We are continuing the Suel culture serie with the Suel of the Duchy of Urnst and Sheldomar, who share a similar integration but are quite different to the Thillonrian culture.
The following two central locations have more tempered Suel.
Duchy of Urnst
The merchant kingdom of the Duchy of Urnst, and the County of Urnst as well for that matter, hold a large enclave of Suel people. When the Suel migrants surged through these lands, three minor noble families split from their brethren to settle in largely uninhabited plains. These families banded together, forming the new House of Maure. They called their new homeland “Urnst,” after a founding Suel house of great import in the old empire and to begin their lives anew. The Suel find themselves in leadership positions here, due to their skill in manipulation and self-determination. Contrary to their ancestors, they tend to be the most cooperative of the Suel peoples and decided to adapt, culturally, to the Oeridians. Their strict laws of racial purity, for example, have faded into obscurity. Suel nobles that sire a half-breed child do not have to see the offspring crushed to death in a public ceremony.
Though the Suel of Urnst were less depraved than most of their kinsmen, they remain paranoid and proud of their lineage and their right to power in the extreme.
Sheldomar Valley
In the Sheldomar Valley, the dangerous temper of the Suel people has civilized itself to
become no more than a certain impatience in negotiations. Many Suel in this area have allowed their culture to mix with others to such an extent that they are more "generic", culturally sharing more with their geographical neighbours than with their original brethren. Suel established influence started with the nobles of House Rhola founding the city of Gradsul on the Azure Coast in –368 CY. No more than a decade later the House of Neheli, advised by their seers who were each apprentices’ of Slerotin, moved into the northern valleys and established the city of Niole Dra. During this time, they fought the powerful Flan kingdom every step of the way but also learned from them and eventually traded with them.
Then the Oeridians moved into the region and encountered the Neheli, settling peacefully with them and occupying much of the central valleys. Two decades later in –342 CY, Keoland was officially founded by a union between the Neheli, Rhola, and the Oeridian nobles.
Hepmonaland
We take a brief look over the water where the large continent of Hepmonaland lay, a land barely touched by the great struggles on the Flanaess. The Suel arriving here built their own cities in the northlands of the continent, originally keeping to themselves but in the end merging with the original inhabitants – the Touv and the Olman. Had they not, those fair-skinned newcomers would not have survived this land of jungle and disease. They built their cities along the coast, then inland, and ever so slowly, they adapted to their new land and lost touch with their original culture and history.
Although Hepmonaland Suel nobles still bear the titles of their Imperial ancestors, such as "duke," "countess" and "baroness," they have become savages and have largely forgotten the original meanings, other than their implications of leadership. These people technically have two social levels, the leaders and the followers, although the boundaries between the two are flexible as once a year the leader may be challenged in combat for leadership of the tribe.
The leaders must listen to the counsel of the tribal priest, who cannot be a leader, nor can he harm the priest if he disagrees. The priests otherwise have no direct power over the tribe, although they can still influence it by applying or denying their abilities to the people.
The pure Suel-savage nations are almost entirely devoid of iron weapons, since most of the ones they brought with them rusted away long ago and they do not know how to make more. The Hepmonaland Suel rely instead on weapons of wood, stone and sharpened bone or animal horn, with spears, short bows, axes and knives being typical. Rarely does a Suel carry a bronze weapon; in all likelihood such an item was stolen or traded from an Olman tribe or from expeditions from the Lordship Isles. Leather or studded leather is the heaviest armor that can actually be worn without suffering unduly from the climate, although on hot days even this becomes intolerable.
The Suel savages spend their time staying alive, conquering areas solely for the spoils and not the land and they search hastily for materials the Suel of the Flanaess asked for during their expeditions.
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