| Frios | |
|---|---|
| Region Number | 127 |
| Realm | Grand Duchy of Pavonia |
| Population | 63,000 |
| Resources | Sungbone |
| Imports | Fuel |
Frios is a region in the far south of the central continent discovered by Pavonian explorers in the 430s and eventually colonised by them after several failed attempts to establish a foothold in the area.
Geography[]
Frios, as its inhabitants refer to it, is a cold and icy region, trapped between the Black and Green seas. Its northern edge is the southeastern end of the Skywall mountains, called by its natives Altura. Old abandoned mines pockmark these slopes, and traces of sungbone architecture can be found thereon. Further south lies the region known by the natives as Vacia, a vast empty plain traversed by herds of caribou, penguins, and polar bears, and inhabited by tribes of roaming hunter-gatherers.
At the southern end of the region lies Ciudad Vieja, an ancient and abandoned port city constructed by a long-vanished civilization and now inhabited by a goodly chunk of the region’s population, subsisting on the vast shoals of fish that fill the seas around Ciudad Vieja. Ciudad Vieja is made almost entirely of sungbone architecture, with the handful of non-sungbone structures either modern additions or structures that required exceptional durability, such as banks or jails.
People[]
The inhabitants of Frios refer to themselves as the Burrata (both singular and plural, adjective is Burratan). They are human, with extremely pale skin, silver-blond hair, and blue or gray eyes all almost universal traits. They tend towards the small side of the spectrum, rarely topping 5’6” and generally slender.
The Burrata organize themselves into tribes of a couple thousand, ruled by an elected chief known as a granqueso, supported by a council of advisors elected as experts on specific topics. The exception to this is the Ciudad Vieja tribe, which numbers nearly twenty thousand and is the only tribe to remain in one location at all times. For this reason, its granqueso, (currently a Carlos Ramirez), is something of a first among equals and the closest thing the Burrata have to a king.
Resources[]
Though the Burratans struggle to get by, one thing they have in ample supply: sungbone. This material seems to have been invented by a now long-vanished civilization which inhabited Frios before the Burrata, which made all of their buildings out of this material. It is an off-white substance, with much the texture of bone, though its consistency is more like very firm clay. Its name comes from the fact that by humming certain notes and concentrating, you can cause sungbone to reshape itself as you desire. The process is extremely slow, for example, opening a hole in a wall big enough for a person to squeeze through would take several hours. When not reshaped by song, sungbone works to maintain its current shape, so if someone were to stab a spear into a sungbone wall, the sungbone would mend the resulting scratch over a few hours. If brought into contact with regular bone, sungbone will slowly engulf and digest the bone, transforming it into more sungbone. Sungbone cannot be used to make armor or weapons, as it cannot be sung to a sharp point or edge and is too heavy and soft to make useful armor.
Due to Frios’s lack of vegetation, the Burrata greatly value flammables and will pay well for such substances.