Serienes

Serienes denotes the ancient people and their culture that inhabited the Serien Highlands, a highland region in the central part of the fictional continent of Ellara. The highlands feature terraced valleys, pine forests, and a network of upland rivers. The Serienes built urban centers and rural settlements from the late Bronze Age onward, leaving inscriptions, monuments, and pottery that inform scholars about their society.

Geography shaped Serienes politics. Major settlements clustered around hillforts and ceremonial sites, with Valen-Dor and Mirel-Ka among the largest. Governance combined councils of elders and craft guild representatives, while temple authorities directed religious life and ritual calendars.

Language and writing: Serienic, an isolated branch of the wider Seric family, is known from inscriptions on stone and metal. Texts depict a polytheistic religion with sun, water, and harvest deities and offer information on calendars, rites, and civic administration.

Society and economy: The Serienes were predominantly agrarian, cultivating barley, millet, and legumes, and they practiced metalworking, pottery, and textile production. Trade connected highland producers with coastal centers via caravan routes and river networks, exchanging metals, ceramics, and agricultural goods for dyes and luxury wares.

Archaeology and legacy: Excavations at Valen-Dor Temple Complex and Mirel-Ka Citadel have revealed monumental staircases, terraced platforms, kilns, and workshops. Chronologies place the rise around a millennium before the common era and a decline several centuries later, with material influence seen in later Ellaran cultures.

See also: Serien language; Ellaran archaeology. Modern scholarship treats the Serienes as an important source for understanding highland exchange networks and religious practice in Ellara.