Trying to make humans not boring

Humans are pretty weird, man. There's so many cultures around the world that are just staggeringly different from generic-kindofmedieval-europe. So why are the "human" places usually the normal places, the generic places, the medieval-europe places, complete with king, castle, and Church? Especially the last one baffles me; presumably Christ didn't show up in your world (unless you're C.S. Lewis), so how can there be such a construction as a Church? Monotheism does not equal Church.

The Salori are a group of humans who are definitely not medieval-european, and certainly have no church. They're black, for starters - except that the concept of race hasn't been invented, so really I should say that their skin tone varies from reddish brown to light brown; with sometimes odd, mottled crimson markings appearing, especially in the heartland. They keep saying this is somehow related to the betrayal and death of some ancient god-king which stained the entire land with blood. Whatever. Their faces are sharp and long, and they have sharp cheekbones. Salori are tall and a bit lanky, they often have bright eyes.

Salori have the sharp features above, the skin colour below. Not pictured: red skin variations.
Art by theminttu

Many Salori, even mere farmers, are proud and haughty, and don't shirk confrontation if they detect offense. Almost all adult Salori, men and women, are armed with a long, thin dagger tucked in the sash around the waist. It's usually an heirloom, and they're not afraid to use it.

They came into Circassa from the North, over the Shield Wall mountains which block the subcontinent from the rest of the world. They came here from some half-remembered distant strife, following the Sage called Salor, after whom their entire people is named.

When they got there they found that the place was already inhabited by a staggering variety of goblin-species (seriously, how do these guys keep ending up everywhere) and the proud last remains of a waning, non-human empire called Tel Ammon. Exactly how this empire was non-human the histories don't mention; they might have been elves or even vampires. After a tense co-existence war broke out, the tribes united, and the empire was destroyed. It's said that the region Tel Ammon is still haunted by vengeful specters, clad in mottled gold and opulent robes turned to tattered rags, which is of course, totally true.

The Salori remained nomad tribes for a long time, until some guy named Carahir was instructed in the secret arts of agriculture and architecture by one of the thousands of spirits living in the volcano. Tradition calls him Maskurat, Old-Man-of-the-Volcano. They say he's got one eye, black hands, and a crown made of antlers. So Carahir built the ancient city now known as Godsgrave, and then, according to who you talk to, tried to conquer all the continent, what a dick, or tried to conquer all the continent, what a hero. Some complicated stuff went down, Carahir ended up killed by a cowardly assassin/heroic freedom fighter named Alkoveran still despised/venerated to this day, and the landscape of Circassa was forever changed.

When the dust settled, the Salori were now split up in the settled peoples and the tribes of the old ways. The settled people organized in Manses, which are like a mix between dynastic oligarchies, republics, political parties, and corporations.

There's four of them now, and they own most of the fertile land of Circassa. Here they are:



Manse Neraan are a bunch of fat merchant slavers. Their ancestral seat, Kratum Neraan, sits right on the flanks of the volcano, a mother-of-pearl bulwark of domes, aquaducts, many many terraced bloodrice paddies, and many many slave pits. They buy slaves from overseas or overmountain, but they also have a dedicated in-house slave hunter branch, which organizes raids on the tribes and even ordinary travellers without Freedom Papers which are sold at exorbitant prices. They're filthy, filthy rich, and very untrustworthy. Their taxes are incredibly high but they beat down peasant revolts mercilessly. It's an open secret that the Neraan employ some sort of assassin guild, possibly assassin-wizards.

Like a bunch of these buildings stacked into one giant upside down chandelier. Not pictured: terrible slave pit conditions.

Manse Tennion is a collection of feudal matriarchies around bitter old witches, allied only by pragmatics and tradition, because most of them can't stand each other. Their ancestral seat of Al Hneren to the north was devastated by the magic Chernobyl that concluded a war against the Northern invader long ago. Their new home, Tuhmas Tennion or Home-In-Exile lies in a desert to the south and is a collection of separate towers and fortresses, one per sorcerer-matriarch, and very well guarded (they're nothing if not paranoid). The towers are composed of the bone-like organic rock called hulac that grows in the region; they look like huge shelves of enamel; square teeth the size of hills. Manse Tennion is busy colonizing the Floating Mountains to the south in flying ships, but they've been having trouble with declarations of independence and piracy.

Hulac buildings kind of look like this, but less evil, less mountains, and the weather is nice.
Minas Morgul by John Howe.

Manse Hnennao are a bunch of cult followers and those who make a living by starting a cult. They're not fanatics, mind you - monotheism hasn't been invented; most people move between cults as we do between Netflix series. Their ancestral seat of Kogo Hnennis, City of a Thousand Cults, has statues, shrines, sacrificial pits, and temples on every street corner, and that's just the ones that aren't secret. You literally can't spend a minute without some chanting procession passing by. Kogo Hnennis straddles the Great River Huliac, which is how they trade with other parts of Circassa and, since recently, overseas. Despite the river, Kogo Hnennis has been dying of thirst for at least two centuries now. See, the springs of the Huliac lie to the north in the rocky highlands of Renca Ur. The same magic WDM which destroyed the Tennion homeland cursed the whole region, including the springs. Now the fertile land surrounding Kogo Hnennis is called Hurgliath, the White Wen. Everything is drained of colour and the ground has become a sickly mire emitting poisonous fumes. Trade caravans are manned by brave, brave folk - but the coin is good. There's all sorts of magical threats and unnatural things going on, and certainly the water isn't drinkable. The whole city is covered with criss-crossing copper rain catchers and pipes; water is sold for exorbitant prices, and the entire region around the citey is honeycombed with old wells, all of which end up poisonous after a few days of clear water. After invoking at least a thousand gods - most of whom didn't answer - the Hnennao are now sending scouts into the cursed North to see if anything can be done about the curse.

In Kogo Hnennis, you're constantly running into these kind of things.
Art by Marc Simonetti.

Manse Carahir is, everyone agrees, over. They all hope for the return of a king like the legendary Carahir, but that's just wishful thinking. Their land is shrinking everyday, swallowed up by the long disenfranchised tribes and rival Manses. They've struck a trade deal with the far-away empire called the Azure Eleven, but that may prove to be a deal with the devil, as the first operations of this empire in their ancestral seat of Godsgrave look a little bit too much like the beginnings of colonialism. Godsgrave is said to be built on the place where the ancient god-king who throned on the volcano fell down after his betrayal and death, and it is incontrovertible that the ancient palace of Carahir is built on a strange round hill, that just before it meets the level soil, juts out in places that almost suggest that just below the surface lie... eye sockets?

The cities are populated by much more than just the red-skinned Salori; there's many foreign traders and expats, as well as enormous amounts of goblins, some Rafa, bird-men from the south, and all manner of strange creatures beyond count; be they native to the subcontinent or from other lands or even realms.

Art by Jeff Brown.

And that's just the settled peoples. Outside, in the dangerous regions; the steppes, the cursed waste to the north, the boiling swamps, and the deserts, live the disenfranchised tribes. They speak Ohr Kirkes, which no Manse-folk now understand. The Manses call them the Savages and regard them as an embarassment, little more than feral goblins, and the tribes themselves view the Manses as blasphemous traitors to the Great Ancestors and the ancestral ways. They're not even true Sons of Salor; they're nothing.

An uncommonly light-skinned Salori might look like this.
Art by Alison Howle.

Among the tribes there is a legend that one day the ancient god-king will wake up from his long sleep, retake his throne on the mountain of fire, and drive out the thrice-cursed trickster Maskurat, who tried to fool the Salori with the vile magics of agriculture and building, and destroy everything wrought with them. Then the land will be healed, the blood of God will flow back and no longer stain the soil and the people, the vile curse of the northern wastes will be undone, and the tribes will hunt and keep their herds freely in the fertile and free lands of Circassa.

This might be what Manse art looks like. From Borobudur, Indonesia.