Mana

Mana lies near the mouth of the Acua Gulf on its southern peninsula, hemmed in by the gulf on the west, Taracua on the south and east, and dreaded Birama on the north. Like the rest of the East District it is tangled jungle full of dangerous creatures. Many of its plants kill, among them stranglevines, scarlet leeches, charmplants and violet creepers, mostly along the especially dense coastal jungle. Numerous demonic beings, thought to have drifted over the thin border from Birama, live here, chiefly solitary beings such as imps, gremlins, manes, Hantu and korupira (forest devils), along with a few jungle dinosaurs and ordinary jungle animals.

Among the greatest dangers are the Andaman, animal-man crossbreeds, most commonly leopard-men, bear-men and panther-men though other kinds exist. All are leftovers of the First Age, when Atlantean sorcerers practiced the ghastly art of breeding humans with beasts. Each kind is few in number and lives in small groups. They hunt humans both at home and over the frontiers in Birama and Taracua, to breed with and sometimes to eat. Most are hostile to trespassers, the more savage raid human lands from sheer bloodlust, and a few tribes are thought to be friendly to people.

Mana also has humans, but they live little differently from animals: small family groups using unworked rocks and branches as tools and a 'language' of squeals, grunts, clucks and exaggerated gestures, like that of many primitive apes, able to convey only basic feelings and emphasis. Human in shape but ape-like in life, they gather plants and only now and then eat insects or small animals, and have no society beyond the family, no faith, lore or past to speak of, and meet outsiders only by accident. The far more sophisticated animal-people often mate with them.