Coast Roughlanders
Not all of the Roughlands are coast. In fact, although the Roughlands comprise one rather large peninsula jutting into the cold southernmost sea of Tulmayas, at the very least hospitable end of the temperate Midlands, one might be hard-pressed to call the waterbound edges of this barely-a-country "coast," as that tends to conjure images of gentle beaches, sparkling waters, fishing communities, bustling ship trade.
Well, the Roughlanders who choose to dwell on the edges of land closest to the southern seas do indeed fish, and there is some ship trade, but even the gentlest of beaches are rocky and filled with barnacles, and the worst of the lot are sheer cliffs dropping into dark, thrashing, and thoroughly dangerous waters.
It's common knowledge throughout all of the Midlands--and even to the north in the hot, sweeping continent of the Jamean Empire--that the oceans are deadly. The water sucks your magic dry, if you happen to have it. And trying to cross the largest stretches of water will likely get your ship eaten by one of the many terrible denizens of the deep. Somehow, all of that knowledge feels very real when looking into the roiling dark ocean from a Roughland coast.
Yet the largest majority of Roughlanders choose to live by the water all the same. Stubborn folk to begin with, those who live in the Roughlands in general. Long-ago refugees of a largely forgotten mage war, it is said, though they may just as easily claim they have always been here. At any rate, Roughlanders are an eclectic mix of people united by one general unspoken tenet: survival.
Then there are the spoken tenets: First in your heart must come your family. Second, your community.Third must come serving your gods. Then, finally, yourself.
Each community in the Roughlands is an entity unto itself, and rarely larger than a single village. There is no place in the Roughlands that comes close to what the rest of the Midlands would call a "city." But on the coast, at least each village has a chance of being a little less isolated than the ones buried in the nearly-impassable inland mountains. Because as dangerous as the waterways are, still they offer travel and trade for the brave, foolhardy, or weathered old salts that do a better job of staying alive than the caravans attempting land travel. As counter-intuitive as that may seem.
Well, the Roughlanders who choose to dwell on the edges of land closest to the southern seas do indeed fish, and there is some ship trade, but even the gentlest of beaches are rocky and filled with barnacles, and the worst of the lot are sheer cliffs dropping into dark, thrashing, and thoroughly dangerous waters.
It's common knowledge throughout all of the Midlands--and even to the north in the hot, sweeping continent of the Jamean Empire--that the oceans are deadly. The water sucks your magic dry, if you happen to have it. And trying to cross the largest stretches of water will likely get your ship eaten by one of the many terrible denizens of the deep. Somehow, all of that knowledge feels very real when looking into the roiling dark ocean from a Roughland coast.
Yet the largest majority of Roughlanders choose to live by the water all the same. Stubborn folk to begin with, those who live in the Roughlands in general. Long-ago refugees of a largely forgotten mage war, it is said, though they may just as easily claim they have always been here. At any rate, Roughlanders are an eclectic mix of people united by one general unspoken tenet: survival.
Then there are the spoken tenets: First in your heart must come your family. Second, your community.Third must come serving your gods. Then, finally, yourself.
Each community in the Roughlands is an entity unto itself, and rarely larger than a single village. There is no place in the Roughlands that comes close to what the rest of the Midlands would call a "city." But on the coast, at least each village has a chance of being a little less isolated than the ones buried in the nearly-impassable inland mountains. Because as dangerous as the waterways are, still they offer travel and trade for the brave, foolhardy, or weathered old salts that do a better job of staying alive than the caravans attempting land travel. As counter-intuitive as that may seem.
