Oggia

Oggia's forests lie in north-central Mediterranea, next to Ku, Scythia, Vir and the Black Forest. Unlike that dark tangle, Oggia's woods are delightful: fragrant herbs and moss cover the ground, green glades open onto sunny meadows and flowering thickets, pheasant, grouse and deer are plentiful, and the streams are full of fish.

Its chief inhabitants are the Roms, colorful gypsy wanderers who came from Turan or Mohenjo-Daro (accounts disagree) and are thought to have settled here around the start of the First Age. They are dark-skinned and black-haired, love bright clothes and every kind of jewelry and trinket, and roam Mediterranea in painted wagons drawn by horses or mules. They spend much of their time in merriment, favoring song, dance, acrobatics and all sorts of entertainment, and they are fascinated by magic, many having a small gift for it. Most call themselves performers, fortune-tellers, herbalists or craftsmen, and Rom silversmiths and goldsmiths are respected across much of the continent. Their caravans look like traveling circuses, drifting from village to town selling trinkets and elixirs and performing at fairs, and most Mediterraneans take them for simple, harmless, oddly restless vagabonds.

In fact they are cunning, with a singular belief that the gods have granted them the right to steal as they please. Tradition forbids stealing from fellow Roms, but everyone else is fair game, so most have thieving skills such as pickpocketing, conning, shadowing, forgery, lockpicking and climbing walls, and many are skilled rogues, harlequins or charlatans. They delight in a clever swindle or easy theft but reject violence and cruelty; Roms who resort to them are thrown out, often branded as outcasts, usually with an inverted pentagram on the forehead or chest.

Being secretive, they reveal little of their faith and customs, which fuels rumor: some think them promiscuous, especially their dark-eyed women, some claim they are in league with the devil or carry faerie blood. A more common, and perhaps less far-fetched, belief is that they have a gypsy king who sits on an oaken throne in a remote clearing in the Oggian woods and settles all their disputes with rare wisdom; any other duties he has are known only to the Roms. The Roms also skirt the Black Forest for magical herbs, and they are on excellent terms with Ku.