Pronunciation: ETH-ih-VEER-an
Demonym: Ethivir/Ethiviran
Racial Distribution: kobold (96%), other (4%)
Primary Languages: Priv
Each Ethiviran tribe is jointly ruled by a matriarch and a patriarch, following the kobold tendency to defer to a dominant couple. The leaders dictate jobs, resource allotment, hunting parties, and trading crews, in order to best ensure the clan's survival in a harsh environment. They can be easily identified among their subordinates by their snowmasks, which are carved to resemble the face of a fearsome remorhaz.
Ethiviran tribes do trade with the most abundant resources available to them, with are fish and other marine creatures. Dried fish meat, scales of various shapes and sizes, whalebone and fat for lanterns, and sealskins are all common among their offerings for sale. They excel at creating warm water resistant clothing, so their market stalls are frequented by northern seafarers.
Ethiviran Territory contains all of the Sukrehl Islands, as well as coastal territory on the northwestern tip of continental Altandor. The area is chilly during the summer and dangerously frigid during the winter, which massive sheets and chunks of ice encroaching on the northern side of the islands, sometimes even freezing over enough to allow passage between the islands. The sparse evergreen forests that lie inland are carefully guarded and maintained for the two essential resources they provide: firewood and lumber for boats.
Ethiviran culture can be as harsh as its homeland, with severe punishments for anything that harms the survival chances of the tribe. Growth and harvesting of forests is controlled, food is doled out based on need, a close eye is kept on fish populations, and magic items that allow one to swim in the icy water without freezing to death are closely guarded, only to be handed out to the best hunters and warriors. These laws tend to be well heeded since banishment is effectively death in the Sukrehl Islands - no tribe will spare food for an outcast or give up a boat for them to travel, so the best hope for an outcast is to pay their way on a trade boat south by doing menial work and begging for food.
Some winters are harsher than others. In a great freeze, when access to fish is restricted by ice and food and patience run thin, the tribes may resort to stealing from each other. For the tribes that do poorly in defending from incursions, the only recourse is too acquire needed resources further south, typically by raiding coastal villages on the mainland in turn. Raiding parties usually leave and return by night, hoping to hide their ill-gotten goods from other tribes, so as to avoid being raided yet again. These raids have given the Ethiviran somewhat of a poor reputation on the mainland.
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