It always fascinates me how peoples and cultures can evolve in isolation from each other, and yet share such similar legends. Take the Turali, for instance. When they appeared here in Alexandria thirty years ago, our cultures could not be any more different, any more separated, and yet even they told tales that sounded oddly familiar to an Alexandrian ear. For instance, we both have a legend where crystalline creatures appear on the fields of war after battle, to feed on all the energies released in the fighting. And the bigger the battle the more energy expended and life force liberated the more terrible the titan that appears to feed. Perhaps the tales were intended as warnings against war: that nature will always punish those who wage it, no matter how powerful they might be. Or perhaps they are simple statements of fact: that here, as in Tural, massive disturbances in the aether are wont to awaken something inside the earth. If crystalline beasts start to appear during a particularly strenuous hunt, don't be surprised if their master isn't far behind!

  There are many examples of odd, ambulant flora in Yak Tel, but the creature we call Neyoozoteel is odder than most. When it comes across anything that it thinks would make good fertilizer, it goes into a frenzy – swinging its roots like gnarled, knotted fists, vomiting corrosive sap every which way, and plucking hard, heavy seeds from its crown to hurl at its quarry like an angry punter at a festival game. The name means "he who spreads his roots," after the way it constantly wanders the jungles in search of sustenance. Wanderings that often bring it into contact with the local population. Encounters that rarely end well. Take the poor folk of Golmajiik Grove. Seems it's taken a liking to the stuff they use to fertilize their banana plots, so every delivery is a nerve–wracking game of cat and mouse. If you're planning to hunt it, perhaps a pinch of it could serve as the cheese in your trap.

  In the Ja Tiika Heartland that stretches below this rise live bird–like seedkin that we call branchbearers. The Starcrier is one of their kind, though it swaps the greens and browns of its brothers and sisters for plumage of an eye–catching crimson hue. And where its siblings have a relatively peaceable nature, it has an unquenchable thirst for blood. None know for sure where it came from, nor why it's so aggressive. Our best guess is that it somehow absorbed a branch of the Tree of Living Light into itself and was transfigured by its magic.

  Have you ever seen a Ty'Aitya? They're herbivores that live among the trees, gliding from bough to bough on wings of skin that stretch from wrist to ankle. Those same wrists sport horny blades that they usually use to saw open seedpods – though the ferocious critters will turn them against anything or anyone that encroaches onto their territory, be it a hungry carnivore or a wayward alpaca. And RASHUICHA is the most ferocious of them all. It seems to care less about guarding its territory than it does about keeping its arm–blades occupied. The name means "the cry of blood" because if you hear its call when you're out in the woods, that's what's likely to follow.

  It's a name from my culture. It means 𢯪st from the underworld" after the number of good Xbr'aal it has dragged to their deaths. It uses its roots like grapnels, stabbing razor–sharp hooks into its quarry's flesh before reeling them in. After planting its seeds in their still–quivering corpses, it'll lay them out in the sun till the next generation sprouts. It's one of the main reasons why Xbr'aal parents always warn their children never go into the forest alone, lest they end up as a Xty'iinbek's brood–bed.

  Many of the old legends of Mamook share the same moral lesson: that he who profanes the forest shall bring a curse upon his head. Every Mamool Ja grows up knowing it's their duty to protect their ancestral lands. One such fable speaks of the foolish Hadoll Ja, who played with fire and set the forest to flame. As punishment, he was cursed to become the Leafscourge – a monster made from the same foliage he turned to ash. The beast is very much real– a fiend born from the forest who summons up storms that reduce villages to ruin. Whether or not it does so to atone for the crimes of its past life is a matter for the mythologians.