Palowan Peoples

The Palowan, or simply the Pal, were a relatively diverse ethnic group that inhabited the central and southern regions of Owlia. The Pal did not initially exist as a unified nation-state; instead, they criss-crossed the sea east of Landing, known as the Central Sea, and gave rise to various different factions including the Grey Brotherhood and Iron Brotherhood, and the independent nations of Nemosa, Urusahm and Eisarna.

Common physical traits included tall stature, long limbs, strong facial features, steely grey-blue eyes, and jet black hair that contrasted with their moderately-light skin. Males tended to sport thick beards which often turned grey even in early adulthood. However, striking blonde or dark red hair could also be seen in some bloodlines.

Pal tribes emerged in pre-history in the relatively safety of the Mushroom Lands or Suomia, at the eastern extreme of the Landing region, where they first developed the crafts of sailing, fishing, smithing and stone working. Beginning around 500 CE, many Pal tribes migrated to the islands of the east, where they specialised into cattle, sheep, mixed agriculture and forestry.

As time went on, Pal culture spread to the south and east, across the Central Sea, with its extremes reaching the borders of East Owlia through the settlement of the Iron Keep.  In the 9th century, the various Palowan nations united under one banner as the Palowan Union.

## Architecture

Pal houses were typically simple and strong in nature, built with thick stone walls and often warmed by an interior central fireplace. Smaller houses were typically rounded in shape, showing superficial resemblance to the Eastern Daels of Severia; however, it seems the ancestors of the early Pal were once inhabitants of what is today Clifftown, and thus shared a common origin with other ethnic groups of central Owlia.

A common sight in the Palowan world were tall stone monuments known as *Enilkos*, a word believed to derive from 'stone man' or 'stone face'. The Enilkos were abstract in design, usually four-sided columns, often with many indented faces and symmetrical ornamentation. They were built from the most colourful stones, and always built near water. They served as memorials to the fallen, as the focal point of festivals, as commemorations for great events, and as landmarks and navigation aids. The Enilkos originally had a great deal of lore and traditions associated with them, but much of this was lost over the centuries.

## **Writing and Literature**

Pal literature had its roots in the scribes of the Grey Brotherhood during the early 6th century; though writing in various Pal dialects, the scribes first developed a runic alphabet known as Old Palish, that continued to be used for official documents and public signs. As the runic script is somewhat slow and tedious to write, the scribes later learned to write in the standard Landing alphabet as a form of shorthand - a script originating from Clifftown and Skulltown, which had already become centres of literacy at an earlier stage in the region’s history. This hybrid writing system then spread throughout the Palowan world, with the Old Palish script maintaining its prestige value while the Landing script was often used for commerce and everyday life, both scripts encoding the same spoken language.

In the south, around the Iron Keep, the language of the Pal continued to evolve. Contact with the Robed Ones introduced several exotic Wungarian words; while the need to conduct business with East Owlian merchants introduced Lanternese elements at a steady rate. Both written and spoken languages diverged from their northern brethren; this branch of the language became known as South Palowan or Cheridonian, with an expanded vocabulary and differences in grammar, and which in turn started to spread back through the northern Pal-speaking lands.