Lo Dokh
A large island off the coast of the old Ngavari heartland, the Lo Dokh of today is a foetid nightmare. The ruins that once were the beating heart of a vast sea-faring empire have been consumed and overrun by dark wilderness. The ruined cities dotted around the coast have been choked by vine, fern, and fungus, and are stalked by dark predators. The deeper one travels into the wilderness, especially the jungled south, the more one finds the influence of The Empty Throne, as plants and beasts are warped by place's indellible link to the Dreaming. Its birds can nimbly fly through the dense wood, despite being too large to turn so sharply, or even be held aloft by their wings. Ferns will reach out with their fronds, grappling and even strangling the unwary. The eyes of its panthers glint with an unnatural intelligence.
Though they would come to wield influence that spanned continents, the different people groups known collectively as the Dokhar began in a smattering of fishing villages on the island of Lo Dokh. In those days, Lo Dokh was tamer than it is now, its tangled plant life not so dense, the air not so thick with choking spores, and as a whole not prowled by nightmares. But these humble fisherfolk would develop a deep kinship with the waves, which in time would evolve into a metaphysical connection—which would be codified as the Andokh Ren, or "Heartbeat of Waters"—that would allow the Dokhar to grow from a confederation of fishing villages into the vast ocean-going empire, with Lo Dokh at its heart. Then came the War of Shadow, and the treachery of the island's only Spirit of the Green, Khoron Lodovar, who rose the wilderness of Lo Dokh, and overran the seat of the Empire of the Sea, cutting off the head of the Dokhar.
Geography
Lo Dokh is part of a large chain of islands known variously as the Aartadoraa Archipelago, the Vala Dokh Chain, and Sisters of the Shimmering Sea, depending on who is referring to them. Lo Dokh is the largest island in this chain, which extends in two directions from Lo Dokh: northwest, up the west coast of the continent of Munuth, and southeast, bisecting the The Shimmering Sea.
The island is bisected by a chain of mountains which run from northwest to southeast. The island, thus, is separated into three regions: the region northeast of the mountains, which is covered in a temperate rainforest; the region southwest of the mountains, which consists entirely of tropical jungle; and the mountains themselves, which are covered in pockets of cloud forest. Additionally, the mountains are home to a large caldera, the remains of a once-destructive volcano.
Seven small rivers flow from the mountains into the sea, five of which make detours in lakes first. Along these rivers are the Seven Cities of Lo Dokh, the ruins of which run from the river mouths far inland.
Fauna & Flora
Lo Dokh is home to an incredibly diverse array of life. The island is overrun with plant life, with brief interludes of fungal dominance in the southern jungle, and an array of every kind of animal life—birds, two breeds of feline hunters, a thousand different insects, including an endemic species of giant, blood-drinking moth. A large number of the species in the northern temperate rainforest only survive on Lo Dokh, having only ever existed elsewhere in the land of Ngavar, which was destroyed when Ngavar was Sundered.
However, Lo Dokh also poses challenges of a more metaphysical variety. The island was conquered with forces aligned with Vassar, specifically by the Spirit of the Green known as Khoron Lodovar, who has warped the island, infusing its plants and creatures with the essence and breath of Vassar. As a result, many of the creatures and plants defy normality. This generally manifests as unnatural size and intelligence.
Natural Resources
On a theoretical level, Lo Dokh is possesses a considerable number of resources to be exploited. The greatest of these is the untold bounty of lumber in the island's various forests, but there are also deposits of silver in long-abandoned mines, pools of salt along the island's western coast, samples from the various rare flora and fauna which inhabit the island, and the essence and breath of Vassar, The Empty Throne, with which Khoron Lodovar has infused the animals and plants of the island—for those with the knowledge and means to extract it.
However, before one can exploit the resources present at a location, one must first control it, and that poses a considerable challenge. It is the nature of Vassar to resist boundary and structure, and because everything on the island is imbued with some piece of Vassar, it is part of the nature of the island to resist boundary and structure, and thus resist control—even Khoron Lodovar, though possessed of considerable influence over the island, does not actually own or control it. As a result of this, the many resources of Lo Dokh go untapped.
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