Auroria



Auroria is a continent surrounding the south pole.

Its population is primarily made up of Caribou.

Demographics
Besides the native Caribou population, Auroria features a few Equestrian and Crystalline research outposts which employ Alpacas due to their resistance to extremely cold, dry, windy and rocky environments.

The biggest research outpost is New Crystal City, which has 1,000 permanent residents.

Although the native Caribou are traditionally nomadic, permanent Caribou settlements have been created in recent years. The largest of these is the city of Warmhome, with a population of several thousand.

Politics
Auroria doesn't have a unified rule; each Caribou group and settlement is self-ruled and research outposts are bound by the laws of their countries of origin.

The flag of Auroria was designed in Warmhome, where ideas of political unification first came to be, to represent the population of all Caribou.

Economy
Caribou in Auroria have traditionally been nomadic, organizing themselves into small groups that travel across the continent in search of lichens and grasses to eat as well as fishing for algae in non-frozen waters.

With the establishment of research outposts, new crops and agricultural technologies were introduced such as greenhouses and soil engineering, which enabled some farming in an otherwise not arable soil.

Because of the new technologies, some Caribou have settled down in small cities that don't rely on nomadic routes to maintain a food supply.

Crops mainly consist of roots and tubers such as carrots and potatoes.

While most industry is economically unfeasible due to the poor terrain and extreme weather, Auroria has developed a minor industry of toy manufacturing workshops which is vital to the trade balance.

Culture
Caribou construct heaps of rocks that help orientation during nomadic migrations. These structures also indicate aspects of their location, such as presence of food or harshness of climate.

Religion
Caribou are animists like Farasians.

In Caribou religion, the aurora is believed to be the spirits of ancestors.

The areas closer to the pole where the ground is covered in ice and lichens don't grow are considered to be related to death as they are especially harsh and sterile and have claimed the lives of many creatures that attempted to travel through them.

In Caribou mythology, only the dead are supposed to linger in those areas. Because of this, corpses are often taken there, buried in snow and left to mummify in the cold. Entering those areas for purposes other than taking a corpse to its final resting place is considered a taboo.