The Zimka

The Zimka are a branch of the Northerners, living in the foothills, forests, plateaus, river valleys, bogs, and lakes between the Sentinels and northern Sembara. This region, broadly, is known as Zimkova, and is closely associated with the Zimka culture, especially the upper Volta, the upper Teft, Breva, the Lavnoch Plateau, and the isolated highlands north of the Great Chasm.

Modern Zimka identity is complex, and the Zimka do not form a single kingdom or unified culture. Instead, the shared inheritance of ancient tales of traveling from across the mountains, and discovering the kestavo among the bogs and lakes of the upper Volta, binds together scattered northern villages, Brevan forest communities, Lavnoch clans, and the more Sembaran-influenced people of Ardlas.

Nomenclature

“Zimka” is the name of the people and culture. Zimkova is the land most closely associated with them, though its boundaries are cultural and geographic more than political. Outsiders in Sembara often speak of the Highland Kingdoms, the Zimka Realms, or simply the highlands, especially when referring to Breva, Lavnoch, and Ardlas together.

“Zimkovan” is used for the modern language, for people from Zimkova, and for things associated with the region. “Old Zimkovan” refers to the older Northros language preserved among more isolated Zimka communities and in ritual or antiquarian contexts.

The name Zimka can be narrower or broader depending on speaker and context. In a strict sense it points to the older highland and Brevan traditions. In a broader sense it includes all Zimkovan-speaking highland peoples with descent from the ancient Zimka, even where Mos Numena, Sembaran law, or Drankorian institutions have reshaped local culture.

Language and Naming

Old Zimkovan, a Northros language descended from the speech of the earliest northern migrants, is now mostly confined to the most traditional and isolated parts of northern Zimkova, pockets of the Lavnoch Plateau, old songs, ritual speech, and the lore of the kestavo. Many places in Zimkova have ancient, Old Zimkovan names.

Zimkovan, a group of related Eastros-derived languages and dialects descended from Old Tollish and shaped by Sembaran and Drankorian influence, is commonly spoken in Breva, Ardlas, across the Lavnoch Plateau, and through much of Zimkova. It preserves older Northros loan words, especially in religious speech, place names, and names of ancient kestavo.

Origins, Migration, and Settlement

The Zimka descend from the Northerner migrations, the earliest major human movements out of Hkar. These migrants crossed the Sentinels from the west long before The Downfall, speaking Northros languages and following the intercessory religious traditions known as the Northern Folk Religions.

In Greater Sembara, the early Zimka settled among the foothills of the Sentinels and along the headwaters and upper valleys of the Volta, Teft, and Semb. Though their spread was constrained by the lizardfolk wetlands to the south and east, over time Zimka communities expanded down the great river valleys and encountered Eastros-speaking mariner and river-trading peoples from the Western Gulf. By the time of The Downfall, at least two related Zimka strands had emerged: an older highland strand in the upper Volta, Lavnoch, and the isolated northern foothills, preserving Northros speech and the older kestavo traditions, and a lower river-valley strand that kept religious and cultural ties to the old highland Zimka but increasingly spoke an Eastros-derived language.

In the modern day, the Zimka are settled across much of the Sembaran highlands. In Northern Zimkova population density is very light, with hunters and small fortified villages clustered mostly along the Volta and its tributaries. In Breva, the forested highland region between the Teft and Volta, an organized, fiercely independent, and strongly kestavan realm persists, and is often seen as the heart of Zimka culture by outsiders. On the Lavnoch Plateau, scattered clans eke out a pastoral life in upland valleys and seasonal pastures.

Religion

See more: Kestavo, Kestavan Funerary Traditions

The traditional Zimka religion is the worship of the kestavo, small local gods who carry the prayers of their communities to Ako, the Divine Presence. A kestavo has a home: a shrine, spring, waterfall, lake, stone, tree, village, or other sacred place. Within and near that home, the kestavo can guard a community, receive prayers, and serve as the channel through which divine blessing reaches the world.

Zimka communities traditionally establish themselves around a kestavo or a place where a kestavo can be coaxed to dwell. The shrine is therefore not only a religious site, but a mark that a village has become a true community. Great kestavo can attract pilgrims from far beyond their homes. Among the best known are Romil, the glacier king; Kamak, the lurker of Lake Kamchak; and Besla, who is associated with the spring rains from the Green Sea.

The kestavo are not the only spirits in Zimka tradition. Zeyfa, the cruel west wind, and Vaqar, the fire-below, are feared rather than worshipped. Their children, the vazska, are spirits of hardship, cold, mischief, war, destruction, injury, sudden death, and burning homes. Zimka custom emphasizes placating, bribing, frightening off, or avoiding these spirits rather than honoring them.