#uanlikri

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The Tiagwiek are part of the Am-Wiek culture area. Like all mountain people, their ancestry is mixed kpikidg and undeno. In their day-to-day life, Tiagwiek do not identify with such a large group as "the Tiagwiek", instead being concerned with more closely local identities such as clan and family. However, they do have some sense of cultural unity with other Tiagwiek as being the same and distinct from other local peoples, such as the Ghaxgø, the Obixwø-øi, or the Amtur.

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The Naihlam are part of the Am-Wiek culture area. Like all mountain people, their ancestry is mixed kpikidg and undeno, with distinctly more undeno in the lowlands.

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The Reinkam are part of the Am-Wiek culture area. The relative political stability of the Reinkam comparatively to other Am peoples has put them in a peculiar position in terms of international politics. On the one hand, the Reinkam's lifestyle, eschewing animal husbandry, is perceived as wilder than that of other Am. On the other hand, the presence of long-lasting kingdoms has allowed them to build more solid relations with other nations, leading them to be perceived as the more civilized Am. Reinkam kingdoms like the Lake Frer kingdom are the only Am nations to have permanent embassies in the Basin.

The power of these kingdoms has also meant that the Reinkam have been less severely excluded from the bronze trade than other Am peoples, leading to slower adoption of steel technology.

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The Akisam are part of the Am-Wiek culture area.

Despites being closest to the Qítiō as the crow flies, the Akisam have had relatively little direct exchange with them due to the extremely rugged topography of the mountain ridges in that part of the Kantishian and the very small number of passable mountain passes. Instead, most exchanges with the Qítiō, such as the adoption of steel technology, have taken place indirectly with the Naihlam as intermediaries.

Southern Akisam populations have distinctly more kpikigd ancestry than the rest of the Am. These southern Akisam have an especially rigid patriarchal structure and strong taboos surrounding the wearing and sharing of pelts, like the Tiagwiek in the East. Historical documents from their more literate neighbours suggest that they might be more closely related to the Tiagwiek than other Am. The Tiagwiek used to be part of a group of peoples broadly called the Wiek, like the Am today. At the time when the Tiagwiek still dominated most of the central Kantishian, historical documents make mention of the Engwiek, a people living in the same valleys the southern Akisam inhabit nowadays. It is likely that the Engwiek were absorbed by the Akisam as Am peoples expanded and dislodged the Wiek peoples, explaining these particularities of the southern Am.

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The greater owlcat is the largest member of the owlcat family and one of the largest land predators in Uanlikri and can weight up to one tonne. Greater owlcats used to range the whole continent, but their northern range has been considerably reduced due to persecution by antioles and several northern subspecies have become extinct or nearly so. The situation is entirely different in the South, where it remains a potent and common predator.

Across history, the greater owlcat has been a potent cultural symbol throughout its whole range. It is oftentimes associated with the Moon due to its white facial disk and nocturnal habits which bring into into natural association with the full moon that marks midnight.

The greater owlcat is especially important to the Am-Wiek peoples of the Kantishian Mountains. Their consider the Owlcat a powerful and dangerous lunar spirit. Am-Wiek legends tell the tale of how the First Hunter killed the Owlcat's mate for his pelt, and how the Owlcat, striken with grief and mad with vengeance, hunted the First Hunter through the land until she came to his camp at night, killed him, and skinned him. She's worn his skin ever since in a show of her might and wrath, and because of this all of her children are marked with the black shadow of the First Hunter's skin on their backs.

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The spotted lesser owlcat is a small predator of the owlcat family - flat-faced theropods with small wings, a curved toe claw, and a facial disk. Lesser owlcats of various species are found all over Uanlikri.

Like other owlcats, it hunts by ambush, targeting primarily birds and other flighted small prey. It prefers mixed habitats of wetland and woodland: its distinctive mix of spots and stripes confer it good camouflage under the canopy and among riverside bushes and sparse reeds.

Antiole activity cutting down forests to build artificial wetlands for the cultivation of swamp rice has led to the spotted lesser owlcat's range diminishing in favour of its close cousin, the banded lesser owlcat.

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The founding populations of Uanlikri

Drawn by the sight of the moon over the horizon, antioles have peopled Uanlikri times and times again, first as newcomers to an empty land, and eventually as conquerors and colonizers. Which lineage first set foot on Uanlikri is a matter of debate: by the time of the first written histories, three of them were already so established as to form clines of ancestry from one end of the continent to the other.

Jẽ

The Jẽ might have been the first to set foot on the continent. They arrived from the north, through the belt of archipelagoes that almost connect Uanlikri to the land now known as Axue. It is a matter of debate to which extent the Jẽ actually form a single ancestry - how many times people arrived from the North, settled in, and mingled with those already there and those that followed. It is common to divide the Jẽ between the olive skinned coastal Ki peoples, and the brown skinned Cã desert-dwellers. The Cã count among their ancestors the civilization that invented the first forms of writing on Uanlikri. For this reason, they are often treated by scholars as descendents of Uanlikri's primordial culture - it is likely, however, that their arrival to Uanlikri is a latter one.

Illustrated: Cã male with brown skin and white feathers and Ki female with olive skin and yellow feathers.

Kpikigd

It is unknown when the Kpikigd arrived, but it is know that they stayed south for a long time before spreading northwards. The Kpikigd reached Uanlikri from the other side of the world by crossing the ice cap around the South Pole - a hazardous journey which resulted in a very small founder population. The Kpikigd that survived were a skewed sample of the population in their land of origin. Kpikigd are short and stout, with thick limbs and short rounded faces. The Kpikigd founders were hypermelanistic, black of skin and feather alike. In time, the Kpikigd expanded northwards, meeting and mingling with the southward-bound Undeno - the majority of Kpikigd today have significant Undeno contribution to their lineage, and the black skin and feathers of the founders are an unusual set of traits which survives today in the most isolated southern populations. Kpikigd have dark, greyish skin and tend to have abundant striping on their feathers.

Illustrated: Male with yellow feathers, female with green feathers, both of majority kpikigd ancestry with some distant Undeno contribution.

Undeno

The Undeno are two: the First Undeno, and the Second Undeno. Both arrived to Uanlikri from the distant lands to the West. It is unknow how the First Undeno crossed the ocean to reach Uanlikri, and when they did so exactly - it is only know that they did so a long time ago. The genetically distinct Undeno pigmies - the Dongo and the Apina'at - point towards a very early arrival.

The First Undeno landed on the Western Peninsula and spread eastward inland, and south and northwards along the western coast. In the millennia between their arrival and the first written histories of the Cã, they had settled the center of the continent and mingled with the Kpikigd and Jẽ so as to form a cline of ancestries, from the Kpikigd-most in the South to the Jẽ-most in the North, with the Undeno in the middle.

The Second Undeno arrived in recent history, bathing the Western Peninsula in fire and blood. They arrived as the conquering colonists of a distant empire, and were left behind as their homeland turned its gaze inwards again. Millennia have created considerable distance between the First and Second Undeno, but a shared ancestry remained apparent to the peoples of Uanlikri, as beyond the green skin, both groups share an ancient and deeply held taboo against showing one's throat, the roots of which are lost to time.

Illustrated: Female of the Second Undeno with red feathers, male of the First Undeno with green feathers. Arm feathers are a rare trait found in some central populations of the First Undeno.

Axuega

The Axuega are the last arrived on Uanlikri. They began coming to Uanlikri long after the first written words, from Axue, the same land the Jẽ had come from. By then, the continent was brimming with antioles, and there were no empty footholds. In any case, the Axuega did not come as conquerors and settlers, but as traders. Even so, some Axuega settled, and some more are settling still, leaving their old lives behind and founding a new one on Uanlikri. They are numerous enough to form diasporas in some regions, but not so much as to seem a serious threat to the locals... Yet.

Axuega are unusually tall, lanky, and pale, with low feather coverage and novel blue and blueish feathers.

Illustrated: Axuega male with green skin and blue feathers, and Axuega female with beige skin and teal feathers.

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A sample of common crops of Uanlikri, with a focus on crops grown on the Ojame archipelago.

More information under the cut.

Grains

Several types of grains and grain-like crops are cultivated in Uanlikri. Of these, the four major types are millet, sand rice, swamp rice, and amaranth (not depicted).

Millet and sand rice are heat-loving and drought tolerant, with sand rice requiring especially good soil drainage but being more cold hardy. They are the main staples north of the Kantishian Mountains. Millet is favoured in the wetter Basin region, and sand rice in the dryer, more mountainous western regions, and both are grown equally in the continent's hot and arid northern desert.

Swamp rice is another important staple of the Basin region: though cultivation is complexified by its extremely heavy water requirements (swamp rice only grows in marshes or riverbanks), the complex river deltas leading to the Basin's inner seas are ideal for its cultivation and have been heavily modified to create artificial wetlands where swamp rice can be grown. Some strains of swamp rice have good cold hardiness allowing them to be grown south of the Kantishian Mountains. Swamp rice has also been selected for salt resistance: it is an especially important crop in the cold brackish marshes of the Cianji river and in the hot saltwater marshes of the Ojame Archipelago.

Amaranth is primarily cultivated in southern regions of Uanlikri. In the southern Basin region, they are a supplemental crop, but up in the mountains and in the cold lands south of the Kantishian, amaranth is the main staple. Mountain amaranth is especially frost resistant and able to survive nightly summer frosts in the Kantishian's high plateaus.

Red oats, known in the Ojame archipelago as uciwici, is a locally important crop grown in eastern coastal regions. Red oats is sensitive to extreme temperatures and does poorly in continental climates, but its extremely high salt resistance and ability to grow in poor soils make it a crucial crop by allowing cultivation to extend to otherwise marginal areas such as sandbars, coastal dunes, and other poor, rocky and sandy soils. It is appreciated for its purple grains with a naturally slightly salty taste, and for its decorative red foliage which retains some of its colour when dried, making it useful for basketry.

Ferns

Other grain-like crops grown in Uanlikri are seed ferns. Seed ferns are distantly related to true ferns and cycads. Two species are cultivated in Uanlikri: a climbing seed fern grown South of the Kantishian and which produces large numbers of small orange seeds attached to the underside of its fronds, and a caytoniale tree fern which produces modified fronds with large, round yellow seeds instead of leaves and is grown in the Upper Basin and Great Lakes region.

Climbing seed ferns are extremely prolific with a seasonal harvest on par with grain fields and well-keeping seeds with high nutritional value. The seeds are bitter with a taste somewhat reminiscent of burnt almonds and citrus peel, and are usually parboiled before cooking to remove some of the bitterness.

Caytoniale seed ferns are less prolific but are perennials. The seed envelope is also quite bitter, but the seed flesh has a pleasant neutral flavour and a crunchy, sticky texture not unlike that of meringue. Seeds keep well on the tree, but go bad quickly once harvested unless they are properly processed: seeds meant to be kept are parboiled, smoked, and ground into flour, while seeds meant for short-term consumption are either hulled and ground into flour, or hulled and grilled, often to be eaten as snacks alongside grilled insects.

True ferns are commonly consumed as greens, especially young fern shoots (fiddle-heads) and equisetum (horsetail) ferns. Antioles are less sensitive to the toxins in ferns, and parboiling of fiddleheads is often done but not strictly necessary unless consumed in great quantities.

Legumes

Legumes grown for food are historically rather rare in Uanlikri prior to the conquest of the Western Peninsula by the Senq Ha Empire. There are only two important legume crops in Uanlikri which are native to the continent: the grosbean, and the wax pea.

Grosbean is a vine which produces short, rectangular pods containing two to three large beans. The beans are exceptionally large, very colourful, and have a somewhat chalky texture. They used to be a staple in the Basin region, but have been mostly displaced by more palatable varieties introduced by Senq Ha colonists, though they are still grown for jewellery.

The wax pea is short, somewhat vine-like plant producing smooth pods containing a single unpalatable, extremely waxy pea. Though they are edible under duress, wax peas have never been grown as a food crop. They are instead highly valued for the wax which can be obtained by boiling the peas in a slightly acidic solution.

Other legumes (not depicted) have grown in popularity in the two centuries since and are now commonly eaten in most regions.

Roots and fruits

There is a great regional variation in the crops grown for their greens, roots, and fruits. This section should be treated as a sample of a sample, focused more closely on crops grown in the Ojame Archipelago.

Fruits

There are several species of ginkgo in Uanlikri, all of which produce elegant foliage and edible nuts. The nuts stink and their skin can cause rashes, so they are to be manipulated with caution, but their creamy flesh is much appreciated for its strong cheese-like flavour, which confers a pungent taste to salty and sweet dishes alike.

Bird cherries are small, cherry-like fruits that grow on trees and bushes. Most bird cherries are tart and astringent and are used for a touch of tartness or in jams and other preserves. Some cultivars produce very sweet cherries. The seeds of most birdcherries are mildly toxic to antioles.

The arils of a few yew species are eaten by antioles, especially as a gooey prepared delicacy or in jams. All other parts of the yew plant are extremely toxic to antioles, and the arils must be consumed with extreme caution. Because of this, it is illegal to plant yews on the Ojame Archipelago and especially in Ranai, but due to the extreme longevity of these trees, there are several ancient yews in the city of Ranai which are important landmarks and sources of yew arils.

Various citrus are grown and used throughout the Northern parts of the continent: most are acidic and bitter, though there are also sweet varieties. In the citruses of Uanlikri, green is associated with sweetness, yellow with bitterness, and orange with acidity.

Sumac is an important culinary crop in the Ojame Archipelago: sumac fruits are processed for the production of malic acid, a popular flavoring and crucial ingredient in the traditional Ojame ceviches.

Mothberries are named after their pale blue flowers in the shape of a butterfly. It is a drought resistant plant originating from the northern regions of the continent and cultivated for multiple uses: its tuber and leaves are aromatic and medicinal and its fruit is very sweet.

Roots

Root vegetables of all kinds make up an important portion of non-staple crops throughout Uanlikri.

Fur yams are floury and sweet, with edible and prolific leaves with a distinctly "green" taste.

Gourd roots, named after their shape, are crunchy, aromatic and sweet, with leaves used as culinary herbs.

Reeds are an all-around essential plants, with young shoots eaten as greens, roots eaten as a staple by coastal and marshland peoples, and its dried leaves and stems essential materials in basketry.

Orange onions are one of the many varieties of alliums cultivated in Uanlikri. They are the most popular alliums in Ranai. They are potently sulfuric and milden considerably with cooking.

Sweet and pearl radishes (are not radishes) are different cultivars of the Uanlikri radish (not a radish) with crunchy, fresh-tasting and slightly bitter leaves and small starchy tubers which produce very fine starches.

Spindleaf yams are plants with strangely shaped, aromatic and medicinal leaves somewhat reminiscient of sage and a juicy, crunchy tuber with a slight, mustard-like bite.

These are just a sample of grains, ferns, legumes, greens, roots and fruits eaten in Ranai and elsewhere on the continent of Uanlikri. Many of these plants have a large number of regional cultivars, and each region has a variety of local plants they grow or gather which are not broadly eaten elsewhere.