Fitrete

Fitrete is a state laying along the southeastern coast of Lake Doramos. Composed mostly of swamps, Fitrete is a poor, backwards state plagued by poverty away from the coast. The coast along Lake Doramos, however, is comparatively developed for a Backstate- it is home to many resorts, and is somewhat akin to central Florida in its weather and urban sprawl. The capital is the city of Fitrettopolis, boasting a population of 300,000. The state as a whole has a population of roughly 3 million. Prior to the Great Backstate Recession of 2002, Fitrete was one of the most prosperous of the Backstates, but since then it has been hit by serious economic decline and is the poorest state in the Doramos region. Tourism forms the vast majority of its revenue, but any benefits from this are confined to the coastal regions.

Notably, Fitrete is hypothesized to be connected in some manner to the Fronstate of Maryland. Spatial anomalies witnessed on the western Maryland border and eastern Fitrete border, in which one may see the terrain of the opposite state, lend credence to this hypothesis, as do reports of individuals journeying through Maryland and winding up in Fitrete or vice versa. The road systems linking Fitrete and New Frusur, too, appear to be inverses of the roads connecting Maryland and Pennsylvania. More research is to be done in this area.

Especially in the resort communities near Fitrettopolis such as New Broward, Fitrete is home to a large Bosnian population. This otherwise unexplainable phenomenon may be elucidated by the state's connection to Maryland- Bosnian refugees from the Yugoslav Wars, intending to migrate to Baltimore, Washington, D.C., or Philadelphia, may have found themselves transported to Fitrete and settled there.

## History

Prior to Euroamerican colonization, Fitrete was inhabited by a small population of native Fitrettian people. Little is known of them, as they were small in number and highly vulnerable to European diseases- they were gone within five years of Spanish entry in the mid-1500s. Spanish colonists composed the first European inhabitants of Fitrete, and they founded the city of Fitrettopolis, but in 1675 all colonists mysteriously disappeared. An explanation is not known at present, and Fitrete lay abandoned until the mid-1800s.

Settlement of Fitrete began once more during the American Civil War. The town of Forstexas located along the Doramos coast was founded in 1862 by the vanished First Texas Regiment fighting in the American Civil War; reports suggest the unit suddenly disappeared in a cornfield in Maryland. After the Civil War, American government authorities investigated this case and realized that the soldiers had vanished to Fitrete. In secret, the Johnson Administration began a program to resettle dissident Confederate veterans in Fitrete. Many such veterans did move to Fitrete and rapidly formed a new population. By 1900, Fitrete boasted a population of roughly 1 million, with the first capital in Forstexas.

In 1942, the entities known as Shudder Men emerged in Fitrete and began to kill many of the state's inhabitants. Many individuals fled into the swamps, where they either founded communities akin to those of the Amish or lived in what some say are the United States' first trailer parks. In 1951, the Shudder Men forced the evacuation of Forstexas, and the capitol was re-established in Fitrettopolis. Attacks by Shudder Men slowed down thereafter.

In the 1970s, Fitrete began to do well as a resort destination due to its warm climate and long coastline on Lake Doramos. Around this time, it ballooned in population, peaking at roughly 6 million in 1988. With the subsequent outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars, a great amount of Bosnian refugees began to migrate into Fitrete and settle there, especially in the coastal resort communities. These Bosnians quickly assimilated, culturally and biologically.

After the 2002 recession, Fitrete began to hemorrhage in population and wealth. A stark wealth divide exists in the state between the well-off coast and desperately poor inland regions. This is not helped by the infamously inefficient state government- the present governor, Quaevious Marković (SQ-FI), a member of the Squirrel Party, is currently facing his seventh allegation of corruption.

## Geography

Fitrete is a state primarily composed of dense swampland along the southern coast of Lake Doramos and extending a signficant distance inland. As a consequence of this terrain, though it did possess a permanent indigenous population prior to colonization, Fitrete has always been a sparsely populated state. The climate is uniformly tropical savanna with a very pronounced dry season, a phenomenon unusual for the latitude. Fitrete is plagued by regular dust storms that obscure the sky enough to turn it orange. The swampland is treacherous and malaria is endemic; the people of the swamp either live in trailer parks or in communities akin to those of the Amish.

Along the shore of Lake Doramos, there exists a humanoid species known as Shudder Men. Few have seen a Shudder Man and returned to tell the tale, but it is said that this species first appeared in the 1940s in the city of Forstexas. Shudder Men dwell in shantytowns they construct on the shore of Lake Doramos and will prowl human settlements at night; it is said that speaking the name Shudder Man will alert them to one's presence. Nothing is known of their appearance, save for their height. The Shudder Men were responsible for the transfer of the capitol from Forstexas to Fitrettopolis in 1951.

The properties of Lake Doramos' water are responsible for an unusual biological phenomenon in Fitrete's coastal inhabitants. All Fitrettians living near the coast develop "neck flaps," cartilaginous webs of skin that can be everted from the neck, within a year of arrival. For the most part, these organs do not pose any problems, but they must be periodically cleaned with rubbing alcohol to avoid producing a foul odor.