Land of the Hunt

Unlike the rest of Colothys’s impossible slopes and lifeless spires, the Land of the Hunt is lush, breathable, and alive. While the terrain remains perilous, it offers habitable canyon floors, dense game trails, and passable roads rarely seen elsewhere in the layer. This makes it one of the few places in Colothys where true survival and society are possible, but only for the strong.   The air itself is different here, thicker, sharper. It amplifies scent and sound, turning each breath into a clue, each step into a whisper of intent. Yet only predators or those attuned to nature—such as rangers, druids, or beastkin, can harness this heightened awareness. For others, it is overwhelming and disorienting.  

Settlements and Societies

Despite the habitable valleys, the denizens of Menas prefer the high ground. Hundreds of mountain caves dot the cliffs, each housing a pack, a loosely structured tribe whose size can range from four to four thousand. These packs function as nomadic clans, warbands, and extended families, all following a singular alpha chosen through ritual combat to the death.   Though territorial and brutal, a few packs engage in trade. They exchange hardened furs, bonecraft, and preserved meat for tools they cannot forge themselves, metal weapons, arrowheads, or magical trinkets. However, locating these trade-friendly packs without prior contact is near suicidal; asking at random is considered madness, and is often interpreted as a challenge.  

Inhabitatants of the Pack-Law

The Followers of Menas live and die by the Hunt. Their society is meritocratic and brutal. anyone may rise to leadership by defeating the current alpha in single combat. No lineage matters, only strength. Packs engage in blood-duels, beast-hunts, and even ritual cannibalism, consuming the flesh of fallen rivals to absorb strength or honor the hunt. They are not mindless savages, however. They are keen tacticians, fierce survivors, and master trackers—equally at home scaling vertical cliffs or ambushing prey from high passes. Their faith in Menas is not ceremonial, it is lived through action, proven in every breath, every stalk, every kill.

The Game That Hunts Back

The Land of the Hunt teems with dangerous wildlife, but none of it is tame. The prey here are predators themselves, often more powerful than the hunter, and always evolving. Slaying a beast with brutality and cunning results in greater rewards—the meat becomes richer, the bones stronger, the pelt more resilient. The realm is not a training ground; it is a crucible of dominance, where death is both currency and consequence.

The Land of the Hunt offers two “services” to outsiders: guides and mercenaries:  

Guides

Skilled rangers or Pathmasters can lead travelers between layers of Carceri, threading the maze-like trails of Colothys. Yet every guide is a predator, and the journey may end with the client led into an ambush if they are deemed weak or dishonorable.  

Mercenaries

Packs sometimes rent their finest warriors. These scouts, assassins, and feral champions are renowned for their ruthless efficiency. It is this service alone that spares Menas’s people from extermination by other Colothys factions.