Saka

A Pech trader brings his catch to market atop a Mottled Thunderfoot.

Species: Pech (Drift-Wind Folk; Dominant), Pterredans (Saurian Sky Clutch), Ogre (Steel Brave), Rootwalker

Era: Primitive

Paths: Thyilea, Stryzgia, Hansa, Eomer (mountainous plateau), Lataine(swamp/forest), Andulan, Mireywood (Canyon), Xibalba (Boglands), Arridea (Forest, Bogs)

Contacts: Thyliea, Xibalba, Arridea, Hansa (Trade)

Enemies: Lataine, Eomer, Aeneia (historical enmity)

Government: Tribal

Capital: Ah-Khulassa (trade city)

Origin Languages: Pech (Sakan), Saurian

Typical Encounters: Kaiju, Dinosaur, Dragon, Con-Men, Monstrous Insect, Raptor, Sporling, Dire Creatures, Trade Caravans, Hunter-Gatherers, Druids, Escaped Criminals, Treasure Hunters

Keyword Qualities: Lost World, Saurian Sorcerer-Kings, High-Risk/High-Profit, Tribal Dinosaur Riders, Megafuana, Ruined Cities of Giants

PC/NPCs: Redbones

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Saka is an enourmous expanse of nearly unspoiled, dangerous wilderness. To the west and north the land is sundered from Andulan, Mireywood, Thyilea, Stryzgia, and Hansa by Qinghis' Wound, a long mile-deep canyon. To the east Saka is isolated from Eomer and Northern Lataine by the Heavenly Stairs, a vast mountainous plateau up to 8000 meters in height. Glaciers feed innumerable rivers which cross through the rugged hills at their base, through the vast forests and high plains and terminating in thousands of waterfalls that fall in Qinghis' Wound. Only to the south is Saka open, though this route is made difficult due to thick forests and impassable mires.

The earliest history of Saka is lost to legendry; the only existing fragmentary documents known come from the Elven historian Herodides. Qinghis desired someplace to hunt fantastic game. He rent the earth with his spear in the north and west, used the teeth of a primordial dragon to wall off the east, and poured a libation from his driking horn in the south. Once complete he populated the lands with strange and deadly beasts. These animals still exist today in great numbers, from the peaceful giant Magalom to the savage Vadgu to the ornery Askuzai. The size and feroricty of Sakan fauna is largely the reason it has yet to be civilized.

The earliest sentient inhabitants of Saka were a nameless race of 80 foot tall giants, that according to myth were caretakers for Qinghis. They built great stone cities of immense scale and mysteriously died off eons ago. Some say that the rootwalker druids, forever hostile to civilization, let loose impossibly huge kaiju, which drove them into ruin. The fractured ruin of the giants cyclopean architecture is still used today by the nomadic pech tribes that dominate the plains and steppe.

Over millennia many have tried to civilize the savage wilderness, and all have failed. It fell to a small but clever pech named Sackfill Dook to accomplish what others could not. Leading his people into the wilderness, they gave up their civilized way and became a clan of hunter-gatherers, thereby living with the land instead of subjugating it. Today the Pech tribes are the dominant political entity in the region, making a living following herds of great beasts and foraging on wild plants. These tribes follow a strict set of migratory paths so that the different biomes they live off of are given time to recover and flourish.

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Roughly 1700 years ago the Sakans burst out of their homeland led by brother and sister Issus and Issa (Tisin and Msyn in Sakan tongue). With Issus' great military prowess and Issa's formidable sorcery they carved out an empire stretching as far west as the Xibalban boglands, and as far east and south as to encompass ancient Aeneia.

The Aenians called their conquerors the Scoloputeans after the titles of their rulers, and for almost 300 years the region was dominated by the Issinid dynasty before being overturned by the emerging power of the Sallustrian Republic. To the south, the Pitolean Dynasty (founded by Sakan Pitol the Rescuer) survives after a fashion today in the worship of the Asp Queen, Neaisis VII Ptol.

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In modern times the Sakans have only one city, a ramshackle trading outpost on the eastern side of Qinghis' Wound named Ah-Khulassa. Ah-Khulassa’s seemingly random, disorganized layout mirrors the chaotic, non-existent structure of its government. The city serves as the only trade outpost for all the wild resources of Saka to the rest of Aea, and is populated by only the toughest and most resilient.

Far to the east, in the soaring heights of the Heavenly Stairs, like the impossibly high cities of the Pterredans. They are rarely seen, and are rumored to be ruled by dark and powerful sorcerer-kings that fly effortlessly between their cities and the void between the stars where they cavort with unimaginable horrors.