Verdant Deep

The southeastern jungle: rain every afternoon, rivers the color of tea, and step-pyramids built in the Age of Ruins by a people the Tzalan call the First Sun. Some sixty thousand Tzalan live here, split among Sutzam, the Nhal River Villages and the deep-jungle peoples that Sun-Speaker Ixatl is uniting, who in 1142 declared the jungle closed to outsiders. Kaishon and Zarvand both push into it for mahogany, pepper and spice, and their garrisons die of the fever that only the Tzalan's bitter-bark cures. Jaguars, tapirs, sloths, howler monkeys, anacondas, caimans, army-ants and dart-frogs share it with sun-quetzals, macaws and toucans, and its trees include mahogany, kapok, cacao, vanilla and the strangler figs that slowly pull the ruins down. Kaishon's Long Rampart ends at its edge.

See also: Sutzam, Serpent Pyramids, River Nhal, The Canopy, Nhal Delta Swamps