Alendrian Amazons

A.K.A.: "Bear Kin".

Distinctive Characteristics: Preponderance of reddish-brown hair and greenish/hazel eyes. Alendrian amazons are naturally robust, displaying toned bodies that are the envy of many other amazons.

Cultural Traits: The Alendrians favor audacity and bravery, along with sheer physical might, as their greatest values. Their warriors and hunters are admired beyond measure. Among their kin, the strongest ones are usually in charge, constantly proving their worth and showing off their ferocious nature to maintain their reputation and power over the others.

Alendra is a deeply forested region, rugged with hills that ascend all the way to tall mountains on its Western and Sourthern limits, but also descend all the way to the seashore at the East and North, where a flat and very fertile strip of coastal plains with mildly cold climate overlooks the ocean. This makes it a contrasting region of extremes, with a likewise contrasting people.

The Alendrian Amazons who settled in the plentiful fishing and farming villages near the shore are kind, friendly and peaceful. Not very different to the Southlanders across the border. However, on the steep hills further inland, their cousins share the forests with the biggest, baddest beasts of Arandolia, resembling much more the hardy Arthemisians across the Alendrian Channel.

Alendra's inland is teeming with Grizzly Bears, which nest in the countless caves across the mountainside and make the life of any settler who crosses their path a nightmare. Only an equally hardy people could compete with those creatures, and so the Alendrian Amazons who settled those forests are widely know to thrive by slaying and proudly wearing Bear Pelts over their shoulders, displaying their might as it's their cultural tradition to hunt such beasts alone as a rite of passage to become warriors within their clans.

It's not much of a surprise to know the Bear-Slaying Alendrians from the hills rule over the peaceful harmless Alendrians on the coast. They took the entire region for themselves without much resistance, forming a Coalition of Clans who answer to no one but the mightiest warrior among them. An "Autocracy of the Strongest", in which the strongest Alendrian Berserker is legally allowed to take power, along the title of Countess of Alendra, by simply defeating the predecessor in a fair duel. This assures the strongest and most apt is always in charge of Alendra, but it also makes the region rather unstable. After all, the laws, taxes, allegiances, treaties and policies do often change with each new claimant to gain power through a duel, only further worsening trade and diplomatic relations with all the provinces around it.