Perenian
OVERVIEW: THE PERENIANS
The most peaceful and humble of the Zusko, Perenians are often ignored in a world where great wars and political masterstrokes are the fascination of most who aspire to make their mark on history. While their past had moments of glory, the modern Perenians are the quiet powerhouse behind their Zusko cousins. The horse lords may be fearsome steppe raiders, but the Perenians grow the food they need to sustain themselves and their mounts. By no means exploited, the petty lords and small cities of Perenia are acutely aware of their vital importance to wider Eastroam and make sure to leverage it to their advantage. As they are rarely the subject of attack, and do not lose their sons and daughters to far-off wars, the Perenians have completely shed any hope of true prosperity or glory for a life of predictability and comfort. However, every so often, someone young and ambitious questions this arrangement and wonders if their people cannot aspire to greater…
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
Most Perenians are sturdy and of medium height, standing between 5’4” and 5’9”. They are often broad-shouldered and stocky, owing to a diet that is high in meat and generally caloric-dense, but rarely in such excess that they are fat. A strong (not muscular) physique is seen as the ideal for men and women who share responsibilities on the farm and are expected to raise large families of healthy children. Perenians typically have pale skin, but over time it becomes more tanned and leathery as they spend more of their days out in the fields. Owing to the climate, Perenians are quite hairy, and only well-born women and the absolute richest men do any sort of body shaving. Because of this, thick facial hair and long hair in general is a common sight among them.
SOCIETY
The tales of a united Perenia dance around the hearths and cookouts of nearly every village. Perhaps its jaunt reaches close to a truth, but whatever it is resides only in the past. There is little that can be said of “Perenia” besides it being a vague gesture to a geographic region in the heart of Eastroam. The average Perenian does not know much about life outside of their village and perhaps a few neighboring ones. Fellow Perenians fifty miles away are as foreign as the Sadafi and any authority beyond their immediate liege lord is lost to them. Life happens on the village level, as agrarian people can barely afford to travel far. Logging and mining communities exist as well, but due to their perceived poverty they are seen as existing on the fringes of society and are mistrusted.
Scattered nobles claim dominion over the many villages that dot the landscape, but they rarely have the means to project their power. Without many knights and sworn soldiers, most are reluctant to engage in anything more than small feuds which are frequent but almost never destructive. Serfs exist only in name, but rare traveling means that even though they do have the freedom to leave, few ever do. Aside from a small tax to their liege lord, most villages are free to govern themselves. Long eras of peace have enabled prominent families to rise and establish their power in the villages, giving them an authority that exists in an ill-defined status between local leaders and noble overlords. Larger towns are similarly self-governing, but they have more formal structures of government, of which the urbanized nobility are a regular part of.
After the fall of the last Perenian Emperor of Zusko, power in the region rapidly devolved and decentralized. There is no one authority said to represent Perenia, but customs developed after the fall of the Empire of Zusko have allowed for an elected Szef (often translated as ‘king’, but is more accurately defined as a leader) to be picked by the Perenian nobility in times of crisis. Interestingly, the Szef does not formally lose their title even after the emergency period, but historically their power has been limited after this brief period of time. The Szef is non-hereditary and expires upon the death of the current titleholder, requiring the nobles of Perenia to vote on a new leader if they feel the need.
This is not to say that Perenians are a completely backwards people. Several large trading towns dot the landscape, serving as the greatest and most well-known centers of regional authority. Music flourishes as aspiring composers and musicians travel to the countryside to hear bawdy tavern songs or visit the magnificent opera halls in one of the larger towns to get inspiration. A diversity in local legends and oral tradition more than compensates for low literacy. The end of a working day is a celebration, as pubs become packed with jubilant Perenians that wish for nothing more than to spend their hard-earned coin on beer. While hardly a place to visit, Perenia is certainly a place to live.
The feast is one of the most important facets of Perenian culture. In the average village, wealth is measured not by coin or even land, but by the ability to fill one’s table with meat, bread, and beer. Perenian noblemen have been known to ruin their fortunes on large harvest celebrations that span all of their domains. Famine is infrequent, but most villages have sophisticated food storage and rationing systems in place to prevent mass-starvation in times of need. The potato is not usually a popular crop given the abundance of wheat, but the highest potato yields usually come after periods of famine, perhaps as a preparatory measure for a repeated year of bad harvests.
ART AND ARCHITECTURE
Art and architecture in Perenia is relatively primitive as a result of their long history as steppe warlords alongside their fellow Zusko. Intricate tree carvings are a form of art for most villages, where anything from depictions of legends, religious icons, or town rules can be found. In larger urban centers, more traditional art- statues, paintings, murals, etc- are more frequent, though patronage of the arts is still uncommon. Dances and operas are the most prominent arts in Perenia, where a love for merriment, especially during holidays, is one of the defining features of life. Dances are often informal, held in barns and occasionally town halls, but Perenian boys and girls, no matter their social station, are taught at least six different dances.
Perenia architecture is similarly rudimentary. Large stone castles reside near every hill, river crossing, or road, and the villages that lay between are a mix of mudbrick, stone, wood, and thatch. Cold winters make insulation very important, so even castles lack many windows and most houses have no more than one. Homes are simple and not decorated much, mostly likely because of the Perenian expectation that people are only indoors when sleeping, sick, or giving strict observance to certain holy days. Some manorial estates liven the landscape from the mass of grey and brown found all over, but even many of these follow a uniform, simple style, especially those that function as little more than glorified hunting camps.
The castles of Perenia are known to be crude and ugly. Because of the region’s lack of natural defensive features, and the limited forests and quarries, building a castle is a demanding undertaking. Most have high, thick walls that obscure the petty keep that they protect. Many are centuries old and demand constant repair, which is similarly expensive. Many noble families, unable or unwilling to pay what is needed, allow their castes to crumble and degrade over time.
DRESS
Perenians make an effort to dress well for special occasions, but otherwise their clothes are quite unremarkable. Hemp, brought from the east thousands of years ago, is the main plant used for clothing, but flax also makes its way in from time to time. The working man’s clothing is simple but well-maintained; even the field garb is a point of pride. At village festivals, feasts, weddings, and other events, Perenians bring out their finest clothes, usually silk robes or bear hide cloaks bought by their grandfather several decades ago. Fine clothes are passed down from generation to generation, and some leeway is given to aesthetics if the clothing has the weight of time behind it.
There is a delicate balance between dressing well and not looking pompous that all Perenians, even the nobility, adhere to. To underdress is taken as an insult to the event being held as well as the host, for it is a sign that the attendee is not taking it seriously. To overdress is similarly offensive, for those that fill their clothes with frills and feathers and furs and jewels to an absurd degree are viewed as a distraction and gluttons for attention that is otherwise due to the event at hand. Only the rare Szef is allowed, or dictated even, to wear absurdly luxurious clothes, likely because they are the representatives of the Perenians.
CUISINE
Beer, sausage, and bread are the three staple foods of Perenia, but their diet expands far beyond just those. Chicken, fowl, cabbage, mushrooms, fungi, cheeses, tomato soups, and a wide array of other foods are enjoyed by the populace. Unlike their fellow Zusko, Perenians liberally apply spices and herbs to their foods, giving them an enjoyable taste that celebrates the making of food itself, not just the nourishment that it provides. Few Perenians go hungry because of the fertile lands, bountiful game, and undisturbed livestock. Most families have access to chickens for eggs or cows for milk, giving some diversity to their food as well as a small bit of supplemental income.
Drinking is also a prominent part of Perenian life. The tavern is the center of social life, where nearly all ages and both sexes come after a long day of work. Beer is the favorite of the Perenians, and village competitions are often hosted for the best beer, but wine is also enjoyed, especially by those able to afford it. Despite the potato’s lack of popularity, some regions utilize it to make vodka, which is growing in prominence among the Perenians. Children usually begin drinking watered-down beer from the age of ten, with more alcoholic variants being given over time.
Because of the high content of red meat and alcohol in the Perenian diet, gout and heart disease are common. The life expectancy is not far beyond fifty for the average man, while women typically live slightly longer.
RELIGION
The Perenians are followers of the Cult of Alexander, one of their nation’s heroes and the first Emperor of Zusko. Nearly the entirety of the nobility and the larger towns are unwavering in their devotion to what many regard as ancestor-worship. The Cult of Alexander has a powerful sway in Perenia and is unchallenged in their authority over the population as far as religious affairs are concerned. Some towns, far from the watchful gaze of the cult, still incorporate some local deities or the Northern Gods, but they almost uniformly maintain that Alexander Scyzmzcak is a god above them all, central to a wider pantheon.
LANGUAGE
Common is spoken frequently in most of Perenia’s larger towns and among the elite. Known to all, and used exclusively in the countryside, is the Perenian language. Curiously, it has few ties to Rosti or Dvadi, save a shared script, and instead is closest-related to the Kremlyan language. It is regarded as a rich, but complicated language due to its many verb tenses and flexible sentence structure, which paradoxically makes it an easy language to speak, but a hard one to learn.
The following are examples of Perenian names;
Bartosz Wacławski
Jonatan Bańka
Wiktor Janik
Natasza Nowacka
Sabina Jagielska
Agnieszka Ogrodnik
THE HUSARIA
Perenia has few knights, but its chivalric culture was not always so underdeveloped. Centuries ago, the Husaria were among the most vaunted cavalry in all of Eastroam and formed an important contingent within the Zusko hordes. The Husaria were purportedly an elite soldier caste solely dedicated to cavalry warfare, raised even before the times of the Perenian Emperors of Zusko. Legends tell of Husarians going into battle donned in heavy armor painted a thousand different colors, with wooden wings attached either to the helmet or the back that made a loud clapping sound in the wind to disorient the enemy. Tales of their battles has them either as shock soldiers sent with the first charge, reserves held in the back to save the day when the fighting was going bleak, or (in some Rosti and Dvadi accounts), mere onlookers that only charged when the day had been won, bloodying their swords on the backs of retreating soldiers. Whatever the case, the Husaria make up a large part of Perenian oral tradition, and several lords have tried to recreate this enigmatic order, though none have succeeded.