In the core of the Keshdumah lands, there are marvels of technology. But as one travels toward the periphery, the Taikahir damps down the technology, rendering it intermittent or unusable. So it is on the western border of the states of Great Road and Banakur South, whose boundries dissolve into the reaches of the Banakur Forest.
There, the Keshdumah settlements are small and, by Central Dumah standards, shockingly primitive. The electric grid flickers and fades. 150 kilometers or more from the forest’s edge the effort to supply electricity stops abruptly. Small water and wind driven generators provide the larger settlements with a limited supply of electricity, but there is no surplus for heating, cooking, lighting … or fighting off the L’npei.
The Keshdumah are not a warlike culture, historically leaving the task of killing to a low status warrior caste. These warriors do not range the forest or protect the western frontier. There are more serious threats to occupy their attention. Thus, on the frontier, ordinary citizens are unprotected, left to cope as best they can with the physical and emotional demands of local defense.
Mercenary companies have stepped in to fill the vacuum. Collectively referred to as the Dumah Rangers, the companies recruit from the warrior caste, as well as from those few locals who discover a taste for adventure, or for killing.
Companies vary in size from a few dozen individuals to several hundred. As their name suggests, they range the forest as a barrier between the settlements they have been hired to protect and the war bands of L’npei Gens Tamroti and the L’npei’s Rapani allies.
