Ngobiri

Known to the High Elves as Teimi (丁未) under the Kanshi Chihyō system, this broad microcontinent rises from the sea with fire-scored cliffs and grasslands swept by the sun. Its peoples are the Ngobiri, speakers of a branch of the Maŋgwɛta family, and wanderers of stormgrass and saltstone.  

Geography

  Teimi is a tectonically active microcontinent located east of Dainan, spanning latitudes 23° to 35° south and longitudes 45° to 55° east. It is approximately three times the size of Old Earth's Germany and consists of two major bioclimatic regions:  

• Northern Teimi: A broad savanna plain interspersed with redstone gullies and glassy buttes. The north coast experiences a summer monsoon, feeding brackish river estuaries and coastal reed forests.
 
• Southern Teimi: A dry, sun-bleached desert where volcanic mesas cast long shadows and subsurface springs feed rare oases. Salt lakes mark the lowlands, and storm winds sweep through narrow gorges carved by lava flows and ice-churned erosion.

  The entire landmass lies atop ancient subduction arc terrain, with volcanic belts and faultlines still active in the southern highlands. The biosphere is shaped by long evolutionary isolation: native fauna include marsupials, reptilian megafauna, and burrowing gliders. Xenarthrans and humans arrived only after land bridge formation with Dainan.  

Peoples and Languages

  Teimi is the homeland of the Ngobiri, a sub-branch of the Maŋgwɛta macrofamily. These Mesolithic peoples are skilled foragers, flint knappers, cliff-dwellers, and wind-watchers. Seasonal mobility, memory rituals, and elemental veneration form the basis of their social world.   There are five distinct languages spoken across Teimi:  

• Zantwe – Spoken along the monsoon coast, where river mouths and mangrove estuaries support fishing with fire-baskets and night nets.
• Alukura – Found in the inner savanna, among rock-circle camps, termite mound trails, and seasonal foraging paths for wild tuber and red seed.
• Bākede – Spoken in the northern upland fringe. The Bākede trap gliding reptiles and keep sacred stone nests for ancestor chants.
• Morutja – Spoken near southern hot spring basins and salt-fed gullies. Known for carving basalt idols and collecting ghost-lilies from sulfur pools.
• Tʼhoma – A southern gorge language, preserved through echo-chant in canyon narrows. These peoples live in cliff hollows and journey by shade, wind, and light memory.

 

Lifeways

  The Ngobiri build no permanent dwellings. Instead, they use hide domes in the wet season, lean-tos in the dry, and cave hollows or rock alcoves during storms. Water is drawn from tree roots, captured dew, or sacred springs known only to elders.   Their tools include:

• Flint blades carved into spiral forms for symbolic memory
• Fire-bows and glider-nets made from shell-strand fiber
• Reed-signal flutes used for intergroup messages across vast drylands

  Ngobiri cosmology identifies four elements: ash (ancestry), salt (knowledge), wind (journey), and blood (memory). Song cycles encode water locations, ritual taboos, and seasonal migrations. Language itself is seen as breath-shape passed from the salt of bones.  

Fauna

  Teimi’s native animals include:  

• Scaled herbivores adapted to arid terrain and gliding from sandstone bluffs
• Burrowing marsupials with pouch-nets used for food storage
• Desert-dwelling pack predators with heat-sensing nasal crests
• Seasonal aquatic reptiles that emerge from deep salt springs
• Migratory firebirds—featherless but incandescent—that appear only before monsoon storms

  These animals play a central role in Ngobiri myth, kinship systems, and death rites.  

High Elven Contact

  High Elven navigators first recorded Teimi as 丁未. Records describe its people as “walkers among the red light” and note the eerie harmonic whistling of the wind through the southern stone gorges.