Kawuk's Run

Kawuk's Run

(Location)

Locale

Valash Raj

Type

Swamp

Residents

Kawuk and its spawn, fisherfolk, bandits

Source: Tian Xia World Guide, pg(s). 231

Kawuk's Run (pronounced KAA-wuuks run) is a region consisting of swampy wetlands in central Valash Raj named for its most infamous inhabitant: the kaiju Kawuk.

Geography

The Run is located in southeastern Tian Xia, north of the Sudisan Peaks, and it stretches hundreds of miles from the mountains' foothills to the Raj's northern Grey Gulf coast. Its waters run as much as 60 feet deep. Rakarit, capital of Valash Raj, is located in the highlands west of the Run, and the regions east of the run are also populated.

Description

Kawuk's Run consists of swamps, marshes, and forests of tall fruit trees and mangroves that serve as the habitat for dinosaurs, river dolphins, fish, and porpoises in addition to the Run's namesake kaiju Kawuk and its spawn.

History

The lands are scattered with remnants of structures from the Jade Hegemon Empire and their Valashai Empire successors, and legends suggest Kawuk itself formed as a natural defense against the Jade Hegemon's geoengineering of the region. Kawuk destroys every building it finds, and the Run's settlements limit themselves to small, scattered structures in order to avoid testing Kawuk's anger.

Inhabitants

Kawuk's activities dominate the Run, and the kaiju roams a specific area of deep swamps within the Run; it ventures only occasionally into the northern Grey Gulf to eat trade ships. Kawuk's spinosaurus-like sail breaking the swamp's waters often signals its approach. Despite the kaiju's size, tendency, and vicious anger toward civilization, locals who ply the Run's waters have adjusted to living near Kawuk to fish the swamp in its' wake.

Kawuk's interventions have likewise kept the swamp largely free of settlement and governmental oversight from the Raj, compared to Rakarit to the west and the dense populations to the east. Bandits roam Kawuk's Run with impunity and live off its plentiful resources, and local adventurers likewise often begin their careers by defending the Run's sparse villages from bandit raids.