Ydeli

Region Name:
Ydeli

Warrior Region:
While Ydelians occasionnally leave Ydeli for food and various supplies, they see little reason to live in another region, giving them little incentive to invade. While in Ydeli, they also have no reason to fight, as the only invasion attempt failed when the invaders froze and starved to death. However, they do have two skills that they can, and do, use for safety. The first is escape, as Ydelians can run fast on their snowshoes, while pursuers from other regions attempt to lumber through the snow after them. The second is their accuracy at throwing darts. When hunting plenerts, Ydelians feel that they must give their prey a quick, painless death, in return for the resources the plenerts supply them with. Therefore, they spend countless hours practising with their throwing darts to ensure accuracy to achieve this objective.

Official Language:
While all Ydelians can speak basic Noradian, their primary language is lissian. Lissian is a flowing language that contains few hard sounds and depends on tone and pitch to convey meaning. Ydelians are also well versed in the art of waving brightly coloured cloths to communicate with groups that are to far away to hear their soft lissian dialect.

Currency:
Ydelians have little need of money, as there is nothing for them to buy. All that they own comes from nature or is imported. They can, and often do, live off of the plenerts, pluffers and whatever they can scrounge from their snowy surroundings. As all that they have is easily findable and creatable, they share nearly everything and have little sense of possession or greed. If they have excess supplies or money given by visitors, they are often given away, or sent to be sold or traded for food or other supplies in other regions.

Region Size:
Large.

Population:
Ydeli's population is tiny, compared to its size. With an average of two people per square kilometre, its inhabitants travel in small groups. These groups, while scarce, often meet, since they can see eachother from far away.

Region Native Description:
Compared to their neighbours, Ydelians are tiny. Rarely more than five feet tall, they are fine boned with tiny hands and feet. They have delicate facial features that always include small upturned noses, slightly pointed chins and pronounced but rounded cheekbones. Their foreheads are small, barely taking up a third of their face, and are rounded at the top, giving their faces an inverted teardrop shape. They have thick, dark, straight hair that appears to absorb all light. Both genders keep their hair long and braided, and male facial hair, while sparse, is removed. They have large, wide eyes, and their irises are a dark shade of black that appears to be part of their pupils. These eyes, normally half closed to protect them from the bright sun, are framed by thick, dark eyelashes and dark but narrow eyebrows. As they normally wear multiple layers of plenert fur for warmth, they see little purpose in jewelry or cosmetic body decoration. Each Ydelian has single pair of snowshoes, that are normally inherited from one generation to the next, that were made of wood remaining from the Ingale invasion.

Region Physical description:
Ydeli, Eternity's coldest region, has temperatures that range from -50° to -30. It is coated in thick layers of powdery snow that never melt. The upper layer of snow forms large dunes, around thirty meters high, while underneath, the snow goes down several kilometers, with the bottom layers being pack rock-hard. On Ydeli's many windy days, the wind forms the loose upper layers into whirlwinds, reforming and recreating a new landscape every few days. Its changing nature and lack of permanent features mean that Ydeli has never been mapped. Despite its seemingly limitless snow, Ydeli has little natural ice, as the snow never melts and the little moisture in the air forms snow. The only living organisms capable of living there and pluffers, plenerts and humans. Pluffers, a form of algae, float on the wind, absorbing as much heat as they can from the sun. They exist primarily by taking energy from the sun and snow. Their translucent, white tinged colour makes them nearly invisible and they are often mistaken for snow. Plenerts, a subspecies of weasel, are similarly white to blend in with their environment. They eat pluffers and the offerings left for them by humans. Oddly for mammals, their body temperature rests at a constant -35° and they cannot exist in warmer climates. Plenerts sleep little, taking advantage of Ydeli's 20-22 hour long sunshine to hunt for the scarcening pluffers. As there is no visible ground for plants to grow in, there are no natural plants. The few visitors from nearby regions have difficulty adjusting to Ydeli's apparent bleakness and nearly constant light.

Region leader/ Government type:
Ydeli has a fairly unstructured governmental system, with a single large meeting every year, and smaller ones, as necessary. Every inhabitant gains the rights to vote and participate in all meetings, as soon as they are able to speak or otherwise communicate. All meetings are held in a single building, the Lenniot, at the geographical centre of Ydeli. The Lenniot was originally formed by sheets of tightly packed snow, which are normally covered by a thick layer of powdery snow that gives it the appearance of being a snow dune. While Ydeli's laws and governmental system are relaxed, its few laws are strictly upheld. Violence in any form is forbidden, and, due to Ydeli's harsh climate, hospitality is mandatory.

Region Major Cities/ Provinces:
Ydeli, due to its scattered nomadic groups, has no cities. It has one large building, the Lenniot, near its centre where all large groups meet. While it is large enough to be divided into provinces, the Ydelians see little point and the constantly changing landscape prevents other regions from mapping Ydeli and assigning regions. At the borders between Ydeli and its neighbours, Ydeli's snowy landscape changes abruptly into that of the neighbouring region, with snow melting soon after crossing the border.

Traditional Food:
As the only edible resource available in Ydeli are plenerts, the Ydelians survive on them. They have learned to prepare plenert meat in a variety of ways, such as smoked, boiled, stewed, fried or dried. They often prepare nets that catch pluffers which they use as flavouring or as a side dish, however these take much more time to catch so they are eaten less. They build greenhouses out of sheets of ice, placing them on stilts to keep the top clear of snow, but the sides insulated. They use these greenhouses to grow grains and vegetables. Although these are resource and time intensive, Ydelians prefer to be self-sufficient and import as little as possible. However, they do occasionally import grains, fruits, vegetables and spices from their neighbouring regions.

Racism/ Prejudice:
While Ydelians are naturally hospitable and generous, they are wary around visitors from other regions. After the Ingalian invasion, they only guide groups with less than ten people and require compensation for their time and supplies.

Religion:
While Ydelians place little value on most religion, they have two core beliefs. They feel that life is paramount and must be protected and valued. They understand the difficulty of surviving in Ydeli's harsh climate, so they respect the plenerts and pluffers. Although they must hunt plenerts to survive, they avoid excess killing and attempt to use all of their bodies, leaving any that is unusable for the pluffers. However, their primary belief is in the power of the lennies. Lennies are the sole undocumented living organism in Ydeli, and most other regions doubt their existence. Lennies appear translucent at first glance, but the longer they are looked at, the more colours appear under their skin. These myriads of colours move and waver under the skin, growing more complex the longer they are contemplated. These colours can vary from a several tints to hundreds of colours, including many that are visible nowhere else. Their skin seems to be made of a form of living ice, rare in a desert of snow. They can fly, seeming to swim through the air like fish, although they have no visible wings or fins. As Ydelians believe lennies keep Ydeli frozen and covered in snow, they worship them.

History:
As long as Ydeli has existed, there have been Ydelians. According to Ydelian lore, Ydelians were originally spread out across the other regions, when they started to be victimized for their odd appearance. They formed a group and ventured forth into the harsh world to escape, where the lennies took pity on them and created a safe haven, Ydeli. Ydeli has always protected the Ydelians, giving them all they need, whether food, shelter or escape from their tormentors. The sole time Ydeli was invaded, by the Ingalians, the Ydelians welcomed them, giving them shelter and food, as per their custom. When the Ingalians judged they were able to withstand Ydeli's temperatures and barren desert-like landscape, they slaughtered most of the Ydelian population. The remaining Ydelians fled and prayed to the lennies, to save them, again. Unfortunately for the Ingalians, they had misjudged their ability to find food and shelter and Ydeli and had all died within a few days, due to starvation and the cold.