Ryssmen

Ryssmen or Ryss are hardy dark haired and tanned skinned people of the mountains of the Adelian Isles, Ryssmen are superstitious and reclusive people who live in small families, Ryssan culture praise self-reliance as a virtue, many living without acknowledging any official ruler.

The house of Kvashnin formally calls itself the ruler of the Ulgen-Khalatsa mountains, but their authority is in most part symbolic outside of their central fief.

## Culture

### Military Tradition

Ryssan armies are primarily made of irregular militia fighting with axes, hunting spears and bows, they rarely take to battle directly, using terrain for ambushes, skirmishing, and traps. Historically, the Ryss rarely attempt to conquer foreign lands, but fought tooth and nail to protect their land, adopting scorched earth tactics and letting the cold and inhospitable terrain fell their foes.

The Ryssmen however have a well known order of soldiers known as winged hussars who armed with lances and axes defend the lands. The Hussars are not a conventional knight order, but composed of mainly wealthy volunteers.

### Economy

The Ryssan people have fairly sparse trading relationships with other nations, mostly selling furs and metals as their main export. being called a merchant is sometimes used as an insult as it says one cannot rely on their own work to live and must instead get necessities from others. Many Ryss villages do not use money, instead using a form of favor economy where people trade with one another their surplus production.

### Food

The Mountains of the Ryssmen's lands are ill suited for agriculture except for the warmer volcanic valleys, so only a few crops such as turnips, beets, cabbage, and rye are grown in good quantity. The Ryss make do with foraging the land and hunting for the most part, although they do keep sheeps and goats.

Common ingredients include greens such as sorrel, nettles, chicory, burdock, mallow, fennel, mustard, watercress and plantain, meats include virtually anything that can be caught; Venison, goat, mutton, rabbit, bear, beaver, hedgehog, grouse, pika, squirrel, wolf, or fox. Fruits are primarily wild berries such as; Elderberries, Cloudberries, Huckleberries, Gooseberries, Chokeberries, Mulberries, Blackberries, Salmonberry, apple trees are planted but typically used for alcohol rather than eating.

Salmon is caught in the rivers when mating season happens and is an important seasonal dish. Sour cream and yogurt are the main condiments used by the Ryss, alongside fresh herbs and vinegar.

Ryssan food is very simple, often focused on soup and stew, with coarse bread or biscuits on the side. A few such dishes include;

* Sour cabbage soup
* Beet Borscht
* Sorrel and Nettle soup
* Creamy Salmon soup
* Yogurt soup
* Cheese soup
* Meatball soup
* Chestnut soup

The Ryss keep underground ice cellars allowing them to have access to both ice and refrigeration year-round. In the summer they consume iced delicacies such as sherbet, ice cream, and iced drinks.

Sour milk called kumis, and rye beer are the primary alcohol consumed by the Ryss, some brew a very potent form of spirit flavored with juniper berries called Gin. Ryss were early adopters of tea, acquired through mountain trade routes to the Yuani lands. Ice cider is an alcoholic beverage made by collecting the frozen apples off trees in the winter time and makes for an especially sweet alcoholic drink.

### Entertainment and Leisure

Inhabitants of the isles typically see mineral-rich water as being beneficial to health, either to drink or bathe in, and those who can afford will travel long distances to make use of them. The Ryssmen are particularly known for their natural hot springs, as well as saunas, which they famously use naked.