The metropolitan peoples of the coast, a melting pot of shinsei, shabuluk and shenghuang practices, faiths and philosophies, yet honed into their very own thing by centuries of cultural drift.

Kishians take their name due to the capital , Kish. A port city with tens of thousands, a trade hub and renown for its open sale of good steel weapons, enchanted items, exotic animals and firearms. From the simple arquebus and handcannon to the firelance, the great arquebus, and if one can afford them, cannons, mortars and hwachas. Besides the clear trade angle, the kishian make up for the lack of manpower with great beasts of burden. Their ships are pulled by whales and guided by schools of sharks, whilst in land, packs of hounds as big as a man fight alongside the regiments of goatriders. Lastly, in the fertile lowlands around Kish, many highlanders have been enslaved and put to work in the farms, often prisioners sold by other highlander tribes, or captured in war by the kishian army itself.,

Firearms are somewhat commonplace in the kishian armies, with arquebus samurai companies being the pride of the daimyos. In battle, these men organize in tight ranks and stand still until ordered to release withering hails of lead.

The miners and hard laborers of a backwater province that dared not listen to bureaucrats once the dragons lost the spirit to subjugate them and the celestial emperor was nowhere to force them. Highlanders are as independent as they can fight for and as many as the land can sustain, with numbers quickly rebounding after a famine or great defeat. By headcount, they are the most populous nation, though comprised mostly of goblins and hobgoblins, with bugbears and kobolds being minorities. They have learned to work steel, but not the forges to make any of decent quality or size, and the centuries spent on mines and quarries have cut them from much of their tie with nature.

Still, in the depths of the world they have found dark secrets, which they employ for good and ill. All invaders of the highlands have witnessed the thunder of awakened gunpowder, and the terrors that follow whenever the highlanders get their hands on the corpses of fallen enemies. Such a fear is held of these men that even the suposed shogun will not dare enforce his laws, and limit himself to trade with the port towns that act as a mouth for the independent mountain tribes and their valuable shipments of ore.

In times of war, the highlander tribes skirmish in heavy armor, relying on the mountains to put distance with the enemy and bullets to make them fall. Come nightfall, corpses are prepared and set upon the enemy, beggining a cycle of harrasement that does not let down until the enemy is driven out, or destroyed.