"I hope that one day we can reign in this barbarism. This continent is too large for any one people to rule entirely, and as long as we are stunted as we are now, the Liver-Eaters will always rule the southern jungle largely uncontested. But the fine luminaries of the capital and the veil will one day allow us to both provide for our people and put down this scourge. For now, we patrol the jungle. Keep your eyes peeled on the darkness."
-The Achton of Fort Jilo, Tizoc
The Cultures of Arathia
To those who don't know it well, Arathia often seems like a completely savage and mysterious realm, set about from all sides by wild creatures, horrible monsters, and magical catastrophes. However, to those who live there, Arathia is well ordered, governed tactfully and cunningly from the Principate in Ok-La-Ay. From there, the vainglorious catfolk rule over a massive empire, the largest one in the world. Largely separated by multiple seas and an utterly beguiling series of jungles, a golden age of innovation and technological progress is underway. And further, the arcane masters of Alz Gamora push further and further the bounds set by the ancient magi. That is not to say it is all civilized - in many places, Arathia is dangerous, uninviting, teeming with barbaric frog despots and ferocious beasts. But where the tabaxi have touched, civilization and order blooms; even when it is not always welcome.
The imperial order of Alz Gamora is far more all encompassing and centralized than the feudal kingdoms elsewhere in the world. All tax, trade, laws, and order are moved through and from the Princeps, and still there is a diversity of rule and organization in their client states. In fact, when one ignores the steel boot of empire, it is the ties of kinship, community, and tribal economies that dominate most of the lands of Arathia, particularly among the Tortles, Firbolg, and Goliath. And yet among the despotic and militaristic Tritons, there exists non of these ties of kinship, where efficiency and obedience are chief among all the virtues. Arathia is strange, extremely strange compared to the rest of Adra, and yet what was for most of its history isolated has now been exposed to the wider world, with largescale trade missions regularly undergone to the ports of Riobamba, Port Coco, and Ok-La-Ay. The people of Arathia in general tend towards mysticism over skepticism, towards the arcane and the ancient over the mundane and the traditional. And still, the gentle-caste system established by the Gamorans maintains a culture that is directed from the top-down. As Arathia changes, it will therefore change with a purpose in mind.
The most common races found in Arathia are tabaxi, tritons, goliath, tortles, firbolgs, grung, and dwarves. You might want your character's culture to be of Arathia if they are mystical and mysterious, are highly austere in the presence of strangers, view war as a virtuous art, are obsessed with organization and efficiency, or view nature as the tie that binds all people together. This is of course very broad-strokes, and you should have a look at the following cultures to learn more about the subtleties of each:
Bolgan Culture: This culture belongs to peace-loving firbolg tribes of the interior Arathian jungles.
Calakmulan Culture: The goliaths of the far northern kingdom of Calakmul, living in swamps.
Caxamalcan Culture: The ponderous and friendly tortles of the western coastal region.
Gamoran Culture: The dominant culture of the continent, belonging to the tabaxi and the hosts of people that live under their direct rule.
Grung Culture: The wild, barbaric, and violent frogling slavers of the darkest jungles.
Tritonian Culture: The people of the southern triton civilization, half-by-land, half-by-sea.
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