Ugh... Wanted Homelands, got Quintus (Patreon)

I'd hoped to have a rough draft of Chapter 27 of Homelands up for folks to look over, but my day got eaten up.  Apologies.  I'm doing okay, but looking for a good job / career.  Panda is pokey.  She tires easily, but she's still eating and pooping so I figure she's doing okay too.

So something a little more world buildy in the meantime...

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The Sumerlani

Of all the people in the world, none are said to be more attractive than the Sumerlani.  Yet this people, who can trace their origins all the way back to the Shattering itself, can also lay claim to the oldest nation in the world, and while it has been conquered numerous times by world powers, none can claim to have ever ruled it.

The island of Sumer was the result of the shattering thrusting up an immense wedge of sea floor up atop the Ferran continental shelf.  The phenomenon created hundreds of reefs and shoals along the Ferran coast, as well as the immense island that run almost a hundred miles north east to south west  The southern face of the island slopes gently into the sea, catching the warm, wet currents and breezes from the south west, which provide consistent warm and gentle rains that nurture a dazzling arrangement of sub tropical and tropical plant life.  The shoals provide a rich abundance of marine life as well.

The northern face of the island, however, is a nearly impassible cliff more than a mile high, dropping straight down into the sea.  The staggering deep waters make ports impossible along the north face.  Winds ripping over the crest spawn unpredictable winds that make navigation between the Isle and the continent of Ferria difficult at best.  The countless shoals made the island the de-facto terminus for western exploration.

The Sumerlani people themselves, however, were the result of an act of mercy by an Ith.  Seeing the destruction ripping the world apart, they erected a barrier of diamond to shield a few dozen humans from annihilation.  The Ith used their power to feed and shelter the humans in the hell scape that followed, eventually leading them to the island.  It was safe, being almost free of monsters, and the Ith used the last of their days helping transform it into a garden.  That Ith would be called Suma by the inhabitants, and eventually worshiped as a mother of gods.

The Sumerlani appear as a blend of Ferran, Ossian, and Aurumi characterizes, and all three find the phenotype attractive.  Sumerlani are petite of build, almost hairless below the nose, with skin ranging from dark tan to deep red.  Sumerlani eyes range from yellow, to orange, to pink.  The Sumerlani voice ranges from soprano to alto, and deep voices are rare are prized by the people.  Hair ranges from red to black, and is usually grown long and woven into braids.

To most, Sumerlani dress is non-existent.  The mild, warm weather makes clothes superfluous, and the most common clothes is a wrist pouch or satchel for carrying goods.  Sumerlani, however, decorate their body with sinuous and elaborate tattoos with colored octopi inks.  The shape and location of a tattoo is of particular importance.  Every child is given one over their heart that is unique to their family at their first birthday.  The tattoo is made more elaborate when they enter adulthood and when married.  Tattoos on hands denote trade or warrior skills.  Tattoos on the face or brow indicate wisdom, creativity, or compassion.  Tattoos on the feet and ankles denote where on the island they are from.  These are all intermixed with whatever other tattoos the Sumerlani might find interesting.

The Sumerlani culture is particularly welcoming and somewhat disturbing to some outsiders.  Aside from the lack of nudity taboo, the Sumerlani likewise are casual with sexual matters as well.  Sailors are more than eager to make port there, where beautiful men and women see carnality as no more special than a handshake.  Infidelity doesn't exist.  If a man's wife is pregnant, the family grows stronger.  If anything, he's profiting from some one else's toil.  The Sumerlani, however, have learned of sea life which can be employed to end pregnancy once the over amorous foreigner has departed.  Whether through exposure, luck, or local pharmacology, the Sumerlani are resistant to many diseases that plague other parts of the world.

While foreigners are keep to visit, most leave within two weeks.  The island is notorious for it's Rainbow Dreams.  Foreigners who overstay soon start having vivid dreams that become harder and harder to wake from.  Eventually they become catatonic and suffer severe cognitive damage, left in a child like state.  While tales of curses and spirits are invoked, the condition is actually caused by an extremely common butterfly that inhabits the island.  The powder on its wings is a psychadelic neurotoxin, and has been used by the Sumerlani to deal with hostile invaders.

The Sumerlani have faced invasions multiple times, from Aran initianlly, then from Corsian pirates, Ossian slavers, and even the Irrynian Empire.  Every attempt fails.  The Sumerlani are masters of resistance, always seeming to yield to demands while never actually meeting them.  They will stupefy soldiers with food, sex, and drugs and rob them of their valuables.  They will compromise viceroys and leaders, and when all else fails, there's the Rainbow Dream to fall back on.

Worse, the Sumerlani's apparent delicateness bely a truly deadly people.  The Sumerlani may not wear clothes or wield steel weapons, but Sumerlani warriors exist.  Dream warriors enter a psychoactive state in which they inflict grievous wounds while in a dream like trance, striking with wooden mauls or shark tooth spears.  Butterfly maidens excel at getting targets in bed and smothering them or poisoning them with toxins secreted in their bodies.  Finally the people have an intense hand to hand combat technique going back millennia.  Outsiders are often surprised when a naked woman half their size kicks their nose bone clear into their skull.  Many families cultivate variations of the fighting techniques.  Finally, many sorcerous bloodlines can be found on the island, and the Sumerlani have no magical taboos.

Occasionally, Sumerlani are taken from their homes by force.  Fortunately, the Sumerlani know patience, manipulation and deception.  Many feign childlike helplessness and stupidity to lull their captors into false security.  Many will attempt to make themselves 'exclusive' to leaders and wait for an opportunity to escape or get revenge.  Sumerlani who are taken and return typically wind up in stories of cunning escapes from stupid, horny foreigners.

When Sumerlani leave of their own accord, the result can be shocking.  Sumerlani find clothing difficult to grasp if there is not an immediate and utilitarian need for it.  They do not connect nudity with immodesty, and thus there can be many, many misunderstandings between a travelling Sumerlani and their hosts.  Sumerlani are particularly scornful of rules against adultery, finding them extremely selfish and inflexible.  Some more metropolitan ports may excuse Sumerlani behavior, but other more repressive lands will not be accommodating.  The Sumerlani usually find reasons to depart for warmer climates.

The Sumerlani enjoyed relative peace and stability.  Conflict could be resolved by hand to hand conflicts or other competition between champions.  Widespread conflict between families was generally unknown.  Foreigners brought trade, and left before they became too difficult to deal with.  But while Sumerlan was a popular destination, it was frequently bypassed.  Ships would sail thousands of miles around the continent to reach the Riverland of the Kol and Bol river.  The island was also utterly devoid of useful deposits of ore, making most of its trade pharmalogical or agricultural.

Sumerlan is extremely undeveloped due to the natural fecundity of its location.  It's growing season is year round, and it receives regular rainfall that is captured in small cisterns for the occasional dry week.  Fruit, rice, and fish are staples of the Sumerlani diet, and palates tend towards the sweet end of the spectrum.  The higher elevations are cooler and prime for a variety of wild cocoa and coffee, two extremely popular stimulants.  Most villages consist of a dozen interrelated families, and most official marriages are between villages.

The Sumerlan architecture is largely wood, cloth, and reed based.  Sumerlan lacks good quarriable stone.  Stone pile foundations are common, but the structures themselves are generally wood.  Roofs are thatch and cloth.  Sumerlan love warm colors, particularly red, and any red dye is highly prized.  Most furnature is on the ground, with cushions serving as seats and beds interchangibly.  Low, round tables are extremely common, with children eating off to the side.

Religiously, the Sumerlan technically worship the dodecahedric faith, but only venerate three of the twelve.  The Lord, Lady, and Lovers are lumped together into Suma, Goddess of the isle, who wishes for large and healthy families.  Her religious ceremonies are frequently orgies on the spring equinox to coincide with birthings in winter.  Sumerlani decorate their bodies with dyes and powders to show their participation, which is seen as a rite of adulthood.  The Sea is worshipped as Fathoma, who also serves as goddess of death as well.  Sumerlani dead are wrapped in reeds with stones and dropped into the deeps beyond the reef.  Criminals are executed by being flung off the northern cliff.  The Beast and Wood are comingled into a general nature spirit.  Shrines to all twelve can be found, but expression confusion is frequent.   A multitude of Ossian 'small gods' have made their way into veneration as well.

Marrige to the Sumerlani is complex.  Men and women can be married to a multitude of people, and it's better to think of families as an economic and political union rather than a reproductive one.  Families work together to provide for family, and even if dispersed, family is a tying bond.  Because family is tattooed into skin upon marriage, divorce is seen as a betrayal of the family.  Familicide is the gravest of crimes.  As a result, prospective spouses frequently 'intern' with the family, working and associating closely with them, including sex.  While outsiders may find the arrangement identical to marriage, to the Sumerlani the intern has no legal rights of inheritance nor to share in the profit.  They are essentially donating their labor to demonstrate their value to the family.  After a year, traditions say marriage should take place or the intern dismissed, or else the family may face stigma.  Some families, however, exploit this tradition, working dozens of suitors while dangling the promise of marriage.  Socially, this is frowned upon, but occurs.

For untold centuries the Sumerlani were a curiosity, exotic and even mythologized.  Some claim they were immortal, others that they could invade dreams.  Moralists used the Sumerlani as a cautionary tale, warning that sexual promiscuity would cause children to flee to Sumerlan forever!  Others fetishized them, with noblewomen attempting to darken their skin or adopt Sumerlani fertility tattoos to be shared in the boudoir.  Yet for the most part Sumerlan was a curiosity and nothing more.

All that changed when an enterprising half Sumerlani, half Arani woman named Sejia decided to map the shoals.  Using newly developed navigation equipment from Aran, Sejia sailed for ten years from rocky island to rocky island and even was the first to map the treacherous northern face of the island.  She learned of a peculiarity: a gap a quarter mile across between two deadly rows of shoals.  Virtually invisible, from the sea, she knew it could change the island's future.  Sejia went back to the city of Uhm and bedded a captain till they agreed to attempt the passage.  With a half dozen Sumerlani canoes, the ship traversed the gap and sailed smoothely from Sumerlan to the port of Dyne, a mere three hundred miles away, a tenth of the distance.

Sejia's gap changed trade forever.  Ships now queued up to be ferried through the gap in the reefs.  Ports on the outer sea would see their fortunes disappear as ships could now complete the fabled 'Inner Sea Loop.', going from Aran to Corsia, to Puntjaport, Cuprina, Summerlan, Dyne, Caer Horne, Runeport,  Gullport,  Estapor, and finishing back in Aran.  The gap would cement Sumerlan's fortunes for ever, and the odd little back water with a reputation for sexual indecency became a wealthy trading partner over night.

But trade brought problems.  Some Sumerlani traditionalists frowned on the wealth and disruption the traders caused.  Sure, Rainbow Fever guaranteed they would go, but there was always more ready to take their place.  A spiritualist faction has risen up, 'Edgewalkers' who live along the massive drop to the north face, and have taken out annoyances and frustrations on endless foreigners.  Tensions which would normally be resolved with a spar between two village champions or vigorous lovemaking now continue to build.

This disagreement reaches its focus with trade friendly Sumerlani calling for the eradication of the prism butterfly, claiming that wealth and trade makes Rainbow fever more of a liability than an asset.  The town of Seju has grown to be the largest in Sumerlan, with Sumerlani there actually wearing Ossian silks, covering up many of the tattoos which are as much a pillar of Sumerlani culture as the butterflies.  Yet foreign powers, eager to see their ships moved through the gap faster are keen on arming sympathetic Sumerlani.

For ages, the Sumerlani enjoyed paradise.  Now it remains to be seen if they can preserve it.