Klak-tak

CategoryWastelands
ContinentKarterus
RegionHive
MapKlak-tak Wastes

Klak-tak is a dry rugged landscape splitting the heart of the Hive Region. Cut with hills and crags, many box canyons, chasms and pits descending deep in the subterrrean reaches, Klak-tak was largely ignored in both the Creation War and the Demon Spawn War. It was too dry, with too many places to hide.

In the Lith-Crillion Era, during the rise of the Auhtai city-states, this area was rife with banditry. Difficult and rugged land to cross, civilization and wealth attracted ruffians, bandits and beastly predators. These malcontents lived off the traffic of eight roads and hundreds of side paths. Named the Cutthroat Roads, they led to the edges of this area into jungles and verdant grasslands dotted with the holds of four major peoples. The oldest of these were the Auhtai, a people determined to increase their short lifespans. The next were the Khazarkar, of three castes, refugees of the Otriring Rebalancing of 255 LE. The other two were the Gorantin and the Arachnoid. The Auhtai city-states, the Mantodea, were the big importers of goods, the reason for the roads cutting through an inhospitable landscape better avoided.

The Auhtai Banking System, the ABS, along with security, was what attracted many to live on the borders of Klak-tak. Only Auhtai were allowed to own property and live in the Auhtai city-states. This was on the grounds that non-insectoids would add too many factors to their experiments. The Khazarkars, Gorantin, and Arachnoid built near the borders of the Auhtai, abiding by the ABS one coinage rule and commercial oversight. The ABS handled the imbalances of Mantodea being a gross net importer with periodic high taxes, fees, and re-coining. As for the latter, the coins were called "mez-coins", in reference to the Auhtai's mental prowess.

The truth behind mez-coins was unveiled in the First Epoch. The 16th Expeditionary, explorers hailing from the island city-state of Mechantus learned of a grand scheme backed by a Higher Power named Semuanya. To keep Auhtai research on the path of great advancement, he supplied currency from off-world. Semuanya reason for doing this, a violation of the Mandate of the Heavens, was done to improve the short lifespans, thirty years, of his Auhtai, his most favorite work of Creation.

Beginning on 12 Bloom 1512 HE, and over the next decade, holds great and small fell to the Hive Swarms. Those deep in Klak-tak, and along the extreme southwest, eventually rebuilt, fortifying against the ever-present dangers of Hive's bug swarms.