Anarikê Avari



 The Anarikê Avari

the geography
 Anarikê is the temperate land of the Great Lakes that were once part of the vast inland sea of Helkor. Címoníemor,  the longest lake, is 80 leagues long. The deepest, cold Dalduníemor, is to its North. Glírithildui, "gold shining river", flowing from the hill-lands of the South,is the clear frontier between the three different regions (for both geographic and historical reasons having to do with the successive migrations and invasions throughout the Second Age): The semiarid eastern Harad to the West; The steppelands to its East; and the Semi- Tropical Forests of the South. The northern most portion of its wide vale is called Parth Úrulis, the "Field of Firehoney," named for its nectar-rich flowers. The lake waters empty into the ever-shrinking land-locked lake of Aríak.

The other important river, the Folyanidui, flows from the Orocarni to the NE, into the Northern-most of the great lakes.The northern-most lake region boasts a multitude of hot springs, some renowned for their healing powers. The Chyasraan, a small lake, fifty miles in length, warmed by hot mineral waters, perpetually steams through the chills of deep winter.

the Hwenti Avari – culture and rumor
 The Avari of Anarikê, Tatyar Hwenti for the most part of people of the Tatyar, are dwellers of the green vales of the river and of the great lakes. Their lake villages dot the waters closer to shore. Some are floating, the dwellings lashed to vast rafts of large trunks of trees. Others are built on piles driven into the lakebed. Every 28 cycles of their calendar, they burn these lake villages as an offering to the Lady of the Stars, and build anew. The lake dwellers are master fishers and excellent watermen, almost unique among the Tatyar. There are migrations taken by the younger clans-people, rowing up the long Glírithildui to its  headwaters and its hill-set Lake of the Moon, trading craft goods with the nomads and villagers along the way.



   The shore dwellers, a smaller number, keep to the woods and the cool temperate hills of the region, in modest dwellings cunningly constructed from wood and earth and the soft stone of the karst hills. They live in a beautiful, pastoral land of waterfalls and stream bounded parks. These are members of the clans with long and strong traditions of herb lore, the arts of foreseeing, and of simple magics.



All of the clans, whether of hill or wood or lake, experience intense wanderlust, many of their people even joining theWandering Companies who roam Rhun and Palisor. The Avari of Anarikê, are very loosely organized, each village or cluster of homesteads under its elder. Only at times of great festival or danger do they congregate to have council. The lakes and hills and woods serve to thwart most peoples who may pass nearby. The tradition of the “magical” people of the land has deterred many a would-be invader. There is a legend of a fierce nomadic tribe that came out of the West in search of a rumored realm rich in gold and silver. Few survived and those claimed to have seen only small villages of well-cut stone and hedge and misty moving islands in the lakes, guarded by Spirits of Fire and Storm.

   No one knows of the numbers of the dwellers of the Anarikê, for no one has ever counted them. They have no armies, although every Hwenti man and woman can wield a bow or the great 3-pronged spears they use to catch the great fish of the lakes