The Fanakara (pronounced fah-nah-KAH-rah) are, collectively, the many disparate tribes and peoples of the Wounds. Though sometimes referred to as a coherent group, the Fanakara are anything but. In reality these largely human tribes and chiefdoms possess an endless array of traditions and can be found across far-apart islands within the Wounds, unified only by their seafaring cultures and a broadly similar set of oral histories and legends.
History
No group within the Fanakara agree as to their origin. Some claim they have always lived on the islands of the Wounds, while others hold they were placed there under the guidance of one or more divine entities. Regardless of their earliest history, the Fanakara have a millennia long history within the Wounds. Specific Fanakara peoples have their own individual stories and histories about their pasts, often full of great legends of seafarers who fearlessly crossed the waves into unknown parts of the world.
The empire of Rashareka grew out of the Fanakara peoples of the Old Twins before quickly expanding to encompass much of the Wounds. Upon the collapse of the empire in the early tenth millennium, many of the former residents of Rashareka returned to considering themselves Fanakara, if they had ever stopped to begin with.
Geography
The Fanakara can be found across the breadth of the Wounds, in places as far apart as the Wisps in the west and the Chain in the east. Most archipelagoes are home to at least one Fanakara people, save for the Grievous Islands, controlled by the dwarven realm of Harv Taruhm, the seasonally demon-infested Old Twins, and the almost completely uninhabited Soul's End Islands. The majority of Fanakara reside on the Chain, the Wisps, and the Angry Kings. Many are nomadic, however, and frequently relocate between islands and even archipelagoes.
Demographics
Most Fanakaran peoples are human, but they are also joined by many half-elves as well as some dwarves, elves, especially Zabarshu elves, tengu, and others. Some Keleta-Ru gnomes consider themselves Fanakaran as well - the distinction between Fanakara and Keleta-Ru is vague with often overlapping definitions.
Culture
Fanakaran peoples
There are innumerable Fanakaran peoples and tribes, each with their own practices and beliefs. While many aspects of these are shared, in particular their strong traditions of seafaring and oral stories, none are universal or without variation. Any given group may consider themselves Fanakara, yet they all have a more specific identity that is more central to who they are.
To give a small number of examples, the Hekudaki are a collection of tribes who maintain nomadic lives between seasonal camps in the islands of the Wisps. They place great emphasis on the importance of speech and language, with their leaders, the rhetor-kings, selected based on their abilities to use words to rally their people to their cause. The Gara-Minu, inhabitants of the Chain, are almost entirely egalitarian, their communities ever-shifting as they wander between the islands. In contrast, the fortified mountainside villages of the Sehi-To in Angry Kings are ruled by hereditary absolute monarchs. Others, such as the Varu, house boat-dwelling nomadic fishers and traders of the Protectors, and the Wave Striders, druids with deep connections to coral reefs, almost never set foot on land at all.