Flororenghashst: The Land and Its People

Called the Land of Errant Hopes, Flororenghashst is not a land for the timid wanderer, nor the inexperienced tourist. I don’t want to frighten you away from visiting this rich and savory land, full of wine-dark shadows and smokey forests. While it may be an acquired taste for some, the land of Flororenghashst is well worth experiencing.

All the same, I’ve been told Flororenghashst is like an exotic meal. If you don’t know how to hold the utensils or what sauces to dip different bites in, you won’t get the full experience. The people of Flororenghashst are a sturdy and humble sort, with a rich history centuries in the making. There is a deep reverence for history and the education of children in the country, and tourists are expected to show an interest in the history of any town they visit, restaurant they eat in, and even people they meet. It is not uncommon for a simple “hello, how are you” to turn into a long folk-tale about the surrounding region and how the building you stand in was built.

Be aware that Flororenghashst’s history is rife with conflict, and even today the memories of violence are fresh. Warlords, tyrants, and ner-do-wells of various stripes have plagued the land throughout its history. At time of writing, the Adamant Queen rules the land with a firm grip and little patience for foreign influence.

The land’s xenophobic views are perhaps forgivable when you realize the worst tyrants in its history, such as the Sharp-Cloaked Warlord or the Bloody Legionnaire, were foreign born dictators who conquered the land during times of struggle. A history plagued with cruel opportunists oppressing the populous will do much to engender feelings of resentment towards the foreign.

For those who seek a quiet vacation of relaxation and rest, Flororenghashst is not the ideal destination. Indeed, one of my close friends questioned why I wanted to include this land in my book. There are plenty of places in Flororenghashst that are dangerous to the unprepared or unsuspecting traveler.

I include this land because I find that even as an experienced tourist of most of the world, it is easy to feel like this world has become fully industrialized; most of us live in cities, and those who don’t often live in nearby rural towns and communities that are well established.

It’s easy to forget that most of the world is still wild, free from roads and composed of the most sublime natural vistas. Travelers who like to go hiking, swimming, rock-climbing, spelunking, hunting, or fishing will find this land a wonderful place to visit; and for those who enjoy exploring old ruins and forgotten paths, or finding hidden treasures among the streets of quiet towns, Flororenghashst simply must be seen to be believed.

Culture for Travelers

Tourists should be aware of a specific cultural taboo that has permeated the culture of Flororenghashst. The old Almaythalan religion dictates that while we have “souls,” they are distinct from ourselves. Our singular self is a kind of caretaker for an occupying soul, something of a symbiotic relationship or spiritual possession.

There is a lot of history and spiritual context for this concept, so much so that I will be unable to do it justice here. Suffice it to say, the Almaythalan religion considers the flesh permeable and the soul aggressive. To spend time with someone or to be in close proximity is to be influenced by them, and influence them in turn. Therefore: it is impolite to stand too close to another; two full paces is the generally accepted distance for casual conversation. Touching, whether in greeting or by accident, is fiercely taboo without clear consent. Any accidental touching should immediately be followed by apologies and offerings of recompense. Handshakes, while not as intimate as kissing, are treated with the same weight and are largely exclusive to extremely close friends or family.

Avoid handing anything to anyone. Instead, place whatever you wish to give them on a nearby counter or table for them to pick up. There is wiggle room when anywhere that such a surface is not available, such as a street, and as long as you make an effort, you should be okay.

The Old Ways

Perhaps even moreso than the Old Kingdom, Flororenghashst is a land of ancient traditions and behaviors. While other cultures might separate magic and technology into two separate fields, the people of Flororenghashst simply call them “the Old Ways” when describing their time-honored traditions. This includes everything from etiquette, to the practices of the elderly witch-oracles, to the old water-lift elevator systems in some old buildings.

I found it hard to get more information from the locals, as the Old Ways are something of a taboo in Flororenghashst culture; not in their existence, but in their acknowledgment. Try to avoid discussing any old technology or magic you may see. This may be difficult for travelers who come from lands where magic is uncommon, but expressing amazement or admiration at displays of magic is best avoided.

Perhaps the biggest danger for tourists,¹ thanks to this taboo, is the possibility of being scammed. As a rule of thumb, resolve to never give money to anyone who performs or offers to perform magic. Most magical practitioners do so in private or for close friends or communities exclusively, so any request for money is likely a scam. The one exception to this is street entertainment, as performers occasionally mix real magic in with their slight of hand. Feel free to give as much money to these performers as you feel appropriate.

Shebbitak

One of the primary influences on Flororenghashst culture is the idea of shebbitak, literally translated as “mind lies.” The people of Flororenghashst are well aware of the inaccuracies of memory, and the weakness of lessons learned by conversation rather than experience.

The prime example of shebbitak is what Flororenghashstians call “young bloodlust,” or vakkyishlip. Vakkyishlip occurs one or two generations after a war, when people who were not alive for the conflict downplay the suffering the war caused. It is the idea that one cannot understand the evils of war without living them, formalized into a mental disorder.

The cultural idea of shebbitak has given Flororenghashstians a heightened respect for historians and personal expression. They have multiple words for “truth,” depending on whether it is a personal truth you believe at the moment, an objective truth that can be measured and agreed upon, or a subjective truth that could be both opinion and fact at the same time.

All of this is to say, be prepared to see lots of museums when you travel to Flororenghashst.

Cuisine

Flororenghashst cuisine is commonly seen as an acquired taste. As someone who thinks of themself as quite a xenophile, I can confirm that of all the different kinds of food I have ever tried, the exotic dishes of Flororenghashst took me the longest to acquire a liking for.

It doesn’t help that a lot of the cooking techniques and methods that were developed over the years were done so in connection to the specific flora and fauna of the region. There is a reason every native will only ever call food cooked in the region “real Flororenghashst cuisine,” and after developing a taste for it myself, I have come to understand why. There is just no accounting for how authentic local pork can turn foul-smelling gwovsh into a thick and tangy delight.

As such, it is hard to discuss Flororenghashst cuisine without first discussing the local ingredients.

Common Ingredients

Perhaps one of the most common staple foods in Flororenghashst is Sour-root; a large and starchy tuber with an acrid flavor that is largely unpalatable without careful preparation, but incredibly filling and nutritious. Sour-root is used in soups, as a side, brewed in liquor, and floured to make flatbread or short-pasta akin to Spätzle. Being a fairly tough root, it can tolerate a lot of high-heat cooking, and is often tempered (i.e. marinated) in citrus juices to loosen the fibers and soften the flavor.

Swampweed is the other most common staple, being the other ingredient in ploot. A semiaquatic plant, swampweed is best described as a cross between kale and leek, with a sharply bitter taste. Its cultivation is an involved process, requiring burying the plant an inch deeper every week until the it reaches its desired height.

Meat is a common ingredient, with pork being the staple. Game and fowl are largely considered luxuries, while the less common animals of dog, horse, and rodent are regularly eaten. Young meats such as veal are viewed as a waste and are therefore taboo.

All parts of an animal are used in cooking, including the offal and bones. Often, the offal is cooked as part of the dish, while the bones are either used to make stock or ground into powder and used as a thickening agent for sauces.

Vegetable staples include the aforementioned swampweed, carrots, cabbages, turnips, beets, and several edible breeds of lichen, including elf-hair, tree-wool, and rock-carpet varieties. Fungi is also common, with multiple edible varieties being common in the region.

Apples and wood-berries are common fruits, as are grapes, blackberries, cloudberries, and rock-kiwis. Fruit is either eaten raw, or the juices are used for wine or an accent to a sauce.

All forms of dairy are used often in Flororenghashst cooking, including milk, eggs, cheese, and butter.

Notable Dishes

Gwovsh

Gwovsh was historically an intricate meat dish made almost entirely from a single animal; the proper meal resulting from a successful hunt. With hunting halls being rarer these days, it’s easier to get a single plate of gwovsh at a restaurant, though the recipe has changed very little.

Gwovsh is a kind of meat sandwich made from boar or sow, braised with a sauce made from boiling its blood and fat with crushed berries and herbs. The base of any gwovsh dish is a cut of the animal’s flank, fried dark and crisp in its own fat. The next layer is a diced mix of stewed liver and lung mixed in a forcemeat of sweetbreads and brain. This is layered with a sprinkle of crisply fried veins and slivers of stomach, then topped with the last layer of boiled intestines stuffed with various remaining organs.

If you order gwovsh at an authentic Flororenghashst restaurant, be prepared to answer what organ you would like in the intestines; kidney and tongue will likely be your safest choice.

Wypsvargn

Wypsvargn is a meat and dumpling stew made of ground animal meat and cheese that is then stuffed into small packets of sour-root dough. The dough is then boiled in a thick bone-broth with mushrooms, fruits, cabbage or swampweed, and beets. Wypsvargn is a heavily seasoned dish, laden with herbs and fermented vinegars. Lovers of wypsvargn say it’s not true wypsvargn if your eyes don’t water when you bite into one.

A modern folk-tale about the invention of wypsvargn says that an old grandmother created the dish when her farm was commandeered by foreign soldiers. They demanded her finest food, but she waved them off, saying her finest food — “that as would make the angels sing and demons weep” — still needed aging. Curious, the soldiers accepted blander fare, so long as she fed them her best once it was finished. She fed the soldiers for three weeks, constantly delaying their demands for her finest food until it was done. When at last the vinegars, cheeses, mushrooms, swampweed, and meat were all well fermented, she boiled them in sour-root dough and fed them to the soldiers. So weak were their constitutions from the milder and blander food she had fed them, they all fainted on the spot, and the grandmother was able to execute the invaders without care.

That is real wypsvargn; food that can fell a soldier.

Ploot

In spite of its humble origins, ploot has become a common food among the restaurants of Flororenghashst. Made largely from swampweed and sour-root, ploot was originally a peasant food, easily cultivated and prepared, if not particularly appealing.

Nowadays, ploot is an incredibly broad dish, ranging from stews to salads. Meat is sometimes added, along with countless different kinds of vegetables, grains, or garnishes. The only real requirement for ploot is long slices of stewed sour-root covered with fermented and shredded swampweed. From there, recipes have become impressively experimental. There is even street-ploot, which is usually wrapped in unleavened flatbread.

The national dish of Flororenghashst, ploot has become more of a status symbol as of late. A restaurant’s ploot is a kind of short-hand for their style and quality; some restaurants favor delicate and flavorful ploot, while others aim for a rich and filling recipe. It is not uncommon for restaurants to offer a small bowl of ploot along with your menus, so that you can taste what the restaurant is all about.

Swabit

Swabit, the drink that has permeated culture across the world, originated from Flororenghashst. Brewed with a special process involving boiling in water followed by condensing, Swabit is made from a few select roots, as coffee is made with beans or tea with leaves.

The numbing effect of fresh swabit is well known, and as such swabit is commonly used as an aid to relaxation, digestion, or in some cultures even healing. Extensive drinking of under-brewed swabit has been known to cause mild hallucinations, which suggest the drink was likely first used in religious ceremonies.

There are five different “kinds” of swabit, each with their own flavor, smell, and texture. True Flororenghashst Swabit is sometimes called a sixth by aficionados of the drink.

Green

Green swabit is the “original” brewed root. Cultivated from either the Dendi or the Raggen bush, the root is slow boiled for almost a day before it can be used in the traditional brewing process. Whether the root is then dried, ground up, or brewed whole is a matter of preference, as while these methods do affect the taste, it is still considered Green swabit.

Dry

Dry swabit comes from the Klessy plant from outer Bruunish’wa. Currently the most popular root for swabit, Dry swabit is brewed whole and hot before then being distilled. Dry swabit is generally thinner and stronger-flavored than other kinds, and connoisseurs claim the drink is less likely to challenge other flavors on the pallate. The root itself lasts for a long time, aiding in its domination of the market.

Sweet

Highlighting the sweet flavors over the savory, Sweet swabit comes from the Yach family of trees that dominate the land of Garm. Considered suitable only for dessert drinking, Sweet swabit has a lingering flavor that can overpower other flavors if drunk as part of a meal or snack. The Yach root is first dried before the brewing process, making Sweet swabit easy to export and trade.

Smooth

The smach root is famed for its fragility, making Smooth swabit a rare drink and expensive on the market. Harvested by the folk of Chikurry, the smach root usually lasts for only a few days before withering completely. Be wary of scammers, as withered root will make a horribly foul tasting swabit. When properly brewed, however, the fresh root allows for some of the delicate spice flavor to proceed to prominence on the pallate.

Ruby

Ruby swabit is a more recent kind, requiring a full day of distillation to thicken the drink. Largely cultivated from wattaroot, Ruby swabit thickly coats the throat and tongue, allowing for a longer and fuller drinking experience. The mind-altering properties of swabit are also generally lessened through this process. The different brewing method has also resulted in what some call “Rock swabit,” which is using the wattaroot in a more traditional drying-brewing-distilling process. This results in a drink that is suitably swabit for those who cannot afford or access any other kinds of swabit, though this is largely a dwindling issue.

Trains, Busses, and Taxi Services

Flororengashst is well known for having no bus or taxi services in its urban centers. this is not nearly as limiting as one might expect, as even the most populous city in the country has a reasonable street-plan.

Travel between the towns and cities of Flororengashst is largely handled by train and caravan. The Logoruun Spike Line runs from the northern to the southern border, and touches all cities between. For tourists, this should be sufficient coverage to reach any destination you wish. For the odd exception, “branch-line” is the term for a small train that only makes one or two stops away from a main station.

Caravans are a cheap alternative to trains, and in some cases the only reliable means of reaching a town. Wagons, carts, and other animal-pulled vehicles sometimes offer space for tourists who are traveling to the same destination. Because of the large number of rivers and waterways in Flororengashst, river-boats and ferries are also often viable options. Purchasing a seat on a wagon or ferry is a casual and laissez-faire process, but tourists can be assured that purchasing a spot on a caravan is safe.

The only other means of getting around is via walking, but most distances are long enough that this is not recommended. It is possible to catch a ride with any local who happens to pass by, but be aware that this will be a uncommon occurrence.

Weather and Climate

Flororenghashst is a cold land, commonly subjected to snows and rains all through the year. Bring enough warm clothing and wet-weather gear for your entire stay. That said, don’t ever expect to get out of a Flororenghashst rainstorm without getting wet. Umbrellas won’t help, as the strong winds will make it hard for you to either keep your balance or hold on to the handle. Parkas and firm-brimmed hoods are the local preference.

High thick leather boots are a must, and if you do not have a warm comfortable pair, consider buying a pair of yogs — “fur-boots” — when you arrive. Yogs are thick leather boots with broad straps as fasteners and thick wool on the inside. Proper yogs are made bespoke for the individual foot, but “off the rack” yogs are often available for sale for visitors.

It is also wise, if not expected, to bring with you a multitool of some kind; a Swiss Army knife is the minimum. Flororenghashst is still built around rural life and uncultivated land, so things like hammers, axes, wrenches, and many other tools are used regularly in everyday life. Locally, most people will carry a rus’wam, or “many axe” in their belt. Rus’wams have multiple uses and tools throughout their design; some restaurants won’t give you utensils unless you ask for them, assuming your rus’wam is fitted with your own.

The Flororenghashst Face/Pic (F)

The currency of Flororenghashst has had a complex history, largely due to the efforts of multiple nobles and royals who tried to supplant the Pic with their own coinage. Historically, the Pic dates back to the early years of the reign of Queen Floren. For generations after, every king and queen tried to either swap the official currency with their own or insert their own coin into common usage. Coins such as the Wein, the Lorven, and the Archergal all saw regular usage for many years before they were supplanted by a new monarch’s coin.

Over the years, the Pic remained an exchangeable coin, due to both its ubiquity and historical pedigree. As more monarchs added and removed coins from circulation, the Pic’s stability increased until it became the de-facto currency of Flororenghashst regardless of the monarchs’ efforts.

The Ergal was added to circulation by Queen Lorva III in an attempt to adjust the value of the Pic, and combat the economic inflation of the 1400s. The Hung was added by King Floren II for similar reasons in 1552.

This method of manipulation was put to an end by the Pic Act of 1613, which established the Shak and formalized the current coinage of Flororenghashst.

After the rebellions of 1750, it became a political statement to rename the coins using foreign words. The insurgents used English for coinage, and the tradition has stuck in some regions of the country. It is best, as a result, to avoid using a Flororenghashst accent when labeling coins, as so long as you sound like a foreigner the locals won’t suspect you of making a political statement.

The following is a table of the common coins and bills travelers can expect to come across:

Coin	Modern Name	Worth (F)	Worth (s)
Pic	Face	1	100
Hung	Round	1/5	20
Ergal	Point	1/20	5
Shak	Hole	1/100	1

Bill	Worth (M)
Ten Pic	10
Twen Pic	20
Fifty Pic	50
Hun Pic	100