The problem is they're trying to create a game that's baseless, that's solely the product of their imagination. There's nothing wrong with having influences.
The trees the Haltans dwell in are so vast that they use branches as roads, walking along them as comfortably as ants walking along the branches of a normal tree. Haltan society should take place more in the treetops. The Essence of Wood is extremely strong in this region creating increadible fecundity and allowing living things to grow to vast sizes. After the Contagion, Linowan war and occupation by the Fair Folk they ceded control of the ground. But considering how vast the forests are- trees tower miles into the air like wooden mountains- and the aid of their Lunar allies, this did not prove to be a disadvantage. In environmental scale as with so many other things the designers needed to take the brakes off and go absolutely wild. The scale of things like the Haltan forests and their cities need to be much bigger, which is very appropriate for a game of the type of Exalted.
Living in such an extraordinary forest has imprinted itself on every aspect of Haltan culture. Many people live among forests- but none can claim to live in them as the Haltans do. A word on large animals- the East isn't the only place where mega fauna and flora exists, giant sea creatures live in the West, but because of the life giving energies of the Pole of Wood and the increadible bounty of the forests they can live here in greater density than anwhere else. They erect vast gatehouses on nodes where twigs branch out forming natural junctions. Holes in the bark where dead branches have fallen can become the site of a whole town. Each branch provides food in the fruit that grows on it's twigs. Haltans live a form of nomadic lifestyle travelling from tree to tree. The food collectors get around anyway.
Each tree is like a city with it's branches forming it's districts. Use giant snakes and apes as pack animals. Some Haltans learn to ride between trees on the backs of flying squirrels. The natural world is the very environment. Haltans live together in cities spanning many linked treetops.
