The Piori Jungle
The hub of Aosi, the Piori Jungle is a rainforest which spans the largest parts of Aosi, stretching from Aosiri'li to the south-east of Aosi itself.
When Aosi was first settled, the Piori Jungle was the biggest point of conflict for the natives. As beautiful as it is deadly, the jungle posed significant threat to anyone who attempted to exist within it, and was even responsible for the death of Lesat'Kagan when he ate berries that poisoned him.
It was the Alchemists and Ranchers who finally turned the jungle from a terror to a tool.
Alchemists began to gather the herbs, mushrooms, berries and plants from the jungle, crafting them into the beginnings of poultices and salves. The medics and healing mages of the time quickly realised that their best interests were served by collaboration with the alchemists, and so a trade relationship was built: herbalists would gather from the jungle, bringing the items to the alchemists, who would then create potions from the magical flora, which the healing mages would quickly snap up for their use. The herbs and plants without magical properties were then given to the medics, who found ways of transforming the items into their own kind of magic.
The ranchers were the first to realise that the fauna of Piori could be wrangled for their own gain, and the Taiban was the first animal they tamed, turning the creature into a fierce guard outside of their camps. After that they began taming creatures to turn into herd animals and carriers, and then they began milking some and gathering the eggs of others.
The settles of Piori quickly learned that the jungle floor was the most dangerous part of Piori when it rained, turning to a thick bog that slowed travel and prevented escape from some of the more dangerous creatures that resided in the jungle.
It was the architects that came up with the idea of moving the camp upwards into the trees, and it was met by initial ridicule until the plan was supported and put into fruition by Eldlor'Sulas, the leader of the settlement at the time.
The first tree they chopped down was the first mistake: with the felling of even a single tree came a shift in the ecosystem and the atmosphere in the jungle. Creatures that had previously occupied the tree peacefully began to descend upon the settlers, and the settlement lost several of its colonists before the balance was restored.
This discovery led to the push to return to the mountains nearby and mining efforts were put into immediate effect, leading to the settlement slowly swapping from wood-based to metal- and stone-based, preferring those materials over wood or branches.
There were always times that wood was required of course, the primary example being the need for fires for cooking and cleansing water, but the settlers eventually found a middle ground with the ecosystem, using the resources it
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