The Flower Kingdoms are the innumerable tribes that live in the flooded grasslands south of the Fangs of Khurazar. Their ancient histories predate even that of the elves.
Geography
Separated from the Sangora Desolation to the north by the Fangs of Khurazar and the Laqto Rainforest to the west by the Southern Fangs, the landscape of the Flower Kingdoms is covered primarily by flooded savannas and swamps. Many rivers, beginning in the Fangs and the eastern and western hills, meander past countless lakes as they converge into the Prince of Yearning, the longest and widest river of the region. The Prince of Yearning itself eventually flows out through an alluvial plain and into the Mhasmuth Ocean. All these waterways regularly flood when seasonal storms and high waters arrive, but even in drier periods they sprawl into the surrounding grasslands, often so wide and flowing so slowly that they are barely recognizable as rivers.
During the rainy season up to 80% of the land within the Flower Kingdoms becomes inundated and flooded. This decreases to 50% during the dry seasons, or even less during the rare years of drought.
Trees in the Flower Kingdom grow largely in small groves around more permanent bodies of water, except for around the Abarsal and Hapantali rivers, where they increase in density into a swampy tropical forest.
The Flower Kingdoms are overwhelmingly flat. Closer to the mountains foothills rise from the grasslands in the north and west, and a more rugged landscape can be found in the east as well, separating the Kingdoms from Talmithe.
Located near the equator, the Flower Kingdoms are hot year-round with relatively little seasonal variation in temperature. Seasons are instead defined by the amount of rainfall.
Home to a dizzying array of animals, the Flower Kingdoms are full of life, everything from the fish in the rivers, the flocks of birds that feed upon them, the buffalo in the grasslands, the hydras and crocodiles that lurk in the swampy waters, and the dinosaurs that wander the floodplains. The sheer preponderates of dangerous creatures that live in the region, many of which with magical abilities, has doubtless contributed to the small populations that reside there.
History
The many peoples of the Flower Kingdoms each have their own long and detailed past, but it is this age of their histories that connects them. Certain oral histories, stories, and traditions from the tribes credibly date back twelve to fifteen thousand years, far before even the elves of Eita were beginning to form their early societies in the Cradle. In fact they are the only known people of the Three Great Seas who can tell of their history prior to what scholars around the Chaska Sea know as the "Y0 interlude". The importance of their water-dancing rituals have largely kept them to the flooded savanna, however, giving them a degree of isolation from the broader world for many millennia. Unfriendly contact with the expansionist elves of Eita, and those of Talmithe later, has also kept the people of the Kingdoms looking inward. More recently, however, trade delegations from the tribes have met with outsiders near the mouth of the Prince of Yearning, and adventurers from the region have begun to travel out across the ocean.
Demographics
Most inhabitants of the Flower Kingdoms are human, lizardfolk, and grippli. Half-elves, elves, and catfolk are less common but also present.
The Flower Kingdoms are very sparsely populated, and encampments are commonly tens of miles from the nearest other tribe or settlement at any given time.
Culture
Religion
Religion in the Flower Kingdoms centers around the veneration of natural and ancestral spirits, usually through the mediation of an ishuun, a figure who is simultaneously a monarch and a religious guide. Particular deference is paid to the spirits under the water - that is, those who allow water to flow and not stagnate. These beliefs are largely totemic in nature, with the spirits represented in the form of carved menhirs. Worship of the deities of the Aserdian pantheon is not particularly common in the Flower Kingdoms but is diffuse, the gods revered by small numbers of followers throughout the region.
Society
Each Flower Kingdom, or tribe, has its own traditions, cultures, and beliefs. These can vary significantly, as each is deeply proud of their ancient practices and diligently maintain these across the years and generations. The tribes tend to be very traditionalist, especially with regard to their water-dancing rituals, which provide them with a degree of safety in a hazardous landscape where danger can lurk under even the most still river or lake.
Oral histories, stories, and practices are the primary method in which the people of the Flower Kingdoms maintain their culture. Each story is given to one person at a time to safeguard - while others still know it, and know of it, this individual is tasked specifically with protecting it. Upon passing the story on to a new person, the previous possessor's name is added to the honorifics that precede it, and in doing so they are added to the tribe's history. The most ancient, and well-defended, stories may easily have over a hundred names associated with them, indicating they originated many thousands of years ago.
Children are typically raised communally by tribes in the Flower Kingdoms - parents are rarely the sole, or even primary, caretakers.
Languages
Nearly all inhabitants of the Flower Kingdoms speak Kol-Aran as their primarily language. Though lacking a formal writing system - Elven scripts are sometimes, if uncommonly, used - it has changed little in millennia, kept largely static by its speakers' emphasis on preserving their oral records intact and without variation.
Other languages spoken in the region include Aserdian and various ancestral tongues.
Architecture, urbanization, and migration
The majority of tribes in the Flower Kingdoms are nomadic, wandering between seasonal camps on located on "islands" within the wetlands. These artificial structures are mounds raised above the waters, such that even in times of flooding they can remain dry. Most typically these are surrounded by systems of dams and dikes to further control flooding. These settlements are typically walled, magically warded, and otherwise defended, refuges away from the dangers that lurk in the waters.
Settlements in the Flower Kingdoms are very small. The largest, at Ten Stone Bridges, is home to barely more than six thousand people.
Food and cuisine
Most peoples of the Kingdoms mix pastoralist and hunter-gatherer lifestyles. It is typical for tribes, or groups within tribes, to maintain herds of water buffalo, protecting them as they move between grazing lands, but also supplementing their meat, milk, and cheese with foraged foods. While they may be dangerous, the wetlands have no shortage of food sources. Farming is rare in the Flower Kingdoms, undertaken almost exclusively around some of the larger permanent settlements, and even then effectively entirely for the purpose of cultivating grain for brewing.
Fashion
The name "Flower Kingdoms" refers to the headdresses worn by the ishuun of the tribes, elaborate crowns of woven grasses adorned with flowers, the combination of which is specific to a given Kingdom.
Magic
Occult magic is nearly universally prohibited by the tribes of the Flower Kingdoms, as they believe it interferes with the actions and desires of spirits. Their leaders, the ishuun, are also forbidden from practicing arcane magic. Skilled practitioners of primal magic in the region are almost peerless, however, with a great amount of experience in controlling its normally unpredictable forces.
Government
See also: Ishuun
The monarchs of the Flower Kingdoms are given the title ishuun. Though they are hereditary monarchs, there remain limits on their powers. The primary role of an ishuun is spiritual in nature, as they are mediators between ancestor spirits and the mortal world as the designated speaker for their people, but they are also judges, diplomats, and teachers. In other concerns, however, ishuun are very much restricted. While the details vary between tribes and peoples, most ishuun cannot use, make, own, or even touch weapons, cannot grow, gather, hunt, or prepare food, and cannot learn or cast arcane magic. These prohibitions are frequently applied to their family members as well.
Ishuun, critically, do not govern land but rather people. Even if an individual does not reside amongst other members of their Kingdom, their ishuun remains the same. Multiple tribes may occupy the same territory, or even the same settlement, but still maintain different leaders.
For decisions that concern matters for which their ishuun cannot be involved, the tribes delegate to councils of their elders. Most typically these councils are matriarchal.