Auroria

**Auroria** is a continent surrounding the south pole.

Its population is primarily made up of Caribou.

An Aurorian diaspora exists in Borea.

## Demographics

Besides the native Caribou population, Auroria features a few Equestrian and Crystalline research outposts which employ Alpacas due to their resistance to extremely cold, dry, windy and rocky environments.

The biggest research outpost is New Crystal City, which has 1,000 permanent residents.

Although the native Caribou are traditionally nomadic, permanent Caribou settlements have been created in recent years. The largest of these is the city of Warmhome, with a population of several thousand.

## Politics

Auroria doesn't have a unified rule; each Caribou group and settlement is self-ruled and research outposts are bound by the laws of their countries of origin.

The flag of Auroria was designed in Warmhome, where ideas of political unification first came to be, to represent the population of all Caribou.

## Economy

Caribou in Auroria have traditionally been nomadic, organizing themselves into small groups that travel across the continent in search of lichens and grasses to eat as well as fishing for algae in non-frozen waters.

With the establishment of research outposts, new crops and agricultural technologies were introduced such as greenhouses and soil engineering, which enabled some farming in an otherwise not arable soil.

Because of the new technologies, some Caribou have settled down in small cities that don't rely on nomadic routes to maintain a food supply.

Crops mainly consist of roots and tubers such as carrots and potatoes.

While most industry is economically unfeasible due to the poor terrain and extreme weather, Auroria has developed a minor industry of toy manufacturing workshops which is vital to the trade balance. Items made of shed antlers are also a common manufactured export.

## Culture

Caribou construct heaps of rocks that help orientation during nomadic migrations. These structures also indicate aspects of their location, such as presence of food or harshness of climate.

### Sculpture

Because of the cold temperatures in some regions never going above freezing point, Auroria has developed a tradition of permanent ice statues. Some of the ice statues are rumored to be several millennia old and still standing.

## Religion

Caribou are animists like Farasians.

In Caribou religion, the aurora is believed to be the spirits of ancestors.

The areas closer to the pole where the ground is covered in ice and lichens don't grow are considered to be related to death as they are especially harsh and sterile and have claimed the lives of many creatures that attempted to travel through them.

In Caribou mythology, only the dead are supposed to linger in those areas. Because of this, corpses are often taken there, buried in snow and left to mummify in the cold. Entering those areas for purposes other than taking a corpse to its final resting place is considered a taboo.

Hallucinogenic lichens are consumed and used as entheogens by Caribou shamans.

## Research

The main function of research stations is measuring the climate and weather as well as researching the local geology and wildlife.

A major research project is the development of frost resistant crops that can grow in the harsh climate and the construction of better greenhouses and soil fertilization techniques.

### Thermometers

The establishment of Equestrian research stations in Auroria was a factor in the popularization of alcohol thermometers in Equestria.

Equestrian thermometers were made mostly with mercury as temperatures below the freezing point of mercury were rare in Equestria, so the Aurorian cold rendered the researchers' thermometers useless. The thermometers of Crystalline researchers, however, were alcohol based as such temperatures happened commonly in the polar regions of the Crystal Empire as they did in Auroria.