Vodyanik Lands

The peninsula that's east of the Setlovia Freestate is home to steep cliffs, grottoes, caves, stormy seas and rock formations carved by the wind and waves.

Although poor in natural resources, its inhabited by a hairless fish-like race of people with turqoise-tinted skin (let's call them the **Vodyanik**). These people are primal and file their teeth into sharp points, and they mostly live in grottoes and caves.

They worship gods that look like Octopi and Narwhals. Often, when a Gnoll or Lengi ship crashes on the rocks of the peninsula, the Vodyanik tie the surviving sailors to a rock near the sea, letting the rising tide bring crabs that slowly eat the flesh off their legs, all that as an offering to their gods.

Despite being having such a close relationship with the sea, the Vodyanik avoid stepping or swimming in the water, fearing divine punishment.

## History

The lands south of the Ashland Desert are some of the poorest, most barren lands in western Giantstep. The land is the victim of constant dry winds from the north, with such a force that it moves all decent soil to the sea, creating massive dunes blocking most of the coast. The rest of the cost is covered with jagged rocks, cliffs and treacherous deeps, making quite difficult to build a port. The land has the bedrock exposed, impeding the growth of forests, and in the few spaces that there’s enough soil, the high acidity of the soil blocks all but the most adapted plants from growing. Drunig sailors who explored these lands are surprised that their own lands, famous for their harshness, come out on top when compared to the lands of the Vodyanik.

As such, the history of the Vodyanik is rather sparse. Both the Kingdom of Ketlovia and the Khenomeric Empire held sway over the lands, but neither one really gained much profit from them, and often they were there just to connect certain trade routes or to keep an eye on banditry that could use the lands as a base of operations. The Khenomeric Empire abandoned the lands of the Vodyanik around the 1.000 ABE, needing the manpower there to take care of their other provinces. After it was abandoned, the land changed very little, with the only big events that happen were the creation of the drunig colony of Thalasoverme, a battle between the Kingdom of Boita and the Malagshian Empire that somehow happened far beyond their own borders, and the occasional gnoll sea raid.

The natives of the land, the Vodyanik, are few in number. They do not record their history, considering themselves that the past and the future do not exist, living day to day in an ever-expanding present. Thus, making a concise history of them falls under foreign historians, but very few are interested in studying the aloof and reserved vodyanik.

## The Vodyanik

The **Vodyanik** are a strange human-like race that exclusively inhabit the poor lands south of the Ashland Desert, giving the region its name. They are tall, thin humanoids, with turquoise-tinted skin and reddish green eyes. Their bodies show certain traits that indicate that their origins came from the sea, like what appear to be vestigial gills, membranes of skin between their fingers and some scale-like protrusions in the back of their necks. However, they do not seem to desire any contact with the sea, preferring to live in grottoes and damp caves, where the harsh dry winds cannot harm them.

They are hunter-gatherers, exploring the lands during the periods when the wind doesn’t carry sand and dust. They gather all that could be edible, from local magnolia flowers, cacti, rabbits, mice, local land crabs… They can eat pretty much everything, and are highly resistant to poisons because of that. They have also learned to grow certain mushrooms and lichens in the deeper parts of the caves, as well as create traps for bats and other nocturnal critters.

Their culture centers around a fearful adoration of the sea. They pray to many different sea gods, many in the shape of spirit animals. The sacred drawings in their caves show many creatures like krakens, octopi, whales, thanedds, basilosaurus… They are drawn eating those who dare invade their dominion, while the Vodyanik observe from the shores. They will even leave tribute at the shores to show their respects to the spirits of the sea. However, for as much as the Vodyanic adore and revere the sea, they absolutely fear it. Vodyanik tribes do not show any form of fishing, sea travel, the exploitation of the shores and even swimming. Vodyanik keep themselves as far away from the sea as possible, and only will go during the most important ceremonial events. It has also been reported that those considered criminals or evil have been sacrificed to the sea, their hands and legs tied up and abandoning them there for the creatures of the sea to feast upon them. This strange dichotomy has not properly explained, and historians are still trying to find a link between these two opposite reactions.

Relations between the two [the Vodyanik and the drunig colonists of Thalasoverme] are few and far between, mostly because the Vodyanik refuse to have nothing to do with the drunig.The drunig would love to interact more with the vodyanik, since help from local populations is always needed to get the colonial economy going. But the drunig came from the sea, and not only survived, but thrived, occupying arguably the one fertile spot in the land, the Cinderwall River. Contact was not violent, but the Vodyanik would prefer if the strangers went away and left them alone.