Ti'kal

Far across the ocean, to the west of Aperion, an ancient nation lies buried beneath a wasteland.

Overview
Ti'kal was once a nation marked by its heavy forests. The ancient civilization made their homes high in the boughs of the massive trees. The people of Ti'kal, the Ti'kala, were aided by the nation's dragons, a species of small, compact creatures the size of draft horses that lived alongside the humans. These dragons were attuned to the element of Wood and spent their time tending to the forests.

Disaster
Catastrophe struck one day, and over time all the trees started to die and the land became barren. Ti'kala history is fuzzy on precisely what happened, though a good deal of folklore says that humans were responsible for the downfall of their own civilization.

Underground
Though the surface is a harsh wasteland, the Ti'kala and the wood dragons were able to make a new life below the surface. These people found solace in the hands of a god they had not known before, the Void God. Through the god's teachings, the Ti'kala were able to learn to sense the absence of things, allowing them to find new tunnels and root structures in the earth, where they build communities and spread their civilization.

Dragon Teams
Humans and dragons learned to combine their abilities to sense void and wood and developed a community in which they created small task forces, where a human and dragon unit would search the tunnels for new, safe passages. On occasion, these human and dragon partners will breach the surface and search for any signs that new life may begin aboveground. So far, nothing has looked good. The Ti'kala remain hopeful, however, that someday they may rejoin the world above.