Taracua

Taracua is a low, jungle-covered land in Tamoanchan's East District, bounded by the Atlantean Ocean to the south and east, Mana and Birama to the north, an arm of the Acuan Gulf to the northwest and wild Aigua to the southwest. Its short, brown-skinned people form the most civilized society in the east: welcoming to strangers, skilled in metalwork, gathered almost entirely in three coastal cities, and keepers of the finest Atlantean and Hesperian ideals. Atlantean and Tartessian merchants call now and then, and Taracuans occasionally sail east themselves.

Men elect the king and women the queen, each for life, and the two share power with a Council of Sages (leading astrologers) and a Council of Landowners. Astrology is the chief magical art and necromancy the rarest. Both sexes serve in an army of archers that holds the northern frontier against Birama's demon-worshipping cannibals and the western border against Mana's disorganized animal-men, backed by a militia of hunters.

Taracuans turn everything into art. Walls bear bright murals, and since clothing is little more than a loincloth, people wear ever-changing body paint whose richness shows their wealth; both sexes wear long, often braided hair. Their handsome pottery fetches ten times normal prices abroad, and they craft superb jewelry of gold, copper, shells and pearls. They know how to forge Atlantean steel but lack the materials, so iron is imported for officers, and their Hesperian-style ships suit coasts and rivers better than open ocean.