The Long Dry

The continent has no kings, no writing, no magic, and no standing armies. What the ten peoples have is memory, kinship, craft, and old grievances. Each keeps its own calendar; none knows the others well enough to predict them reliably. The Kinmun hold the biggest fish-run delta and the most permanent villages. The Dakwan work the northwest marsh coast by reed boat and salt-pan. The Stormer are scattered fisher-foragers along a rugged western coast. The Stothamber herd on a cold-desert central plateau and weave the finest cloth on the continent. The Chingong maintain a drum-relay network through the equatorial forest. The Ustuz are canoe-hunters with a hard reputation in the northeast. The Thornbeck are a loose confederation of kin-clans across the southwest interior, individually modest but collectively enormous. The Tutham stilt-village people of the far southwest are the only peoples whose own territory makes them effectively neutral ground. The Bakad are the most widely traveled canoe traders, keepers of long spoken genealogies. The Sirrithi live deep in the southern marsh-maze, speak a language unlike any neighbor's, and have barely been met by outsiders until this season. War parties assemble for a season and dissolve afterward; there are no professional soldiers. Real trust across peoples comes from marriage or adoption, not one good trade. An attack through Tutham marsh breaks a custom other peoples actually care about. Thornbeck kin-clans broker faster with each other than with any outsider.

Three years of failing rains have squeezed the continent at once. The places that were always adequate — a river-mouth, a pass, a stretch of marsh — are now the only good places, and for the first time in living memory the ten peoples who knew each other mainly as rumor are ending up at the same fords in the same season. No one knows whether this new closeness will mean trade, marriage, war, or something that has no name yet.

War parties assemble by season and dissolve once the season ends; no standing force can be maintained year-round. Trust across peoples requires marriage, adoption, or at least three seasons of unbroken exchange — a single trade meeting does not produce it. Any armed movement through Tutham marsh territory is a breach of cross-peoples custom that other peoples will hold against the aggressor regardless of the dispute. Thornbeck kin-clans negotiate internally faster than any of them can deal with an outsider; any agreement that does not include the relevant kin-clan heads will be ignored by that clan. The Sirrithi language is not mutually intelligible with any other; direct communication requires Ssh-Akheth or a Tutham interpreter who knows both. The Stothamber pass closes with the first heavy snowfall; the current open window is estimated at three weeks.