Coastline of Southern Keskus
This article is about the southern tip of the continent known as Keskus. Historically the region has been populated by various ethnic groups, none of them very numerous, with high linguistic diversity. Most of the southern tip of Keskus is covered by broadleaf woodland, where trees cover the plains with enough spacing between them that it's possible for a continuous grass layer to grow on the soil. Fires are very common during the dry season, especially given the cultural mores of many of the region's inhabitants.
Human Groups[]
The Vund are various hunter-gatherer groups that share linguistic and cultural traits that live along the southern coast of the region, numbering around 500.000 individuals. Concentrated outside the territory controlled by the city-state of Bawám live the Djëma, a more homogeneous group of pastoralists with a loose national identity and highly fluctuating degrees of political unification. Both indigenous groups represent an important problem for trade and agriculture in the region, since pillage and ritual burning of infrastructure is a very important part of their culture.
Geopolitics and Human Conflict[]
A significant source of contradiction and conflict in the region, armed and otherwise, is endogenous and traces its origin to certain characteristics of the Vund culture. The Vund are culturally very prone to warfare both because of their religious beliefs, their religious institutions, and familial structure. The Vund religion teaches that Anhumk, a mythical Vund hero that has the role of savior in their mythology, came close to dying while fighting the stars and the demons that threatened the world's soul, because of that, he must be offered human blood regularly or he will become dormant and the universe will become barren. The clerical class of Vund society is also their warrior class and aristocracy, and finally they are polygamous and treat with ridicule and spite any familial nucleus with less than two females. The custom of sacrificing newborn girls when they are born in certain days of the year further raises the masculinity index, which is explains their violent society as well.
The Djëma , while more "civilized", are not without their belligerant tendencies, and there are numerous Djëma groups that raid and pillage Bawám-controlled areas, as well as having raiding excursions further north into Drs-Ikish and Tll-Ikish territory.