The Selva

Appearance
To those who live in it, The Selva is an endless rainforest that expands into nearly every direction as far as the eye can see, stopped only by the edge of the Cadogan Mountains in the east. Trees older than civilisations and as wide as a city scrape the clouds, and are home to whole generations of tribes. Monsters, animals and fairies lurk in every shadow, hungry for unwary travellers. To travel alone is suicide and threatening someone with "spending a night in the Selva" is akin to a death threat. Whole tribes live and die without ever setting foot outside of the jungle, and you can travel for weeks in any direction without ever getting anywhere near a forest edge.

Unlike the wider world, the Selva basin has only two seasons - wet, and dry. Both are hot and humid, but during the wet season rain driven from the Cadogan mountains hammers the jungle at all times, swelling the rivers and creating swamps.

Economy
The Selva is vast, and home to innumerable tribes, cities and even civilisations, comprised of many different races. This means that nearly everything is produced or sold somewhere. That said, the immense root system of the Selva and the spells woven on the land in much of the jungle make traditional agriculture difficult and the jungle has a tendency to swallow all but the most vigilantly guarded fields. This means that in most places, the only farming is subsistence agriculture augmented with hunting the beasts of the jungle. Between the various tribes, trade tends to be limited to individual items or animals. There are also many predatory groups who exist by raiding the more settled villages, meaning that even more established tribes often move their settlements to try to hide from attackers.

The biggest trading hub in the area is Amaroth, which attracts traders from all over the Selva as it offers the safest and most lucrative way to sell their goods. In Amaroth and other settlements at the edges of the jungle there is also a great trade in lumber as the great trees are felled to be put to other uses. There are also a number of ‘claims’ made by external forces, often Dwarves, who go into the Selva and take lumber or other resources back to their homelands - this is often to the detriment of the local people who suffer the retribution meted out by angry Spirits, Gods and Fae. The thick undergrowth of the jungle also covers the remains of many older failed civilisations, many of whom still contain valuable treasures long forgotten by time…

Culture
Home to a hundred different cultures and civilisations, those who live in the jungle nonetheless often have some traits in common. Humans who call the Selva home are called Selvani. Common among Selvani as well as other humanoids of the jungle is a tendency towards mistrust of strangers and an instinct to only trust family and close friends. This is because the Fae of the forest love to infiltrate towns and cause mischief - to say nothing of the ever-present threat of a spy from a rival town coming to gather information for a raid. Resources seem abundant, but the constant need to defend yourself from threats makes people wary and cold towards outsiders.

On the other side of the coin, while Selvani folk may not be welcoming to strangers they are also rarely immediately hostile - another common Fae trick is to appear as an old lady or injured child to test the hospitality of a settlement. Those in need are therefore treated with a wary politeness. It is also possible to win over the Selvani through deeds (not by words, words are the tools of tricksters) as hard struggle against the unforgiving jungle has taught its inhabitants that the enemy of your enemy can sometimes be your friend, and someone in need cannot be too proud to accept help that is offered. For most in the jungle, the attitude between humanoids is that the Selva is the enemy, and everyone else is just struggling to survive it.

History
The earliest histories that mention the Selva are those of the Giants, who talk about a great arable plain with mountains on two sides. According to the Giants, it was them who planted the first seeds of the Selva to serve as an orchard and source of lumber. The Selva’s current size is therefore due to a combination of Giant seeds (growing into giant trees) and extreme age - the rule of the Giants was tens of thousands of years ago. Slightly more recently, although still several thousand years ago, the Selva was ruled by a connected system of ziggurats constructed and maintained by the Yuan-ti and their bloodthirsty gods. The Yuan-ti used the rest of the jungle’s population as fuel for a never-ending procession of sacrifices and brutal festivals, until one day the entire system fell apart for reasons no-one now is entirely clear on. The remaining Yuan-ti were pushed to the fringes, pariahs in an unfriendly jungle, and the ziggurats fell into ruin. The most recent significant change was the founding of Amaroth 600 years ago, the first major settlement since the fall of the Yuan-ti empire.