So I've been pondering this ever since map voting when we found out that the To'resk will be the inhabitants of the savanna biome on the continent.
Overview
I think this is pretty cool but it does bring up some questions because unlike the To'resk who live in the marsh and tropical wetlands which are predominantly wet most of the year and have soft fertile soil, the savanna is a whole other beast. Although the savanna biome does have a rainy season and can get pretty wet and green it also has a very harsh dry season. not to mention the soil is harder then wetlands and at least in our world not as fertile.
Anyway I have some questions about how the Savanna To'resk will differ from the wetland To'resk.
Questions
The savanna is pretty dangerous, the prevalence of grass in the biome attracts large grazing animals like Zebra, Gazelle, and Bison. And with big prey animals comes big predators like Lions and Hyena. As the To'resk traditionally were said to not be very physical how will the savanna To'resk deal with the large amount of predators in their biome. Will the savanna To'resk be more physically adept as apposed to their wetland cousins or will the be more advanced in weaponry and hunting to compensate.
In our world the soil in Savanna biomes tend not to be the most fertile so if that is the case in Elyria then that will have a major impact on the Savanna To'resk culture. Traditionally farming and aqua-farming are big parts of To'resk society, so seeing as the savanna wont have these large lakes and water ways usable for aqua farming and the soil may be poor will that just mean the Savanna To'resk will become more reliant on hunting like Brudvir or will they become more reliant on trade like the Neran.
This isn't much of a big issue but I just find this stuff interesting. With the savanna To'resk having access to so much good grazing land will they be able to keep and raise larger herd of animals. Maybe animal husbandry will be a very big part of their culture. I would love to see them tame and use Zebra's as mounts, or a Elyrian Zebra/Gazelle mix of some kind.
Woodland Savanna means allot of access to good hard wood, a woodland savanna can actually have the same density of trees as any other forest - it's just that the trees tend to grow apart and don't make a canopy to often. With this access to more wood and less access to wetland materials like clay/mud and rice paper I can see the Savanna To'resk having very different looking architecture from the wetland To'resk. Plus they wouldn't need or have to build on stilts, most of a savanna is just grassy flatland.
Lastly the To'resk of the wetlands were shaped and molded by their environment, they love gold because it doesn't rust, they are untrusting because of the dangerous pools of alligators in their lands, and they have become a culturally advanced and structured society because of the isolation and protection their wetland give them. The Savanna To'resk won't have any of that, the major thing is that the Savanna is a pretty easy biome to conquer - unlike the wetlands the savanna is flat and it would be fairly easy to march troops and get war equipment across it, so the Savanna To'resk may have had to dealt with many invasions and conquest in their history. Would this make the Savanna To'resk more aggressive towards other races because of how easy it is to invade their land or more open with other races because they were forced to cooperate and work with other tribes as opposed to being dominated.
Summary
In conclusion I think it's cool the To'resk live in the savanna biome but I also think it brings up allot of issues and questions. The To'resk write up we have is obviously specially talking about the wetland To'resk and the Marsh To'resk may be very similar too. I feel we need more tribe write ups, it doesn't have to be as long as the ones we have but like 2 or 3 paragraphs for each tribe sub race that details why they live in that biome and how it changed their society.
P.S. I would like the woodland savanna To'resk to be masters at Archery, because they have access to wood to make bow and arrows and living in the savanna with all that flat land you wouldn't need to get close to an animal to see it and with how dangerous the animals of the savanna can be you wouldn't want to. I just think it would be a cool trait to make them stand out, that and also riding Zebras.
