Noirda

Noirda is by far the most extreme landscape with the Lands of Man, but its people are tough and clever to compensate. The north of Noirda is painted black with the dark sands of a desert made from the eroding ancient lava floes of Mount Kord, and the south is a land swept with salty sea winds, with little arable land for farming.

Geography

From the southern boundary of Tyresia to the Blackwater River is the vast Black Desert. For aeons, Mt. Kord pumped fire into the sky, and left a dark stain of stone on the landscape. For thousands of years, the winds off of the Whalesong Waters scoured the rock, and slowly turned it into the fine, sharp sand it is today. Water is scarce there, and vegetation is rough and scrubby, and can vanish quickly. From the Longspine Moutains, a fast, narrow river cuts through the higher reaches of the Black Desert, and carves Noirda in two. The Lower Longspine Mountains border the region along the west.

Below the Blackwater River is a narrow strip of arable land, where crops can thrive in the mineral-rich alluvial soil, and where the wind cannot reach into the shallow valley. This is where the majority of the Noirdic civilization sprang up, sheltered next to the water. Wheat and cotton are grown here in abundance, and large hippopotami and crocodiles move in the silent water. Jackals come out of the scrubby land over the valley edge at night. South of the Blackwater River is empty space, traversed by caravans ferrying goods back and forth from Ptolnum to Tyresia.

People

The Noirdic people are dark-skinned, slight folk. They are known through the empire as master traders, and over centuries of ferrying people and goods across their lands, developed a sophisticated banking system, and a strong sense of hospitality. Noirdic dress was traditionally long, light-colored clothes, and protective scarves and wrappings over hands and feet. Halflings aren't as plentiful in Noirda as they are in Tyresia, but there's a goodly amount of them. Dwarves never settled long there.

Noirdic folk established themselves as friendly to the orcs early on. In a land of survival and prescribed hospitality, they saw in orcs kindred spirits. Full-blooded orcs live in cities in Noirda, despite the imperial strictures forbidding it. Women were not as lucky early on, but after the Arrival, Noirda went well out of its way institutionally to treat women equitably.

Culture

Hospitality and monetary competence are the most remarked upon things in Noirdic culture. Inns and taverns hiring a Noirdic individual to work in their establishment is a sure-fire way to attract customers, as ethnicist an idea as that is. Many of the banks in the Lands of Man and beyond are Noirdic owned, and are funded by the Noirdic trading companies, which over the centuries have diversified into water vessels and have been heavy investors into the gnomish railways.

In the caravanserai in the Black Desert and in the Noirdic plains, many of the gambling traditions of the Lands of Man were developed, and disseminated out into the world. The traditions of high-stakes gaming and friendly competition grew with it, and gambling in the Silvertree Empire is considered a common, happy thing, though a sore loser or a cheat is shunned from gaming tables.