The inhabitants of the Beastlands are spread far throughout the plane based on their own personal preferences. Of the few settlements, most are made from roughly hewn logs and look more like temporary fortifications instead of permanent settlements. Those who reside in the Beastlands are mostly the sentient beasts themselves, along with hunters, wardens, the Verdant Guild, and the Faction of One, who are also known as the Signers.

Living in the Beastlands is about immersing yourself in primal instincts, in glorying in the hunt - whether you are the hunter or the hunted, and taking on bestial traits. The sentient beasts all have the ability to talk, and some can even cast spells though they will only do so in extreme danger. The sentient beasts are the petitioners, the souls of those who died and in their afterlife were carried to the Beastlands based off of how they lived. This privilege is reserved for the great hunters, the druids and rangers, and any who gloried in bestial quality of nature. The talking beasts are all these souls from the lowly grasshoppers who hop from one tree to another in the top layer of Krigala, to the mighty jaguars who hunt through the night shrouded forests of the bottom layer, Karasuthra.

Many of the inhabitants don’t take kindly to outsiders poaching through their forests, not because they dislike hunting but because those poachers are only doing so to gain a trophy, and most are often disrespectful to the hunt and its practices. The wardens, and the Verdant Guild, protect this plane from those visitors, often hunting the poachers and scaring them off from the forests. Their goal is to not kill them, but to strike the fear of the hunt into them and to scare them off.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere of the Beastlands is greatly dependent on where you are on the plane, and which layer. The top layer, Krigala, is always in the noon sun with verdant forests, hot savannahs, and blisteringly cold alpine slopes. The beasts that inhabit these areas are always noonday hunters, hunting in the bright light and rejoicing in the perfect beauty. The second layer, Brux, is in the ever-constant twilight of a rising, or setting, sun with its opposite, the moon rising up on the other side of this layer. The beasts that inhabit this layer hunt during the hours of early morning or late evening - wolves, tigers, bears, and others can be found throughout its trees. The bottom layer, Karasuthra, is the pitch black of night with only the moon giving off any light. These are the dark hunters who stalk through the night and is the fiercest of the layers of the Beastlands for only the mightiest hunters stalk through the darkened forests.

Because the sun never changes position in any of these planes, it can be difficult to tell time, though time still passes like normal on every layer of this plane. Most track the progress of a day by the rain showers that move through the plane like clockwork. Once a day rain sweeps across the plane, though it is a light rain that is refreshing and encourages the vibrant growth of life.

Traits

Travel to the Plane

Visitors to the Beastlands often arrive on the first layer by riding the River Oceanus as it winds its way through the four layers of Elysium before arriving on the first layer of the Beastlands and then finishing its journey on the top layer of Arborea. The broad river banks of the River Oceanus attract a lot of life, and for first-time visitors who are clueless to the planes, they can be caught unaware as the River Oceanus suddenly is filled with rapids and waterfalls once they arrive in the Beastlands. The course of the River Oceanus is straight across the Beastlands, dividing it nearly in half.

Other visitors find themselves on this plane by climbing the great World Ash Tree, Yggdrasil. Its branches touch the Beastlands and Elysium, allowing a traveler to traverse from Ysgard, where it originates, to these planes by simply walking along its branches and finding a portal to the Beastlands.

Getting off of the Beastlands is just as easy as it has companion portals to Elysium and Arborea in the form of portals that open and close throughout the forests of the first layer. A portal to Arborea can often be found inside of a hollow oak tree, while a portal to Elysium can be found in the hollow tree of a sequoia.

Traversing the Plane

Traveling across the plane is relatively straightforward and just requires you to walk to your destination, though some are more foolhardy and will try to travel across the River Oceanus on a barge or ship - this typically ends in the craft being crashed against the rocks and any cargo lost to the swirling torrents and currents. Most, who travel by boat, are forced to disembark and drag their craft and cargo along the banks at multiple locations across the Beastlands in order to avoid destroying their vessel.

Walking between the layers of the Beastlands can happen erratically and when you least expect it. Ducking beneath a branch, you might find the afternoon sun replaced with the utter darkness of night, moving from Krigala to Karasuthra. On the other hand, you might be being chased between two trees when all of a sudden the night quickly turns to the early morning sun shining through the thick foliage, moving from Karasuthra to Brux. These portals are common and it is quite easy to accidentally stumble upon them and make your way back to the top layer.