Botwan

The Botwan people (or Botwanan) are an ethnic group and nation of pucks located in south-western Crumble, that share a common culture, history, and language, identified with the country of Botwa.

## Geographical organization

Botwans live in small villages connected by roads to the castle town, where the royal family resides. Their villages are typically well hidden or in easily defendable positions, given the number of hostile wildlife and banditry in the area. The hostility of the area is due to the large numbers of monsters in the area.

## Settlements

### Castle Town

Botwan capital, destroyed by a monstrous army in ages past but since rebuilt.

### Domains

Areas previously conquered by the botwanans and who now pledge fealty to the royal line.

### Outposts

Temples to the horse god, who protects the stables from monsters. Serve as rest stops for travelers.

### Sanctuaries

Used to enact the saprotrophic moon ritual. Spread all over the lands of the botwanans in order to ensure that there will always be at least one ritual that will work.

## Administration

The kingdom is in charge of roads, bridges, outposts, stables, sanctuaries, shrines and research labs.

Regional authorities are in charge of administering, policing and defending their towns and villages. They also must pay for the upkeep of the kingdom's infrastructure found in their jurisdiction.

The defense of settlements falls to predulters, who care for a breed of gregarious birds that are particularly violent towards monsters and wrongdoers.

## Economy

Cultural regions each have their own economic structure, trading excess products for goods from other villages.

### Trade

Traveling merchants go between villages and towns to trade their goods.

### Agriculture

They are very poor farmers, due to having an abundance of foodstuffs in their forests to feed their population. However those that go foraging or grasscombing are at risk of being attacked by monsters or other wildlife.

Fishing and hunting are also important sources of food for the botwans. Hunting is a specialty of the botwans who are known to hunt all animates from beetles to Hexapedalus for parts to make potions or other purposes.

### Chemistry

Cooking, brewing and potion making are an important part of botwan culture, and a magical practice unto itself. Their dishes are made in special woks and give beneficial effects to the consumer. They also use insects and herpetons brewed with monster parts to make potions, which is often the source of conflicts between monster tribes and the botwans.

Botwan dependency on potions is well documented. When cooking or brewing during the ascent of saprotrophic moons their chemical prowess is increased. They have developed rituals to delay the ascent of the saprotrophic moon until the next day, ensuring that the buffs to their chemicals are applied, but not the effects on monster populations (who reproduce ritually right after the ascent of saprotrophic moons). This causes a dangerous decline in monster populations, especially those with low birth rates such as ridgebergs and sand groupers, exacerbated by the fact that their parts are particularly sought after by hunters.

### Hard light

Botwans have mastered the use of hard light in some of their technology, such as for blades, bowstring and explosives.

## Professions

*Main article: Professions*

The botwan economy is notable for its many unique occupations. Grasscombers level the plains of one day's grass, foragers and orehogs use magical portraits made by search limnists to find what they're looking for. Thunder fishers, roadkillers fish and hunt in the wilds, while Hexapedalus hunters chase the great beasts through the air. Desert surfers and fruit blowers collect fruit in any biome. From mountain peaks star chasers pursue meteor showers, while spitshiners clean and repair tools. In cities, balloon services remove rubble and predultry farmers raise the dangerous birds.

### Grasscombers

*Main article: Grasscombing*

Patches of one day's grass are common in Botwan plains, and are an important ecological factor as they hide many of the plants and animals they use in cooking and alchemy.

### Search Limnists

Practitioners that can create portraits that beep and glow when near the species depicted on the portrait.

### Foragers

Botwans are very poor farmers, due to having enough foodstuffs in their forests to feed their population. These foraging specialists use special pictures of what they're looking for that beeps and glows when near the specific plants or animate it depicts. Foragers typically work as alchemist assistants or herbalists.

### Orehogs

Similarly to foragers, orehogs use special pictures to find ore deposits that form naturally, but especially in mountains and volcanic areas. They are often clad in enchanted armor to keep the heat out and armed with blunt weapons to break down ore deposits and to deal with dangerous geophages.

### Tool Cleaners

The mountain spitshine octopus has a unique defense of sucking in air before firing phosphorus projectiles at predators. Botwans discovered that throwing rusted tools at the animal will cause it to swallow and regurgitate the tool in pristine condition without trace of rust or wear. From this an industry of high quality tool cleaning emerged. However the difficulty of bringing the tools to the remote mountains created a market for domestic mountain octopods.

### Thunderfishers

In the coastal villages of Botwan, fishers make use of electric arrows and bombs to fish.

They use Fairy enchanted leafs to blow gusts into their sails, and magnesis magic to collect salvage from the ocean and rivers they sail.

### Desert surfers

Foragers who surf on metal plates pulled by seals that swim in sand, to collect desert fruits while not avoiding the beating sun, groupers and other undersand predators.

### Hexapedalus hunters

Hunt for shards of the six legged flying herpetons, by striking at the animals horns, teeth claws and scales using arrows. These cause shards to fall off, which are valuable and renewable.

The hunters operate by themselves, setting up ambush points where they will use the updraft of a campfire to elevate themselves to the herpetons level using a paraglider. Once close enough to the animal, they will fire arrows at the desired part, which will shatter and fall to the ground. The parts emit a bright light, making their recovery easy.

Hexapedali hunters use Fairy enchanted suits that protect them from these projections.

Hunters typically set up camp near areas where they know the creature will pass, or near lakes where the creatures emerge from in the mornings, but they are fiercely protective of their hunting camps, on which their livelihood depend.

### Updrafters

Most updrafters are from the Botwan military. Updrafters are paraglide users who create an updraft strong enough to carry a paraglider or parachuter high into the air. The updraft can be created through various methods.

#### Updraft spells

Setting a pepper on fire.

Using a campfire (experienced updrafters carry bundles of wood and flint or fire starting weapons with them).

Using a gale spell

Burning one day's grass.

#### Fruit blowers

Use updraft magic to make ripe fruits fall from trees.

### Roadkillers

Hunters that use specially bred giant horses to run down prey from birds to wolves to moose. The horses are slow but very endurant and powerful.

### Star chasers

Camp on mountain peaks and cliffs to spot falling shards of stars, and then race to recover the shard first.

### Balloon removal service

Engineers that use spitshine balloons to remove rubble, and the floating rubble is sometimes weaponized during war.

### Predultry farmers

Used to defend Botwan villages from monsters, but since it is difficult to transport them away from their roosts (but not impossible), they aren't used extensively for offensive actions.

Those that do carry chickens are feared and respected.

## Warfare

### Skills

Bows: Their lethality comes from their ability to aim and fire bows at incredible speeds while in mid-air such as jumping off heights or off horseback or while airborne.

Cavalry: Can ride horses, but also some other animals such as deer, rhinoceros, bears and seals.

Mid air slow time

Climbing

Stamina and health: through religion

Polycardism: through a religious ritual, Botwans can insert supplementary hearts into their chests, despite similarities with the Lyrean elves, it has nothing to do with heart flowers.

Botwan fire tactics  Botwans light fires and fire arrows from behind them in order to prevent enemies from charging them, and so that their arrows catch fire.

Botwanan thunder strikes Botwanan knights use lightning proof outfits and purposefully wear metal covering to add a semi random thunder strike to their arsenal when fighting.

Emergency fast travel Botwans can fast travel out of any battle at the cost of the time it takes to teleport to safety.

Botwan knight trial Requires defeating a ridgeberg, a sleeping hill cyclopes and a sand Grouper .

### Weapons

Fight using swords, spears, halberds, bows, shields and staves. Have limited access to explosives in the form of plasma bombs.

Hard light cutters: Weapons whose edges are made of a blue energy, arrowtips made of plasma cause the target to disappear.

Hard light bombs: Explosives that do physical damage to targets without affecting its surroundings.

Hard light bow: Bow whose projectiles course correct in flight in order to experience less arrow drop over long distances.

Boomerangs: Thrown weapons with the ability to return even after hitting one or several targets.

Spring loaded hammer: used by law enforcement. Are able to knock back targets without lethal force.

Obliterator: A weapon that causes its targets to disappear when struck.

Botwan aids: Naturally occurring items with a particular use, other than in chemistry or cooking. Updraft peppers, spitshine balloons, Chuch gels and Gust leaves are all part of a botwan travelers pack.

### Technology

Paragliders

Chuch blobs

Spitshines (from capturing the animals in the wild)

Warp saddles: The botwan found a way to summon their horses to them using special saddles which would teleport the animal to them.

Warp: Botwans can summon themselves to the sanctuaries they keep hidden away in a network all over the kingdom. But citizens mostly walk the roads in order to forage for things.

Tunic: detects life

Sensory image: They take pictures of things, and when nearby, the image makes a noise, helping them find things.

Foli finder mask

### Magic

Spells: Can freeze water, lock living or inanimate targets, control magnetism

Enchantments: Windcleavers, Dryad leaves

Fairy Enchanted armor: Through their relationship to their fairy deities, the Botwans can enchant their clothes for various uses, from better speed and specific environmental resistances to disguises and enhanced strength.

Waterrise (learned from pratitioners from a fiefdom of vodyanoi living in the marshy jungles of the kingdom).

Airrise (learned from practitioners from a fiefdom of harpies living in cliffs of the kingdom).

Life detection (only for champions and great beast engineers)

Botwan speed magic Botwan magic is speed based, allowing them to fire bows with great accuracy while in midair and strike an enemy with a quick succession of blows after having successfully dodged an attack.

Sensory images Sensory images can be bought for a fee, but this is looked down upon by foragers, whose livelihoods depend on it.

## Religion

Botwanan religion is polytheistic and pragmatic, meaning they pray to whoever will best serve their interests be they deities, demons or other objects of worship. Their magic is somewhat tied to their religion, as demonstrated by some of their rituals.

So far the observed botwan pantheon is comprised of a horse God, moon worship, a God of chests, several weapon demons, a god of the hunt, Fairy worship, and ancestor worship, a god of endurance and toughness (and a demon who trades one for the other),

### Deities

Horse god

God of chests

God of the hunt

God of endurance and toughness

### Demons

Various weapon demons

Demon of endurance and toughness

### Objects of worship

The saprotrophic moon

Fairies

Folidryads

### Rituals

Like the Lyrean elves, the Botwans worship a god of chests.

Chest ritual: By inscribing a rune, the Botwans can make a chest appear out of thin air, with randomized treasure within it. They use these in conjunction with their electric weapons to create damaging electric fields.

## Magic

### Botwan magic

#### Ritual of saprotrophic denial

By going into a special shrine right when a saprotrophic moon is about to occur and waiting until it's past midnight, the Botwans can prevent the saprotrophic moon from taking effect and delay it until the following night, and can keep delaying it for as long as the ritual takes place, thanks to this the Botwans enjoy superior cooking without the arrival of demons and monsters in their lands. This makes their lands the safest by far compared to neighbouring countries. However it makes their priests the target of assassins working for those who wish for a demonic presence in the lands.

#### Saprotrophic rituals

Botwans discovered rituals that can cause an early saprotrophic lunar event.

The first requires a large spring, a multishot or spread bow, rubies and a walking tree. The user must jump on the spring, and while in the air fire the ruby tipped arrows at the tree who will then catch fire and explode. Once the explosion hits the user and it hits the ground, the blood moon will rise, even in the middle of the day, with its associated effects taking place.

The second requires air time, a multishot or spread bow, opals and a large pile of rubble. While in the air, the user must fire the opal tipped arrows at the rubble pile, which will cause a massive energy drain to everything around the user including gravity. When the user lands on the ground, the blood moon will rise, even in the middle of the day, with its associated effects taking place.

### Demonic weapon enchantments

Botwans aren't completely averse to the help of demons for magical enchantments.

#### Fit for a king

Users of all sizes need to arm themselves and still look imposing, so the size of the weapon is scaled to the current wielder, leading to things like an ordinary Soup Ladle becoming gigantic in an Ogre's hands and a huge Polkan crusher shrinking down for a puck's use when it's dropped.

#### Quivering fear

Multi-shot bows fire a spread of functional arrows but only consume one from your inventory with each shot. This is to make them worth using at all, as they'd rapidly deplete one's quiver.

#### Unending resilience

Weapon durability only comes into play once a non faithful user to the demon picks up the weapon. A demon worshipper can get hundreds of attacks with their weapon but it'll always be treated as new, but subject to durability once that same weapon falls into Link's hands.

#### Adept of the moon

Causes the enchanted object to return to specific spots after every saprotrophic lunar event.

## Culture

Monster medals

Banana as a strength symbol

Crickets and frogs as symbols of endurance

Exposure foods

Create strange dishes, which have special effects when made during a saprotrophic moon.

### Botwanan society

Botwanan settlements are under divine protection which keeps the monsters at bay (due to their demonic influence.

They aren't free however from the influence of monster essence dishes.

### Botwanan currency

Originates from excretions of a ghostly creature. Used as tithes for their Fairy enchanters.

## International relations

### Vodyanoi

Subjugated by the Botwans to secure water sources, though they frequently rebel and attempt to parch the botwans by damming the waterfalls.

### Cragkin

Subjugated by the Botwans in ages past, but are mostly at peace with the botwans. They enjoy the benefits Botwan culture brings them such as the saprotrophic moon rituals.

### Folidryad

The folidryad are believed by foragers and grasscombers to cause the bounty of plants to grow in botwa, as such they collect seeds from the dryads and bring them to their forest lord for good luck.

### Harpies

The botwans tried several times to conquer the harpies living in the mountain peaks, without much success. It is this desire to conquer them which inspired botwan hang glider designs and the study of updrafts.

### Monsters

Monsters are constant in botwa, due to the frequent saprotrophic moons, the botwans manage their numbers by enacting the saprotrophic moon ritual. Due to their fragmented nature, the botwans do not have official relations with monsters beyond hunting them. Some traits have been noted about the monsters, such as the fact that they will not attack horses, seals or foxes, but will hunt anything else. They are also masters at domesticating horses. The monsters have also learned to recognize specific fairy enchanted outfits worn by knights and adapt their tactics accordingly, however they have no defense against knights using chemically induced resistances.

### Fairy

Fairy queens live in oasis in the desert areas of botwa, and are worshipped by the botwans.

Botwans pay tributes of gold and sacrifices to fairy queens in return for water.

Their queens reward foragers for capturing their servants that escape and live in the grasslands. If a botwan catches a fairy, it will often grant a blessing in exchange of not being delivered to the queen. These blessings range from clothing enchantments, healing using the dust coating of their wings to leaving money in odd places.

Oasis fairies can also bestow enchantments on clothing, which the botwan make use of.

#### Fairy clothing enchantments

* Cold resistance
* Swim and climb speed increase
* Water rise
* Stealth and strength increase
* Monster and folidryad disguise
* Electric, heat, plasma and fire resistance
* Life detector
* Fairy, monster and folidryad detection
* Sand, snow and night speed

## Botwanan products

* Hang gliders
* Monster parts
* Potions
* Meals
* One day's grass seeds
* Insects
* Lizards
* Amphibians
* Ores
* Plants
* Spitshine balloons
* Star shards
* Saprotrophic moon rituals
* Fish
* Meats
* Folidryad seeds
* Sand Grouper organs
* Hexapedalus shards
* Chuch gels
* Chuch infected animates
* Predultry
* Hard light weapons
* Sensor pictures
* Orehog suits
* Spitshine spit
* Folidryad leaf
* Elemental salts
* Magnesis horseshoe
* Updraft peppers
* Campfires
* Roadkiller Equus
* Updraft scrolls
* Rainlimb gear
* Tamed deer, bears, rhinoceros and seals
* Lightning suits
* Disguises
* Folidryad finder
* Boomerangs
* Obliterator
* Spring loaded hammer
* Warp saddles
* Life finder suit
* Fairy enchanted suits
* Sensory images
* Ice column spell
* Lock spell
* Windcleaver
* Waterrise suit
* Exposure foods
* Monster essence