DMs Only: Yuva

YUVA

• Alignment: LG
• Capital: None.
• Notable Settlements: Nize (8,030), Yumurta (4,150), Ev (6,720).
• Rulers: Fazail Runeseer, Gyuli Brightshell, Khalid Deepseeker
• Government: Alliance of independent city-states
• Languages: Aquan, Common, Draconic
• Religion: Druidicism

Yuva is the homeland of the tisbaga, an undersea race of humanoid sea turtles. Its people live in relative harmony with their surroundings, cultivating their territory with care and rarely taking up arms when not provoked. A land of proud city-states, Yuva is bound together by culture and biological kinship more so than political or military power.

The land is plentiful and peaceful due to long stewardship. Yuvan laws are simple and based on protecting the interests and welfare of the community. The people are dedicated to quiet lives of fraternity, contemplation, and safety. These goals create a society that places enlightenment and personal fulfillment as equal to power and wealth. The city-states are ruled by an elder and advised by a council. Due to the conciliatory and peaceful nature of the tisbaga, national and tribal disputes are typically resolved through arbitration. Laws are sparse and focus on limiting damage and disruption of public life.

The Yuvan people are divided among those who live in the splendor of the cities of carefully cultivated living coral, and those who prefer the seclusion of far-flung holdfasts. Yuvan warriors are cautious and pragmatic, preferring hit-and-run tactics heavily supported by nature magic. If threatened by a land-dwelling naval force, tisbaga are more likely to sink their ships in the quiet of the night with magic than to board them in bloody melee.

Nize is the largest and most prosperous Yuvan city-state. It is also the most intellectual, holding the great libraries and universities that contain the repository of accumulated tisbaga lore and knowledge. Tisbaga scholars consult stone tablets and whaleskin scrolls in their pursuit of education and enlightenment, and much industry and culture is devoted to public education.

Yumurta is the smallest Yuvan settlement, and generally regarded as the one most focused on the cultivation of the natural world. Yumurta has the highest concentration of druids and water clerics in all of Yuva, training in undersea grottoes and deepsea trenches to learn to commune with the ebb and flow of the sea. Yumurta is also famous for the number of trained undersea creatures that are produced by its expert animal handlers.

Ev is, much to their chagrin, the most militaristic of the Yuvan city-states. Due to their proximity to the sahuagin kingdom of Nyumbani, a large number of tisbaga are occupied in patrolling and defending their borders against the predation of the fish-men. Home to the Yuvan war college, young tisbaga with a martial bent find training and guidance in the ways of undersea war. Despite the threat of incursion from their neighbors, the people of Ev still emphasize peace and prosperity, despite the necessity of taking arms.

[DM Note: For thematic purposes, Yuvan words and names are derived from Azerbaijani.]