Uulam (pronounced OOH-lam) is a region in the far south of the Stormlands. Peoples of the glaciers and the ice, the many tribes of Uulam carve out their existence from the frigid landscape. Some do so quite literally, residing in glacier-hewn villages, while most keep to nomadic lifestyles instead.
Geography
Uulam encompasses a vast swath of land and sea across most of the southern Stormlands. It stretches from the coast of the Mhasmuth Ocean in the West to the Na-Gaesa Ocean in the east, and from the rugged mountains and protected fjords of Ubaaluu to the nearly featureless landscape of the O'oen Ice Sheet, which is over a mile thick in places. It is defined, ultimately, far more by where its people live than by any geographical boundaries.
It is overwhelmingly a cold landscape, though this does vary greatly. In the Land of a Thousand Bonfires, islands covered in boreal forests where plant and animal life alike abounds, winters are harsh and long but they do, eventually, give way to more temperate summers. In the southern lands bordering the Ishkre Ocean, however, temperatures rarely if ever rise above freezing, leading to massive and permanent ice sheets that cover the land and sea. Parts of the north, closer to Akatzar, are frigid tundra. Despite this large parts of Uulam can be considered deserts, as little precipitation falls to join the snow and ice that already blankets the landscape.
Geothermal activity is widespread throughout much of Uulam, but especially in the eastern Kuure Archipelago, where geysers are commonplace.
History
The people of Uulam claim to be some of the oldest continual inhabitants of the Stormlands. Certainly some artifacts of the ancient past, such as the turning stone circles, are far older than any known settlement in neighboring Akatzar, Masin, or Maukra.
Demographics
Humans, hobgoblins, and kobolds account for most of the population of Uulam. No region is overwhelmingly any one ancestry, though hobgoblins tend to be more common in the northern and central parts of Uulam and humans in the far eastern islands and the western fjords. The tribes of Uulam, however, are each typically formed primarily of individuals of a single ancestry.
Culture
Religion
The people of Uulam venerate both deities and their ancestors, in different ways. Their gods are the Nuuen, incredibly wise whale guardian deities. To the Uulam, size directly correlates to intelligence, and therefore the whales of the frigid Ishkre Ocean are to them possessors of great knowledge collected throughout their decades if not centuries of life. When the whale-gods disappear beneath the surface of the sea, where they spend the vast majority of their time, they do so to ponder all they have learned and confer with their kin. All this wisdom and knowledge is thought to be contained within the eyes of the whales, and so Uulam seeking guidance frequently take to their boats, setting off from the ice to search for surfacing whales in order to gaze into their eyes. Even aside from such voyages, it is not unusual for the Uulam to follow sightings of the Nuuen, especially when the seas clear of ice, as they are believed to lead the tribes away from hazards and towards more plentiful lands. In times of particular danger the Nuuen are said to emerge from the seas to converse directly with the people of Uulam and give them instruction in a language shaped from water itself.
What qualifies as Nuuen is not always consistent amongst the Uulam. Whales almost always are, but others consider some types of particularly large, long-lived sharks to be deific in nature as well. Most tribes have particular Nuuen, each with their own names, histories, and focus of knowledge, to which they are especially attached, and it is not unusual for the tribes to seek out these whales even when others with which they may be less familiar are known to be closer nearby.
Uulam ancestor worship, meanwhile, centers around the southern lights, which are thought to be the result of their predecessors painting with light and sound. This form of connection with the deceased is immensely comforting to most and invariably a source of joy to those who witness it. It is also a significant factor in why the people of Uulam do not migrate north more often, as doing so would involve far less frequent communion with one's ancestors, if ever. This communication with the deceased goes two ways, and veneration is largely performed by communal singing in the night with the lights.
A handful of people in Uulam construct and venerate ancestor monoliths, as do some of the more northerly peoples, but this is uncommon and limited to those living in the northern margins near the Barricades.
Society
The Uulam are split between many tribes, each of which has its own traditions, customs, and history. There are innumerable of these, ranging from small, isolated groups of a handful of families to hundreds of people across a wide area. The largest of them are known as the eight bonfire tribes - the Auuran, Hish, Kaa, Kiin, Kiliike, Mahashuu, Suuan, and We - who are particularly influential in the regions in which they live. The bonfire tribes typically form the cores of tribal alliances, through their prestige and repute able to draw together disparate peoples who may not otherwise work together.
The sea is of central importance to the Uulam as a source, and destination, of everything. Even those who reside far inland call themselves the people of the waves and believe their current conditions away from the ocean to be, ultimately, temporary. Those who live directly off the sea, as do most of the Uulam, typically craft their boats out of skin-covered frames, though dugouts are not unknown amongst those in more tree-covered regions. These vessels are typically small and hold only one person, or at most up to three.
Languages
Uulam is the most spoken language by the tribes of the region. While often considered a single language, its various dialects can differ significantly from each other, as speakers of the language live across an almost three thousand mile wide territory and often with quite a degree of isolation from each other.
Uulam has a complex system of animacy, with each noun categorized by its complexity of thought. Most speakers consider there to be three fundamental levels, with some variation and sublevels. Nouns referring to subjects like people, spirits, animals, and trees occupy the highest level, followed by those referring to natural but not sentient phenomena like water or weather, followed finally by anything non-natural and non-thinking like houses, tools, and so on.
Architecture, migration, and urbanization
The majority of the population of Uulam lives in the western fjords. Comparatively few live on the continental ice sheet or across the sea ice. Regular migration is common, especially in the central and eastern parts of Uulam, usually following sources of food.
Uulam settlements vary extremely widely. In the forests of the far west, and especially in the Land of a Thousand Bonfires, wooden homes surrounded by palisades are common, but in most of Uulam such materials are much less plentiful. In the fjords and the eastern islands hide tents over wood or bone frames form the typical dwelling, often covered with snow and ice for insulation and camouflage. Most striking are the glacier-hewn villages, abodes carved into the solid walls of ice. These are often located in natural tunnels or chasms through the glaciers, especially those of the O'oen, in places difficult to find if one is not already familiar. The kobolds of Uulam sometimes carve these villages into the surfaces of the ice sheets, creating warm but confusing maze-like warrens.
Food and cuisine
Almost all the Uulam are hunter-gatherers with a heavy emphasis on seafood. Seal, walrus, crab, fish, and shellfish - but never whale - makes up most of the typical Uulam diet. Those in the west and north often forage for berries and tubers when the opportunity arise. The few who live farther inland often hunt musk oxen or smaller land mammals.
Arts
Intricate scrimshaw - carved out of the ivory of walrus or even wooly rhinos - is one of the most distinctive forms of Uulam art. It is often used as a way of retaining and sharing stories, or even as a medium for writing, but it frequently serves purely aesthetic purposes as well, shaped into intricate masks, brooches, buttons, staff heads, and more.
Government
Tetrads of elders, one of each gender, serve as the final arbiters and decision makers of each tribe. Despite this, however, most tribes and bands encourage decisions to be made independently by smaller groups while still keeping in mind the needs of all their people. This is largely a result of the distances and amount of territory across which a tribe may be found - this level of separation is frequently not conducive to any form of centralized authority. Only upon major disagreements by their other, more diffuse leaders are the tetrads typically consulted.
While each tribe may claim a given territory as their own, and at times be fiercely protective lest others take from the often resource-starved landscape, none extend such notions to the sea, for the waters and waves are the domain of the Nuuen and the Nuuen only. Conflict, or any manner or level of disrespect towards others, is not to be tolerated while on, in, or near the sea, as the Nuuen look upon such behavior extremely negatively and are liable to withhold their wisdom from those who displease them in such a way.