Palasgea

Palasgea is the smallest of the peninsulas jutting south from Mediterranea into the Mediterranean Sea, with water on three sides, Vir to the north and Otesium to the northwest. It is thinly peopled, mostly wooded and fairly rough. Nymphs, sprites and other Sidhe dwell here among plenty of woodland creatures, making it a pastoral idyll, but there are also many savage beasts that make life risky for its humans.

The Palasgeans have olive skin and dark hair and are of ordinary stature; men and women alike wear their long hair in a single pigtail tied with a leather thong. They dress simply in goat hair or hides, with furs in winter. They herd goats and a few cattle, are aggressive when threatened but otherwise friendly and hospitable, and have not yet learned metalworking, though their stone tools are well made. They live in thatched huts of wood or stone, bury their dead in elaborate stone cairns, and eat lamb, goat, goat cheese, olives and grapes, with the odd bit of wild game. For hunting and fighting they favor spears, axes and knives of flint or other stone, and shortbows.

The land is split into traditional tribal territories. Peloponnesus in the south and Oguges in the north are the most populous; the others are Arcadea, Nemea and Argos. Arcadea is the gentlest and most pastoral, the main home of the Palasgean Sidhe, with only a few humans as shy as the nymphs and sprites. Argos holds several marshes, chiefly the great Lernan Marsh, where hydras breed; they are too few to be a major threat but remain a dangerous nuisance for travelers. Nemea is the most feared district, home of the Nemean Lion; these beasts range across Palasgea, Vir and Saturnia but are nowhere as common as in the Nemean Vale.

Palasgea is a backwater far from the rivalries of the Great Powers competing for influence around the Mediterranean. Beyond the occasional raiding corsair or lost merchant ship, few outsiders come; only Vir hunting bands deal with the Palasgeans with any regularity, and the locals like it that way.