Heart S

Designation: Heart S

Name: Ormo, the Wetlands

Climate: humid continental climate

Landscape/ Geography: alluvial land, bogs, swamps with dense forests and occasional moors and wet meadows. Oftentimes hard to tell where the river or lake ends and where the muddy land begins. Many places are flooded seasonally when it's warmer in Heart H. 

Points of Interest:

• The Cradle - a meadow renown for the abundance of wildflowers and butterflies. The exact location is kept secret from outsiders, and tourists and researchers may only be lead there by specifically chosen rangers who have to take different routes each time to prevent unauthorized discovery
• Bruk - the main town of the House of Dragonfly's territory and the location of the only crystal that allows for teleportation to other hearts. The town has become a hub for outsiders' exploration and trade location with other hearts, although due to the almost daily rain and/or fog, it's not a place where visitors stay for very long.
• The Silk Forest - a plantation of several different plants dedicated to nurture and breed the Ormo Moth for silk production. Heart S silk comes in various dark shades, unlike the typically white and off-white colors of other raw silks. It’s located at the border of Heart S and Heart W and integrated into the naturally dark forest of this area - both to hide the place from poachers and to keep the environment healthy. The house in charge of this place is House of Spider.

Flora & Fauna: everything you can find in human world wetlands - the Heart is filled with wildlife of all sizes and ecological niches. Heart S is also the home of the Ormo Moth

Economics: Ormo silk, cranberry and mushroom farming, tourism

Mostly self reliant though, so not much need to interact with other hearts to be able to sustain itself

(Dominant) Culture: 

• Settlements are built on stilts and have little dikes, dams, and levees around them, which can be opened to intentionally flood the place for additional protection against invaders. Often, these dykes are very maze-like in their arrangement.
• Most common means of transportation are small boats with little draft.
• Bamharrs native to this place and very traditional and pride themselves in not being reliant on electricity and other modern things - in fact, electricity is barely available in this heart due to the omnipresence of water and moisture.
• Clothing styles are focused on being practical, easy to move in, and providing protection against wet feet, bloodsucking insects or parasites like ticks or leeches. Drapes and trails are reserved for formal wear and are often detachable as they would not last long in the wetlands
• Heart S bamharrs are very strict on preservation, be it their traditional lifestyle or the untamed nature of the heart. rangers protecting the wilderness against illegal destruction and poachers are quite militaristic in their organization and equipment.
• Bamharrs from Heart S view themselves as part of Heart S mainly, the connection to a certain House is not as tight as in other Hearts. The houses are commonly viewed mostly as a form of political organization and not as much as an identity

Political Structure(1): Council of matriarchs

Each of them oversees her own house who hold dominion over a part of Heart S. The houses are based on plants or animals living in the heart, like House of Spider or House of Dragonfly. Houses rule over a specific territory of the heart and are responsible for it. The matriarchs are sometimes referred to as "witches", although that is a linguistic misunderstanding and has nothing to do with actual witchcraft.

Stereotypes about and by other hearts:

• Heart S natives consider most inhabitants of other hearts, especially those with large amounts of technology, to be weak and fragile. They respect other traditional bamharrs.
• In return, most modern bamharrs consider Heart S to be a muddy backwater town with people who are too stubborn to try out new things.