The Land of Barovia and its Peoples: An outsider’s perspective Volume I: Barovians

Overwhelmingly human; diverse ethnic backgrounds  Wary of strange peoples and customs. 
Barovians aren't talkative with strangers and most have violent tempers that boil up through their customary silence when provoked.  
Live within a closed ecosystem (mists):  
Trade in old coins that bear Strahd's profile and even older coins from the time before the valley was conquered by Strahd and his armies. 
Self-sufficient population: stitch their own clothing, craft their own furniture, grow their own food, make their own wine, etc... 
Every individual is expected to learn a trade or serve a function.  
Only about one in every ten has a soul. 
Physically indistinguishable from Barovians with souls, the soulless tend to be bereft of charm and imagination and to be more compliant and depressed than the others. They are maudlin folk who experience fear but neither laugh nor cry.  
The soulless dress in drab clothing, whereas Barovians who have souls wear clothes with a splash of color or individuality. 
Barovians know that dwarves, elves, halflings and other civilized races exist, but few living Barovians have seen and fewer still have interacted with them.  
The only nonhumans most Barovians are familiar with are the adventurers lured by the Devil