Midlander

In the Land of the Three Kingdoms, the native people in all three nations refer to themselves as Midlanders. Their land resides between two vast mountain ranges, the Jades in the north and the Pearls to the far south. The Sea of Mice delineates their western extent and to the east the wide Firenze Sea, fed by lush rivers whose sources lie in the Jade Mountains, provides almost three kilometres of separation from the strange city-states in that direction. To the Hingardi who wage constant war on them from the north, the Midlanders are known as Laydera — 'thieves' — deriving from a cultural myth of theirs that the ancestors of the Midlanders stole the territory and pushed the Hingardi out. Whether Laydera is merely an insulting disparagement or an actual, formal designation (or both) is unclear; individual Hingardi are not given to civil discussion on the topic. The peoples to the south who reside among the Pearl Mountains are scarce, nomadic, and non-confrontational. Their language is highly glossed, smooth, and tonal, bearing indications of agglutination in contrast to the highly fusional language of the Hingardi. The southern language is entirely foreign to the Midlanders, and so verbal conversation is virtually impossible, though they are typically welcoming to outsiders. Some Midlander philosophers have migrated south to live among them, and as years passed have picked up some of the language via immersion. The southerners refer to themselves as Shmilnia, a word which appears identical in the singular and plural; its meaning is unclear, but may include a root mila, which means 'tall'. Their word for the Midlanders is Brilithna. The meaning here is more readily apparent: It means 'bastard child'. The connotation is not negative, as the southerners are polyamorous by nature, though for what reason they see the Midlanders as offshoots — and in what context — is unknown.

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