Legends & Stories of Jamaa!

The Story

 

And so it was that the Sky Father was named Zios.

He created many stars and planets, and set them in motion.

But after eons of creation, he became lonely. So he created the

Sky Mother, a grey heron, and named her Mira. 

Mira was beautiful and kind and they were very happy together.

She loved Zios deeply and often told him how talented he was,

encouraging him to create. Together, Zios and Mira created their masterpiece: a lush land filled with oceans, mountains, meadows, and all kinds of plants and animals.

They named this special world Jamaa, and for hundreds of years, the world and its animals were at peace. But today, all is not well in Jamaa. A mysterious dark force has crept into the land, stealing away animals and ruining the beauty of Jamaa. Only you can help save the animals and restore the world to its glory. Please help, for you are Jamaa's only hope.

-ancient scrolls found in the Chamber of Knowledge

How Phantoms Came to Be

Mira, the Sky Mother, was heartbroken after she lost her companion spirit, Zios, the Sky Father.

Her feelings of sadness and anger fell to the earth of Jamaa. Mira's tears mixed with the elements of Jamaa and formed the dark mysterious phantoms that haunt this land today. Because of the sadness and anger that they were created from, the phantoms' only goal is to bring chaos and destruction to Jamaa.

-ancient scrolls

Liza 

Liza is pretty well known to the animals of Jamaa, since she personally welcomes everyone that arrives here and helps them get started on their adventures. Liza has always been a traveler and explorer too, and she vividly remembers the day her travels first took her to Jamaa.

She found a land besieged not only by Phantoms, but by internal conflicts as well. Rabbits and monkeys were always bickering, while koalas and tigers wouldn’t speak to each other at all; and it seemed as though the wolves didn’t get along with anybody. Even among the Alphas there was tension and suspicion.

Liza has a talent for helping animals understand each other better, though, and she was the peacemaker who brought the Alphas together as friends. Their example soon spread to the other animals, and for a long time now Jamaa has enjoyed peace both inside and outside its borders.

After the last major battle with the Phantoms, the rest of the Alphas set out to track these mysterious invaders back to their point of origin and learn more about them. Liza stayed behind, however, both to safeguard our home against further attacks, and to help the thousands of animals arriving here every day find their way around Jamaa Township.

Greely

Greely may be the least understood of the Alpha animals protecting Jamaa. Solitary by nature and a master of stealth, Greely spends most of his time alone and far from Jamaa, observing the movements of the Phantoms and sabotaging them from the shadows. His strange ability to move instantaneously between shadows is one of the reasons he makes many animals very nervous; it sometime seems as though he can appear anywhere, anytime. His menacing appearance and grim, humorless personality probably don’t help.

Greely and Sir Gilbert took an instant dislike to each other, and despite Liza’s best efforts to bring them together, they avoid one another as much as possible. In both personality and approach to the Phantom problem, they are polar opposites. Where Sir Gilbert prefers to meet the threat head-on and seeks clearly drawn battle lines, Greely believes that the Alphas should turn the devious methods of the Phantoms against them.

The other Alphas may not entirely trust Greely and his methods, but they certainly respect him. He knows more about the Phantoms and their movements than anyone, and it’s possible the Phantoms fear him even more than they do Sir Gilbert. If the reports are true that Greely has recently returned to Jamaa with urgent news, it can only mean that the Phantoms are on the move.

Sir Gilbert

Ever since he was a cub, long before he’d ever even heard of Jamaa, Gilbert has wondered what it must be like to be a monkey. Or a giraffe. Or a penguin, a shark, a rabbit… ALL of the other animals fascinate him. He’s been known to leap at an animal he’s never seen before and pin it to the ground with his terrifying strength, but only to ask them what their fur feels like when it rains. He’s always puzzled and disappointed when, as usually happens, the poor animal is too petrified with fear to answer him.

Some of Gilbert’s best qualities are the very things that frustrate the more temperamental, impetuous Alphas the most. He is impeccably polite, quietly dignified, and (he believes) sensibly cautious. He takes the time to hear all viewpoints before making decisions, and in leading the Alphas against the Phantoms he is a wary and meticulous strategist. This drives some animals crazy, and more than once Gilbert’s carefully laid plans have turned into chaotic romps because Peck or Graham decided to “speed things up.”

Despite his fearsome appearance and warrior reputation, Gilbert yearns for a quieter life. Perhaps that’s why he works so tirelessly to repel the Phantom invasion — he imagines a day when Jamaa is finally safe for all animals, and he can devote his time to studying the inhabitants of the world he protects.

Peck

There’s no question Peck is full of talent. She is an artist that revels in any medium, and she has done much to beautify Jamaa and inspire other animals to join her in huge, outlandish art projects. Her Alpha abilities seem to have magnified her already passionate and energetic personality a hundredfold, however, and some animals find her perpetual excitement and restlessness exhausting.

Peck’s hot temper is legendary. When Phantoms appear or her friends are threatened, her artistic exuberance flips instantly to full-throttle attack mode. She believes in striking first and planning later (much later, and hopefully while she’s off doing something more fun).

Have you ever had a friend who seemed to be made out pure energy, who could never sit still and who was always trying to involve you in some new crazy scheme of theirs? That’s Peck: she moves in a blur, gets bored easily, and never seems to run out of ideas. She takes her role as a mentor to other rabbits very seriously, though, and she is determined to get Jamaa’s rabbits into shape and ready for whatever the Phantoms might throw at them.

Graham

The first thing Graham noticed about the other Alphas was that they seemed to do everything the hard way. For example, take that time Liza tracked the Spirit Stone of the giraffes to a Phantom cavern sealed by an enormous boulder. By the time Graham got there, Liza had a dozen animals straining to move the stone out of the way, and after hours of effort they’d barely made it budge. Graham shook his head and clucked his tongue. All of that sweat, and nothing to show for it.

Why, it was the simplest thing in the world to build a waterwheel on a nearby stream and set up a system of gears, pulleys, and counterweights that could raise and lower the giant rock with the effortless pull of a lever. Sure, it took a few days to build, and Liza kept asking why they couldn’t just get a few more strong animals to pitch in and move the stone in a matter of minutes. Graham tried to explain that she was missing the point — now they could move the boulder up and down any time they wanted, without breaking a sweat! Liza and the other animals weren’t impressed with Graham’s contraption, and they seemed to forget all about it as soon as the giraffes were freed to return to Jamaa.

Graham still visits the cavern from time to time, though. The boulder-moving machine is great for breaking open stubborn coconuts.

Cosmo

Cosmo would be the first to admit that most koalas aren’t very ambitious. And before he came to Jamaa, he seemed to be a fairly typical koala: he spent most of his time in trees, eating leaves. But even then, despite his outward appearance, there was something different about Cosmo. You see, Cosmo understands plants.

Now you might be thinking, “That’s no big deal. Lots of people understand plants. My mom understands plants.”

But Cosmo doesn’t just understand how to make plants grow. He understands what they’re saying — to each other, to animals, and sometimes even to themselves (a lot of plants talk to themselves, because they assume nobody is listening).

As soon as most plants in Jamaa realize Cosmo can communicate with them, they become willing to do some pretty amazing things to help him. They tell him how to mix various natural substances together to create potions with hundreds of uses. They can carry him quickly through the trees, hide him, and even create traps for Phantoms that are undetectable until it’s too late.

Cosmo and Peck are the youngest of the Alphas, and sometimes the others don’t really get their jokes or appreciate their pranks. But there’s one thing Cosmo never jokes about. He has a deep and reverent respect for the power of the natural world; perhaps because he is able to communicate with so much of it.