Khasanganay, Land of Many Pools

I never thought I'd get so sick of water.
 

— Sodai, Kaia

  Dominated by countless vast caverns, filled with mist and knee-deep pools of fetid water, Khasanganay is a region in the Inner Shell where civilization clings to islands of safety surrounded by vorocious predators. It is a place of water and blood, of boiling fog and rivers of magma, of boats traversing shallows to find food, shelter, and vengence. Superstition has found a home in the minds of those who live here, and they try their best to appease the spirits of the land with sacrifice. In the dark, a thousand wings beat like wardrums.
 
 
 

I'm going to find whoever built this bridge, and I'm going to kiss 'em.
 

— Sodai, Kaia

  Khasanganay is a muggy, wet realm, haunted by streams warm winds that emerge from the far ends of the pool-lands. Heat hangs thick in the air like a wet blanket, rising from bubbling ponds and pools. Most of the region is in water, from knee to waist deep, divided as caverns cut away into tunnels with trickling floods becoming waterfalls at the greatest drop. The further into the heart of Khasanganay one travels, the greater the heat and deeper the pools become.
 

Pool-Lands

The vast mainland of Khasanganay are miles-wide caverns filled with waters. These pools have through ages dug into the stones, creating rings of stone around each one, like the steps of an enormous staircase. Other, older caverns have eroded all barriers between pools and turned into single, vast lakes. Such pools are usually no more than a meter deep, but in some places the water plunges down to unknowable depths. The people in the region have created bridges in the most populated pools with stone and hattick, creating warning caerns where the water is dangerous, and landmarks for merchants to follow. In times of war, these bridges become fiercely contested battlegrounds, as fighting in the pool is near suicide.
 

The Drop
Rumored to lead straight to the Far Deep, the Drop is a pool seemingly without bottom. Never has the ground been found beneath water. Some of the Xuat use the Drop as a site of sacrifice, but most avoid it, claiming it is the womb of terrible spirits.

 
  Outside the holdings of mankind, the creatures of Khasanganay have made their homes among the waters and in the stone. Wasp nets are a common feature of the unclaimed Pool-lands, clustering among every dry stretch of stone or cavern wall, or floating on the waters. Glittering kelp hang from the ceiling with bioluminsceant globules, tainted by parasitic blooms. As the caverns wind towards Khasanganay's heart, they become more barren, and life becomes more unrecognizable as such.
 

The Beads

The Beads are spread across all parts of Khasanganay, smaller caverns that wrap around and sometimes connect parts of the Pool-lands. Some hold estates or farms, ranchland or military outpost, but most are home to the creatures of Khasanganay, particularly the so-called Waspers - a variety of dangerous, insectoid critters native to the region all lumped together as one hostile whole. The Beads-caverns range in size, but none are more than a fraction as large as the great caverns of the Pool-Lands. Many parts of the Bead lead somewhere else, including to lands not yet explored by any Kaia.
  Despite the dangers, the Beads are often the target of expansion and industry. Many, especially once drained, contain deposits of ore and crystals to be exploited, or sludge suitable for raising crops.
 
 

The Heart of Khasanganay

Where water meets fire, life meets death, and I make my exit.
 

— Sodai, Kaia

  Deep within the region, the Heart of Khasanganay is where water gives way first to superheated steam, then to vents of sulfur, fire, and finally magma. From here, unnatural winds blow the heat across the rest of the region, carrying with it the stench of brimstone and disintigrating stone.
 
 

The Heart has its name not only as the believed center of the region, but also by myth that credit its ferocious heat to birthing life in Khasanganay.

  Many parts of the Heart is still unreachable except for a few, tenous trails, as it lies well beyond the domain of humanity and well into the darkness of Araea's wilderness.
 
 
 

Look down, and something drops on you. Look up, and something leaps out of the water. It's a real welcoming place.
 

— Sodai, Kaia

  Khasanganay is a vibrant, busy realm, where life can drink deeply from its waters, no matter how tainted, and grow. The wet cavern walls are often slick with moss, fungi, and blooming cavernous plants, and vines dangle from the ceiling. Insects swarm among the bounty, eating and being eaten by the plantlife, or speared from below by fish, leeches, and abominations that hide in the water. Predators stalk from pool to pool, hunting the life within.
 
 

The bridges made have become small havens of plantlife and other creatures, nesting around the clustered stones. This in turn lures hunters to the bridges, necessitating regular patrols and cleansing expeditions.

  Most numerous in the region are the Waspers - in reality a broad stroke of creatures that often have very little in common except the danger they pose to mankind. The Waspers feature prominantly in Tshoggan culture and religion, and even in their architecture as most buildings in the city-state are built from the fibrous nest-material that Waspers make for themselves.