Harv Doruhl (pronounced HARV door-UHL) is a small nation in the Wounds inhabited by both dwarves from Harv Taruhm and Fanakaran tribes. The exile-queen Ramn has ruled this remote island since being deposed as ruler of Harv Taruhm in the middle of the last century. Though she has tried since to gather enough allies to retake the throne, few trust her newly softened stance towards non-dwarves, least of all the Fanakara with whom she shares the island.
Geography
See also: Varameno
The now-dormant mountain peak of Varameno rises high above the surrounding seas, sloping up to a water-filled caldera in the center. Though the landscape of the island is dominated by the mountain, significant parts along the coast, especially in the west and southeast, are much more flat. Tropical forests thrive in the rich, ashy soil of the island, which is covered in palm trees and other foliage, home to many wild animals that provide plentiful game to the inhabitants of the Varameno. That island's climate is warm to hot year-round, with variation throughout the wet and dry seasons.
Though none approach the size of Varameno, many small islets and uplifted reefs can be found surrounding the island as well. The waters off the southern and western coasts have a reputation as being difficult to traverse owing to the shallowness of the water relatively far out to sea and the many barely-submerged rocks that can easily damage or destroy the vessel of an unwary crew.
Varamenu is roughly 1900 miles north of the Chain, 2600 miles east of Ha-Rase-Metu, and 2000 miles southwest of Phersu.
History
Early history
Megalithic shrines, quite reminiscent of those constructed by the Basharma of Phersu, can be found near the caldera on Varameno - it is unknown if these were built by a now-vanished subgroup of the Basharma or by a related giant people. In either case, their creators last resided on Varameno millennia ago, long gone by the time the Fanakara, let along the dwarves, arrived on the island.
Arrival of the dwarves
While the Fanakara have resided on Varameno for centuries - the island was once the easternmost territory of the Rasharekan Empire at its height - the dwarves are much more recent arrivals. When shield-queen Ramn was deposed by Ruvodk in Y9951* the exile-queen and her loyal family and courtiers fled north and east across the Na-Gaesa Ocean, where they settled on Varameno. There they established the caldera-side settlement of Aurrean and began to build a new fortress from which to rule until such time as they can press their claim on the Grievous Islands once more.
Understanding that she regain control of the throne of Harv Taruhm with the small forces currently under her command, from her arrival to roughly Y12970* the exile-queen Ramn sought to extend a diplomatic hand to the Fanakara, offering them wealth, status, and a place on the Grievous Island if they support her in a future invasion. These efforts were almost entirely rebuffed. The Fanakara of Varameno are largely egalitarian, and have little use or desire for political status in a far-away and historically hostile land, and nor do they wish to move there away from their ancestral island.
Work of the terramages
During her rule of Harv Taruhm, Ramn was a patron of many dwarven terramages, practitioners of a form of magical arts used to drastically and permanently transform the physical world. When she fled the Grievous Island, many of these mages went with, and on Harv Doruhl they have only continued to accelerate their exploration of their craft. While held back for a time, in recent years the terramages have been permitted to experiment as they see fit. Initially this was in relatively minor ways that did not interfere with the lives of the Fanakara - the raising of constellations of small islets off the northern coast, the calling forth of new freshwater springs, and so forth. Beginning in Y9970*, however, the terramages have taken their efforts a step farther and begun their much-planned endeavor of creating a perfectly controlled paradise. Through long, constantly maintained rituals they have started to transform the weather of the island, bringing to it a calm from storms and a regularity in the patterns of sun and rain. While this attracted the ire of the Fanakara, it was nothing compared to their next effort. In Y9973* a minor eruption in one of the nearby small volcanic islands interfered with the terramagical rituals manipulating the weather around Varameno. Seeking to avoid such a disruption again, the dwarves employed their magic to silence the volcano permanently - this interference with the blood of their earth-god immediately angered worshipers of the Beating Heart on Varameno, bringing about the current state of open conflict between some Fanakaran tribes and the dwarves.
Demographics
The inhabitants of Varameno are largely human and half-elven Fanakara tribes - the dwarves number only in the hundreds, even as they claim the entire island as territory of Harv Doruhl. The tribes of the Re-Hara account for most of the Fanakaran population, but they are joined by sevel subgroups of the Vara-Minu as well.
Culture
Religion
The dwarves of Harv Doruhl continue to worship their traditional Taruhmite pantheon of fearsome testing deities - even with their distance and political estrangement from Harv Taruhm, the exile-queen and her court still heed the warnings of Taruhmite oracles. Doruhlite emissaries sent to confer with the oracles are the sole dwarven inhabitants of Harv Doruhl permitted to peacefully return to, and leave, the Grievous Islands, for the religious leaders of Harv Taruhm know that any failure to supplicate the gods in Harv Daruhl will doubtless result in divine wrath meted out against them as well.
To the Fanakara on Varameno, meanwhile, the primary targets of veneration are their ancestors and the spirits that inhabit the megaliths erected on the island so long ago, which they go to great lengths to defend. Worship of the Beating Heart is common on Harv Doruhl, generally worshiped at the smaller, still-active volcanic islands to the southwest.
Society
Two societies exist in parallel on Harv Doruhl in tension with each other; the Fanakaran tribes who have long resided on the island form one with the far more recently arrived dwarves forming the other. For twenty years an uneasy truce governed relations between these two societies. Soon after arriving the dwarves sequestered themselves around the caldera, only passing through the lands in which the Fanakara live on their relatively infrequent journeys down the slopes to the sea. Aside from some early conflicts when the dwarves begin to work the land too close to the megalithic shrines, this separation has been largely maintained, each side suspiciously and warily keeping an eye on the other, although the dwarves have attempted at times to recruit the Fanakara to their cause.
More recently, however, this status quo has been broken, as the ongoing efforts of Doruhlite terramages to transform Varameno are seen by many Fanakara as a horrible affront, leading to a state of open hostility between some tribes and the dwarves.
The dwarves of Harv Doruhl have maintained the strongly hierarchical society they brought with them from Harv Taruhm, in which each individual is assigned a social class based on their family. Their small numbers and overwhelming number of warrior-nobility compared to common folk has forced some changes, however, as once rigid social roles lessen as a necessity, for otherwise there would be far too few to perform tasks like farming, smithing, masonry, and so forth that traditionally were never within the purview of the nobility.
Languages
Sea-Speak, Taruhmite Dwarven, and multiple Fanakaran tongues are all spoken on Harv Doruhl. Compared to their kin on Harv Taruhm, dwarves living on Varameno are more likely to understand more than one language.
Architecture, urbanization, and migration
Magic
Harv Doruhl is the foremost center of dwarven terramagical learning, where they have been loosed by the restrictions historically levied upon them in Harv Taruhm.
Arts
Seafaring and travel
Rather unusually for Fanakara in the eastern Wounds, those living on Varameno do not have a strong seafaring culture. They build and use small sailing canoes for fishing and transportation to the smaller outlying volcanic islands yet they rarely leave sight of the coast. They still bury their dead at sea, however, building small rafts upon which the dead is placed, carried out to sea by another vessel before being set adrift in the waves, rather similar to what is done by the Zabarshu elves of Phersu to the northeast.
Food and cuisine
Names
Doruhlite names, like those of Harv Taruhm, are almost always tripartite. An individual's first name is their family name, followed by their given name, followed by a status name. For nobility, status names are the name of the mountain or island upon which their family dwells. On Varameno, this is always "Varameno". For lower classes, there is only one status name: Garuv, meaning "from the sea".
The Fanakara of Varameno usually, but do not always, use cyclical ancestral names, mononyms given to at most one member of a family in every generation.
Government
As in Harv Taruhm, the dwarves of Harv Doruhl are ruled by a monarchy. In the roughly quarter century since they arrived on the island they have had only one leader, the exile-queen Ramn, formerly shield-queen of the Grievous Islands. Unusually by Taruhmite standards she has yet to adopt any successor. Her court went with her after she was deposed from the Taruhmite throne and fled east, with many of her former advisors still serving in the same roles as they did previously.
The Fanakara of Varameno are largely egalitarian. Leaders are typically appointed for short periods when required for specific purposes, before their roles fade away as they are no longer required. Deference is often paid to their elders but this does not necessarily confer any political status, though they are often the first sought to serve in such positions.