The rest of the kingdom is either sand or scrubland. Both goats and sheep can manage to find enough to eat, but raising cattle is unheard of. Amaranthian wool and weavings are well respected in the other countries and fetches a good price.

The main sources of income for Amaranth however, are the mines. Amaranth is famous for the beautiful green-blue stones it exports. The stones are known as Amariths and are used mainly to ornament jewelry. Slaves work almost all of the Amaranth mines, and the three biggest mines, Trilsbar, Malish, and Ilstor, use solely slaves in their mining. Slaves are also used as domestic servants and the like, but as you get farther away from the mines, slaves become less and less common. There are almost none in Corn, Wheat and Barely.

Slaves were either born into slavery, sentenced to slavery (for a crime or because of debt) or kidnapped from one of the northern countries. Almost all of them go up for sale at one time or another in their lives and are usually sold to one of the caravans that trades with the southern land (which is largely unknown) or they're put up for auction in the city of Malik.

Besides the cities of Malik, Corn, Wheat, and Barley, there is only one other large city. The Capital City is the largest of them all and is also the home of the royal palace where the Salzaar (or Sultan) lives.

The Salzaar is supposed to be the most powerful man in the land. The current one, however, is afraid of the power of the nobles and therefore allows himself to be easily swayed by them. This is why, despite protest from both the northern countries and many of the citizens of Amaranth, he allows slavery to continue. He is afraid that if he took steps to ban it the wealthiest and most powerful of the noble families (the ones involved in the gem trade) would rise up against him.

The land of Amaranth is divided up so that almost every noble family controls a piece of land. The noble then has the right to tax whoever lives on the land however much they choose. While most nobles are fair and do not tax excessively there are some who make it very hard for the peasants to get by. If someone fails to pay their taxes the noble family can seize their lands and sell them into slavery to recoup the debt.

It was because of these greedy nobles that the Free Village formed. The Free Village is a small village far off the main trade routes that is home to debtors and escaped slaves. The citizens of the Free Village operate their own small Amarinth mine and sell the gems the mine to sympathetic caravans heading towards the southern lands.

Not too far from the Free Village is the Rebel Oasis. There is no actual Oasis; it is called so because it is a safe haven far out in the desert. The Rebels are a group of people, some escaped slaves, some commoners, some merchants, who have vowed to do whatever they can to help the slaves. They help stage some breakouts from the mine, they sabotage slaving caravans and they help to spirit away debtors before they can be sold into slavery.

The rebel insignia is a rising phoenix, to symbolize the freedom and rebirth of the people of Amaranth. The rebels make clay medallions, about the size of a quarter, to hang on their neck or wrist. The clay is brittle so if they rebels are captured they can pull them off and stomp them to dust easily.

The Rebels are led by Doric, but founded by his father Beneth, a commoner who began with a ragtag group of escaped slaves and gradually built on it. After Beneth's death, but before Doric came to the Oasis, Wyatt led the Rebels for a short time. It was under Wyatt, and later Doric, that the Rebels became the more organized and disciplined group they are today.

Amaranthian culture is fairly conservative and Amaranth is looked upon by its northern neighbors as a tad backwards. Homosexuality is not generally considered acceptable and women are seen as the lesser of the two genders by the upper classes, with arranged marriages being fairly common. Arranged marriages are less common among the peasantry but they're not unheard of. (Note: While Amaranthian culture may discriminate, the RPG does not)

Commoners in Amaranth wear shirts and breeches or tunics and leggings. Women wear dresses or long tunics and wide legged pants, though the later outfit is not considered fit for polite company. Rebel women wear whatever they please.

Hair can be worn up or down as well as plain or with ornaments. Scarves and veils are occasionally employed by women to keep sand out of their face and hair. Both the scarves and veils as well as the gowns of noble women are usually heavily embroidered. Amaranthian women also like gowns sewn with jewels if they can afford them.

There are three different coins: Gold pieces, Silver pieces and Copper pieces. A few coppers will buy you a loaf of bread or mug of beer. Figure a copper is about like a dollar. Silver pieces are worth more, they'd be more like ten dollar bills. After silver there's a price jump up to gold pieces which worth about a hundred dollars.

The coins are round. Coppers are quite small, about an inch in diameter with a hold punched through the middle. Silver pieces are larger, about an inch and a half in diameter. Gold pieces are about two inches in diameter.

The coppers have holes because a long time ago a past Salzaar needed money-and fast. So he ordered that all the copper coins have a hole in the middle and the extra copper go to making coins for himself. This plan failed of course, but then people realized that they could string the copper coins to make strings of different amounts, which was faster than carrying them loose and that having holes in the middle made their purses a lot lighter...so they didn't mind so much once the market balanced itself out.