Shlekahul (ʃlɛkahɯl)

This remote island once held a legacy of trade, but now is only known for savagery, debauchery, and bloodshed, a reputation that tarnishes all that it has which is beautiful. Once traders and merchants once commonly stopped at the island for supplies and to sell and buy goods, with many powering through multiple continents just to dock their ships upon its shores. However, after the Bloodwhip the land was never the same: as the disease originated on the island, few are willing to travel to it and the plague’s effects on the people of the island.

Geography

Shlekahul is an island of dry, rocky mountainous regions mixed with rugged lowlands. The mountains are high and dotted throughout the landmass being highest in density in the northern half. The tallest of these mountains is at the center of the island, a volcano known as Veshpa and holds great significance to the natives. The land around the dormant volcano has the highest population density on the island, not only for its fertility compared to the surrounding areas but also because the mountain is seen as holy to the island's many peoples. At the base of the volcano is a large lake that connects to two rivers which flow out to the coasts and feed the jungles that cover the eastern half of the island. These forests are intermixed with swamps, especially where the rivers meet the coasts. At the mouths of these rivers, are great, expansive estuaries cover the west and northeast coastlines of the island.

Ecosystem

Most of Shlekahul is dry and harsh, with rugged scrublands making up the majority of the island's land. These scrublands alternate between shrub-steppe and patches of woodlands. The dry season is blistering and dry while the wet seasons may bring rain to regions where moisture is accumulated, such as the east coast.
In the central and eastern regions of the island, the story is very different. Here, the dominant environments are jungles and wetlands.

Fauna & Flora

Fauna

Shlekahul is an island defined, biologically, by its lack of diversity in large mammals. While diversity is higher in the humid, wetter regions, the dryer habitats of the mountains and scrub have only a few varieties of large mammals. Most predominant of these animals are armadillos and ground sloths, which make up the majority of megafauna. The sloths are master browsers, feeding on a wide array of vegetation of all varieties while the armadillos are more restricted to low lying vegetation but do form important grazers in the ecosystems. Smaller burrowing armadillos are also common, dining on a wide range of invertebrates from termites to ants, to worms, to spiders. The largest insectivore on the island though is a ground sloth- the Kluugaktii - a truly massive beast the size of an elephant that uses claws a long as a man's arm to rip into the giant termite mounds that dot the drylands.

Natural Resources

Shlekahul is known all across southern Kadagard for their abondance of gemstones and silks. Mines are found all across the island, many devoted solely to the collection of these gems, for the purposes of trade with those who will do so. These are gems like nothing seen anything else in the world, beauty beyond compare.

Alternative Name(s)

The Serpent’s Isle

Type

Island

Included Locations