Dar

Dar lies at the western end of the Dabban peninsula with water on three sides: the Mediterranean to the north, the Sahara Sea to the south and the River Oceanus to the west, with Dabba to the east. Darians are slight and light brown, with Mediterranean features and dark, kinky hair. Men wear loincloths, cloaks and sandals, and women plain, nearly shapeless smocks. They are gentle, peaceable and simple, uninterested in arts or sciences apart from pottery, a much-loved and highly developed craft, and they rarely travel far from home.

Farming dominates, and the Darians have tamed the auroch, a huge bull-like beast that pulls their plows and carts and supplies meat, leather, bone tools and fat. Each village of woven-grass huts governs itself through a council; there is no national government and no native metalworking, only the odd imported tool.

Their faith is a stern, conservative druidic cult of Tama, the Earth Goddess and one of the Old Gods. Darians believe the Lotus-Eaters are possessed by minor devils and hate everything linked to the Lotus Cult. In return for shipments of food, the wizards of nearby Dardanus protect them and sometimes lend magic against sickness, drought and other troubles. The Gorgons want Dar and Dabba as outlets to the Mediterranean, since Hesperia hems them in, but Dardanus has so far deterred any serious attack, though Gorgon raids along the southern coast still occur.