The Üshalek: Forest of Bones
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- For thousands of years, the Shu have spoken of a haunted forest north of the known world called the Üshalek: Forest of Bones. Its origins are much debated. This mysterious forest rejects most animal life, instead making its own floral beasts built upon the skeletons of those unfortunate intruders who fail to heed its many warnings.
Tales of Kaimere: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/tale...
Paperback ISBN: 9781087927442
Hardcover ISBN: 9781087919560
Patreon: / illustratedmenagerie
Instagram: / illustrated_menagerie
Twitter: / talesofkaimere
DeviantArt: www.deviantart.com/illustrate...
Music Credit: "You're Not Hiding Very Well"
by Trevor Kowalski
Cheers to StoneBone for sponsoring this Halloween Special!
Email theillustratedmenagerie@gmail.com to sponsor an episode!
Damn, the Üshalek is truly hardcore, very much a sign of Eldritch Horrors and the Unknown that is beyond both the Known World and our own comprehension
Since you rooted kaimere in more “real” aspects of biology and speculative evolution, when you do make use of magic to create these abominations it hits really hard because (at least to me) you get this awful HOLY SHIT THAT’S A REAL BEING sensation that is a total nightmare fuel
10/10 work man, you really do know what you’re doing here
Thank you so so much!!
"I... I am a monument... to all your sins!" Gravemind
Love this one, it's definitely foreboding and something even the mightiest of beasts know not to venture into to least they become quite literally one with the Forest of Bones.
Thank you! Was so much fun to work on
Well, thank you good sir for giving me my new sleep paralysis demon.
Jokes aside, I have been curious about other natural manifestations of magic for some time, so this was absolutely exciting to watch! And it definitely makes me want to know more about what other horrors like the Ushalek await beyond the known world.
I wonder if you’ll ever talk about the Quiet Ones from Kaishel. The idea that there is something on that continent that forces everyone and every animal to maintain strict silence is fascinating to me.
What’s the quiet ones xx
@@abysswalker2594 On the Kaimeran continent of Kaishel, there's a species of terrifying creatures that hunt using sound and attack anything that makes a sound. They've literally terrified an entire continent into being silent.
@@ianswinford5570 dame and sorry about the xx force of habit
@@ianswinford5570 and I wonder what creature could make an whole island silent or could
@@abysswalker2594 Why? does xx mean something?
Damn! I think I've finally found an ecosystem more dangerous than Peter Jackson's Skull Island! It's absolutely incredible! and this actually reminds me a lot of the movie Matango or attack of the mushroom people where the humans in that movie slowly turn into the creatures that reside on the island. Great job once again on making a fantastic peice of Kaimere!
Man ! Dude ! Jesus !
This episode, I think we will all be universally honest and agree on this, is by far the darkest and creepiest episodes and Kaimere's lore contents stuff so far made and shown to this day !
You really manage at the perfection to put in scenery are really mysterious, lifeless, cursed, horrific, disgusting and unsettelling place that will made fear every people even by only hearing the name...
It's like Blair Witch movies and The Forest video game (2018) at the same time, for a result way more worse than the originals...
A place where everyone goes never return...
Thank you!!
Not returning is the best of circumstances for them you mean? Like, them dying quickly is the best outcome? Believe me, I was never this terrified nor horrified by anything I knew as a fact or fiction. This speaks volumes how amazingly creative the author is.
Ok, just as info, Keenan have revealed/confirmed that this terrific location, "Ushalek the forest of Bones and Skulls" is almost the size of the Amazonian Forest, in comparison.
The location is also set just at the borders of the Known World region near the Houze Prairie biome, being separated from this latter by a moutain channel.
The forest also go to the coast and beach at the East of the Ni'khar Northern Continent.
The thumbnail hits hard Keenan. Doesnt help though that the video keeps buffering on the more ominous illustrations in my unlit bedroom.
Dam ! The first screen is an incredible shot ! Really creepy, disgusting, horrible and unsettelling as in a horror movie such "Cannibal Holocaust" or "Project Blair Witch" !
I not gonna lie, I love when Tales of Kaimere go and have the courage to get into really dark and horrifiyng stuff, the kind to not put on everyone hands and be watch by everyone eyes !
Sure, we already have a lot of really dark and +18 deaths kind of stuff in the Book One Anthology stories, but here, it's on a total another superior level !
Because here, we speak about a real corpse/dead body in advance decomposition put on display by someone (or something...), for many possible reasons, all as treatening than the others !
All the others shot (landscapes) and the zombified creatures are also amazingly (or disgustingly because I guess that was the objective) well made !
Awesome video. Couple of questions out of general curiosity; has the assembly ever funded expeditions here independent of or alongside the great library, and if so what form have they taken? I'm also curious about whether the forest would meet mechanical drones or exploration robots with the same or greater hostility it does megafauna? My final question is about the first children, between this to the north or the silent forests to the south, which did they fear more, and are there any other areas of great magic they were prevented from settling?
I remember you mentioning this place a few times in the past and I was for a long time wondering what was going on there. I really enjoyed the concept and the horror vibe. Such a good Halloween special!
Thank you!! Was fun to realize it a bit more.
Wow! Easily my favourite video thus far, and probably some of the best horror worldbuilding I've seen in a very long time. Often the problem with leaving a location or monster unknown is that the scholars of your world might propose a theory, and then that theory is what the audience thinks the thing really is, destroying the illusion. However, in this you mention several theories, each seeming just as likely as the other, which I think worked great to preserve the mystery of the Üshalek.
I am super excited for Songs of the Inland Sea and also the Lost Hellfighter. Please, take your time with these, as much as you need, even if it means a small hiatus, it will be worth it and I think will do the books (and any future Tales of Kaimere books) a service.
Well ... between the Titanosaur Plant Hybrid Abberation Guardian at 5:00 and the Infected Sauropod from Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal, I don't know which is the one we would prefer if we had the possibility to meet them !
This has got to be one of my favorite videos on this channel. Excellent work and happy Halloween!
Thank you very much!!
This forest reminds me of Fangorn Forest in Middle-Earth. There, walking tree beings called Ents and sentient sessile trees called Huorns often preyed upon those who wander into their forest out of resentment. Those who enter the forest rarely find their way out again. It also calls to mind a swamp from Avatar: The Last Airbender, wherein what looks like a vast forest is actually a single tree connected by multiple bodies, knowing everything that goes on within its boundaries.
But in these two examples, it's not the forests themselves who are dangerous.
In fact, they are pretty harmless. They are just normals forests.
It's the beings and inhabitants that inhabit these forest, who act as guardians, who are in fact defensive against potential dangerous people that enter them.
The Ents are a sapient specie of wise and good creatures, even if quite reclusive, and are good toward anybody, whatevers his species, who isn't bad and a danger for them and their forest and who respect nature as a whole.
At the exception of the Orcs, because every Orcs are naturally bad and evil.
So the Ents attack at view every Orcs they see, and have an natural hate towards this specific specie (with legitimate reasons).
Outside that, even if the forest in which they live seem to be lifeless, they accept every kind of animals in their territory.
Also, the Huorns are in fact Ents, but in a state in which they are blocked. They aren't sentient because they keep their natural mentality.
Also, Ents aren't trees at all themselves, but have just the appearances of it.
In ATLA TV Show universe (sadly killed by the stupid thoughless LGBT progressism, let be all agree on that), the forest is a unique organism and not several trees togethers.
The forest accept every animals life, but is a little defensive toward humans.
In order to prevent problems, the forest have made a symbiosis with a tribe of Water Benders that live in the Earth Kingdom (the only water benders to live in this country).
First, the forest create a tornado (if the wanderer fly above her) to put them in the ground.
And she make them hallucinate with hallucinantions of previous key moments or characters of that the wanderer have meet, in order to confuse and scared them.
And after that, let the Water Benders repel the wanderers by disguising as a giant plant monster.
Here, the Ushalek is a forest composed by several trees that act as a single entity, who actualy really hate any kind of animals life and take the body of every animals life that enter her territory and mind controlled them to make them slaves. In addition to transform them into animals-plants hybrids.
Hybrid that end up dying one day and they decompose with their bones put only display overtime on the trees themselves, as warning signal to repel any others kind of lifeforms to enter her.
I have been waiting for this video all day
This might be a great setting for an outsider story. Those stories of people born with curses or disabilities that hampered them but when entering a dangerous task comes in handy. For instance where the Kaimeran is infused with magic that light things on fire or has a death aura around them.
A story of a man with a Kaimeran case of leprosy might be an interesting character for an outcast turned explorer of the forest of Bones. His curse turns into a blessing due to the forest magic dying when coming into contact with their diseased skin. Since they already look dead or dying the forest often ignores them. The reason for the man to enter the forest is to die due to his exiled life but on surviving the forest discovers that he can go where others can't. Later while documenting the forest of bones he comes across discarded device. It was a weird siphon pump made of what looked to be bronze like metal. exiting the forest he discovered that you light the front end and use the pump. Flame shot from it and because of the metal use it which was a bronze the native magic in the forest. Knowing that the forest would come after anything that would harm it it was decided the man would use it in emergency's.
The man with leprosy came across an elk guardian when it noticed he was living. While being charged the intruder raised his device and fired a torrent of flame at the elk. The living dead creature burst into flame and then collapsed. The man then hurried away and found a animal skull to place on his head blend in and waited for the forest to descend on him. The more he waited the more he felt strange. Bits of magic from the skull then tried to kill him but could not stay on long enough to spread too far due to the leprosy. A guardian then approached from a hidden position. Wheeling around the man let off another torrent. The creature stopped in its tracks, turned around, and fled in the opposite direction. Standing up he noticed parts of him had returned. The magic decided instead of replacing the man's cells it would try to cover him and change him that way. However all this had done was restore missing parts of flesh (that would constantly grow then fall off as he found out later).
This could be a Kaimeran folktale.
Just a couple things to add to this Idea.
First the item the leper found is known as the horn of wildfire. For one is an ancient version of a handheld flamethrower (which did exist on earth based on a byzantine handheld flamethrower). this was probably made by the first ones and enchanted. The effect of the enchantment on the bronze instrument ignites Kaimeran magic. Imagine the magic like cells. The cells catch a disease and spread to others while bursting into flame. Unlike a disease however it only has an area of affect and can only go out of control like natural flame can in the right conditions. This makes the flame thrower as effective on magical creatures as the regular flame is on non magical creatures. The fuel however is what limits it. The recipe is tied to the weapons memory.
Now the Kaimeran form of leprosy is a tricky one to come up with. Its origins probably came with certain earth creatures through the portal. Since Kaimere didn't have an immunity it spread and over the ages mutated due to the magic of the world. In Kaimerans it would be a rare disease but treated similar to the version on earth. People would be exiled from the settlement if they had it.
How would a leper share his discoveries. Well ether from a safe distance away from travelers walking by or in the case of the story through books sterilize overtime. These books could be dangerous because if not left out long enough will still contain the disease. Great care is taken and pays for the precious information inside.
Great stuff, my favorite example of Kaimeren magic so far!
that was very spooky Keenan and another well done video hope we get to see the songs of the inland sea and lost hellfighter soon
Man, this is AWESOME!!!! I love the idea of the forest!! really love the artworks especially th Uktan, which looks really terrifying!!
Thank you!!
First talk of shape shifters,then chimera, the death angels from a quiet place, now an eldrich forest diety?
Got all kinds in these here parts
Fascinating! Very fresh and spooky idea indeed!
Thank you!!
All love from Finland.
Great episode, I almost shivered.
Thanks! Was endlessly fun to work on
This is the coolest horror I've ever seen! I'd love to watch one or more kaimerans find their way into the Üshalek and trying to find their way out (either running from a carnivore or going on an expedition)!
Thank you!! Is definitely a setting I wish to explore more
That is truly terrifying, incredible
Is the forest growing in radius? That would be truly horrific if so.
ive heard of maneating jungles made from flesh, but this? this is new.
so this is amazing and you are amazing. I have some suggestions with audio: when you flub a word or want to replace a take, clap loudly three times near the mic. This will show up as spikes in the waveform when you are editing, and you can more easily remove the error without having to stop and listen through as much. Second, once you are done, try using a noise filter and normalization on the whole track (should be in effects in your editing software) this will keep any replacements you record later from sounding off (mostly)
oh and i find that it usually pays to just re record the whole sentance or sentance fragment containing an error rather than just a single wrong word. sounds more natural
This was really terrifying. Happy Halloween.
Thank you and happy Halloween!
😱 Grimmly Spectacular Biome!! Is like "Sticks and stones may break my bones" but between Crooked Marvels!! 🌳🌲🌿🍄🦴☠️💀 Jolly Green Halloween!!
Awesome
YIKES!!!! This gives me merkwood of The Lord of the Rings series vibes, along with the batman villain, poison ivy!
Thank you!!
A vast haunted death forest, a massive Andean/Himalayan scale mountain chain to the East, and semi-arid plains comparable in size to North America's, all serve as a huge barrier that isolates the more settled Known World.
Keenan. This is horrifying. Stunning work. That is all.
Thank you!!
This was quite chilling
Thank you!!
Man that's creepy! I'm surprised there isn't a horror film or creepypasta based on this subject. My hat goes off to you.
Thank you! Will definitely be using this forest as a subject for a future short story!
@@TalesofKaimere Awesome! So where did you get the inspiration from?
Random Question : Just to the last Bat videos from last week, as precisions I want to known :
1 - Outside the Insectivorous bats, the Frogivorous bats (the Flying Fox/Megabats) and the Vampires bats (Desmodus bat), are there also piscivorous bats (who catches fishs, like the Myotis and Noctilio bats), nectarivorous bats (who eat flowers liquid, and contribute to pollinisation in addition, like the Glossophaginae) and carnivorous bats (who hunt small games such living rodents or lizards) ?
2 - If these three last kind of bats are present on Kaimere, do they do well and a little better than the three firsts kind since they do not compete in the same ecological niche than the Anurognathid and Multitubeculates
3 - Outside the Sharkomora, are there others, generic, vampire desmodus bats ?
This video just makes me wish there was a witcher like game of Kaimere
Someday 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼
Same
well, that was terrifying, great job!
My guess is that it was one of the hives to feed on plants, and they decided that animals just aren't worth the trouble.
Quick question for that sake of all our sanities, how large is the forrest?
Thank you! I thought I included a slide of its location but I guess not! It’s about a thousand miles wide and maybe four thousand miles up the coast.
Thanks! The fact that that is almost as big as the amazon scares me greatly
@@TalesofKaimere holy crap that's big, thought this was like a one-valley thing
This is great, I hope it appears in future stories! If the magic of the forest hates animals, how does it react to invertebrates? Because I would imagine, that it would be impossible to keep them out.
Well, first, Keenan confirmed that a Tales of Kaimere story novella will be set/take place in this location, in a some point in a coming future.
And two, the forest consider as a treat any kind of animal life as a treat. So she will attack even all invertebrates as possible, it's just she can't turn them into slaves as guardians because they haven't skeleton.
It absolutely will! And it generally allows small invertebrates and rodents unless they get overpopulated or cause trouble. They do have a range of contingencies for that, including chemical attacks, tiny guardians made of arthropods or anteaters, and other deterrents
@@TalesofKaimere
Good to know! I am definitely foward to read a story about it.
So... I have some questions on what we just see here :
1 - What the name Üshalek mean ?
2 - This forest is one single organism or a specie of trees that cooperate ?
3 - Where this forest's location ? I can guess at the borders of the Known Wolrd region near the Houze Prairie ... but is this thing acting as a fence that cut the Houze Prairie part inside the Known World to the rest of the Houze Praire outside the Known World borders.
4 - The zombies animals and beings who are catch are killed with the plants controlled their now dead bodies, or alive but mind controlled and with any feeling of any kind ?
5 - If they are mind controlled, what we see is very similar to the famous Cordyceps mushroom case with the ants. Is it a some kind inspirations ?
6 - There also many similarities we can made between what we see and the "The Last of Us" universe, have you seen the games and the ennemies in it as inspirations ?
7 - The Megaloceros deer we see show clearly not be entirely turned into plant, with clear visible remaining flesh parts on him. In final, the animals become more hybrids abberation than anything, right ?
8 - The Shu who is attacked by the undead/infectted young Uktan is the same we see at 5:30 ?
Hans, get ze Flamenwarfer!!!
An idea of speculative evolution for the forest of Üshalek: during its history, some animals entered the forest but were infected by colonies of magic which gave them vegetable characteristics, which had the effect of making them invisible to Üshalek (or at least, very hardly noticeable) or partially immune to the local magic (logic, you can't change something into what it already is). And in development some additional adaptations, such as avoiding guardians and non-vegetated animals (which will inevitably attract gardins), a stronger immunity and have more plant characteristics to fool Üshelak, we get endemic species from this cursed forest, which are basically grass-type pokemons (or if you prefer a more "scientific" term, fauna-flora like in the Monsterverse Skull Island).
Great art.
Thanks man!
October is my favorite month!
Heck yeah!!
@@TalesofKaimere I agree
Absolutely horrific… I LOVE IT!!!!!
Thank you!!!
Happy Halloween (yesterday)
The spookiest place
Outside the people sent by the Great Library for sciences purposes, most of the people/kaimerans that have gone (and die whatever inside or outside due to the infectation) to this cursed forest were Shu people.
Really, all the fears, scaring legends, myths, rumors about this locations must be obviousely be very high in term of level, and all the Known World is aware of his existence and his dark subjects about it.
And knowing perfectly what wait them if they go into this forest, almost all the kaimerans agree to not go, and don't even try to uncovers the secrets of this place.
Only a really small minority of kaimeran try, but, of course, if these latter must think to be proud and courageous, all the others kaimerans as a whole regard them, and very legitimately at this case, as just idiots and stupids folks that go directly to their death (at reason !).
Well, for a noon EST released episode, he come pretty late in the day !
Had you problem during for it's post ?
How Ushalek reacts to insects and invertebrates in general? It also creates plant replicas (like plant mosquitos and earthworms)?
Usually it lets little inverts do their thing, but has ‘anteaters’ and other measures in place to prevent overpopulation
Happy Halloween Keenan
Happy Halloween!
I can imagine that is the assembly would try to go to this forest, they would have to have a bunch of hazmat suits
Certainly would demand a lot of precautions!
Absolutelly fascinating, specially the idea of the guardians, but I got a question, are any plantlife with muscle like tissue?
Thank you! Basically replaces muscles with plant cells. Function as muscle tissue just using plant dna
Just curious but how did placoderms fare in kaimere? Since the portal has been harvesting life since the Devonian then surly several placoderms ended up there.
Placoderms have very high chances to be present, but for know, Keenan confirmed anything yet on them.
@@dudotolivier6363 I imagine the larger ones like Dunklyostous would have been hunted to extinction or out competed by plesiosaurs and pliosaurs. The only ones still alive would most likely be the smaller more generalist species.
Kaimere has a moon right? Are there any creatures on that moon, either native magic or beings imported from other star systems?
Also very good video.
Thank you! I'm not sure about life on Kaimere's moon, but the moon is present.
......
Hehe,
good luck sleeping tonight :) also, *steals idea for own project cutely*
Will you make a story based on this?
Absolutely on the agenda.
Am I the only one who still can't understand what exactly the first kids were?
The music for this episode was AMAZING!!! Definitely brought the horrors of the eldritch forest to life💀.
I have a question about homunculi. Since some can reproduce sexually are there any instances of homunculi being integrated into populations of naturally occurring animals or vice versa?
It's highly unlikely since most of the Homunculies are sapient, and will not mate with not sapient beings (it's like us humans, we will not mate with animal, except for the few zoophile of us...).
Only the primitive Homunculies species, who are mentaly like animals, can do such things.
But even here, instinctively, they will mate with members of their kinds, and exceptionaly with another specie.
But even here, it's unlikely that some progeny can happen since most Homunculies are hybrids between differents lifeforms, and have a huge lot of animals in their genome at the same time.
Thank you!!
That happened with quite a few ‘class 1’ Homunculi which are really just magically enhanced animals or those with a few traits of other animals. It’s a topic I plan to unpack more in future episodes.
@@TalesofKaimere Can’t wait!
Initially I only really had interest in the naturally occurring animals but as we’ve gotten to learn more about magic and how it works and what it can do homunculi have become more and more interesting to me!
At least the quite ones let the those who are quiet live, this place is nightmare fuel on nitro
It’s probably the worst place in Kaimere (at least that I’ve gone public with)
Why the Hives Portal density level is so huge and ridiculousely big and concentrated in this specific location ? Shoulb be not normally be equally distributed like in all of the rest of the Known World ? It's due to the geography ? Or it's because this local Swarm portal was manipulated by the First Children and these later asked him to rest here in this place and to defend it ?
It is not known, but the reach of the forest is about a quarter the reach of the portal within the known world, but the Üshalek has MUCH more control over that space than the portal did, which really only ever acted as a census taker. The Üshalek not only attacks foreign things in its territory, it controls millions of plants and can teleport/replicate things on a much more intentional scale than the portal, which chooses less control over a far wider range.
Kaimere needs to be adapted to tabletop
All I gonna say is WWWTTTTFFFFF!!!!!
That’s fair
This makes me wonder if there could be a flesh "forest" that's made entirely of previous creatures and basically makes natural homunculi
Well, if you are interested, the Curious Archives Channel did a video about worlbuilding project around a Pit somewhere in the USA made enterely by organic flesh.
Called the Flesh Pit, it's a living organism by itself, but possess inside him an entire ecosystem inhabited by gruesome monsters of all kind !
And the worse ?
Well, it's not all that !
The worse .... is the fact that since is discovery and during entire decades.... the American governement used it as a touristic attraction !
Truly, go to check this video if you never watch it before. It worth it !
Can small fauna like insects or animals like rabbit can survive the forest?
Usually not but a few are overlooked or deemed not a threat.
Just as precision for everyone ! Despite what we can think at first, the living beings and animals that the Ushalek forest tranform into Guardians aren't zombies at all, but infected and mutated lifeforms.
Thus they look like zombies or undead in surface appearance, with it's true many part of them already decomposed, the guardians aren't dead at all and are in fact always alive.
Because the forest mind controlled them thank to spores the trees released and who are breath involontary by the animals, and the spores take over their body and mind, in addition to transform them into animals-plants hybrids, half-flesh and half vegetal beings.
At this point, they aren't killed, and the forest let them alive, but now completely at her service. Being now just slaves that take care of the trees, their new masters.
The guardians end dying overtime (but the lifespan of a guardian is unknown) but the trees don't use them anymore. Instead, their corpses fall on the ground and decompose, leaving only their bones only. Bones and skull that merge overtime with the trees. This is why bones and skulls are present on the trees and their bark, decorations that the forest use actively as warning signal defense to prevent and discourage every form of life to enter her territory.
This is why we must take care and take precautions when we speak about the guardians, or any kind of things creatures that could be mistaken for a zombie.
Zombie, to remind everyone, is a (popular) term who is restricted to a specific kind of being. In fact, this term only refers (at the base) to every being, whatevers animals or humans, that have been killed, truly completely at 100%, and have ressurected (by a disease/bacteria or by magic in the case of the Necromancy) in one way or another (after that, the depictions in cultural medias varied strongly, from partially decomposed moving empty shell and mindless corpses that search to blindly eat and kill any not dead beings, to people that keep their soul and personnalities with a body either not decomposed or with various level of decomposition).
A Zombie, or an Undead, is always a lifeform being of somekind who was dead and that have been ressurected in a way or another.
So, since the guardians aren't killed and just tranformed by the trees into animals-plants hybrids,with the term "Mutants" being valid since they received a mutation, making they by the way a kind of true Demons too (since this mutation is more or less natural, even if forced), and not dead animals that were ressurected, they can't be named as zombies or undead being.
For beings like Guardians, the term "Infected" is better to refers to them.
Because this term refers to all being that have been infected by whatevers diseases, bacteria or plants (like a mushroom) and see their mind edited and controlled in order to be aggressive and attack every clean being in order to spread the infection.
The Ushalek's Guardians are way more close to "The Last of Us" infected ennemies than to real zombies of easily 80-90% of the pop culture.
However, it's true that the guardians can be called as "Zombified" since they become competely mindless, empty of personality and feelings, and insensible (being no more touch by pain for example), and merciless and devoted to their plants masters that act their moves and actions to their true death.
In a way, guardians are dead inside them, mentaly. And they don't know and are aware of their own situation.
To conclude, these kinds of confusions are highly frequent in our modern era, due mainly to the fact that the word Zombie have become an abusive term that almost every people use to refers on beings that attack at sight normal lifeforms to kill them (for short), thus the differences that make apart these two categories are here noneless.
But it's true that, at the main difference on if the targeted subject is dead or not, the similarities are more numerous.
And we call "Zombified" every being, whatevers dead or not, who act as a classic zombie.
Also, I think it's quite good to mention that mind controlled organisims and infected animals like just mentionned upper are not restricted to videos games and movies, but truly exist in real life as well !
Like with the famous Cordyceps mushroom that take over several Ants species.
Or even Deers/Cervid species mostly in North America who are infected by a disease linked to the one of the famous "Crazy Cow Disease".
Are you going to talk about the Permian Islands?
I wonder if there has ever been any attempts to burn and destroy the forest, since I’m certain not everyone would view it with curiosity
Absolutely, but burning a humid rainforest isn’t particularly viable and the forest retaliates to attackers
If this place is really a death trap for any kind of life that enter it (litterally a "Death Kingdom"), and if this kind of place even exist (and can even exist) with this location, it's obvious that many others locations similars to this one exist here and here on Kaimere all around the planet !
But thankfully, like we can easily imagine and see, their total number must be not big, even rare, and they are very far and scattered from each other.
It's alway that taken ! (but even here, they are too numerous so tey are dangerous...)
Yes indeed! The Üshalek is hardly the only other large eldritch swarm
@@TalesofKaimere Who was thé first already ? I forget the first one.
I do wonder, what does the Üshalek do about the near unending force of insects and other small highly prolific invertebrates inevitably pouring into the area?
It takes over some but at the end of the day a lot of pollinators are helpful by instinct so it’s not worth the effort
@@TalesofKaimere No way my beloved bugs get a pass!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the only non infected animals that could survive there would be insects since they can adapt to almost any environment but still probably living in very small and sparse populations in or around the forest.
There are plenty of small invertebrates. Forest does have a few contingencies in place to prevent overpopulation but generally it is content to outsource some gardening to the likes of worms and pollinating insects
happy halloween btw🎃
Happy Halloween!
So... A forest with a mind of its own that takes control of animals and takes care of it self?
Yup!
@@TalesofKaimere amazing
Have anyone survive this forest unharmed before?Also how does fauna from the Kairul migrates to the known world despite the forest?Is there a way around it?
This forest in the Northern Ni'khar Continent, don't constitute a natural fence that block the way of animals from the Northern or Eastern Continent to the Known World and vice versa.
Take the Known World region map, and look the Houze Prairie location.
The Ushalek forest is just above the Houze Prairie, but is separated from it by a mountains channel.
But the Houze Prairie is both inside and outside the Known World region, with a part inside and the rest of it being outside the region.
The Houze Prairie part inside the Known World is linked to the one outside him by a way between the Ni'khar Forest (located just above the Inland Sea of the Dancing Sun) and the Ushalek forest.
It's from this way that the animals that enter or exit the Known World from or to the Northern Continent or Kairul uses.
Outside that, the Ushalek forest part inside the Known World region is only a small part of it, and continue wayrmore far beyond the borders of the Known World outside this latter.
To the North East and going to the east coasts of the Northern Continent. Keenan also confirmed that the Ushalek forest is almost the size of the Amazonian Forest in comparison.
A few claim to have done so but none are verified. There is a passage on the wind shadow of the silverback mountains, but it’s mostly desert so hard to cross.
That was terrifying, and it is saying a lot. You managed to do the most nightmarish of places my friend.
No seriously, the Quiet Ones are also terrifying, but not to this territory of a completely forbidden lands that whoever dares get in or out is lost at best circumstances. I dare say that death is a much better alternative, much less painful. The only way to survive? Just stay away, very far away.
Is there anything scarier than this? If your answer is yes, then Kaimere is the most interesting, nightmare fuel, place I ever heard of. If no, then Kaimere have the most terrifying place I ever heard about.
I have some other spooky ideas, but this is the most horrifying in the current canon for sure!
@@TalesofKaimere This is one very interesting prospect. It is just amazing, and I'm sure it is going to be very delivering.
How does the forest deal with wildfires?
Generally isn’t an issue given the regular rains, but it will use dehydration to control the spread of fire and clear out debris
I tought Ushalek was just a regular forest with a Plant-Animal guardian
I wonder if the forest has any protections against fire. As I’m sure someone has tried to burn down this nightmare forest in an attempt to rid the land of its horrors
It’s not much of an issue since it has near-constant rains, but the forest is used to controlling the spread to clear out debris during the few dry periods. Will even dehydrate areas it wants to clear
@@TalesofKaimere Dang it, so much killing it with arson
@@stephenlamb4212 we could always try pestcides and forcefully ripping it up
This thing _deserved_ it's own Halloween special
Unrelated but one thing that's been bugging me for a while is why did the hadrosaurs, one of the most successful and adaptable clades, that survived for millions of years, endured massive climate changes, and colonised almost every continent, just die off so quickly on Kaimere?
More information about the dynastic extinction might help with this, but since the way it seems now is that everything else went extinct _because_ the hadrosaurs did, which doesn't quite make sense to me
Thank you!
I do have an episode on the tyrant dynasty on the horizon, but they certainly didn’t die off quickly. The hadrosaurs defined several continents for many millions of years. They were victims of their own success, outcompeting the generalist species as they became vast interconnected colonies and the free roamers were pushed to the fringes and themselves outcompeted by generalists of other clades. When the extinction took out the context to which they were specialized, the dynasty ended
Plus, the Hadrosaurs aren't extinct on Kaimere.
When the Tyrants Dynasty was alway an actuality, Hadrosaurs, Ceratopsid, Tyrannosaurid and Sauropod were the main clades acting as pillard of their ecosystem.
They manage, like on Earth, to terraformed, modeled and edited their ecosystem to their need, and were become highly specialized animals with a low diversity of species and behaviors in their respectives groups.
When the Tyrants Dynasty Extinction occured, most of them don't survived the changes and the remaining survivals lost their places as dominants clades.
Which is always the case today in Modern Kaimere.
There still several species of the fourth clades on Kaimere all around the planet.
But as relic population and species, who give their previous thrones to their more basal relatives (Parksosaur for the Hadrosaurs, Megaraptorans for the Tyrannosaurid, and Protoceratopsid and Psittacosaurid for the Ceratopsid).
If there is even today several specie of Hadrosaurs, Ceratopsid and Tyrannosaurid on Kaimere, they live mostly outside the Known World.
With two Chasmosaurine Ceratopsid species
, one Tyrannosaurid specie called the Nehamu, and for the Hadrosaurs a specie called the Gurkan.
The sauropod are the only clades of the fourth who manage to maintain their throne as dominants pillars animals of their ecosystem.
@@dudotolivier6363 Ah okay I get it now. So they ended up unintentionally specialising themselves instead of remaining generalists like they did on Earth
Thx both of you for clarifying
@@thephilosoraptor8565 Yeah, your welcome !
Also, it's also good to note in clear sight that all the Tyrants were take on Earth almost at the time of the End of the Cretaceous at 66-65 millions years ago.
So, even when they arrived on Kaimere, the ancestors to the Tyrants who domined at the end of the Tyrants Dynasty were already very specialized, and become even more overtime.
Of course, because of this, it's useless to precise that make them even more vunerable and fall even more quickly and great (but great in the worse way).
Especially since the Tyrants Dynasty Extinction was created due to (mainly) volcanic activity, and if the targeted subjects were as specialized than on Earth at the time of the asteroid impact, their diversity and number would noneless take a hard hot (more or less) but with more surviving members.
Maybe even enough to quickly maintain and stabilize again their place as dominants.
And avoid the others clades to take their place.
But sadly, these scenario never happened.
How would the Ushalek respond to fire?
Usually tries to suppress it, which isn’t difficult given the nearly perpetual rains
It's rainforest so it can probably deal with relatively easy.
Did the first children, try to make a ultimate lifeform?
If that came to be true, that will not be surprising from them considering how bad and unethical they were !
Like the Living Forest in Mortal Kombat but creepier
This greatly reminds of Hephaestus in Horizon Zero Dawn for some reason. An intelligence that exists to purely defend itself and its creations. The only difference of course is this is a biological entity and that is a created AI.
Is there going to be a ep on dragons
Eventually yup!
@@TalesofKaimere ok And I’m getting the the first analogy of our book for my birthday
Remember kids, if even titans avoid the area, it's probably best you do as well
Is the forest flammable?
Yes, although like any rainforest with near-perpetual precipitation, you’re unlikely to succeed in large scale spread
say... how long will it be until there is another extinction event in Kaimere?
What's next?
Apes!
So… Ents?
Man ! At least the Ents from the Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit are positive, wisdom and gentle beings, not the monsters of this cursed location.
5:10 WTF is this ?!
So basically this place is a haunted forest filled with plant undead welp better bring the flamethrowers.
A wise move
yep
Honestly, it's no hard, after seeing this video, to figure how this forest work. Don't know why this specie of tree hate any other lifeforms, but she has noneless a lifecycle that made a full circle who restat again and again. Here how this forest work :
Step 1 = For an unkwnon reasons, this forest, seemingly a sapient being who have the skill of mind control, hate and perceives as a treat to it own person any kind of others lifeform whatevers she is (both animals, kaimerans and homunculies) and not allow anything to enter it's territories. And do anything to repel every others lifeforms from her.
Step 2 = When some kind of lifeforms such animals, or humans, enter the forest, this later, as reaction defense, release spores (like a mushroom) that these animals breath and the spores enter their bodies as an effect.
Step 3 = After entering the body of an animal, and after a specific time of incubation, the spores (and the Ushalak trees by extension) take the control of this later, and the animal are mind controlled/controlled mentally by the plants.
Step 4 = The plants turn after that the animals into "animals flesh vegetal plants hybrids" by turning most of the animals' cells into vegetal cells. The only animal's part that remain unchange being the skeleton of the animal (even if it turn a little into wood).
Step 5 = Now just simple mindless slaves of the trees, the animals are use by these latters. The Ushalek use them as guardians to repel or attack any kind of others lifeforms who enters her territory and to infect them as well if possible, and also as gardeners that take care of the trees themselves (the trees using the herbivores to propagate their seeds and use their dung as fertilizers).
Step 6 = At one moment, at a certain time, these guardian animals-plants hybrids, obviousely, fall and dies overtime, truly dead this time. They decompose (at least the remainning parts of them that wasn't decomposed yet) and their bones and skulls spread here and there in the forests, with many merging with the trees in question (whatevers old or new young trees).
Step 7 = The Ushalek use this bones and skulls disposed on them as warming decoration towards every possible lifeforms being enough intelligent to understand these dispositions and decorations. Of course, this impact only sapient being, not the animals, because these latter, having an primitive intelligence, don't understand the warming signal (for them, bones and skulls on trees are just part of the scenery).
Step 8 = Everything, all these steps, restart/repeat again after the last one.
In any case, the Ushalek is definitively the most complex, mysterious, interesting, facisnating yet dangerous plants species after the Houze Grass that have been shown (litterally the second) in Tales of kaimere world (as a Spec Evo plant specie).
Ah yes, my nightmares at long last have a xylophobia addition.😂💀
The native life of tise planet is straight up lovecraftinan
Absolutely
What if a herbivore, got immune to plants?
It's maybe possible that herbivores can evolved immunity against the forest's spores that go into their body in order to taken control of them.
But they must go in the forest, escape it, and not die (but every kaimeran or animals who escape the forest always dies due to the infectation that is slow when outside the forest, and kill at the end after a painful death).
And that they must pass their gene into their progeny to give the necessary mutations against the spores (if they developt mutations to better resist of course).
Not impossible, but highly difficult and slow.
So why dont the people make an attempt to burn down that cursed forest its what i would do
It’s not really a problem for people in the known world, and being a rainforest, too damp to reliably burn. There are already fires during the dry season but not sufficient to destroy it
Could someone enter the forest if they had a hazmat suit?
Yes, although the defenders would still be a problem
Cool, definetely this is trully terrifying, since the name "Forest of bones" it's something really really, and I mean REALLY never will go to visit