Pelshtarian Peninsula

It may seem odd that the Pelshtarian Peninsula is on the other side of the principality than the capital and the rivers that form the heart of the nation, particularly one that is lightly populated and consists mainly of savannah broken only by occasional watering holes and ridges. However, the people of this region are descendants of the earliest settlers from the caliphate, and the name of the peninsula in fact predates the use of the term for the entire principality.
Today, the beys, all descendants of the leaders among the original settlers, own nearly all the land. When the caliphate first began the process of colonizing the peninsula, it handed out huge land grants of hundreds of square miles. The lucky settlers who managed to land one of these grants became a bey overnight with a larger holding than many of the oldest noble families in the caliphate. These holdings were just rugged wilderness, and the process of turning them into subsistence level farms was arduous.
Yet they did this, for the soil was fertile, the local nomads easily dealt with, and the people of the caliphate had generations of experience growing crops in arid environments.
The peninsular beys live on large estates separated from each other by miles of dusty dirt roads. Each is its own little kingdom with the bey and their family ruling without oversight and with the backing of law and custom. They tend to be a fractious bunch much infatuated by their independence and thwart any attempt to build a city or found a town larger than the trading hub of Imazon on the Nehir River.
Between these scattered estates, or technically on them as the beys claim large tracks of land, are vast wildernesses of wild animals, lurking monsters, and the few remnants of the nomadic tribes that once inhabited the peninsula. For the most part, each bey maintains a sufficient standing army of men-at-arms, not to mention the mounted warriors of their family retinues, to keep these threats at bay. Even so, from time to time when some danger does threaten, it may be easier and more profitable to hire outsiders to take on the risk.

Type

Peninsula