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Important information on Mnara. Read everything!

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

A few miles due north of the gorge boundary, a thick cluster of tall termite mounds have taken over the skyline. Large winged bugs cartwheel through the hot and dusty air, creating a great buzz just at the onset of nightfall that rattles the sand covered rocks. The insects are the only sign of activity this far from paradise, for the sun is oppressive during the day and the pickings are meager.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

A rift in the earth, a great chasm runs wide for miles east and west and its walls sheer off in a dizzying drop to the dark floor hundreds of feet below. Across the gorge, to the north, lies a desolate and unfriendly wasteland of red clay and orange sand. The southern edge is dotted with thick, low lying plants while the sun skips over the gorge itself and plunges it into perpetual darkness. Adventurous, nimble, or perhaps foolhardy creatures can pick their way to the depths of the gorge, though whatever greets them in the darkness is likely to be an inhospitable host.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

The smooth stone floor of the great gorge has been worn by time and likely by the rush of water from countless floods through the eons. The walls have been viciously carved out by falling rocks, and trees swept away by flood waters have been lodged in precarious, dangerously high ledges where they remain wedged. Light refuses to penetrate this far down, and the endless dusk is illuminated by a ghastly scene. Bones. Picked clean by beetles, dusty skeletons of once creatures litter the floor in a macabre display of unfortunate mishaps. At the western most edge, the skull of a once magnificent bull elephant lies cracked and leaning to one side, overseeing all those in the graveyard and keeper of many grizzly tales.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

An endless sea of grass stretches in all cardinal points, though miles to the north the grass seems to drop off and be taken over by rough and barren rock. The vegetation through the plain is short and hardy, the horizon only broken by sparse clumps of acacia trees. Farther to the south, a great mass of dark rock stains the horizon, warning travelers of some unknown danger, while south-southwest the welcoming glint of water beckons thirsty, paw-weary creatures.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

Long ago it had a name; a regal meaning. Now, it is a tombstone, a grave marker for young and old alike. The stand of stones is made of many boulders and thick slabs, but the main structure consists of two enormous stones. A once high, squarish column that soared into the sky and gave mighty rulers the lay of their land now lies cracked and leaning dangerously to the side, the ground underneath it disturbed by a quake and its faces scorched by unforgiving lightning storms. The second, a flat slab that had been perched as a promontory for Kings to declare their rule is split in two and has caved into the base pile of rock. Once a gathering place for generations of pride lions is now a grizzly marker of the lives lost in the quake. To the west, the water hole lies serene and welcoming, while the grasslands that surround the jumble of rocks roll off in endless, undulating seas.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

A strange place. Far to the east of the destroyed rocks, far away from where lions congregate, an old, wizened tree clambers out of the soil and sparse, spotty grass. Not so much up, as out, the tree radiates something mysterious as its thick branches jut out and claw their way further into the sky. The trunk is a light, tan-gray, rivulets in the bark run lengthwise like aged wrinkles in the skin. The very center of the baobab, where the trunk splits into countless branches, a creature could easily find stable footing on the wide base. Faded claw marks are etched into the trees surface, a climbing perch for many generations, and stranger still. darker patches of color here and there indicate a greater intelligence; a more nimble being with a purpose, once used this tree for its own devices. Whoever it is, however, is seasons gone, but whatever was left behind has not been washed away by the rains or burned by the hot sun of the dry.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

Endless. Thick, verdant grass ripples in endless waves north, east, and west, bordered only by the meandering river south-southwest and the parched savanna lands deep to the south. Herd beasts graze thick in number when the season is plentiful, and during the dry the sea of green transforms into a shimmering place of gray-gold stalks. Low lying vegetation is thick on the plain, and copses of short and tall trees alike sprout in robust colonies giving predator and prey welcoming invitations of shade and rest. In the north, the gloomy shadow of the stones sits as a warning to foolish beings, and the sparkle of the waterhole and river glistens far on the western horizon.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

Each side of the waterhole is marked by different creatures, but no marking is more prominent than the river that cuts the small lake in two on a northwest-southeast diagonal. Both territories, lion and hyena, circle around the waterhole and claim ownership of this sacred source. From the north bank, Mnara stretches north, east, and south, bordered only on the north by the great rift in the earth. Uchawi, meanwhile, arcs north, west, and south, corralled in the south by a seemingly endless ocean of desert sand. The banks themselves are smooth with mud close to the waterline, while some of the higher, rougher edges are tufted with sharp grass stalks.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

Where the north bank is roughly cut and loud with the crashing of water flowing into the reservoir, the south bank is calmer, quiet as the river continues on its course south-southwest. Though calmer, the water itself is no less dangerous, as large predators frequent just below the surface. Herd beasts come here when the waterhole is filled to capacity, and many tracks of all shapes and sizes indent in the mud and are slowly eroded by the gentle ebb and flow of the calmer water.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

Due east, the north bank of the waterhole glimmers invitingly, while away to the southeast the rising landscape falls away into a valley that guides the lazy river. Here, the land is flat and expressionless with short, rough grass and scrub brush cropped short and low to the ground, clawing out and passersby. The soil is dusty and peppered with pebbles and large stones, and rarely is the grass truly as green as it is on the east side of the river.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

Leaving the high ground of the open scrub, the land falls lazily away to the southeast and with it the gentle ebb of a once raging river. The grass is richer, fed by the water, but the landscape is almost barren of larger trees or thick brush. On the southern edge of the valley, bordered by the high valley wall, is a deep, dark burrow in the earth. The surrounding land is void of markings, disguising the hole as just that; a hole.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

Dark, cool, and solitary. This burrow, once likely and aardvark's, has been dug out by many dull claws, and marked by many dominant females for the birth of their pups. When the season is barren of new life during the dry, the hollow is abandoned by the larger predators and left for smaller creatures. In disuse, the air is stale and unwelcoming, though in use it is thick with pheromone, and the warning of dangerous mothers.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

The scrubland opens up as it moves south, what rough vegetation there was having all but disappeared. The grass gives way to hard packed dirt, and rounded tumbles of dead grass rustle in the sharp wind. The sun and lack of moisture has baked and cracked the earth, and the almost constant blowing wind quickly erodes any traces of a creature's presence. The land quickly degrades to the southwest into desert sands that whip across slowly rolling dunes.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

To the southwest, and endless expanse of desert sand rolls on, and on, and on down past the distant line of the horizon. The scrubland is slowly and painstakingly being taken over by small, drifting grains of hot, yellow sand. The cracked landscape is sprinkled with dust and sand, and a series of low rolling dunes mark the boundary into an expanse of shifting sand that is as unforgiving as the surface of the sun. The air wavers in the heat, and any vegetation from the northern lands that manages to root itself quickly shrivels and dies for lack of water.

Moderators: Melisizwe, Adetukunbo

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