types of jungle

[thorr-kan]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

The city where I live - Santos - is a coastal port city, just 1 hour away from São Paulo, our largest city.

I was inspired by your description to up the area on Google Maps. I didn't realize Brazil had mountains that close to the Atlantic coast. That some impressive terrain to build that much infrastructure in.

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Here in Brazil we have a small island about 150 miles away from the coast, called "Cobra Island" ("ilha das cobras". PS: we call all serpents as "cobras", so dont get confused about it).

Sounds like an excellent place to survey, with permission, by drone. "No touch!" as my young nephews say.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by thorr-kan

I was inspired by your description to up the area on Google Maps. I didn't realize Brazil had mountains that close to the Atlantic coast. That some impressive terrain to build that much infrastructure in.

Brazil is in a sense like another Chile. Chile has the Andes, which is one of the reasons why the colonization of South America by the Spaniards were so hard, but for the portuguese it wasnt so much easier because of the "Serra do Mar", (which translates more or less exactly as "Sea Mountains"). In many places the mountains directly end in the oceans, without even a beach to it. For this reason, more than 80% of brazilians live on the coast.

The city I live in is Santos, which is an amazingly beautiful city that rivals with Rio de Janeiro in beauty, and the reason why such brazilian cities are so beautiful is exactly the terrain, where you have cities in flat lands surrounded by mountains filled with lushy jungles - those mountains are too irregular to build upon on many areas, and unfit for agriculture for that reason. Here in Santos, the city is in an island with a "mini Brazil" terrain, it has a big hill in the exact middle of the city, so it's a highly urbanized area around a hill that have plenty of virgin woods - this hill is gorgeous, it has a small lake on top of it in a flat portion of the hill that has an urbanized area, and for several years we had an alligator as our honored guest living in the lake; yes, we had an alligator in the middle of our city. But one day he decided to "make a trip" around the city, entered a few houses, and the mayor decided it was kind of dangerous to have it, so he was captured and transfered to deep into the jungle.

Santos is the biggest Port in Latin America, and we are located just 100 miles from São Paulo, which is our largest city (up to 20 millions of people), and is a city sitting on top of the massive mountainous chain. São Paulo is only 1 hour drive away from Santos, and is 600 meters above the sea level (some 700 yards? Probably more or less that).

And the reason for that is simple: the axis Santos-São Paulo is the access point to the interior of the country. Brazil is the second largest exporter of food in the world, and some 80% of all that production HAS to come by trucks from the road connecting São Paulo to Santos, due to the problem of going up and down the mountains.

This has historically being one of the reasons why Brazil didnt turn into "South United States" in terms of wealth; in the USA you have flat lands connected by the Mississipi; transportation costs in the US are 300x times cheaper than in Brazil. That's obviously not the only factor, but it has being one contributor to that difference between two countries that otherwise have had such a similiar history (both colonies that expanded beyond their original borders until reaching continental size).

The interior of Brazil was almost empty, until up to very recently that technology and industrialization have been turning settling easier; before the 1960's, you had mostly only a handful of big or medium cities almost disconnected from each other in the few areas that allowed them; for example, from Santos to Rio de Janeiro, which are cities in neighbor States, there's a distance of 600 KM (some 900 miles I guess?), and between those two vastly important cities there's NOTHING, because they are separated by mountains that go all the way to the ocean. There's only a few small villages in some of the most gorgeous beaches isolated from each other (so you have many small beach villages with massive mountains surrounding them, and mountains completely surrounded by lushy green jungles).

So, in the 19th century and before, the only way to move between Santos and Rio de Janeiro was by ship. There was no simple "March to the West" with you just jumping into a wagon to seek some place to settle in.

Today we have a road between Rio and Santos - a marvellous trip which I made by car and motorcycle, with a road that cuts in the middle of the tropical jungle, and in some places go up into the mountains, so you have lushy tropical jungle on one side and the ocean down bellow on the other, and in other portions it goes into sea level with beautiful tropical beaches on one side and the mountainous jungle in the other, with several idilic villages all over the day.

It's a truly breath taking visage, the beauty of brazilian geography is amazing, but it isnt the best for economic development, our geography has always been a MASSIVE challenge for the country to manage to overcome - in fact, if it wasnt for the fact that we had an Emperor, believe it or not, Brazil would probably explode into thousands of tiny pieces, since our cities are pretty much as city-states each one of them, there's no connectivity between them and connecting our territory is always a massive challenge of engineering

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by thorr-kan

Sounds like an excellent place to survey, with permission, by drone. "No touch!" as my young nephews say.

Cobra Island has been the most incredible place I've ever been in my life. It is a birthing nest for thousands of seaguls - which is what the island's serpents eat, which is also why their poison needs to be so strong, they need the seaguls to die FAST for them to eat them. So, you enter the island in a rocky landing, the only place relatively flat enough to allow going up. It just so happens however that this area has a lot of seaguls, where they lay their eggs. So you enter walking over them, having to take care not to step on them or in their eggs. And they dont leave the premisses! You walk right in front of their faces! And the wild animals remain there, complaining all the time about your presence there, disturbing their peace and quiet! But since their eggs are there, they do not step away a single inch! So you have to go "oops, excuse me, sorry, ok, I just need to... ok ok, I know it's your nest, sorry, going throught"

And then you go up. It's absolutely amazing in every sense. And insanely dangerous.

The navy up to the 20th century had a lighthouse in the island, but because of the massive amounts of serpents they would constantly burn the woods - which is why the island is more know as "Ilha da Queimada Grande", or "Island of the Huge Fires" in a literal translation.

The burning was to no avail thou, the serpents would always survive and the woods grow back in no time.

Today it is a zone of permanent preservation. The old lighthouse is still there thou, and adds to the already paradisiacal view of that small hell hehe

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Cobra Island has been the most incredible place I've ever been in my life.

You realize that you're describing a wonderful adventure location. (Except for all those insanely lethal snakes; they need to be nerfed in order to make the setting survivable :).)

It would make a good Pyramid article or equivalent.

For that matter, an intelligently done book on the Amazon or parts of Latin America might make a good GURPS Locations book.

Central and South America are places that don't get a lot of love in RPGs, at least from English language publishers. When they are mentioned, the focus is either on the Pre-Columbian native populations (Aztecs, Inca, etc.) or 20th century North American stereotypes (corrupt dictatorships, poor immigrants, guerillas, or narcotrafficantes, and Northern hemisphere scientific or military expeditions dealing with the those groups).

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

You realize that you're describing a wonderful adventure location. (Except for all those insanely lethal snakes; they need to be nerfed in order to make the setting survivable :).)

It would make a good Pyramid article or equivalent.

For that matter, an intelligently done book on the Amazon or parts of Latin America might make a good GURPS Locations book.

Central and South America are places that don't get a lot of love in RPGs, at least from English language publishers. When they are mentioned, the focus is either on the Pre-Columbian native populations (Aztecs, Inca, etc.) or 20th century North American stereotypes (corrupt dictatorships, poor immigrants, guerillas, or narcotrafficantes, and Northern hemisphere scientific or military expeditions dealing with the those groups).

The snakes are insanely lethal yes, but the island is too small and has no humans, except the eventual visitors that know what they are doing; a tourist that accidently ended up landing there would probably get himself killed, but that's very hard to happen because the island is far from the coast in the middle of the ocean, you have to know what you're looking for to find it, and if you do know about it you know what to expect in it. So when we went there we would take extreme care with every step we were taking; having a doctor along is mandatory, we have plenty of antidote since that snake is well studied and with vast research done about them, in fact many of the visits are to collect specimens to extract their poison - there's also vast amounts of research for pharma done with their poison - ultimately thou having a doctor is an extra safety measure, there has never been an incident with the snakes, precisely because they are always dealt with professionals.

If your players were to end trapped there on the other hand well... They wouldnt last long. The only things to eat would be seaguls, seaguls eggs and... Snakes. However, they would have to sleep under the woods with the snakes... That's the reason why nobody goes there at night, it's basically suicide. At night you WILL step into one of them, and they WILL bite you and you'll die a horrible agonizing death filling your muscles paralyze, until your lungs stop working and you'll slowly asphyxiate in a matter of minutes.

If however they get to the old lighthouse and manage to clear it of snakes before night fall and NOT LEAVE there in the dark, they should be ok... They just need to make sure not to step on any, and not to go rush over the woods like idiots because they usually are resting in the middle of the leafs, totally camouflaged due to their green color, so just walk with extreme care, if you see one slithering away you stop and let it pass (I saw dozens just calmly passing by), they would be ok. After a few weeks or months at most they would be rescued either by the navy or by a research team.

There's also a few resources - like drinkable water - spread over the island that are lefted there by the groups of researches and the navy personnel exactly in case of necessity, just as some tools and research and navy equipment. They are spread in the island and in the lighthouse.

Occasionally, smugglers also go into the island, to steal a few of the serpents to sell. Like I said, those are used for research, and there are labs all over the world willing to pay smugglers to acquire those. Since those are basically as good as pirates risking jail time if they're caught, they might not be the best recuers for the players.

Goddam, and now that I described all that, I gotta say that this island indeed is a massive spot for adventure - researchers, navy sailors, pirates, deadly snakes, survival "packs" spread all over, a lighthouse... Damn, it's almost mythical, I couldnt come up with an imaginary place more epic than that one even if I tried! It truly seems like the description of an RPG adventure spot!

And I gotta say, Im luck I went there, Im one of the few hundreds of humans that has ever visited this magic place, it truly is epic.

About how the world sees us, that doesnt bother me; I mean, it bothers many people, both in here and even americans and europeans that see prejudice in everything; I on the other hand see it with naturality.

It's like the steriotype that "americans are dumb", particularly strong among europeans, which is a lot of prejudice from their part, by saying that americans dont know geography.

But the fact is, we care about what is close to us, what affects us and what is part of our daily life; USA has only two neighbors, so it's obvious that americans wont care too much about what happens half a globe of distance away.

On the other hand, Europeans find that joke so funny, but I doubt they can point the state of Wisconsin on a map - I know I cant. And to go even further, about the canadian states I know of Quebec, Toronto, Ottawa... And that's it. And I know their names but not their places on the map - and neither do europeans either.

Now, I know where is Kuwait, Israel, Lebanon and most of the Middle East, because the Middle East is constantly in evidence (usually for all the wrong reasons).

But ask ANYBODY that isnt a russian or lives in central Asia to point where is Uzbekisthan and I doubt they'll know, let alone what is their capital, or to any non african to point Senegal in Africa.

Or even easier, most people dont even know the capital of Australia (or even Brazil for the matter).

So I only find it all too natural. The world is too vast to know it all, we cant at best be luck to get a few glimpses from different places once in a while. And to actually experience it, it's always vastly different from our expectations.

Up until very recently, people simply were born and died in their small villages; sometimes the neighbor town was an alien world, and beyond that was Terra Incognita filled with giants and monsters. Dont be so harsh on your own culture for making a few generalizations - we all do.

Oh yes, and a Gurps South America would be awesome for me at least

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

But the fact is, we care about what is close to us, what affects us and what is part of our daily life; USA has only two neighbors, so it's obvious that americans wont care too much about what happens half a globe of distance away.

On the other hand, Europeans find that joke so funny, but I doubt they can point the state of Wisconsin on a map - I know I cant. And to go even further, about the canadian states I know of Quebec, Toronto, Ottawa... And that's it. And I know their names but not their places on the map - and neither do europeans either.

Now, I know where is Kuwait, Israel, Lebanon and most of the Middle East, because the Middle East is constantly in evidence (usually for all the wrong reasons).

But ask ANYBODY that isnt a russian or lives in central Asia to point where is Uzbekisthan and I doubt they'll know, let alone what is their capital, or to any non african to point Senegal in Africa.

Or even easier, most people dont even know the capital of Australia (or even Brazil for the matter).

I know most of those, but it's because I've loved maps since I was a child. I might have trouble picking out Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, and the only reason I could find Senegal is that it has The Gambia running up the middle; I'm unsure about West Africa, which has so many comparatively small countries.

But some years ago my wife took a course on world history, and the instructor handed out maps as part of a test and had the students locate various places on them, and most of them had a really hard time. I particularly remember that one of the locations was Odessa, and nearly all the students put it in Texas, because that was the setting of a popular television series of the time; it didn't occur to them to look further, and they had never heard of the one in Ukraine (which would have been more relevant to a world history course!).

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

Goddam, and now that I described all that, I gotta say that this island indeed is a massive spot for adventure - researchers, navy sailors, pirates, deadly snakes, survival "packs" spread all over, a lighthouse... Damn, it's almost mythical, I couldnt come up with an imaginary place more epic than that one even if I tried! It truly seems like the description of an RPG adventure spot!

Exactly. And the area has been known for centuries so it's suitable for multiple genres. 17th century pirates and "The Treasure of Queimada Grande," 1880s or 1920s archeologists and "The Tower of the Golden Serpent", 1990s or 2020s Action Heroes and "Escape From Cobra Island."

Originally Posted by KarlKost

And I gotta say, Im luck I went there, Im one of the few hundreds of humans that has ever visited this magic place, it truly is epic.

Which is why you should write it. "Write what you know." Your English is very good and you clearly know your stuff. You've already written several pages of material about it on this thread alone. If you have the time and inclination to write a short game book, there's no harm in pitching it to SJG editors.

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Exactly. And the area has been known for centuries so it's suitable for multiple genres. 17th century pirates and "The Treasure of Queimada Grande," 1880s or 1920s archeologists and "The Tower of the Golden Serpent", 1990s or 2020s Action Heroes and "Escape From Cobra Island."

Lol I liked those, particularly the "Tower of the Golden Serpent", very Indiana Jones like haha

It could also be a 16th century navigators and "The Tupinambas' Island and the Serpents Curse"

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Which is why you should write it. "Write what you know." Your English is very good and you clearly know your stuff. You've already written several pages of material about it on this thread alone. If you have the time and inclination to write a short game book, there's no harm in pitching it to SJG editors.

I know a little bit about Brazil, but even Brazil itself is too big to fully describe, and then Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, I know only the basics of those and they are worlds apart... I dont know... I dont feel confident enough to deliver at the level of quality that Gurps always have, but maybe, I'll think about it

[KarlKost]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I know most of those, but it's because I've loved maps since I was a child. I might have trouble picking out Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, and the only reason I could find Senegal is that it has The Gambia running up the middle; I'm unsure about West Africa, which has so many comparatively small countries.

But some years ago my wife took a course on world history, and the instructor handed out maps as part of a test and had the students locate various places on them, and most of them had a really hard time. I particularly remember that one of the locations was Odessa, and nearly all the students put it in Texas, because that was the setting of a popular television series of the time; it didn't occur to them to look further, and they had never heard of the one in Ukraine (which would have been more relevant to a world history course!).

Comon, Kazakhstan is easy, it's the big one close to Russia lol

But really, before that sad war in Ukraine I havent even heard of Odessa before... Now I know where is Luhansk, Severodonestsk and Donbas lol. I knew where Crimea was because of my interest for History, so the region of the Tartars, conquered by the Ottomans, then by the Russians, and some thousands of years before, the greek kingdom/colony of Bosphoros, but if you asked me about "Donbas" I would have no idea. And my father is a history teacher, which is one of the reasons why I like Geography, Hustory and Geopolitics, but even then I wont know the names of all major cities of all countries in the world, and that's absolutely natural. Nowadays, anyone that didnt know where Ukraine was, now knows. Or, for example, I can easily point the Suriname in the map, a country that I bet 99% of people that isnt from South America probably never even heard about, but the only reason why I know it it's because it is an immediate neighbor of Brazil (it's north of Brazil, East of Venezuela).

I bet there are very few people in the world that could find all the 200+ countries on a map (a few hundreds perhaps)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by KarlKost

I know a little bit about Brazil, but even Brazil itself is too big to fully describe, and then Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, I know only the basics of those and they are worlds apart... I dont know... I dont feel confident enough to deliver at the level of quality that Gurps always have, but maybe, I'll think about it

Here's the thing: Writing GURPS books doesn't require you to have a scholarly depth of knowledge; it requires you to know something about the topic, and it requires you to know how to do research. I read over a dozen books and lots and lots of Web pages for GURPS High-Tech: Electricity and Electronics; I read a two-volume textbook on traditional Chinese medicine for GURPS Thaumatology: Chinese Elemental Powers. As Nietzsche put it, "A curiosity such as mine is the most agreeable of all vices," and new GURPS books give me an excuse for indulging it. Choose your topic and immerse yourself.