Salemesia
Ψαλαγα
Salemesia, the eastern foothills of the southern Odric Mountains are wild region that has become, culturally, a part of Aeilla since its settlement. A difficult to traverse, and difficult to farm territory, the lands of Salemesia were only sparesely inhabited for most of history, until there was a concerted effort by Spartharoi peoples to establish colonies in the territory.
Salemesia is sparsely populated with scarecely more than forty thousand people calling Salemesia home, almost all of whom live in the Successor State that bears the name of the region. Most of the population lives in small, usually fortified communities, with only a couple of towns, and only one proper city in the whole of Salemesia. The people living in the region are proud, and hardy, quite capable of making a living in the wildlands.
Salemesia was relatively uninhabited for most of its history, with only a small handful of people even travelling through the era before the advent of the Yuan-Ti. The first real settlement came towards the end of the Forging Era when the land was settled by Spartharoi pioneers. Salemesia was conquered by the Aeillan Empire, and remained Aeillan land under the Empire, and then the Exarchate of Halion before gaining its independence after the fall of the Empire.
Geography
The region of Salemesia consists of the foothills of the southern Odric Mountains. The lands here are lower than in the Odric Mountains proper. In the easterlands of Salemesia, the mountains give way to low hills. Towards the west, the land rises into the Odric Mountains proper. Overall, most of the mountains are low enough to avoid the chill of truly high elevations, but are nonetheless relatively hard to access for inexperienced travelrs.
Salemesia's soil are rocky and difficult to till, and indeed the plant life that has flourished there has done so in spite of the difficult growing conditions. Some sheltered vales, in the central lowland of the region contain most of the arable land in the region, with sufficient good soil to sustain a modest population. The water table is quite high in the region, with plentiful snow runoffs, highland lakes, and running bodies of water that are, in the east, part of the Spartharii River Watershed. Overall, conditions in Salemesia are difficult for most sentient beings, resulting in the relative wildness of the region.
Ecosystem
Salemesia is a very mountainous region dominated by the Odricine biomes. Aside from the highest peaks however, the upper snowcaps are rare in Salemesia with most permanent snow cover restricted only to the areas near the Odric Mountains proper. Salemesia is however, significantly cooler than the lowlands to the east, with a temperate climate that can sustain only one real growing season, and seasonal snowfall in the northern portions of the region.
Instead most of the land is Odricine broadleaf, and Odricine Boreal forest. Odricine Tundras are common at mountaintops but only there. In the lowlands, climates are warmer, and supertropical broadleaf forest is not unheard of, at least in those areas which are not cultivated by sentient beings. Salemesia does have some areas that are instead barren rock on account of particularly thin soil conditions. Overall however, conditions are wild and overgrown, with old or ancient growth accounting for most of it.
Ecosystem Cycles
The region of Salemesia possesses a normal climate cycle with four full seasons. A warm, wet spring that often sees the bulk of year precipitation and results in melting the previous seasons' snows. This is followed hot, dry, relatively dry summer, where much of the growing occurs, and a cool dry autumn. Lastly, a cold, mostly inhospitable wet winter where another sizable portion of the annual precipitation occurs mostly in the form of snowfall.
Fauna & Flora
Salemesia possesses a rich ecosystem with hundreds of species of plants including at least a few dozen unique tree species, several flowering plants, one of the most diverse allotments of perennial herbs to be found in the mountainous places in the world. Most noteworthy among them is the Dragontongue flower, which grows here more than anywhere else. Though not especially common, Salemesia is the only place in Southern Galisea where leaves usable for the making of Leafweave can be harvested. Salemesia can is a suitable location for growing millet.
Most fauna in Salemesia is airborne, with several flocks Giant Eagles making their roost here, and using other lower areas as their primary hunting ground. These eagles have hunted most other aerial predators to extinction, including almost all the wild Wyverns. Several White Dragons live in Salemesia, and aerial battles between them and the Eagles are are a regular occurrence. One the ground, several species of hardy ruminant, especially goats, live among the hills and valleys. Bears and wolves, are rare, but manage to survive in Salemesia.
Natural Resources
The lands of Salemesia are difficult for farm, largely on account of the rocky soil, full of small rocks and modest boulders, with comparatively poor nutrient density in most of the land that isn't completely thin and rocky. Only about one twentieth of the land in Salemesia is arable, and that land which is is fully and entirely exploited by the sentient population. Many people living in the territory instead hunt to make a living which is more feasible in most of the land.
Salemesia posseses fairly limited mineral resources that are workable by sentient beings, with the most important of these being granite quarries that have provided for most of the building materials of the Cantons that make up the primary settlements of the region. There is sufficient iron in the region to provide for the needs of its modest population, but little else.
History
Salemesia has gone largely uninhabited until relatively recently with only a handful of very small independent settlements having been known to exist as late as the late Yulani Era. The war of the Frozen Scales and the shifting climate made settlement of the region even more difficult for over a century though short lived Cyrenic and Nimaeran settlements would be founded throughout the interregnum. Nimeara would claim the land and eventually establish some colonies in the territory. During the conquest of the Western Reaches however, it would be the Aeillans who seized the lands of Salemesia.
After the region fell under the rulership of the Aeillan Empire, the land remained mostly unoccupied. Under the efforts of Spartharoii settlers, several townships were eventually etsablished in Salemesia. Later in the life of the Empire, these townships would often form the basis of the largest fortifications in the chain that continued along the Aeillan slopes. Salemesia would not see much fighting during the Feloran Wars, and would remain quite during most of the Succession War. In the intervening centuries Salemesia would become an independent chain of small, fortified towns, constantly preparing for the day that they might, eventually be invaded full scale.
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