Tiny Steps Western Regions

Western Regions (Driftwood Coast, Walled Quarter, Termite Ruins, Three Lakes Hermits, Home of Frogs, Land of Plains, Banner Tribes, Fishers):


Driftwood Coast:
The third of the world’s four great powers, the Driftwood Coast can be referred to, perhaps, as “aspiringly naval” – they have one of the best harbors in the world in their territory, and they got their name from the incredible amount of driftwood that they’ve either collected or traded for from the Magnates or their effective vassals the Fishers… it’s just that they haven’t yet managed to make ships that can survive the Flowing Sea that the Sea-folk managed to cross. Nonetheless, all of the wood has made the Driftwood Coast into a powerhouse of construction, and probably the only world power that reached its position for its economy. It is significantly less formally organized than the Scholars’ Redoubt or Domains of Cooperation, and instead maintains a sort of urban peace – the various cities of the region were at first merely a trade league like that of the Magnates, but during the era of dominance of the Termites, they were forced to band together to build defenses and enlarge cities, so that they could take them on if the Termites ever struck – which, in the end, the Termites never did. Now, the need to keep trading and keep constructing both to maintain their economic dominance and to try to one day cross the sea keeps the Driftwood Coast together and strong, with very careful schedules of construction and agreements kept between the cities of the Driftwood Coast.

Walled Quarter:
Back in the brutal days of bug-kind’s youth, where the Empire of Termites and the Marauders’ Agreement dominated half of the world, the Driftwood Coast wasn’t the only group to turn to defenses to protect themselves. The Stonemasons, a group which painstakingly worked and shaped stones to works of art, found itself under attack by both. Ultimately, they turned to defending themselves at more or less all costs, turning their time and productivity to the purposes of defending themselves. Eventually, as both of the aggressive empires started to decline, the Stonemasons started succeeding – and they started building a wall around their entire region of the world. As of yet, it’s not really all that much of a wall, as the entire perimeter is usually only a few bricks high with higher walls in some areas, but they’re still working at. They’re notoriously distrustful, especially of large world powers, so while they do trade regularly with the Magnates, they maintain minimal contact with the Driftwood Coast. They’re a bit of an enigma to the other regions, as hard borders (like the kind the Walled Quarter in the most literal sense has) are something quite foreign to the rest of the world.

Termite Ruins:
In the first couple of decades after bugs turned to bug-people, one of the two mightiest regions in the whole world was the Empire of Termites, a terrifyingly mighty group of the large termite cities in the area. The Empire of Termites, though not actually ruled by a singular individual or government so much as a combination of termite polities brought together by their feelings of superiority, were infamous for their violence and domination, continually attacking and often conquering the bugs around them – and subjugating the ones who weren’t termites as perceived subject races. For some time, they seemed unstoppable (at their peak controlling what is now the Home of Frogs, the Three Lakes Hermits, the northern Bees’ Fields area, and most of what is now the Banner Tribes area), but they had set themselves up for failure – voracious and unsustainable consumption, combined with viciously subjugating the various other bug races that could have helped them produce, led to a precipitous decline, to the beginning of their cities collapsing, and then, just as of three or so years ago, total chaos as the subject bugs stopped taking orders and started attacking back. One interesting thing, though, is that mites are particularly prominent in this region thanks to the inaccessibility of its ruins.

The Three Lakes Hermits:
One of the most recent regions to come into existence, the various bugs of the Three Lakes Hermits – primarily caterpillars, mantises, and sedentary mosquitoes, one of these around each lake – three years ago declared that they were no longer to be subjects of the termites, kicking off the series of rebellions the once-prominent termites are now consumed by. Though not the first group to separate from the termites, they are the first group in what was considered properly “termite land” to do so, having expelled the termites entirely from the collapsed houses that were once termite cities in the region, and now living in their own towns. As one might expect, the Three Lakes Hermits aren’t much for contact with the outside world, with their only major contact somewhat ironically being that of the Walled Quarter – the people in these regions seem to just understand each other instinctually. Otherwise, they take advantage of the fact that all of their neighbors either have no ability or no desire to attack them in order to live on their own, only very informally organized in an agreement of leaving well enough alone, and in agreement to try to enforce this thing called a border that the Walled Quarter has too.

Home of Frogs
The Home of Frogs is a region that existed once around the beginning days of bugkind, as the bugpeople there started to tame and bond with the frogs (which still are just frogs) in the region, then stopped existing as they were rather brutally conquered by the Termites, and then started existing again when they seceded from the weakening Termites eight years ago. They still love their frogs as much as they ever did, and they’re still friendly enough with the Land of Plains that frogs show up as mounts frequently there, but they’ve taken a significantly more militaristic bent this time around, turning their frog-bonding ways into making themselves extremely proficient cavalrymen. This, as it turns out, was a very good idea, as they are currently being relentlessly attacked by the Banner Tribes to their north. Unfortunately for them, though, the underlying lack of development and organization thanks to their former conquered status means that their cavalry skill is merely slowing their conquest.

Land of Plains:
The Land of Plains, despite its proximity to both the Marauders’ Agreement and the pre-collapse Empire of Termites, has avoided devastation thanks to a couple of factors. One reason is that an extremely convenient river exists that made attacking the Plains an expensive proposition even for the Termites. Another reason is that it’s very difficult for the Marauders to actually raid somebody when their typical response is to ride away faster than the Marauders can actually reach them. A naturally friendly but fairly savvy people, the bugs of the Land of Plains have never really had the cities that more urban regions did, and so adapted a lifestyle of quickly moving around between various resources and communities, riding on rabbits and other small mammals for the largest part (though recently, they’ve branched out into frogs). Their friendliness and openness mean that a significant amount of trade goes into and through their land, keeping most of the bugs here quite happy. However, they do remain pretty unable to affect the world stage thanks to their rurality and lack of any meaningful organization. This isn’t an eternal status quo, mind – as more trade routes pop up through the Land of Plains, especially with the rapid decline of its old foes, the families here have been increasingly forming trade networks.

The Banner Tribes:
The Banner Tribes are the fourth and newest of the major powers of the world, and they are without a doubt the scariest. They popped up out of seemingly nowhere five years ago, as a charismatic and talented figure got many different nomadic groups on the edges of the falling Termite Empire to group together and make their mark on the world. Ever since, they’ve been expanding and expanding, fighting always with zeal, with unity, and then every so often with tactical brilliance. Their advantages are twofold: firstly, though the original uniter of the nomadic bugs doesn’t actually singularly rule the tribes, they’ve all gathered under the blood-red banner – a blood-red banner that represents an end to the dominance of highly urban bugs such as termites, bees, and ants, and the resurgence of the tribes making up the Banner Tribes. What this means is that there’s a shocking amount of cooperation and unity for such a bloodthirsty region – they may raze cities, but they never infight with those under the same banner, where even the Scholars’ Redoubt sees occasional skirmishes and spats, and they offer other rural bugs a chance to join them, which not all do take. Secondly, their founder is sufficiently respected that he can take control of military forces where he shows up, and whenever that happens his opponents usually lose. They have been steadily conquering the Termite Ruins, the Home of Frogs, and the Bees’ Fields, and are in more or less just a stalemate with who they aren’t conquering.

Fishers:
Last and, frankly, kind of least among the Western Regions are the Fishers. Though they’re not all that geographically connected to the West, the Fishers are incredibly connected with the Driftwood Coast, to the point that they’re more or less the vassals of the other coastal civilization. The reason for this is that the population density of the land the Fishers are on is actually incredibly sparse, with only a few coastal houses where the Fishers don’t really tend to congregate in. They largely instead just sit on the beaches, letting the Driftwood Coast have the driftwood there in exchange for protection (and the Driftwood Coast sees them like little brothers, so they hold up their end of the deal, which is why the Banner Tribes haven’t invaded), and they fish. And one thing important to note here is that fish are still much bigger than bug-people are, as it isn’t as if they’ve shrunk, so entire villages come together to work contraptions and nets in big productions that net them entire fish! Preserved, this feeds an entire village for days. The people in this area are largely mosquitoes, but there are other water-side bug-people too.