Ogogrok

The village of Ogogrok is a settlement controlled by and the de facto capital of the tribe of Lachawaka, a constituent of the United Archduchy of Lovvres and subject of Ischanor. While the Lachawakans are a typically nomadic people, living across the land and setting camps wherever food is abundant, the site of Ogogrok is atypically abundant year-round and bears facilities for trading and storing food, enabling semi-permanent dwelling to occur at this site.
The site serves as the major trading post between Lachawakans and the outside world. Many Lachawakan products, mostly lumber, mineral resources, animal hides, and fish, are produced and traded in Ogogrok for outside goods. While Ogogrok is mostly inhabited by ethnic Lachawakans, a minority of outsiders have also come to inhabit the village with varying degrees of adaptation to Lachawakan culture and lifestyle.
== Etymology ==
The name Ogogrok means "seven frog[s]" in Lachawakan Ug, as when the site was first settled there were seven frogs present. The technical full name is Laafasewafunechakwunsolafuretufehewalkoobuhososogogrok, meaning "land of the seeds of the willow hardwood trees by the limestone spring that has seven frogs". It is in fact the cenote, or koobu as it is called, that allows for a permanent freshwater source to be maintained year round and allows for the dwellings to remain more or less permanently inhabited.
== Geography ==
=== Climate ===
Ogogrok is situated in a dry-winter hemiboreal continental climate (Dwb), with a stark difference between summer heat and winter cold. The high aquifer and location within a basin, as well as the summer rains, allow the region to maintain year-round freshwater in abundance and thus the swamp forests upon which the people of Lachawaka subsist on. The relatively snowless winters prevent the insulation of the soil, and thus most plants in the region must be able to withstand deep cold for long periods of time. 
=== Geology and biota ===
The land and waterways surrounding Ogogrok are underlain primarily by limestone. The limestone has eroded heavily, as much of it is located below the water table and/or infiltrated by heavy rains. The end result is a system of caves and sinkholes in the stone, creating a hummocky bedrock texture with large pits. These pits may break the surface, exposing the water table; this is known as a koobu. Other times, the pits may gradually fill with sediment and organic material, especially as the area traditionally has experienced large floods. These infillings prevent the topography from being as rough as the bedrock, instead forming a large floodplain. The areas beneath the infillings end up with a clay-rich soil that traps moisture, as opposed to the porous limestone which allows for drainage. 
The drained areas become xeric dry soil microbiomes, and the non draining, clay-rich zones become swampy and hydric. Thus a mix of different plants are found in close proximity. The dry soils feature conifers such as santhal and thornstem as the dominant canopy trees, smaller acacia and eucalypt shrubs in the understory, and floor dominated mostly by bunchgrasses and saplings. The hydric zones are dominated by swampy flora, with a canopy of hardwoods like southern beech, quemi, and the Anque willow, which grows close to or even in water sources. Horsetails, lilies, and orchids abound in these areas where shade is abundant; in sunnier areas aquatic grasses and sedges may replace them. Bamboo and smaller laurels may also be present throughout the forests here.
== Culture ==
=== Architecture ===
The village consists of a small number of circular, earthen-topped, stone pit houses, or tumbum as they are known to the Lachawakans in their language. Each tumbum fulfills a particular purpose, being personal or family residences, communal storage, ritual purposes, and so on. The tumbum usually features two entrances: one at the top with moving flaps, to vent smoke from the inside fires, and one at the front where animal pelts create a sort of door. Other variants on these shelters may exist, modified for whichever purpose is deemed necessary by the tribe. 
Outside the village, to the southwest, lies a temple to the Ischanic earth goddess Ilfeijas, known locally as Ungalubene. This temple is significantly different in style from the dwellings of the main town, as it features a small thatch-roofed hut upon a large earthen mound, surrounded by megalithic arches in a sort of henge. These earthwork mounds were once a staple of proto-Aysar religious and political culture; the temple of Ungalubene is the only one still used for its original purpose. Archaeologists from the Abexilas Naturalist's Guild estimate the mound to have been built in two phases; an older structure (most of the mound and the stonework of the sanctuary) constructed between 5500 and 5200 years BP; and the contemporary structure (wood and thatch, as well as improvements to walkways and the mound itself), improved and maintained over the last four centuries. 
=== Religion ===
Most denizens of the town adhere to the Lachawakan sect of the Ischanic Church. Their worship is dedicated primarily to Suzantha-Ilfeijas, the goddess of the earth and natural world. In the Lachawakan language, she is known as Ungalubene, meaning "Lady Earth". She is likely one of the oldest Ischanic deities still worshiped today, and thousands of years ago the Lachawakan sect may have once constituted its own separate henotheistic religion focused exclusively on a female earth goddess prior to being subsumed into the overarching Ischanic Church in relatively recent historical times. 
The worship of the nature cult of Ungalubene is so extreme as to the point where agriculture and most of the trappings of urban life are considered heretical. Tools must be made of natural stones and metals, food should be gathered from the wild, all structures made of natural materials and allowing for other organisms to take shelter in and on top of them. Still, many Lachawakans may circumvent these taboos by bartering for outside goods with products made in a religiously-permissible way. 
A small minority of non-local immigrants do not worship Ungalubene but instead the faiths from their own homelands. Instances where foreign-born residents have made farms or gardens are met by the tribe's natives with hostility, and are often prevented by force from being weeded, plowed, or otherwise turned into monoculture fields of particular crops. 
Category:Ischanor