarus usually travel along these roots rather than attempting to climb past them, using them as roads and highways that can offer some measure of visibility over the forest of undergrowth.
That same undergrowth is alien. Beyond being large enough to serve as a forest itself for human-sized visitors, with stems like tree trunks and leaves like a canopy, the plants and fungi found here are multicolored and strangely shaped. The undergrowth resembles a primordial ocean more so than it does a typical forest.
: