Birama

Birama is an oddly shaped peninsula sitting in the very mouth of the Acua Gulf, with the gulf on its western side, the Atlantean Ocean on its northern and eastern sides, and Mana and Taracua to the south. Its tangled, rugged jungles hold jaguars, caimans, giant boas, wild boar and other dangerous animals, and some Andaman tribes from Mana wander its southern jungles, but the worst threats are intelligent and evil. Outsiders believe the land is overrun with demons, and they are partly right: minor demons such as gremlins and imps are plentiful, along with a fair number of Hantu, the earth-bound demons. Greater demons do not live here but come often when summoned by the human inhabitants.

Those people, the Hoac, are demon-worshipping warrior-cannibals who befriend no one and attack strangers on sight, eating those they kill and keeping captives for religious use. Like the Taracuans they are short and brown-skinned, but they decorate face and body with extensive scarring. Their necromantic religion summons and worships Minor, Lesser, Winged and Common Greater Demons and Incubi and Succubi, mostly to appease them but sometimes to ask help against particular dangers. At every full moon the whole scattered tribe gathers at a secret place of great power in the heart of Birama for an elaborate summoning, with cannibal feasts before and after and one or more captives offered to the demons, who may kill or enslave them.

Always short of victims, the Hoac constantly raid Taracua for sacrifices and meat. Human flesh is their favorite food, and they use human bone and skin for tools, clothing, tents and waterskins; lacking people, they will eat almost any plant or animal, even insects. They are primitive in tools and society, using stone, bone and wood, clubs, staffs, rough spears and axes, the occasional dagger, and rounded stones for throwing, with no pottery, weaving or refined crafts. Their shamans are said to have tamed the deadly jararaca, or fer-de-lance, and to use it lethally in battle. They wander in loose, linked groups whose members move freely between bands, and keep to the interior, because the coasts belong to the marauding Makara sea devils, whom even the Hoac will not willingly face.