Cavilkoa (Cah-Vil-Koh-Ah)

Describe an ethnicity that lives in a dangerous area and the effect this has on their culture.
The people of Cavilkoa live in a constant siege. Cavilkoans make their homes in the sides of chasms the tore the land apart after the great fracture, while they are officially citizens of the Kiraruan Empire they are mostly left to fend for themselves, while the chasms themselves can be traversed fairly easily with the proper equipment and many underground plants and animals can be farmed, the chasms are also home to Lurgods, left over creatures from the fracture.
Lurgods are made of animated earth and impervious to most types of physical violence and are very hostile to humans. They can not be reasoned with and require a mage to vanquish. Since mages are in short supply down in the chasms Cavilkoans can only fight back by crushing the creatures and locking up the dust before the Lurgod can reform.
Since fighting back is logistically tricky, Cavilkoans instead avoid the Lurgods by living in caves on the sides of chasms, which cannot be climbed by the creatures. The Cavilkoans have a series of walkaways connecting them to the others of their village and retractable ladders to the bottom of the chasm.
The population of the chasms consist of three types of people: The 15% who are generally rejected from society and can't settle anywhere else. The 10% who are researchers or scholars, study the Lurgods and the 75% who are descendants of the first settlers, this last group are what are referred to as Cavilkoan.
Cavilkoans live in a utilitarian society, as a single Lurgod trampling their crops can mean a village wide starvation, all rules must be strictly obeyed. Outside side of rules that keep the village safe, such as bringing up ladders or not shirking watch duties, few social norms exist, this is partially due to the fact that most Cavilkoans are either outcasts or descendants of outcasts, with many villages being outright penal colonies. When rules are broken, or an individual's behavior is simply abhorrent, they offender will be banished to the surface, where the distinctly pale, scrawny look of Cavilkoans will render them a pariah. 
While money is used in some of the more advanced villages, most rely on barter, this can make life difficult as many of the luxuries of surface life must be imported. This means that many villages have to devote much of their time to mining minerals and gems, in recent years colonies have begun for the sole purpose of exploiting the easy access to minerals

Naming Traditions

Feminine names

Echo, Mirvil, Tera, Estra, Ranovin

Masculine names

Derin, Lostiv, Gurisk, Eskal, Jurgen

Family names

Seadavil, Echovin, Yikalov, Merderov, Relaoski.

Related Locations

• Central Miro/ Echarin