I'm probably going to add to this and tweak it right up to the start of the game, but I figured I put this up now so people can read it and give feedback.
Excerpts from a traveler's guide to the western nations. wrote:
Borders and Regions
The Syilx (IPA: sjilx) people claim the lands of the interior of British Columbia from Lower post, just south of the Yukon border, following the Rocky Mountain Range down to Red Mountain. Here the border turns westward following rivers to the Pacific with the southern border anchored at the mouth of the Columbia River. The border then turns north again giving Syilx a narrow slice of land bordering the Pacific Ocean. Then it turns east at the mouth of the Chehalis River continuing eastward to Mount Rainier. Here the border runs north through Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forrest, following a series of valleys and rivers, until it hits Hope. From here the border follows the Fraser north to Junction Sheep Range Provincial park, to the southwest of Williams Lake. From here it continues north along another series of rivers until finishing the loop a Lower Post. Altogether the Syilx lands cover an area of 616,000 sq km.
The Sylix lands are further divided into 18 regions. These regions are chiefly classified as being agricultural, mercantile, cultural, or mixed depending on their economy, religious significance, and general perception among the leaders of the Syilx. The lone exception to this rule is the Okanagan region which is classified as the capital region owing to its inclusion of Kelowna, the capital of the Syilx nation.
Society and Government
As a people the Syilx are, somewhat paradoxically, close-knit while still allowing each of the thousands of tribes a fair deal of autonomy. Rulings from Kelowna are seldom outright ignored by even the most powerful tribe, but the implementation and interpretation of any given ruling can vary wildly from tribe to tribe. This causes occasional friction between tribes, and some feuds can last for decades with each clan raiding the other until one side submits, or an outside force steps in to resolve the issue. Thankfully most feuds are settled via negotiation, sport-like duels between champions or small groups of warriors, or by one tribe uprooting and moving away from the source of irritation. This leads to a state of affairs where some conflict is inevitable, but full-fledged civil uprisings are blissfully rare.
The current leader of the Sylix is Mur Claʕtiw̓s T'ik̓ʷt (Smooth Valley Lake). He has ruled the Syilx for seven years having been elected to the position by the leaders of the 17 non-capital regions. The election was held after former leader ʕaymt Qəmqamt (Angry Calm) stepped down due to worsening health. The leaders of each region are elected by a vote of the elders of the seven most powerful tribes in that region.
Syilx society is divided into castes. The top caste are they great priests, non-religious men showing great leadership skills, and the first wives of these men; the next caste would consist of the lesser priests and highly skilled craftsmen; below them would be average craftsmen, priests in training, hunters, and warriors; below them are farmers and gatherers, and the lowest caste consists of slaves either captured in raids or those born into the caste without enough skill/guile/charisma to earn freedom. Somewhere between warriors and skilled craftsmen lie the intelligent animals, but I'll have more on them later.
The Military
The Syilx military is one comprised primarily of four distinct classes of warrior; though many of the categories might be better described as gods or monsters. These classes are guardian spirits (gods), totem beasts (monsters), intelligent animals, and human warriors. Each type generally serves a different role and compliments the other types.
The first class, and one I've never seen in action are the guardian spirits. These are the big guns, the ships of the line, monsters the length of a lake or the size of a mountain. If what I've heard holds true these are never called except as a last resort, partially due to the sacrifice of goods, food, men required to wake them, but also due to how hard they can be to put back to sleep.
The lore keepers tell of a time, some 200 years ago, when the Ogopogo was called upon. He took the form of a great serpent at least 80 kilometers long and hundreds of meters thick. The thing barely needed to attack. The enemy was routed near instantly, their weapons, including at least one siege mortar, just seemed to bounce off and make him mad. Adding insult to grievous injury, Ogopogo also beset the enemy with storms muddying the trails and allowing them to be run down and captured. Sounds like a great ally, right?
The downside was that a massive, hungry, and deeply egotistical living god is now living in your main fishery and trade route. The better part of next three years were all about him, keeping him happy, feeding him enough crops for thousands of men. Thankfully gods bore easily, and sometime in that third year, Ogopogo sank back into the lake and went to sleep. Even then, the people of the Okanagan prayed twice as hard and sacrificed three times as much for at least a generation.
The next class are the totem beasts or spirits, depending on who you ask. These are the heaviest hitters that the Syilx will actually plan on using. They come in all shapes and sizes, but the common sizes seem to be longhouse sized for the largest cities, cabin sized for lesser settlements, cart sized for bringing to war, and small enough to be carried by a man. The size isn't the only thing to keep in mind, these totems aren't just carved in the shape of a massive bear, or the world largest stag, they're carved into animals that can't and shouldn't exist.
The one that stays with me is a massive bear the size of a large cabin. Only, you wouldn't call it a bear if you saw it up close. This bear has hundreds of eyes on its head, some big and bright like an eagles, others all clustered up like an insects. It also had massive ears, sort of like a wolves, only oversized. And when it opened it's mouth it had three rows of teeth, the middle ones constantly moving like a saw. On it's back it had a mass of tentacles, at least two dozen, all ending in wicked curved claws the length of a man's forearm. I don't want to dwell on what it looked like in a fight, but it beat the better part of two companies of men back by field guns solo.
The third class, and finally we're returning to sanity, are the intelligent animals. Like the name suggests these are animals that are about as smart as most men. I think they were originally spirit animals, or maybe spirits bound to animals. Either way the Syilx have a collection of bears, wolves, cougars, elk, eagles, hawks, owls, ravens, badgers, weasels, racoons, beavers, and even squirrels working with them. When I say working with I don't mean as mounts, I've seen bears done up in warpaint and wearing plates of bronze armor talking battle strategy with a raiding party. Of course these animals also get used as scouts, after all, who's going to be able to tell a smart squirrel from a dumb one?
These animals get treated well, at least as well as a renowned warrior or a mid level priest. They have their own homes, engage in trade, and rare as it tends to be, they can even be elected as leaders of tribes and communities. You'd do well not to treat them as anything less than a man and it'd be smart to treat them as much more than that.
The fourth and final class is the Syilx warrior. They're fast, strong, and the next best thing to fearless. They're the equal to most warriors out there and they don't use anything beyond bronze tipped spears, horn bows, slings, and leather shields. Of course, none of these things are exactly what they seem once the spirits of the forge, mill, and tannery get to them. The spears go through plate armor about as well as a good pick, the same can be said for the arrows, the slings cast stones that don't hit very much lighter than a pistol, and the shields can withstand musket fire. Added to this is the fact that when their war paint’s on they're just plain better physically and mentally than other men and you get a fighting force to be feared.
Of course they do have weaknesses. For all their speed and endurance, they can match the average horse for speed while running distances that would kill or lame a horse, they don't have the mass of a horse and can't charge enemy lines nearly as effectively. They're also unarmored and if you can get past the shield they drop like any other man. They also don't tend to fight in formations, at least not the neat squares, and ordered lines come to mind when you say formation. So if you're ever looking to war them, hold your lines, and hope they don't send anything tougher than warriors your way.
Raiding and the Slave Trade
They raid, they get shot at, and usually run off with a handful of captives. A tribe taking captives for sport, or as a right of passage, will leave a sign behind letting their victims know who they need to trade with to get their people back. This type of raiding usually sees captives traded back without too much stubbornness over the exact price being met. Of course, if they're obviously being lowballed they play the game right back. In the case where nobody comes forward to trade for them or a group of simply tries to take the captives back by force, the captives become slaves.
Slaves don't have much by way of status and often do the manual labour that other people don't want to do, but they're given decent housing, fed well, if not with the finest foods, and aren't expected to work hours that any other labourer would baulk at. During their off hours they're allowed to socialise so long as they've not tried to escape. It's also customary to give them an allowance to spend, and given that their food and housing needs are covered by their owners some slaves have more free income than lower class non-slaves. Slaves are free to, and in fact, encouraged, to marry and start families.
Slaves with exceptional skill, guile, or charisma, as well as those that end up with very large, and thus powerful, families tend to be released. Their wives, children, grandchildren, and so on down the line are released with them. Usually the release of anybody with a reasonably sized family results in a festive feast. Due to this system of releasing slaves some now prominent tribes started off as families of slaves. The downside to this is that some tribes split up families, deny the familial connections between slaves, and generally do shady things to keep from having to release significant numbers of slaves.
Groups taking captives to sell as slaves tend raid far less often, but are far more ruthless when they do raid. These are the kinds of raids that leave villages burned with as few witnesses left behind as possible. They also tend to raid other Syilx tribes if they think they can get away with it. Those in change or the Syilx can't come out against these types of raids officially, but groups that engage in this kind of raiding don't tend to get invited to important gatherings.
Their captives are sold as slaves, first in Syilx lands, then back to the lands they were taken from, and if nobody else wants them to Tarn. The Syilx look down upon having to buy slaves from slave traders preferring to gain them through raids, in the course of normal trade with other tribes, or having them included in the bride price at a wedding. Still, a weaker and less prestigious tribe, or a prestigious tribe that has fallen upon hard times will buy slaves in this fashion as a way to help them leapfrog other groups in terms of economic output. As a result, purchased slaves tend to be worse off than other classes of slaves.
