Yurukan

Yurukan
Capital	None
Ruler	Multiple
Government	Scholar-princes and tribal monarchies
Demonym	Yurukanite
Adjective	Yurukan
Languages	Elven; Targai
Religions	Elven pantheon; Abanir pantheon; dead moon cults

Yurukan (pronounced YOU-roo-khan) is a land inhabited by the descendants of elves whose aeroliths crashed here thousands of years ago. Many still live in the once-flying cities, protecting their herds of reindeer from opportunistic tribes of kobolds.

Geography, flora, and fauna

Yurukan lies at the northwestern edge of the Aban Steppe where the grasslands give way to boreal forests and tundra. Nestled between the Northern Wall and the Kuzal Mountains, Yurukan is cold even in the summer and bitterly frigid in the long winters. Snow covers the landscape for much of the year, and the many rivers that flow down from the mountains likewise are commonly covered in ice. Still, for all its challenges, the landscape is somewhat more hospitable than much of the steppe to the south, as the forests and their margins are full of berries, edible roots, and other foodstuffs upon which people and animals alike rely. Bears, reindeer, lynx, eagles, and more are widespread in Yurukan.

Lake Ilithiia and the impossibly still Mirror Lake are the two largest bodies of water in Yurukan, the former fed by rivers beginning in the mountains and the latter supplied by seasonal snowmelt in the surrounding forests.

History

The elves have had a presence in Yurukan since at least Y7000^*, though perhaps even longer. When the age of the aeroliths began to come to an end, and the fate of Eita and the Cradle was becoming clear, some aerotheurges and other leaders of the flying cities began to search for locations farther afield to establish new elven societies, away from the consequences of their own creations. One such place was remote Yurukan.

Demographics

Elves and kobolds account for the vast majority of the population of Yurukan, but they are also joined by smaller numbers of orcs, humans, half-elves, and half-orcs. Non-elven, non-kobold peoples tend to be present mostly in the southern reaches of Yurukan and particularly around Mirror Lake.

Culture

Government

The peoples of Yurukan govern themselves in two quite distinct methods. Amongst the elves, the more traditionalist are led by scholar-princes, effectively the inheritors of the aerotheurges and scholar-nobility of old. These roles are not hereditary, but rather each scholar-prince is appointed by their predecessor and their advisors on the basis of scholarly achievements and personal aptitude. Each scholar-prince controls a settlement and its surrounding lands but has little influence farther afield.

Kobolds, other ancestries, and some elves, meanwhile, are led by tribal monarchies typical of those of Abanir. In the last few centuries the power of the scholar-princes have slowly waned in favor of this tribal systems, as one by one the last of the landed aeroliths give up clinging to old elven ways.

Economy

Though they do engage in trade at times with the targai and gatai of Abanir to the south, the elves of Yurukan pride themselves in their self-sufficiency and do not rely on others to acquire the goods they need to survive. Between their herds in the steppe and forests, their mines within the Kuzal Mountains, and resources scavenged from the decaying aeroliths, there is not a great deal they require from outsiders.