How this works

 “The jungles don’t recognize time. To them, every year is the same year: one of birth, and of death. The plants and beasts care little for the works of man, but those cities are there — oh yes, they’re there. Toppled spires of stone and stepped pyramids heavy with vines, their golden altars now roosts for chattering macaws. Inside, magnificent chambers stand empty, and those temples that aren’t abandoned are the worst yet — for the things that can survive a thousand years of silence are things best left undisturbed. The great cities, like their mysterious builders, have been forgotten. In time, they will be reclaimed completely by the jungle. As will we all, one day.”

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This site is meant as a resource for my players and is maintained directly and manually by the GM. This site is for use with the Serpents Skull adventure path.
If you're a player in this game and you haven't yet, visit the Character Creation tab to get started! Welcome to the adventure, and may Pharasma have mercy on your soul.

• Follow the tabs in the navigation bar to find:
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• Home: Campaign and site details
• Character Creation: Details regarding how to create a character for this campaign.
• Discoveries: Details on information, magic items, and people encountered or recovered throughout the campaign.
• Explorers: Details regarding living and dead player characters, missions, campaign traits, and the strange powers or occurrences affecting them.
• Profiles: Details regarding all known allied, neutral, rival, enemy, or dead people and factions.
• Surveys: A record and map of locations visited, along with a review of the party's current location.
• Travel Log: A collection of discovered biographies and stories, and a running journal on the events of the adventure so-far.
• Jungle Law: Rules details for playing at the table, in this campaign, and in the jungle.

Tribes of the Frontier

• Click to Unfold the Native Tribes' Forward:
• Click to Fold-up the Native Tribes' Forward:
• While colonists find it difficult to distinguish between the various tribes and ethno-linguistic groups in Mwangi, the local tribespeople recognize distinctions every bit as definitive as those between Ulfen and Taldan - and most all of them bristle at being lumped together colloquially as simply "natives." Those that interact with them frequently realize there are six major heritages within the blanket Mwangi ethnicity, each containing a handful of dominant tribes:

• Bekyar - The Raiders:
• Click to Flee from the Bekyar...
• Bekyar tend to be tall, and their hairstyles often involve long and elaborate braids, sometimes incorporating silk headwraps. The majority of the Bekyar peoples hunt for game and raid other communities for food, resources, and - most importantly - people. What they do with their captives varies by tribe, which tend to fall under one of two subcategories:
  • Bandu - These slavers infest the Bandu Hills, which are in turn named after this tribe, turning an already dangerous and hostile area into one fraught with enough peril that few brave the territory, despite the promised riches. Much of their civil dealings with outsiders is limited to human trafficking - either buying a slave or a captives freedom. Since the colonization of Sargava, they have come to view the light-skinned foreigners as emissaries of the "northern gods," and as such they particularly prize these captives as sacrifices to their nature spirit deities.
  • Yemba - The Yemba are a smaller tribe rarely encountered by colonists but often spoken of in ghost stories as they are, if accounts are accurate, cannibals. The Yemba (whose name translates to ghoul) supposedly live along the River of Lost Tears and its many tributaries, and can be found by following the sounds of beating drums deep in the dark forests at night, where they can be encountered feasting upon human flesh in a ritual presided over by witch doctors known only as the "Yemba-bo" or "Ghoul-talkers".

• Bonuwat - the Seafaring:
• Click for the Bonuwat to Set Sail...
• Bonuwat - the Seafaring: Bonuwat mostly appear along the coastline and are typically shirtless, sometimes wearing paint instead of cloth, and they usually keep their hair cropped short, in cornrows, or shaved for the sake of being hydrodynamic. The Bonuwat have a seafaring heritage, and their communities pop up everywhere both water and fish can be found. These people tend to fall under one of two subcategories:
  • Ijo - Perhaps the friendliest of the local tribes, the Ijo spend their days on the open waters. Their tendency to dress in little more than loincloths is a source of embarrassment to some of the more genteel colonials, but it is a matter of simplicity to the Ijo who spend most of their time either in or on the water under the hot sun. They sell their daily catch all across Sargava and maintain cordial relations with most colonials and tribespeople, keeping their clashes on and under the sea.
  • Ombo - These merchants have loosely aligned themselves with the pirates of the Shackles and have adopted much of their sense of style, often wearing loose-fitting pantaloons and jewelry, and little else. They have found the slave trade to be particularly lucrative, often trading captives with the Free Captains on behalf of the Bandu, and occasionally preying upon the Ijo when they're found alone in open water.

• Caldaru - the Chosen:
• Click to Jumble the Caldaru...
• Caldaru - the Chosen: With skin tones ranging from olive to dark bronze, the Caldaru dress in long, flowing robes that take in the breeze and cool the skin. Believing themselves to be the chosen people, the majority of their people were enslaved or dispersed when outsiders first reached the Mwangi Expanse. Rather than assimilating, they have absorbed much of the knowledge of these far-flung communities while maintaining their identity, setting up their own communities to trade and sell their expertise. These diaspora congregate close to one-another wherever they are found, looking forward to one day establishing a kingdom in a city of their own.

• Mauxi - the Mysterious:
• Click for the Mauxi to Follow the Herd...
• Mauxi - the Mysterious: The Mauxi typically wear head wraps to protect themselves from the sun while favoring a variety of colorful robes and textiles. These people are typically nomadic and peaceful, but ready to defend themselves. The mauxi are further subcategorized by the heard animals they follow across the expanse, with the following two being predominant:
  • Bas'o - These Mauxi follow the antelope heard in and out of Sargava, not caring for the borders drawn by the colonials anymore than the herds mind them. While peaceful, they have learned to be distrustful of strangers, and are not to be trifled with, having a deeply ingrained warrior culture ready to react violently to perceived challenges or threats.
  • Elephant People - Scattered groups of nomads living alongside their elephant companions, these groups are collectively known as the elephant people. While not numerous, their incorporation of mighty elephant cavalry alongside ivory spears make them dangerous to challenge. The communities have themselves forgotten their ancestral name, having thought of themselves as "elephants in man-skin" for generations.

• Vidric - the Naturalized:
• Click to Send the Vidric to Work...
• Vidric - the Naturalized: With a skin tone ranging from fair to ebony, the Vidric people are those who have spent generations under colonial rule (either willingly or as servants), and after generations of intermixing and learning the ways of their colonizers, they no longer identify with the ethnic traditions or heritages of their ancestors. These people tend to wear a mix of Chelish and Mwangi clothing and worship gods from the inner sea (but with decidedly Mwangi traits). The name "Vidric" is derived from the ancestral name of modern Sargava, and those who visibly support independence or revolutionary movements tent to wear chains or a pair of chain-less bracelets, though some view this tendency as tacky or confrontational. While they no longer have truly distinct heritages, they can be further subcategorized slightly:
  • Colonial Natives - These people are descended from Chelish colonists, but were born and raised in Sargava, it being the only country and culture they know. While the culture and traditions of the inner sea are dominant amongst them, their style and lifestyle are shaped by their new environment. Many colonial natives speak polyglot (though it would be scandalous if they couldn't also speak proper common), and some have incorporated local religious adaptations into their own beliefs. Generations ago, it was disgraceful to intermix with the local Mwangi, but today intermarriages are not looked down upon, only uncommon, and multi-toned children join their fair-skinned families in the upper-crust of society.
  • Mulaa - The Mulaa people are those whose ancestors come from Eleder and the M'neri Plains, and their culture has been shaped by their peaceful interactions with the bonuwat and zenj, alongside generations of being preyed upon by the Bekyar. The first group to be conquered by Cheliax when they established sargava, they are also the most fully integrated, and while they occupy the lower rungs of society in Eleder, the majority of them make up Sargava's middle class.
  • Kalabuta - The Kalabuta people are those who have lived in Kalabuto for generations, and while they have come to identify with the colonists more than their own heritage, they still retain some cultural idiosyncrasies. Their numbers and distance from the rest of sargava have also given them more independence than their Mulaa counterparts, though they're proximity to the Bandu Hills, the Mzali, and the Screaming Jungle makes their lives decidedly more dangerous. The vast majority of the Kalabuta remarkably poor.

• Zenj - the People:
• Click to Divorce the Zenje and Zenju...
• Zenj - the People: While closely related and sharing many customs, the Zenj are clearly divided between the matriarchal savannah dwelling Zenje and the patriarchal jungle dwelling Zenju. Despite their differences, the Zenj typically see themselves as one people who happen to be living in different communities, and they often trade freely, celebrate together, and even come to one another's defense or aid, though they rarely inter-marry due to cultural differences regarding gender. Legend says that long ago they were one tribe when a patriarch who was afraid of hunting a predator insisted that a vegetarian diet was far healthier, causing the two groups to split. While pronounced the same, the details of these two subcategories are as follows:
  • Zenje - The semi-nomadic matriarchs of the savannah, these people move between settlements they have constructed that they only occupy for a few months at a time, following the herds of their prey. The most popular Zenje fashions incorporate animal skins, with rarer animals denoting ones status.
  • Zenju - The highly stationary patriarchs of the jungle, these people live in long homes and live an agricultural lifestyle. They tend to wear simple textiles and are well known for medicinal herbs, making them tempting targets for Bekyar raiders, and for knowing how to safely cook foods that are ordinarily poisonous - often morbidly joking with outsiders about the chefs lack of skills while they dine on the ordinarily-deadly meals.

• Click to Catalogue the Remaining Native Tribes:
• Click to Jumble the Native Tribes:
• Amongst the native Mwangi Humans, the Lirgeni, Mzali, Uomoto, and Yamasan peoples occupy various settlements far outside of sargava, and consider themselves distinct tribes, though they typically share a heritage with one of the other major groups. The Elves native to the Mwangi expanse typically fall into either the Alijae, Ekujae, or Kallijae groups. The native Dwarves are typically either of the Mbe'ke or Taralu clans if they didn't sail in with the colonists. Gnomes are not native to the area but have come in droves with the colonists, along with Halflings and a handful of Half-orcs, though rarely native Song'o halflings or Matanji orcs are encountered. There are also communities of several other intelligent (but not always humanoid) races native to the expanse - most of whom are hostile - including: Anadi, Biloko, Boggard, Catfolk, Charau-Ka, Conrasu, Gnoll, Goloma, Grippli, Kaava, Ketch, Kobold, Leshy, Lizardfolk, Mbaiki, Sabosan, and Shisk. There is also a relative abundance of intelligent flora and fauna (especially amongst the Apes and Gorillas), as well as fevered rumors of both Planar Scions and Serpentfolk, those these are likely tall-tales.