Gold fairies

Gold fairies are creatures around 60 centimeters high with softly feathered wings and long arms. Their colour ranges from pale gold to deep glittering orange. Gold fairies are a little smarter than bug fairies, averaging a ten-year-old; their behaviour is a strange mixture of serenity and ferocity, and narrow-minded folk often dislike them.

"I am here to keep order. You must follow this shelf plan. Everything depends on order. Your foolish assistant learned this is no joke to me, no? So follow."
— Adnad, gold fairy

They keep to themselves, and live in either open nature or crowded cities, seeking out merchants' storages, libraries, printing-offices, and laboratories, making their living as aides by keeping shelves and storages in order. Otherwise, gold fairies are left alone and flock in small groups. They can be seen carrying packages about, or building things (to unknown ends; they're neither art nor mechanics). They prefer flying over walking, and regard their legs as decorative, occasionally useful appendages, rather than regular body parts.
Like bug fairies, gold fairies have their own way of Speechcraft and are equally unteachable. Mages have lost sanity and digits trying to study it.

"Always an occasion when goldfairies come to the shop. Last time they left with all my silver wire, half a litre of coloured ink, and a Kmalian teapot. Then went into the bakery and bought all the yellow pastries. I've stopped wondering what they do with the stuff."
— Ompiro, shopkeeper

Artists' notes
Gold fairies were a little neglected at first, but now I find those weirdoes very nice - fairies with jobs. These are the kind you find observing you when you turn around. Stealing a nail from your outside windowsill, or inscribing your shoes' soles. Carefully collecting artifact shards for unknown purposes. In a word: creepy. But pretty ;)

Politics

"No-one rules Nalmalaar."
— Usronid, ruler of Nalmalaar

For the most part, Kitas is tribesland. Even large cities harbour tribes, sometimes by other names, like house or clan. Few titles are hereditary, most have to be earned, and powerful peoples chase off irresponsible rulers. Absolutism is very rare and looked down upon by the neighbours; tyranny, while existent, will be attacked by those living nearby and feeling threatened. Honour compels rulers to do their best, and folklore gilds the memory of a good ruler; nobody wishes to be remembered as the Master of Famine, or the Queen of Pain.

"It was quite the coup when the Crowned put down her rights and duties, having been elected time and again for two decades. She claimed a country as powerful as Brighthold must not fall into idle content with its leadership, and resumed her position as cavalry general."
— Alnissai Whiterider, flagswoman

Mostly, a monarch or chieftain will be elected by a council; this will sometimes consist of nobles and accomplished celebrities like sages and warriors; other times of the entire tribe or city's population. City states sport democracies giving a vote to anyone of age, sanity, and citizenship. While children of previous rulers often have good chances to assume power, they are not natural choices. In the many nomadic tribes, any accomplished "hero" can attempt to get the tribe's support for rulership, although they don't often make young people chieftain.

Artist's notes
I describe Genius Loci as a "riddlesome fairy-tale". The fairy-tale part is that nobles are noble indeed - not the despots of dark fantasy, irresponsible and only driven by their own desires. Communities are small and one's deeds don't go unnoticed - valor is rewarded, crimes are punished. Every ruler feels the weight of the crown, and some are even treated supernaturally to be the good rulers the people needs.
Btw, "Brighthold" is called "Lichtfeste" in German, a difficult translation (literally: Light-Stronghold. Bah.).

Hunes

Standing an average of two meters, hunes are the tallest people after raganaj. They are pale, almost white, and sport two thumbs - one on either side of their delicate but strong hands. Hunes are mute. They can make sounds but not form words, although they understand perfectly well, and sophisticated sign languages help them to communicate.
Hunes travel by branch, swinging along with great strength, and in the thick forests of Gdera achieve a good speed, and because of this they mostly live in Gdera. Hunes love eating, but for some reason, however much they eat, they never grow fat.

"Bedanga is called the silent lands for its majority of hunes, and indeed it's very quiet - certainly not because of their political insignificance... They have a surprisingly lovely singing voice, though."
— Nened Tramnak, Nalsiir trader

Hunes are a gentle and understanding people. They like company but can well be alone; because of their muteness, they are often granted a few childlike exceptions from social expectations - a role that not all hunes fancy, and there are notable warriors, scientists, and speakers among them. The royal family of the Gderan state Bedanga are hunes. Their muteness lessens somewhat in the Years of Sorrow, but no hune has ever spoken outside the Area.

"The third bowarcher might have been a hune. Or an albino, the records aren't clear. But then, aren't hunes albinos?"
— Anannta, mage

Artists' notes
The name is a phonetic comparison to the German word Hüne, which means a very tall person, but giant is too tall, so here we are. Speak: hoons. Hunes were among the major races once but when I made them mute I moved them more to the sidelines, where they now hang out with other known but mysterious folk, like the mul'ahman.

The Lower Green forest

Mostly called the Lower forest, this is the most "average" forest of Gdera. However, when called "the forest with no tricks" by outlanders, the natives laugh. The Lower forest is infamous with its inhabitants for its cunning beasts, fast overgrowth, and devious predators. No other forest is as skilled in illusionary art; abandoned settlements are quickly covered up, and so, many secrets lie beneath the thick blanket of moss. The Lower forest isn't picky about climate and is the first to reclaim devastated lands, and holds the soil the best. Minerals colour the wood of many tree species, which sell well and sometimes name the country, like Whitewood.

"When Gal was founded, they found ruins in the building sites. When digging deeper, there were layers of them; eventually an elder mapmaker discovered there had been five villages on the same spot before. Why they were abandoned, nobody knows. Or if."
— Nirr Molgenkan, villager

The natives take pride in being generalists - they may not be as specialised as other forests' inhabitants, but they know something of everything. The many changes throughout the year encourage adaptability and cunning; the natives are admired teachers and engineers, and feared generals and politicians.

"That a nureewing should be smarter than a person is only funny until one distracts you, while a gang of perwons steals your foodpack and you find them sharing the loot in the trees."
— Hrenno, traveller

Artists' notes
Wow, an actually nice forest - how did I ever come up with this one. Animals here are much closer to what we know. No plants eat you, there's nowhere to fall to your death. Like the European or Native American forest of the legend age, anything can happen in here and no-one will be the wiser; you go around a hill and vanish. There might even be an affinity towards the Area...
With this, all types of forest on Gdera have been described.

Travelling by Area

Because the Area doesn't follow the same laws of nature as the Here, it can be used for several purposes, fast travel being the most common. Most paths are shorter in the Area - if one knows how to walk them.
And travelling such a weird place is tricky: all who leave the Area are left with an urge. The compulsion is never the same, rarely dangerous, but often inconvenient, and irresistible.

"After we had reached the gathering, we had barely explained ourselves when we collectively broke away and drew several perfect circles on the mountainside. It became weirder still when the resident stone giant came by, nodded, and hurried off."
— Ashgarnor, emmissary

The Area can be travelled in corporeal or mental state, or by "half-travel". Each has its ups and downs; only corporeal travel allows to transport items and be almost immune to the whispered urges, but doesn't allow changing the environment. Mental travel grants great control over the environment, and protects against injury, but there's a danger of mistaking the dreamlike world of the Area for reality. Half-travel means one can be touched, but influence and carry very little.
Some places have a counterpart in the Area and serve as landmarks; most do not appear in the Area, while yet others are indigenous.

"I bought red floatdust for an insane price after leaving the Area. I thought I was ruined; the next day, one of Glazier's aides happily bought the whole stash. Shortly thereafter, glass armour was introduced, of which I was sent several pieces. I wonder..."
— Atchilemarek of the Roaring Tam, Brighthold merchant

Artists' notes
The Area is not just there for decoration, it has its uses, ranging from strange to creepy. It's quite something if a place has a mirror image in the Area - many things are represented, but not exactly as they're in the Here. Since teleportation is so damn difficult, many who had to be somewhere yesterday use these routes.

Multiracial society

"Of course I don't mind my neighbour being a naj. With her standing a full meter taller than me, we chat on the stairs."
— Zile, dwarf

"... here we have the berry cakes, and the beverages. Make sure the elves don't get any of the blue jugs. If anyone asks, the berries make most likely a stripey leg pattern for the garren, and dwarven hair bluish magenta, but tell them it depends on which vegetables they had."
— Garahinar, banquet overseer

Artists' notes
Very soon after coming up with my world I decided that I wanted to break the racial barriers established by many fantasy settings, and instead aim for a more "sci fi" way of races living together. And so, there are not "elven lands" or "dwarven mountains" (although it might be called such after its population majority), but in general, all races can be found everywhere. Racism in Genius Loci is considered a mental illness, the ultimate failure of rationality, and is very rare - with a few notable exceptions (I do need bad guys). Also, gender doesn't matter. The differences between the species are so great, that those between sexes of the same species go unnoticed.
Cultural heritage is defined by culture more than race, and an elf and a gar from the same land will get along much easier than two elves from different lands. Of course, you'll probably marry so you can have children, but with the new rise of shapeshifting spells, more mixed-species couples have formed; adoption has always crossed racial barriers anyway.
Society does employ the natural strengths of races, putting the strong raganaj in warrior services, and the dextrous dwarves in crafts and surgery. This is still only a preference and not a rule.

The seraph cities

Before the Splinter War, the seraphs lived within the community, a flying people known for their crafts, and to best knowledge, shared their floatstone cities.
However, in the War, Nirill fell, and when Minaaré was invaded shortly after, the attackers were turned back within the day. The day after that, all grounddwellers forgot how to reach the cities, what was in them, and even what a seraph looks like. Since then, the seraph cities can still be seen, but not a single person has entered. The extent of the Forgetting is so massive that it's certain they cast a spell - and frighteningly, still keep it up, some two millenia later.

"Nuralk says he met one; he claims they walk like silk in the wind, but can remember little else. One can't help but wonder who else may have met seraphs and forgotten, when even their pictures on Agorisai's palaces were erased."
— Dasnellaar, writer

Theories speculate the Forgetting wasn't intentional, that seraphs have meanwhile died out, or were successfully invaded by the shapeshifter armies after all. It has been in much debate how to handle the situation. All attempts to reach the cities have failed. The Bargassian and Lebridgian engineers can't come up with a solution, and no flyer however good can make the trip. The only sign they might still be there are floatdust miners in Rhagastone, who occassionally are found bound and gagged when they became too clever at the marked borders.

Artists' notes
I used to have them as regular folks around, but then picked them from the list of peoples shrouded in mystery and only to be found later in the plotline. Never fear, honoured audience, all will be revealed in time (I never said when that is, though ;)). Let's just say, seraphs must be one hell of a bunch of speakers, keeping such a spell up for this long.