Kinga Badlands

The area around the Maw's Spit is covered by arid badlands and mesas. Local fauna and flora include vultures, foxes, cacti and a species of land shark, which inhabit the region's caves.

The **Kinga** are the locals of the area. Their communities are formed on top of the big rocks and hills that are dotted around the landscape, living in tents and sandstone castles.

They are particularly useful to the Gnolls and the Ogres, who make their pilgrimage to the Maw's Spit and employ the Kinga as guides for protection against the land sharks. The Kinga sometimes also hunt the land sharks for sport, their jaws and horns being worn by the chieftains of the Kinga.

Because of that, the number of the land sharks has dwindled, but still remain a threat to the unweary.

## The Badlands

Near the center of Giantstep, south of the Ogabo Desert, there lies a land wildly marked by ancient erosion. The land is filled with canyons, valleys, mesas, cliffs and hexagonal rock formations, made out of sandstone, clays, basalt and quartz. This rocky and irregular terrain is intertwined with areas of absolute nothing, with plains of bare rock that extend for miles and miles. Geographers and geologists have theorized that all this area was once under the ocean, something that is corroborated by the many kinds of marine fossils found in the area. From small nautilus’ shells to the skeletal remains of great beasts, a few picks of the shovel can unearth the remains from creatures long gone. How this area then ended in the center of the continent, nobody knows, the more sensible explanations just being divine intervention of some sort. Regardless of how it came to be, nowadays the land is extremely hostile.

In the rock plains, nothing grows. There is no water, and the scorching sun and freezing cold can break even stones. In the irregular canyons and valleys, however, there is a complex ecosystem. Plants will grow in every possible crevice, taking advantage of any moisture they can absorb from the air. Cacti, thorn bushes, tumbleweeds, yuccas, desert flowers… all of them fight for whatever scrap of moisture they can find, usually in areas close to stone walls, protecting the plant from the burning heat by growing partly in the shade.

The region also has many rocky caverns and caves, some of which can reach quite a lot of depth. Beneath the deepest of caves, explorers have been able to find pools of water from ancient times, in which some species of fish, crab and aquatic worms have evolved to survive. The only real source of nourishment in the deep is a species of photosynthesizing crab, the so called Green Crabs. These flat crabs have evolved to live in symbiosis with a species of algae, which covers most of its body. During the few hours when the sun is up but the temperature is not scorching hot, the crabs will go out and bathe in the sun, all while the algae photosynthesize and feed off the crab’s waste, turning it into more algae that the crab can then eat. Once the temperature is too hot, the crabs go back to the tunnels to rest in the pockets of water. During the night, the crabs also look for different kinds of minerals needed for the correct growth of the algae. This has allowed the crabs to become quite widespread, moving through the interconnected pockets of water, and many creatures have evolved to hunt them. The most famous creature in the area is the Crawl Shark, a species of lunged shark that has evolved claws instead of fins, capable of crawling on land and even dig under the sand to avoid the harshest hours of the day. They are not that big, though, being the size of a hound.

## The Kinga Tribes

Living in the region are the **Kinga** tribes, a group of nomads who travel the badlands seeking areas with easy access to water and food. They form small groups of a couple of families tops, leaded by the patriarch, in charge of deciding when and where to move once the water begins running low. They set up their temporary settlements at the highest areas, to be able to keep watch around them in case of attacks. During the day, though, most of the tribes are in the lower areas, enjoying the shade, and only a couple of watchers stay at the top guarding the tents and provisions, while the rest go hunt and save water.

The history of the Kinga is complicated. It is believed that the Kinga were ancient people of the Red Land Steppes who were exiled to the Suritas Range and then the Badlands. The dates and stories of the Kinga suggest that this exile was caused much earlier than the first mentions of the Gökmavi culture in the steppes. Other suggest that they came from the east instead, through the lands that would eventually become part of the Khenomeric Empire, but once again, much earlier than the founding of the empire. Whatever their origins, the Kinga have lived in the badlands for millennia. Great paintings covering the walls of some of the canyons and cliffs tell some of their legends, about the tales of their gods and about the origins of the world and the Great Maw. Some of the paintings are deceitfully complex for nomadic societies, and many artists from far away lands have risked their lives to contemplate the techniques of the Kinga sacred paintings.

The Kinga tribes are not at peace with each other. The scant resources makes the tribes constantly fight each other to access them, and that has made them very weary of other Kinga. Even when the tribes pact alliances and marriage agreements between them, the Kinga will always keep their hands near their swords and daggers. The Kinga are, in fact, much safer near strangers and outsiders, since they know full well they do not have any intentions of staying in the badlands, and will leave once their business are done. There have been many attempts from explorers and pioneers to search for gold and silver in the arid badlands, since many of the Kinga stories talk about “the land of Gold beneath the sun”. This has been interpreted as there being hidden caches of gold in the region, but the absolute difficulty trying to find it has made near all attempts a failure, and those that have actually found useful resources had to retreat quickly, since the costs of staying outweigh the profits.

The Kinga worship the “Goddess of the Water”, also called the “Goddess of the Forgotten Sea”, who according to kinga myth, drank all the water in the badlands once her husband (the God of the Sun) cooked a dish too hot and spicy for her. In her thirst, she left all but the deepest drops of water in the land completely dry, leaving the region as it is today. Feeling pity for the creatures in the land, she granted them new forms to live in the desert, creating among other the Green Crabs and the Crawl Sharks. However, by the time she was going to give her blessing to the humans in the region, beautiful flowers started to bloom, which captivated the goddess, distracting them from giving her blessing to men. And thus, from that day on, the kinga have to rely on their smarts and skills to survive in the badlands, rather than through any divine blessing.

The Kinga are great hunters, though they can only hunt big prey during certain days according to their religion. Since it’s difficult for life to survive in the area, overhunting could completely exterminate some of the species the kinga need to survive. And thus, the kinga only hunt during certain periods of the year, to avoid damaging the local fauna. All other times, they will feed of the abundant green crabs, which reproduce quite quickly so there is less of a threat for them to disappear. The hunt of the Crawl Shark is a religious event, used by fathers to teach their children how to hunt. Only the men are allowed to hunt, so the fathers will bring their sons to chase down and hunt the dangerous crawl sharks. The sharks hunt in schools, so the hunt consists of separating one member (preferably an old male) and taking it down with arrows and slings. The youth will feed from the shark meat and use its hide to make their turbans, which protect their faces from the sandy winds in the area.

The Kinga have a strange relation with the gnoll. Unlike most people in the world, the Kinga have no inherent fear or hatred against the gnolls. The more savage gnolls cannot survive the arid landscape, and lack of food makes gnoll reproduction and maturation quite difficult, and for those who do survive, the Kinga are allowed to hunt, something they do with pleasure. The civilized gnolls from the Gnoll Empire, however, are received peacefully. All gnoll who decide to cross the badlands do so as a religious pilgrimage, and if they can reach the conclusion they want to do so, they can control their bestial impulses better than most. The gnoll also know they will never reach the Maw’s Spit without the help and guidance of the Kinga, condemning them to a long and painful death in the middle of nowhere. As such, the gnoll and the kinga do have good relations, though that does not mean that conflict cannot arise from time to time. Gnolls bring quite a lot of goods to the Kinga in exchange for guidance to the maw, especially leathers from their beasts within the empire.