East of the Phalkrene Mountains, the forest floor crunches underfoot. Chitinwood takes its name from what covers everything: the shed exoskeletons, the gnawed remains, the living shells of countless giant beetles.
This is not a civilization. There is no hive-mind, no beetle-society, no alien intelligence to negotiate with. Chitinwood is simply an ecosystem—one where beetles the size of horses are the dominant life form. Rhinoceros beetles that can gore through trees. Stag beetles whose mandibles shear through bone. Bombardier beetles that spray caustic chemicals. And countless smaller varieties that swarm, burrow, devour.
The beetles aren't aggressive by nature; they're simply beetles, doing what beetles do. But everything in Chitinwood has adapted to them. Predators have evolved chitin-cracking jaws. Prey have developed shells of their own. The trees grow thick, corky bark. Even the birds have beak-plates that can pry larvae from wood.
Travelers can pass through Chitinwood, but they must move carefully. Disturbing a beetle's territory, stumbling into a mating display, or simply smelling like food can trigger swarming behavior. The forest floor is littered with the picked-clean skeletons of those who made mistakes.
Chitin itself is valuable—beetle-plate armor, tool components, alchemical ingredients. Hunters from Pyonokraus occasionally venture into the edges of the forest to harvest, but they never go deep. Something larger lives in Chitinwood's interior. No one has seen it clearly. They've only found the shells it leaves behind—each one the size of a building.