Plants & Animals

Terrain

Athas is a rocky, cloudless place with howling winds and very little natural shelter. Despite this general uniformity, there are many different biomes even within the Tyrian region of Athas, from the Ringing Mountains and their crowning Forest Ridge to the oceanic Sea of Silt and its vertebral archipelagoes of islands and volcanoes alike. Many creatures of every shape and size reluctantly call these places their homes; below is a set of synopses characterizing what types of plants and animals players should expect to see in some of these locations.

Plantlife

As an expansive desertscape, the common plants across the Tablelands and the greater Tyr region are more cactus-like or succulents. They aren't the only plants that exist on Athas, though - there are many wondrous and rare species that still cling to the cusp of extinction, either somewhere beyond the far reaches of the defiling sorcerer-kings, or protected within their own, palatial manses. There are plants that grow their branches into huge, domed ribcages whose leaves expand out like a flexible film across the wooden skeleton. There are massive cottonwoods with their puffy, white buds blooming during certain times of year. And in the great Forest Ridge, a place only fully explored by the savage halflings who inhabit it, there's no telling what kinds of prehistoric greenery may still be lurking beneath the ancient canopy's shade.

Animals

The fauna of Athas share the same peculiarities that its flora and geography seem to have; there are pervasive elements that can be painted in very broad strokes across the many species that inhabit the world, but each is certainly distinct in its way. For example, mammals, as a rule, are few and far between; there are things like the predatory, psionic hunting cats called Tigones and the gigantic successors of what used to be brown bears, but more commonly across the plains, a traveler will encounter beasts much more well-adapted to the lonesome deserts. Reptiles, flightless birds, burrowing things, and extraordinarily-sized insects and arachnids are very characteristic of Athasian animal life. Most of these species are much too wild, dangerous, or willful to ever be domesticated, like the telepathic Gaj or the giant snakes, scorpions, and arachnids that stalk the dunes at night. Some, however, make excellent beasts of burden, like the ostrich-like Erdlu lizards, the great Inixes that resemble the monitors that used to be, and the humongous mekillots that regularly shoulder entire mobile outposts during times of war. And then there things like the kanks, which are extremely docile riding- and pack-beetles that produce a sweet nectar - which, I might add, both fetches a fair market price and makes for a thick and syrupy wine.

But like the stalwart trees still hanging on from ages past, the animals of Athas keep their own secrets - some from histories far beyond the reach of the memories of even the immortal sorcerer-kings, no doubt. There are things like the silt horrors, the ever-looming, krakenish threat to silt-faring mercantile endeavors, that no one could ever hope to study, and still other things yet that haven't even spared enough survivors to be named.