Black Forest

The Black Forest is as it's named; a black forest.

Specifically, the leaves of the trees are black to absorb more sunlight.

If you happen to be someone who knows why black leaves aren't a thing in real life, being that sunlight needs to penetrate through enough layers of the leaf to recuperate energy costs of pigment in lower layers and that more energy isn't always a good thing if it causes too much loss of water through stomata, these trees experience almost no energy cost of making the black pigment at all thanks to good old magic and those roots go deep into underground systems with their own water, that water constantly being refilled by underground rivers that start as above ground rivers and aside from that it's pretty normal water cycle stuff.

The Black Forest is, like most of the Afterlife (article explaining it coming soon, it's better to think of it as a universal Isekai than an Afterlife and almost nobody knows they're in an Afterlife because the last person in their family tree who came to this world via dying in ours rather than just being born here was their 12 times great grandma who told nobody about it out of fear of being called insane), pretty wild.

Such as most of the trees being so big you can build entire towns on the branches.

check out the story this world is a setting for in this story-telling Discord (you can tell your own stories too): https://discord.gg/w9mQP3nFGq

Geography

Big trees. All sorts of varying elevation, including 2 internally contained mountain ranges.

The Black Forest is surrounded on all sides by either the Derrippi Mountains to the North, West and South and to the East by the ocean. Were it not for this the black trees likely would've gone on to dominate the entire Gods' Mercy continent.

Ecosystem

It's all gonna eat you.

Ecosystem Cycles

There is no food web it's a free for all.

Fauna & Flora

Plants

Those massive black-leafed trees. Also tonnes of carnivorous plants and other weird stuff. Notably, almost none of the plants in the forest other than the trees are getting sunlight. They get nutrients by connecting into black trees, and are almost all to some degree symbiotic with the trees so long as there aren't too many on one tree.

The trees can also chemically communicate with some of these plants, and can communicate chemically with other lifeforms... the true rulers of the forest are the trees.

Some would consider the internal pair of mountain ranges that the black trees cannot grow on and which as a result have fairly normal green trees to still be part of the Black Forest. These forests are normal except for massive Black Forest animals casually walking in and eating things.

Animals

The creatures inhabiting the ground are generally larger than those in the trees as the massive trees have a lot of space between them and many areas don't have that much of an undergrowth due to lack of sunlight. Albinism is common and night vision necessary.

Higher up, flight and climbing skills are extremely common. Again, creatures are often very large but not as large as those on the ground.

If it isn't nightmare fuel is it even native to the Afterlife, let alone the Black Forest, at all?

The People

The first known humanoids were the Hoga. The Hoga's ancestry is a mixture of Neanderthal and homo sapiens (note: Neanderthals weren't actually less intelligent than humans, just less social), however inbreeding and selective pressures devolved them into monstrous creatures that belong nowhere but your nightmares.

They're most likely descended from people that appeared in the Afterlife within that forest itself rather than coming in from any of the surrounding geography like the later peoples.

They're legitimately terrifying. Apes and most people will yell things and screech when they attack you, but they do it without vocalising at all. They rarely vocalise at all - even when in pain, and their facial expressions rarely change either, nor do they use sign language, yet they seem to just be able to look each other in the eyes and know everything. Most of them also have ripped-open cheeks and there's a tonne of other stuff to them that make them worth their own article so follow this world if you wanna read about these bunches of nightmare fuel.

Oh also they have magic abilities that aren't fully understood, have never been seen mating (or nobody's lived to tell the tale) and will often torture people before killing them.

Next came the Hami. They are believed to have trickled in from the Derrippi and developed further mutations due to natural selection.

The Hami were originally fairly normal-in-appearance homo sapiens with very above-average amounts of Neanderthal DNA.

Hami, in terms of appearance, generally have grey skin and yellow, light blue or light green eyes eyes similar to those of Hamiko. White or grey hair from birth is the norm, and they usually have excellent night vision.

Hami women are noted to have higher testosterone levels than normal homo sapiens women and the difference in physical prowess between men and women is as a result somewhat smaller but is definitely still present. This has also caused somewhat reduced fertility but a higher number of Hamiko children live to adulthood overall as a result (essentially, 4 kids 3 of whom live to adulthood is better than 8 kids 2 of whom make it to adulthood, especially since the 3 out of 4 will be better physically developed as they got more food and so more likely to actually have kids in that adulthood).

Hamiko are the most important pets of the Hami. The Hami ride them and use them while hunting. Hamiko are naturally more friendly towards humans who have Hami traits or, let's be honest, Hamiko traits... natural selection made the humans change to make the Hamiko more affable to them rather than the other way around. Can the human race stop being consistently humiliated in this world?

Appearance wise, Hamiko are like horses if they were forced to hunt for meat like wolves, had a row of shark-like teeth, lost their hair, got grey skin and took a daily dose of nightmare fuel every night before bed time. Hamiko can live for up to 150 years. Hamikos are sometimes referred to as Hamikas cos dialects and are also omnivorous but mostly eat meat.

The bond between a Hami and their Hamiko is known to be extremely strong. Hami children are given a Hamiko fowl during infancy, the younger both are the better, and naturally form a bond lasting for life. Hamiko whose owners have died will continue to protect the loved ones of that Hami. Hamiko pretty much always outnumber Hami within any Hami tribe, but the Hamiko who aren't bonded to a Hami will still follow the Hami in hunts simply because the majority of Hamiko are bonded to Hami and they naturally follow the pack.

They and the Hoga clash pretty often but the Hami usually lose. Yeah the Hoga really are on that nightmare fuel. The Hoga still dominate most of the Black Forest, although it can be said that they've lost ground at all.

Hamiko are not the only wildlife the Hami have domesticated and befriended. The Hami farm fungi called Jagirosh and termite-like creatures with un-aging queens (some have been in their Hami clan's hands for hundreds of years) called Jagikam inside bits of massive branches that have fallen all the way down from the canopy above.

They also utilize Klopir, a type of bird with extremely poisonous flesh that makes most other creatures leave it alone and which loves to scavenge meat, to help them track down potential prey in return for some of the meat.

They also keep pet snakes and lizards with venomous bites so they can get the poison and use it in their hunting.

The Hami have for a long time primarily inhabited the ground rather than the branches up above, although recently that's begun to change.

People of the Branches

These are extremely diverse genetically in comparison to the Hami, who are forced to genetically streamline their appearance to bond with their Hamiko (those without Hami appearance cannot bond with Hamiko, it only works because the Hami have a similar colour scheme to their Hamiko. That said Hamiko, especially the older, more intelligent ones, who consistently see that someone without Hami traits is trusted by the Hami around them may let that person ride and command them), and consist of many different ethnicities mixing together.

They're descended from a mixture of Lamarans (mostly from before the Lamaran Empire formed, although the formation of that empire brought many Lamaran refugees who mixed with the People of the Branches), Derrippians (who share common ancestry with the Hami), the Sea Peoples and then little flecks and bits thanks to many slaves within Lamara, which gets slaves from pretty much everywhere, escaping to the Black Forest.

While they have domesticated animals, just like the Hami, they haven't gone as insanely far as the Hami into any one specific species like how the Hami are pretty obsessed with their Hamikos.

Their primary food source are Jamanga berries, which grow from vines that grow on and leech resources from the trees and use the eating of the berries as a means of germinating their seeds, specifically wanting the poops to be taken directly on branches rather than into the abyss to the forest floor below so they can immediately start leeching from the trees.

The Branch People must deliberately limit how much they put on any one tree as to avoid harming the tree, especially since there being even a fraction of enough to start harming a tree causes some extremely negative backlash from the forest itself (connected roots allowing for chemical messaging between trees which can chemically communicate with certain beings defending the forest so you fucking up 1 tree means an entire forest's worth of what are basically forest guardians on nightmare fuel are out to fuck you up go brrrrr).

As for how they get around amongst these branches, they used to rely on a mixture of climbing skills and items to assist them in this until, at some point in their history, someone figured out the Galoski Gun, Galoski being the name of the mythical figure who supposedly found some in an ancient ruin and reverse engineered them with the help of the Black Forest's god of knowledge, Mycelka.

2 Galoski Guns, one in each hand, are meant to be used like a pair of double-barrel grappling-hook-guns, although some versions have 3 or 4.

They use an organ from a plant that collects and condenses air inside itself to launch seeds at ridiculous speeds as a means of germination, refuelling of the guns done by putting them in sunlight, instead of gunpowder to launch the hooks and then the fact that the hooks are on cables made of Lavro spider silk allows for the ropes to be pulled back in due to a chemical reaction that occurs in the silk as it stretches and is followed by a different one resetting it when it's coiled up inside the gun once more.

Anyway they use this to move just like Spiderman. Marvel if you come for me I got the idea from Attack On Titan and Shonen Jump if you come for me I got the idea from Spiderman.

History

The first people here are the Hoga. Or the Hoga just completely genocided whoever was here before them. Probably the second one. Have I mentioned the Hoga both look and act like their diet consists solely of nightmare fuel?

The Hami people came in from the mountains surrounding the Black Forest and had a bad time getting their asses whooped by literally everything and struggling to get food until they evolved the art of having less kids and looking like trustworthy buddy-ol'-pals to the Hamikas, after which things got a lot easier for the both of them since Hami could actually out-pace whatever they were hunting and Hamikas got riders who could use weapons, make traps and use more complex hunting tactics.

The Hami, thanks to this, were able to get some ground from the Hoga - still an uphill battle - and primarily inhabited the ground.

The Branch People rolled up consisting of all sorts of groups mixed together starting a few thousand years back and lived in the branches at first using normal stuff like normal grappling hooks and climbing gear but then about 150 years ago ascended to using what amount to biological grappling hook guns to swing between branches like Spiderman. They've invented all sorts of other cool stuff, including some evolutions of these grappling hooks. Lamara sees potential applications in urban and forest warfare that go especially well with being used by members of certain magic families and is very intrigued.

There have been multiple invasions from the Black Forest into Lamara and vice versa, albeit for very different reasons.

Tourism

... do soldiers, criminals and refugees count as tourists?

This is my entry for WorldAnvil's Summer Camp: "an inhospitable region or landmark"

99% of this entire world is nothing but inhospitable regions and landmarks and then the places that aren't are so coveted that they're pretty much always engaged in multiple wars.

I feel like I'm cheating.

Alternative Name(s)

Blind-spot of the Gods (it's believed that the gods cannot see through the canopy and that beneath the canopy a different set of gods rules)

Related Ethnicities