The dominant predators of the Apelands region in the Elder Wilds: massive primates standing forty feet tall, possessed of terrifying strength and violent territorial instincts.
Physical Description
These are not ordinary primates. Covered in dark fur that ranges from black to deep brown, the great apes stand roughly forty feet at the shoulder when upright. Their arms are proportionally longer than smaller apes, giving them tremendous reach. Their hands can wrap around an adult human's entire body.
Their eyes show unsettling intelligence, not quite sapient but far more aware than simple beasts.
Behavior
The great apes roam the Apelands in loose bands of 3-8 individuals, with a dominant male and several females or subordinate males. They are omnivorous but prefer meat, hunting anything they can catch, including humans.
They communicate through deep vocalizations that carry for miles through the jungle. These calls warn rivals, coordinate hunts, and signal territorial boundaries. Outsiders who hear the calls describe them as a bass rumble felt in the chest more than heard.
When bands encounter each other, violence is common. Territorial battles can destroy significant swaths of forest, leaving smashed trees and torn vegetation in their wake.
Territory
The Apelands proper lie south of L'Coth D'hari, across Farthing Inlet. This is their core territory, but they occasionally venture south into Seyiy and Bloodwood, causing devastation wherever they pass.
The Gamori of L'Coth D'hari hunt around the Apelands but do not enter. Whatever sacred hunting traditions they observe, the great apes are not considered appropriate prey, or perhaps the prey is considered too dangerous even for them.
Study Attempts
No one has successfully studied the great apes. Expeditions that enter the Apelands either return within days or don't return at all. What little is known comes from observation at the boundaries and from survivors who glimpsed them from hiding.
Why apes of this size evolved here, whether natural adaptation, magical intervention, or some connection to the Anchor Trees that dot the region, remains unknown.
Anchor Tree Connection
Anchor Trees are particularly numerous in and around the Apelands. Whether the apes and the trees share some relationship, whether the apes guard them, avoid them, or are somehow connected to the titan remains beneath, is pure speculation.
See: Elder Wilds - The Apelands