The Srem

Infusions: sand, camel, cactus, Ibex

A vast desert taking up more than half of the southern continent (shared with Caracar ), the Srem is sparsely inhabited and almost completely dry. Uninfused humans find it very hard to survive the heat and dryness; the locals are mostly cactus-infused, and therefore have very little requirement for water.

Peoples and inhabitation:

There are, broadly speaking, 2 types of communities within the Srem: semi-settled and fully nomadic.
The semi-settled groups live raise hardy crops for a few months or years around a small oasis or aquifer, living behind thorny barricades, and as it starts to deplete they send out scouts to find new locations to move to. These locations can form in new places, or can be recharged by lack of usage. Competition to find, settle and maintain these spots is a major source of conflict between tribes. They also alternately trade with and are raided by the nomadic groups.
The nomadic groups herd animals that can survive on the few edible plants that occur in the less swelteringly desiccated parts of the Srem. They live as traders or raiders, bartering or fighting for food and water at settlements in areas where there isn't suitable grazing.
these tribespeople tend to wear loose robes, clipping their spines short where necessary to ensure they don't get snagged and only letting them grow long for aesthetic purposes on the scalp or forearms.
Though very little is produced within the Srem, it carries many important trade routes, both north-south and east-west, that connect into the global trade network.
Slavery exists at a small, domestic scale in The Srem, among certain tribes, but not in an organised manner.

Specific sub-groups and tribes

Festil
an ethnicity with a long and convoluted history. originating among people of Unathyr's Garden dwelling within Edesenkol, they fled or were expelled into the desert in waves between about 650 and 440LF. As a result of this, they speak Edesenkolic and worship Unathyr, while living a nomadic life in the Srem proper. Not as thoroughly infused as many of the natives, a considerable number have adopted static habitation around the periphery of the desert - New Caracar, Chaneritt, Rubric, Dunefront, and Oboth - and form a distinct population in these places. when Festil community representatives travel, they exchange wooden staves carved with representative patterns, which are then further embellished before being passed on.
Ymarid an ethnicity with a deep cacti infusion, mostly known in the eastern portions of the Srem, especially the regions near Jewelfont and Remajh, where they form an important part of the trade routes.

Ymarid Top-makers

a subculture/tradition within the Ymarid tribes. as in many other parts of the world, spinning tops are popular children's toys. however, a minority of adults make- and compete using - elaborate versions of these tops. they are roughly acorn-shaped, with a short spike on the bottom around which string is wound to launch them. they are produced on hand-lathes, and are decorated in 3 main ways, with the intent being to look beautiful both when spun, when toppling, and when stopped.

• strings, beads and tassels that fly out when spun
• intricate carvings
• coloured paints, usually including the name or symbolic representation of an ancestor

spinning a top is seen as both requiring the named ancestor's help and invoking/honouring that ancestor. as such, it is seen as great disrespect to an ancestor to execute a poor spin, and a great honour to do so well.
competitions are held on smooth stone "arenas", most often within a single tribe, but most excitingly and prestigiously at the various meetings of different tribes. there is no crude conflict, but competing displays of skill at making and spinning tops - best aesthetics and longest, stablest spins being the standards of judging, which is carried out by the other top-makers. this is a popular event for curious onlookers, though its details are little understood by most - as with all elements of Sremic culture, every element of Ymarid-top practice is relentlessy scrutinised, philosophised, and debated.

Nessego
a Framca-speaking tribal group that migrated into the western badlands from Caracar centuries ago, possibly as a result of the the last echoes of the Great Essence Shift. dwelling in deep canyons, on rocky cliffsides, and below the surface of windswept plateaus, the Nessego herd incredibly hardy Ibex between patches of dessicated scrub and seasonal springs. these ibex have infused into their herders, with hooved legs, long horns, and great agility.
herd-raiding is common between tribes, a constant low-level squabble that leads to a decent amount of death and bad blood. externally, they face raids from high-desert tribes to the east, and tribute-extraction or annexation attempts from the Caracaran lands to the west. finally, the beasts of the land itself, as well as the dangers of drought and famine, are well-felt by the Nessego.
they are noted for their culinary skill, especially at preparing meats. they often live in seasonal caves halfway up cliffs, reached by precipitous paths that they tackle without fear but which terrify outsiders. they invented and are the main practitioners of the Nessego rope game, and they settle their babies by slinging them onto the backs of nanny ibex - the soothing rocking sends them to sleep, and it also has a side-effect of encouraging ibex infusion.

The Honed

When the tribes are threatened, they retreat to their near-unassailable fortified villages atop high crags, and the leaders of their assailants face swift death at the hands of the Honed. An elite band of Nessego fighters, who both defend the tribes from external threats and enforce limits on the actions and aggression of the various competing tribes. 
They are seen as no longer a member of their village and are loyal to the nessego as a whole. They will only intervene in internal matters if excessive bloodshed or other improprieties take place. Nonetheless, the honed hooves are not unanimous or completely impartial, and "civil wars" among them are not uncommon (though often thought of as dark times in retrospect). They live solitary lives away from the villages, though are always fed and taken care of when they do enter, and are both feared and respected - some of their number abuse this authority. As such, the position is not an unusual aspiration among young Nessego. 
Extremely agile, stealthy, and skilled killers, they are recruited from the tribes by displaying great skill at climbing, fighting, and the Nessego rope game. Each hoof trains a single student at a time, and they train and live alone (though the techniques taught don't vary too wildly, since honed hooves meet every few months in their travels to spar and discuss). their iconic weapon is a modified crook, with a long knife-blade at the opposite end from the hook.
questions:

• How strict is their moral code, and what underpins it? How does it interface with their fatalism? Do they have their own scholars/experts who advise them on tactics, strategy, and "legal" precedent? Maybe the old and invalid Honed? Do they become tribal leaders?
• What percentage of population (and how many in terms of raw numbers) at any one time?

Dustmane Lions

In a small corner of desert badlands on the edge of the great sandy Srem, there is one spot only the desperate and foolhardy will approach: Tanner's Crag.
Decades ago, a local pride of lions - already scrawny, vicious, craven beasts, more akin to jackals than to any king of the jungle - became infused with the dry dust of the canyons they haunted. Their flanks are drawn and dessicated, lips shriveled into a permanent rictus, and within their parched veins no blood flows. These are dustmane lions, euphemistically called "tanners" by the local tribes, and where other life flourishes on water, these creatures detest it as deadly poison.
They still hunger for meat, though, and are not particular about its source - wildlife, herdstock, or villager, any whiff of vulnerability will bring these fiends prowling. Before they eat their kills, they leave them for weeks atop their pride-rock, letting the beating sun and scouring winds turn the mangled corpses into a stiff jerky that the lions' dehydrated bodies can tolerate. In lean times, the temptation of the larder, foul as it is, yet laid out there for all to see, is hard to resist. But the Tanners guard their home most fearsomely, and have enough cruel cunning to seek vengeance upon those who would steal from them.

Discourse stones and the exchange of ideas:

Though they do not build long-lasting edifices, the Sremic are pre-eminent philosophers, mathematicians, poets, theologians and thinkers, producing considerable original work of their own as well as developing and syncretising the ideas of other cultures and spreading said ideas along their trade routes. Followers of every creed under the sun can be found among the Sremic tribes, and the great cultural gatherings of their people are at Discourse stones, vast complexes of natural obelisks that dot the entire Srem and are etched with millennia of the outcomes of debates and discussions between diverse groups. These stones are sacrosanct to all Sremic, and only the foulest and most craven would destroy them. the greatest philosophers of the tribes are mummified by the desert heat and left in sitting positions in serried ranks surrounding these sites. The only permanent residents of the Stones are those who maintain them against the deprecations of wind-blown sand. Nonetheless, they represent only the surface of a vast oral culture that is the true wealth of the Srem.

Tents

made of local or imported fabrics, triangular around a central post, with 3 land-anchors to secure the radial support ropes. Entrances are low and wide and have door-flaps that are drawn up between the two skins of the tent with ropesto close, forming a baffle that allows wind but keeps out dust and sand – there are between 1 and 3 of these doors. A looped rope or pegs set into the central post allow access to the opening at the top, which provides air circulation or egress in the case of sand-burial. This style of tent is Most dominant in the northern sand-dune region.
Questions:

Geography

Sub-areas:

• the Sremic Kingdoms: including Edesenkol, Highwater, the Obsidian Expanse, and Unathyr's Garden, as well as Lecris Bay and other petty kingdoms.
• Cacti plains/forest/marsh:
• Scrublands (in from the coast)
• Dunes (in the north): sand-cloaked wind-spirits, giant golden moles. borders onto The Giteri
• Tumbleweed lands:
• Unamed Borderland between Srem and Gollow Wastes : strange land, shunned even by Sremic locals, where the disturbed sand falls sluggishly in the thin air and the life is strange and little-researched.
• Time-storm: a moving sandstorm which carries those in it along and deposits them in the future, with little time passing for them inside. a main character can get trapped in this and stranded in a different time, possibly seeking out Yethenha to return to their own time.

Type

Region

Location under

Ummea

Included Locations

• Gollow Wastes
• Sremic Kingdoms

Related Historical Events

• 28 LF
  Birth of Deyoctrun