Land of Puna
Puna (also pronounced Piuna or Byunah) is a broad term for the lands north of the middle sea but south of the Elbens. Once home to a powerful seafaring empire at the coast and numerous woodland chiefdoms, the region was homogenized by the Messiah's conquest 800 years ago; Punac is only spoken now by marginal nomadic castes, and most tribal tongues have been completely replaced by Farisi. While the Holy See of the Punac Orthodox Church believes in the mandate of heaven, the Pontiff acknowledges his complete inability to exert any power over the squabbling and constantly warring principalities nominally sworn in allegiance to the church. Clearly God does not will for another Sun King yet.
The climate of Puna is temperately warm; Summers are hot and dry, and winters dip near freezing, but snow is rare, except for parts of the highlands. The people of Puna vary in tongue and form, but most speak Punac Farisi, a dialect of the Messianic tongue, and have olive skin, dark brown wavy hair, and non-monolid eyes.
Politics
Puna is a poorly structured feudal heirarchy. The majority of villages are estates, with peasantry landed to a landlord. Landlords report to a local baron, who reside in walled towns full of craftsmen, merchants, travellers, inns, taverns, marketplaces, brothels, and church administration. Barons swear vassalage to regional princes, who reside in palace complexes. There are officially five principalities (East Puna, West Puna, Pavar, Merozdan, and Volgozdan) in addition to the city of Etruz which has its own prince.
The Punac Church also functions as a judicial body. Church-appointed judges travel to villages to settle civil disputes and contested trials, or hold large public trials in barony towns. Bishops reside in barony towns to oversee judges and village priests. Monastic orders are accountable only to the Archabbot, who oversees the construction of monasteries and overseas missionaries. Bishops and judges are overseen by the Archbishop, another member of the cabinet of the Holy See. The High Inquisitoner directs inquisitions, including a travelling legion of inquisitioner knights. Highest ranking are the Court of Nine, nine judges who appoint the the Pontiff and have the ability to unanimously veto any ruling. The Court of Nine can demand appeals from any parish or inquisition trial.
Professional militaries are nonexistent in Puna, and fighting is done by loyal knights trained in archery, swordsmanship, poetry, and chivalry, though these knights are increasingly being supplanted by artless, pragmatic mercenaries.
While this system sounds neatly pyramidial on paper, it is important to remember that laws are rarely written or enforced, judges rule on personal preference, lords and barons swear vassalage outside geographical and practical concerns, large swaths of hill country are beyond the direct control of landlords, petty squabbles and sexual scandals dominate the affairs of nobility and clergy, and most higher powers are nominal. All power is determined by interpersonal relations, and when that fails, wars.
Geography
Central Puna (also known as the heartland, consisting of the western and eastern Punac principalities) is flat and sandy, inhabited by a constellation of walled city-states and large estates, growing maize and wheat as staple crops. As stone is sparse and expensive to transport, most architecture is of red clay brick and timber.
Local dish: fresh cut wheat noodles, stuffed with spinach and sheep's cheese, with sauteed yellow squash and spiced chickpeas.
Northern Puna (also known as Pavar or the hill country) is a rough, craggy hillscape of limestone, cacti, and pines. Small villages and remote hunting estates are few and far between; transportation is along the few navigable rivers and ancient roads cut through the foothills. Villagers build huts of cobbled limestone and thatch, and maintain terraced gardens and small plots of mountain yams.
Local dish: a soup made with beets, mountain yams, carrots, and rump of venison, with a side of dark spiced rye bread and creamy sheep's cheese.
Merotan is a principality along the Mero river system. Swampier than Eastern Puna, wooden huts dot the sandy riverbanks among a marshy landscape of deltas and mangroves, and mudbrick town walls ring the hilltops above the flood line. Gardens of wild rice, sweet yams, and maize are tended to; catfish, crawfish, and shrimp aquaculture is done with aquaponics and walled ponds. Unlike most of Puna, the peasants of the Merozdan Principality speak the incorrigible Merovig dialect, a pidgin incomprehensible to standard Punac Farisi speakers.
Local dish: Catfish breaded in maize and fried, served with fried yam chips and stewed squash, dipped in a creamy garlic sauce.
Volgotan is known as "the gateway to the steppe." Where the Elbens begin to curve northward and the land opens into broad prairies, settled population is sparse. The handfull of baronies are essentially trading outposts; entrepreneurial settlers herd cattle and grow sparse tufts of maize to trade with nomads from the steppe and beyond. Similar to Merozdan, the principality is seen as a backwater.
Local dish: A steamed wheat bun stuffed with duck and cabbage, dipped in a salty fermented fish sauce.
Etruz is by far the largest city in the land of Puna. A metropolis sprawling across the countless sandy islands and labyrinthine canals north of the Ponti delta, the city was the nexus of the original Puanic seafaring empire. After the city's razing and complete depopulation in the Messianic conquest, it was gradually rebuilt upon the sinking foundations of the old city. Legend tells the city was founded by the wandering Puni when they saw a sign from the sky god, a stork with an arrow in its neck, perched upon an Opuntia cactus on a small sandy island in the center of the delta. The Puni built their city out from that spot, and today, the city has been rebuilt in three to four layers (depending on the district) of red brick foundations, and the palace complex of the Holy See is built atop what was once the temple of the sea god.
Local dish: A stewy dish of tender goat, lentils, and tomatoes cooked in a thick red wine sauce, eaten with a soft wheat flatbread.
What is an elf?
Amarai poems tell that they were the first men given fire from heaven. The kings of old conjured wheat from the earth, and built great pyramids which scraped the stars, ruling for 28,800 years until the sky father wished to humble the great kings and sent his legions of angels to topple the towers and raze the earth. The noblest of the Amarai fled east across the desert, settling in the red land, in the shadow of the mountains of the dead. The Amarai today are a humble people, living in walled adobe towns without kings.