J is for Jungle

I missed the April A-Z Blog Challenge this year, so I'm doing my own...in June. This year, I will be posting one post per day discussing my AD&D campaign, for the curious. Since 2020, this is the ONLY campaign I run. Enjoy!

J is for Jungle...the jungles of Oregon. Every vanilla fantasy campaign requires a "deep dark jungle" region to hide lost cities and dangerous cannibals and whatnot. For my campaign, that region is Oregon.

Oregon, as part of the Pac Northwest, is a lot like Washington State, except that it's worse in just about every way possible.   

[Haha ! I could enumerate all the ways I prefer my state to our southern neighbors, but suffice is to say that there exists a "friendly" rivalry between our states and you're probably not going to change my (subjective) opinion on the matter. Be content with your Ducks lording it over the Huskies, Oregon readers]

Anyway, there are a LOT of similarities between the two states, but my setting doesn't need a "lesser Washington" south of the Columbia. What I need is some place to put adventures like Dwellers of the Forbidden City...another border area for exploration and adventure that becomes more and more dangerous the farther you leave the (Washington) epicenter of the campaign. 

So, yeah: jungle. Unfortunately, it's pretty difficult to convert Oregonian forest into dense jungle, even with global warming / climate change. Just heating up the world's temperature doesn't make the place wetter...in fact, it causes the eastern part of Oregon to become more arid and prone to drought than it already is. Plus the latitude puts the state too far north to keep it tropical all year round...frost is a thing, and I really don't want to have to tilt my planetary axis.

Instead, after much googling and chatGPTing, I found a way to change the Oregonian climate with the O So Original Idea of dropping California into the ocean (no great loss, there...). Here's how it looks:

A catastrophic tectonic upheaval along the San Andreas Fault fractures California, causing vast swaths of the coastline — including Los Angeles, the Central Valley, and parts of the Sierra Nevada — to collapse below sea level. The Pacific Ocean rushes in, forming a vast inland sea stretching from present-day Redding to the Gulf of California. This new body of water, dubbed the Cascadian Sea, becomes a powerful new thermal engine, radically altering weather and ocean current patterns along the North American west coast.

As a result of this geographic reconfiguration, the cool California Current collapses and is replaced by a redirected branch of the North Equatorial Current, which now flows northeast into the Cascadian Sea and then northward along the Oregon coast. This warm current brings year-round heat and tropical moisture, transforming western Oregon’s environment. With no major topographic changes, existing features like the Coast Range and Willamette Valley trap heat and moisture inland, fostering an explosion of subtropical flora and fauna. Portland, Eugene, and Corvallis become overgrown, half-submerged jungle ruins — overrun by banyan-like trees, giant ferns, and invasive tropical wildlife.

Meanwhile, Washington State remains largely buffered from this transformation. Cold air masses continue to spill in from the North Pacific, and oceanic upwellings help retain a mild, rainy climate. The Columbia River Gorge becomes a dramatic borderland — a shifting, misty zone between Washington's evergreen highlands and Oregon's choking jungle lowlands. Migratory populations fleeing Oregon’s collapse seek refuge in the stable urban centers of Seattle and Spokane, while others adapt to life in the overgrown wetlands below.

The new Oregon is wild, wet, and hazardous — a place of stunning natural regrowth and near-total infrastructure collapse. Trade, travel, and communication require watercraft or jungle-adapted aerial drones. Native species have vanished, replaced by reptiles, amphibians, and tropical insects. What remains of the state is a loose network of river-bound settlements, canopy outposts, and ruins — some inhabited by scavengers, others consumed by the green tide.

Ah, ChatGPT...there are some things you do rather well, including saving me having to use too much brainpower in determining cause and effects and conditional changes on a global scale. Let's see what else you can give me...

In this transformed Oregon, the economy operates as a decentralized network of river-bound settlements and jungle-adapted enclaves, united loosely by a gold- and silver-based coin economy. These coins—recovered from sunken vaults, salvaged urban caches, or newly minted by metallurgist guilds using primitive smelters in ridge-top strongholds—form the backbone of trade. With traditional banking long gone, trust is enforced locally through reputation, alliances, and martial presence. Day-to-day barter remains common for essentials like food, cloth, or tools, but coins offer a crucial medium of exchange between disparate, culturally distinct regions or dealings with foreign merchants—especially those from Washington.

River trade is the lifeline of this economy, with shallow-draft skiffs and sail-powered barges connecting canopy settlements and overgrown ruins. Trade is risky and slow, but essential. Canoes and sailboats laden with dried foodstuffs, jungle-grown fibers, preserved herbal compounds, and reclaimed metalwork drift down swollen rivers, forming the economic veins of Oregon’s drowned interior. Communities specialize by ecological zone—some harvesting rare fungi and resins deep within the jungle, others trading in freshwater fish, insect protein, or exotic fruits adapted from the tropics. Metal goods, especially tools and weaponry, are in high demand and often fabricated from reclaimed urban scrap. The jungle’s rapid overgrowth buries and distorts salvage, so skilled "relikers" and ruin-guides command premium prices for both goods and knowledge. Coastal settlements on the Cascadian Sea act as hubs for trade with surviving territories to the south or the temperate highlands of Washington, though the journey is perilous and coin payments often include hazard premiums.

Inland, the presence of coin allows for the rise of micro-economies and even proto-states, often governed by guilds or protector clans. Some ridge-top strongholds mint their own coinage, sometimes mixed with religious iconography or clan emblems to assert sovereignty. Markets form near ruins, rivers, or at jungle clearings during seasonal festivals, where traders exchange exotic creatures, jungle spices, or relics for coins, favors, and survival gear. Without centralized governance, economic stability relies on dense webs of personal obligation, local codes, and networks of coin-backed trust. In this lush, chaotic Oregon, wealth isn’t just measured in gold—it’s measured in what you can trade, defend, or grow in the shadow of the jungle.

The most stable and high-value trade occurs at the northern border, where Oregon meets Washington across the Bridge of the Gods. The area around the Columbia River Gorge has become a militarized trade chokepoint—a mist-drenched boundary of civilization and wilderness. Here, Oregonian goods like tropical medicinal resins, rare pigments, giant insect chitin, and exotic spices are exchanged for Washington’s manufactured goods, preserved grains, and hardy vegetables. The Washingtonians accept Oregonian coinage in limited forms but prefer tangible trade goods. Caravans from Washington bring salt, steel tools, wool, and lumber, though access is tightly controlled, and tariffs are enforced by Washington border guards and mercenary guilds. Mutual dependency maintains a tense peace, and guild envoys or religious orders often act as go-betweens to enforce contracts and adjudicate disputes.

Well now! A little tweaking, a little editing, and I could turn this into a whole setting book for  Oregon...if I wanted to do that. Which I don't really because...it's Oregon. Also, because there's already a setting book for the Beaver State (Wampus Country is gonzo OD&D, and ain't half bad).

But all I need is a jungle. Which is why I'm content to let AI do my writing and research for me on the subject. To me, the most important thing is that the jungle is THERE (and where I want it). It's just something I like to have on hand when certain types of adventure pop into my brain.

My kids have never been to the
Yucatan...it would be a lot easier to visit 
Palenque if it was in Oregon.