World-building: Grassland: a.k.a. prairies, savannahs, steppe, veld, & pampa

Grasslands like lakes and rivers can be inside other biomes, and create ecological crossovers. Other biomes have crossovers but not as commonly as grasslands, rivers, and lakes. They can exist inside temperate forests, in deserts, around lakes or rivers, near shorelines, and they can be vast enough to exist on their own as well. Therefore for the sake of world building we will use them as a vast prairie or grassland with only an influence of water because it is needed for survival.
*note on using grasslands in amidst other biomes. They may have a small grouping among a forest, rivers and lakes are found frequently in combination with grasslands. The surrounding biome and its ecology will influence how a group will interact with the grassland as it would with lakes and rivers. When trying to survive the life-form will use everything at its disposal. Nature doesn’t have boundaries unless they are physical. They won’t stay out of a place unless there is an ecological reason. Think about the mouse that comes into your house, to the mouse it’s just part of the woods. It doesn’t care that it’s yours. These are human concepts. Ecology doesn’t acknowledge these higher human concepts because it doesn’t care. Territory is established differently, a border is a line on a map.
Economics: In a grassland hunter gatherer or agrigarian culture would thrive. Agrigarian cultures would also thrive because of the abundant sunshine,
Provided they had a source of water. Agrigarian might be a hub for trade for surrounding hunter-gatherers, and vice versa. Hunter-gatherer groups may also
trade amongst themselves. These groups are not constant movers, and most will have places that they migrate to annually or seasonally because of food and water sources. Surrounding groups will know that the area is theirs and know where to find them approximately.
Language: Each group would tend to keep a language as theirs. Language is a huge part of a group’s identity. However, those members who were constant traders with other groups would be bi or tri-lingual. These people would be extremely useful. Historically in our own world grassland hunter-gatherers do not have a written component to the language, and they pass their traditions down orally. Agrigarian grasslanders may have a written tradition, but most likely came from oral tradition if their ancestors were hunter gatherers in the grassland. They may not take to written language for everything. Particularly that thing held dear or sacred.
Kinship and descent: With roving groups there is only some opportunity to marry outside the group. There must be contact with others for this to happen, and some groups may have laws concerning who may marry outside the group. For instance only daughters may be able to marry outside the group. The restriction could be that whoever is the inheritor of the line may not be able to marry outside and live outside the group. Marriage of an outsider would be permissible, but they may have to live with the group so the line of heirs doesn’t leave the original groups and take the wealth with them.
Leadership & stratification: The leadership of such groups is usually elected in some manner by deed, and or could be by age. Then often times there is a larger governing body that is used for crisis, and/or as a way to hold a larger groups that is broken into smaller groups together such as a clan with family lines broken over a large geographical area.
Religion & magick: Religion of the grasslands would depend on the surrounding biome. If the grassland is in a cold area that would affect it just as well as if it’s in a constantly warm area. The agrigarian nature of groups would create a new set of issues for religion as well as possibly an agrigarian form of magic that works with harvests and weather. A hunter-gatherer group may see things differently. They may have god for different issues, or some of the same. In environments like this magickal components are often nature based.
World-building in Grasslands: A culture from this type of ecology may be hunter gatherer and agrigarian. In the spring they migrate to an area the closer to a water source to water the crops with, and in the winter they move further inland where the hunting is better, and more shelter is available from more diverse terrain. They would trade with other groups, in the resources abundant to them, but most likely within a barter system. Likely resources may include furs, meat, or migrating livestock.
Religious practitioners may be a specialized grouped with a linage definition that is not by blood buy by spirit. Therefore practitioners may be male or female. This aspect of the specialists would accommodate for the balance demand of nature. Pat lives would be within the supernatural possibilities of the religion. Marriage of the body and spirit would have a whole new seriousness. This would make kinship extremely important. Matrilineal descent is more likely than patrilineal because of the connection to life energy of birth. That fact may also influence the tendency for female shaman. The channeling of spirits would be common place within the spiritual nature of the groups.
The language of the spirits may only be interpretable with a shaman/priest. The groups would have a secular and a sacred language. The secular language would be verbal while the sacred language would be made of pictographs. Pictographs are usually tied to the ecological relationship of the life-forms. Perhaps something of a set of curved lines arranged for different meanings.
Other influences of culture may come from a river or bordering woodland. They may also come from a tundra or taiga if the grassland is based from a steppe. Each type of grassland alters the ideas in a variable way. Grasslands are very susceptible to the ecologies that surround them or that they themselves infiltrate. This gives them a diversity that some ecology does not have.

World Building: Deserts

World Building: Deserts

Kinship & Descent: The matrilineal or patrilineal organization of descent would go either way. Most likely it would probably be patrilineal. A matrilineal pattern for descent would be less feasible because of the patrilineal tendency of organization. This creates a need to track relationships based upon male lineage rather than female because of the higher worth of males to females. Males are the heads of the communities, and they are less likely to be sent out or willing to go to a foreign group of people to marry. Marriage would definitely be dependent on the specific culture that was within the desert. There could be multiple types of cultures within the desert because of variable types of desert areas. Groups that reside in an oasis or delta area may be more inclined to have arranged marriages than the roaming tribes or clans. Those living in the desert that isn’t an oasis may be either way. Those with cities within the desert that depend on a well system may also be more inclined to arrange marriage based on social class/ caste.
The orientation of one’s’ self in relationship to the importance of family has always culturally been one of great importance in the desert. The desert is a very dependent on multiple people working together to survive. Survival in the desert alone is not likely due to environmental stresses. Therefore those that are likely to be the most reliable are those of blood or marital relation.
Religion & Magick: The harshness of an environment will have a great deal of affect on the degree of belief in the supernatural. Technology creates a gap of understanding between what is perceived as supernatural (sacred) and natural (profane). The higher the level of technology the more things appear as explainable through science. Therefore, a belief in the supernatural is less likely to happen in an advanced society and it likely to be refined. If it does exist there is most definitely a substantial reason based in evidence or faith. Therefore, in a biome like a desert belief in the supernatural is more likely to occur with the absence of technology.
Magick is something that is dependent on the belief of the supernatural in some form, or is a belief or the science of magick. Therefore the presence of magick is not dependent upon the presence of strong belief in the supernatural. Rather it is dependent upon the belief in magick itself.
In an environment where life or death is mostly and seemingly out of the hands of the life forms inside of it; a culture that has a low level of technology would therefore have a greater belief in the supernatural, and this would create a larger group within the culture where the supernatural was a large part of their everyday life.
Organization & Stratification: This is usually connected to the kinship and descent system of the group in question. This can be a strict or an unrestricted hierarchy of power. Where power resides will almost always take the same priority as the pattern of descent. However, the ability to change one’s station in life may most definitely not depend upon the priority of the descent of the organization. Whichever type of organization the culture takes whether it is matriarchal, patriarchal, or some kind of “…cracy”; i.e. democracy, mageocracy, is going to correlate to the stratification. Historically the desert tends to have a very strict stratification system. This is due to the harshness of the environment. People of power tend to use the environment to enforce behavior.

Economics: Value in the desert would very much be defined by need. Not just the need of the person looking for goods but also what they were trading in reference to what they were getting. Therefore, a bartering system is more likely to come out of a desert culture than a monetary exchange system. An oasis may create the potential for a small monetary exchange system. However it would almost defiantly be linked to the caste system of culture using it. Goods and services would have priority in a culture where pomp and circumstance may not have a place if the group in question is nomadic. If the group in question isn’t nomadic and they have for instance taken residence in an oasis or cave system where an artesian spring resides. Then goods and services held in demand would definitely alter due to the physical stability of the group, and the lessened need for ease of transportation of personal possession. Ease of transportation of personal possession in a place where transporting large quantities of physical goods could place undue risk to the group’s survival. This would be in reference to the limited supply of water and food for beasts of burden and the people populating the group. Lack of desire to risk the group may curb the demand for unnecessary goods but possibly not services. Especially those services which do not require physical labor to transport the goods acquired.
Language: The language of the desert may change from group to group depending on the isolated conditions. Stability of a group could also bring varying degrees of changes due to influence of nomadic tribes coming and going. Influence can change language by leaving behind bits and pieces of a nomad’s; nomad: in this instance being used in reference to someone who doesn’t reside in the same immediate geographic area, language influencing the language of the stable group. There may also be a group of nomads that share the same language or a common language developed and used by the nomadic for trade purposes. This common trade language may also extend into stable cities.
World building in the Desert: People of the desert that are not attached to an oasis would value herd animals as a commodity. Wood would also be valuable, but the most valuable thing would be water, water equals life. Perhaps they have a special type of horse that lives in their world. The horse can go for weeks without water, and stores water in an internal layer between the muscle and the skin. So these creatures are essential to their survival outside the oasis. They are a band of hunter gatherers that Believe that to open their mouths uncovered invites demons to posses them. In fact it is so ingrained in their culture that even in death these horses serve them.
The horses when they do die are taken and eaten in ceremonial rituals to absorb their surviving powers. They make magic charms from bones and hair. Their skins are used as blankets to keep evil away and fertility. Mane hare is used to weave the most desired facial covers.
Almost all tribes are patriarchies, and all daughters are married off for the best match to create alliances or to settle debts. They cannot own more property than they can carry themselves. There for women have come up with very creative carrying devices for their belongings, and their clothing is full of pockets.
Religious specialists are hereditary by the paternal grandfather. It is passed to the second grandson of the first son. Thereby insuring that the first sons are always available for marriage and the family line is insured continuation. So they only come along every other generation. These males are taught desert magick from the time that they can speak, and cease to live with their mothers at this point. They learn the art of breeding horses, are considered the wise men of the group, and are the negotiators for any trade involving beasts with another clan or tribe. There may be many of these specialist and they have their own ranking system within their subculture.
The economics of trade within the desert people are based on need. Everything is completely subjective to the value of the people making the trade. Monetary systems are of no use to them, but they do keep a certain amount that is from the oasis kingdoms. Each tribe has crafts or services that are for sale. There are competing clans for the same trades or services. Once a year there is a festival at the great oasis, all major trade and competitions for service to determine who is believed to be the best for the year is decided here.
Languages of these tribes are from three language families. There is the Language of the oasis, the language of the horse, and the language of sand. Normally there are many people of one tribe that speak two languages. Trade necessitates a common language be found. There is a dialect of the language of sane that is ancient that serves and the holy and magical language.

Basic Anthropology

BASIC ANTHROPOLOGY
Religion:
Religion: a set of rituals rationalized by myth which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of preventing/achieving transformations of state in people and nature. (Haviland, 363)
Reasons for religion:
1. Reduces anxiety (i.e.: Prayer in any religion brings comfort)
2. Provides comfort (i.e.: Promise of the afterlife)
3. Defines behavior (i.e.: Rule of 3 x3)
4. Defines the sacred vs. the profane
5. Sanctions societal behavior (i.e.: Ten Commandments)
6. Punishes detrimental; behavior (i.e.: Belief in Karma)
7. Satisfies the psychological need for power (i.e.: “For the glory of God”)


General Anthopological Consistancies:
1. Most Cultures feel a natural affinity between themselves and the land. (Lee, Magick , Myth & Religion)
2. Almost all cultures have a entity they refer to as a supreme being (Haviland, 363)
3. All cultures have name for the “power” of the supernatural. Such as … (Lee, Magick, Myth & Religion)
4. The equality of men and women within a culture is conversely related to the sex of the deity they worship (Haviland, 363).
5. Man as a creature must define its role within nature (Lee, Magick, Myth & Religion)
6. Religion is always present in man’s view of his place in the universe, in his relatedness to Man and non-human nature. (Lee , Magick, Myth, & Religion)
Purpose of Myth: (Malinowski, 1931, pp 640-1)
-to convey information vital to survival
IE: Prometheus and bringing fire to man.
-a model for behavior that also explains the origins of the world, life on earth, death, and /or the existence of all things in human material existence.
IE: Ten Commandments or Aesop’s fables.
-to strengthen traditions and endow them with greater prestige by tracing things back to higher supernatural beings. (Lewis, 31, Magick, Myth, & Religion)
IE: people in ancient Greece claiming relation to ancient heroes of Greek myth such as Theseus or Herackles.
** Myths are considered within a culture (Origin of the myth), as a truthful account of the past. (Lewis, 32, Magick, Myth & Religion) (Malinowski, 1931, 640-1)


Functions of the Gods:
1. To explain earthly occurrences.
IE: Why nature works, Zeus controls the storms or thunder is angels bowling in heaven.
2. To explain the emotions or desires of humanity ( love , anger)
IE: Aphrodite Greek goddess of love, Bridget goddess of Justice
3. To give comfort to humanity.
IE: Opportunity for eternal life in the afterlife.


Cultural ecology: (according to Julian Steward) the interaction between specific cultures and their environment. (Haviland, 158)
IE: The Mayans worshipping the sun god and the rain god due to agrigarian culture. Cultural Core: The idea that the features of a culture are related to how the culture makes it’s living.
IE: Agrigarian level of culture will worship the sun, a culture that lives off fish will have a water deity prominent within their pantheon.


LANGUAGE:
3 Parts
1. Verbal Component 2.Physical Language: Body language
3. Written component: A. Script (Arabic Letters) B. Pictograph (IE: Egyptian Hieroglyphs & Japanese)


What creates a language boundary?
1. Geography: isolation can create two dialects that are so different that people have a hard time understanding. It can also make it so that the speakers of the language never encounter each other to attempt to understand the foreign language.
2. Physical limitations: Moreover often seen in fantastical environments, but also seen in real life, such as the deaf: sign language. Is there a physical difference that prevents or changes communication between two entities?


How and what causes Language to change:
1. Grammar and or vocabulary (aka: the Vernacular) can change based on stresses within a culture such as generational gap, introduction of new technology, or contact with other cultures.
2. Phonetics is the sounds present within the physical aspect of speaking and can be unique to a language.
3. Pronunciation can also change based on contact with outside sources, physical changes within a species, and can be influenced by vernacular speech.
4. Syntax is how the words are put together, and is usually related directly to the usage of grammar.

**Observations:
-Over time language will change. Languages that are isolated are less likely to change as quickly.
-Languages that are sacred are less likely to change than ones that are profane.
-New words will find their way into languages, via technology, interaction with other cultures, slang, and many other ways. Economics : Economics can make or break a civilization. Type of Trade 1.Trade and Barter 2. Silent Trade 3.Market/ Commercial
Conspicuous Consumption: The idea of displaying wealth for social prestige. (Havilland, 201)
Leveling Mechanism: A societal obligation to redistribute personal wealth or goods so that no one person has more than any other. (Havilland, 195)
Types of Labor: (Havilland, 188-193)
1. Age division: to divide labor among a community of people by biological age.
2. Sexual division: to divide the labor of a community or household by biological sex of the workers.
3. Craft Specialization: to divide work in a community by the knowledge of the job.
4. Co-operation: This is found in all levels of culture, and the entire community takes part in the work. Organization & Leadership
Organization: the way a group works together and relates to itself.
These are some of the things that are detailed under this part of culture:
1. Political structure (Democracy, Monarchy, etc)
2. Religious structure (Theocracy inside or outside religion)
3. Economic structure
4. Ethnic descent
5. Species descent *(fantasy based concept)


Types of political organization: (Havilland, 329-339)
1. Band: a group of households that come together though need or want.
2. Tribe: a group of independent communities brought together by common language & culture to occupy a specific region, integrated by a unifying factor.
3. Chiefdom: a regional polity where two or more local groups are organized under a single individual. This hierarch sits above all other groups’ hierarchy.
4. State: a centralized power or political system with the power to coerce.
5. Nation: a group of people that are bound together by language, ancestry, history, society, ideology, territory, and/ or religion.
· Gender can determine leadership within the cultural stratification.
· Age and sex can also force organization within the above stratifications
· Political unions can also come about through lineage.


Leadership: How is the structure of the culture led by the authority figures within the structure?
Caste System: A social system that stratifies a group based on what social class you are born into is the social class you cannot rise above without the help of the caste above you.
Egalitarian System: All individuals are equal and wealth and power are distributed equally among the community.
*Types of leadership are often mimicked by types of Organization.
*Function of Law (according to anthropology): To define, regulate and punish crimes.
Stratified: has ranked classes and these people are together, lead and maintained by members of the group. (generally considered voluntary)
Involuntary: when a group is dictated by a circumstance that its members cannot alter.
IE: race, sex, age, heredity, innate magical ability (perceived or actual)
Kinship & Descent
Descent: how you track your blood relation through generations.
Lineage: tracing of the common ancestor. (Havilland, 286)
Common Types: (Havilland, 274-284)
1. Unilineal: exclusive descent via father or mother.
2. Matrilineal: exclusive descent via mother
3. Patrilineal: exclusive descent via father
4. Double descent: can claim descent from either depending on the reason.
5. Ambilineal: chance of descent via father, mother, or both


Totemism: the belief that people are descended from plants, animals, or natural objects by virtue of descent from common ancestral spirits (Haviland, 287) Teknonymous: referring to a person by their relation of kin, using the type of relation as part of their proper name. IE: son/daughter of…, sister/brother of… etc.

Basic terms: (not covered above that might be useful) Ethnocentric: this culture’s way is the only way, all other ways of the aspect of the culture they have encountered are wrong. (IE: The European explorer’s view towards less technologically advanced groups during the exploration period, such as Hernando Cortez and the Aztecs 1520 CE) Cultural Evolution: the development of similar adaptations to similar environmental conditions by peoples whose ancestral cultures were quite different. (Haviland, 154) (IE: archery in China, England, North America) Acculturation: when two or more cultures interact and one of the cultures usually the weaker one picks up traits of the other culture. (Haviland, 421) (Romans were known for this, both directions) Carrying capacity: the number of people that can be supported by the available resources at a given level of technology (Haviland, 162) (Carrying Capacity according to Webster’s 2001: The maximum number of species that can be supported in any given environment.)


Leadership/ Organization can affect:
1. Language: the spoken language of the aristocracy becomes the language to speak to gain social prestige (IE: French in England after William of Normandy’s Invasion 1066CE)
2. Religion: how the religion is organized, and what the religion’s power is within the
culture.
3. Economics: governmental bodies affect laws and tax which affects economics.
4. Kinship: entire types of organization are centered around kinship, and
marriage in a caste system becomes essential to changing your place within the
organizational system of the caste system.

Economics can affect
1. Religion: tithing’s, and offerings to the gods affect the households money and
there by affect the spending money of the household during certain times.
Holidays can also increase the amount of spending for goods for the holidays.
2. Language: language can be affect by commercialization of words or phrases.
Poverty breeds illiteracy.
3. Kinship: marriage for money has always been on the minds of parents and
brides. The future of the family can be secured by marriage to wealth, and
wealth can also get marriage via dowry or bride wealth.

Kinship Affects:
1. Language: teknonymous naming, the reference of someone by their relation rather
than their name. This is usually essential to identification within a culture.
2. Economics : Families often are involved as a whole within a trade, and they have
done it for generations. If the culture states only certain people can inherit
then if those family members are unavailable the business will die, and the
culture can be affected.
3. Organization: people naturally congregate in the family unit first, then by
another means of organizational system that may/ may not involve futher family
congregation past the nuclear family.

Language affects:
1. Economics: language barriers can damage trade, or can create it by presence
or lack of a common tongue.
2. Organization: people will tend to congregate with people that speak the same
language.

Religion Affects:
1. Language: sacred languages that are only used by religious specialists,
banned words or phrases.
2. Kinship: who you can and can’t marry, and rules of marriage.
3. Economics: holidays that increase market activity, banned goods, sacred goods.
4. Organization: the religion has to be organized somehow, and religion can be a
form of government.

Dealing with the Dead
1. Inhumation: aka burial of some kind.
2. Exposure: the remains are left to the natural elements to decompose. Some ways of doing this involve hanging the dead, laid on the ground, and all this involves being exposed to the weather. 3. Cremation: the process of burning physical remains to ash 4. Mummification: embalming or drying a corpse to preserve it. 5. Cannibalism: ritualistic consumption of human flesh or remains by a human being.

Bibliography:
Haviland, William.1996. Cultural Anthropology: Eight Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace Publishing.
Lehman, Arthur &Myers, James.1997.Magic, Witchcraft, & Religion: Fourth Edition. Mt. View ,CA: Mayfield Publishing.

Other sources or ideas that might be useful:
The technology continuum by Anthony Wallace


www.anthropology.org
American Anthropology Association http://www.aaanet.org/ http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm
European Anthropology: http://www.h-net.org/~sae/sae/index.html
Perseus Dictionary: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu

Information gathered by:
Sabrina J. Klein 2007

Tundra


The tundra is no real place for anyone to live for long period of time without the proper materials. The sun can disappear for months or shine constantly for the same time periods. The solar winds of the sub beat upon the skies to create paintings of light that to lower technologies may seem to be the magic of the heavens. This is a very cold, cold place. When world-building in the tundra this is one ecology where knowing the specifics is very important. For every one degree closer to the equator the timberline will raise 360 feet. It is there for possible to have tundra on the equator but the mountain would have to be extremely high. Vegetation is minimal and the fauna not as diverse as any other ecology. Tundra flora grows very low to the ground due to wind and other restrictive elements.
Economics: Economics of a culture living in tundra would be one trade system. Mining might be an option; usages of the mining tunnels might begin from the expansion of living quarters. Living underground usually has a constant temperature of 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit approximately. If not living in underground environment then hunting for fur would be essential to survival, but would also make an economic basis for trade for goods not obtainable in the tundra.
Language: Language would tend to evolve from the base language brought with them, and/or be part of a larger language group that was spoken by a trading community that hunted over a large area. If they were living in an underground area they may never encounter another language. Their language would remain unchanged with evolution halted or on its own. It may evolve to a point that the parent language may have little or nothing in common with it over many centuries or even as little as decades, usually longer time frames are required to change language that much from the parent vernacular.
Kinship & descent: Kinship in a group such as this would become very important. Small populations would quickly become small because of the universal taboo of incest. Almost all cultures of the world have a taboo against incest. There have been parts of cultures that take part in it, and have paid the price later. Therefore introduction of new bloodlines into the community would be very important. There may be rituals or festivals where groups come together and mass marriage ceremonies are done. This solidifies ties to surrounding communities and serves to keep the genetic pool in a community from getting to small and causing problems.
Organization & leadership: Leadership could be anything. It would most likely depend upon if the group in question was isolated or had contact with others and how much. Isolated groups would lean more toward a highly stratified unity of leadership. While a group with more contacts may be influenced to have leadership ties of some kind with a separate group. The divisions could be matriarchal or patriarchal or a mixture of both.
Religion & Magick: Religion among a people who live in such a desolate place or those who would live underground may be steeped in folklore. A place where winter is long and traps its inhabitants with in the snow is often the place of storytellers. Stories are told often when there is nothing else to do. There are other places which stories are generated and storytellers are an integral part of the culture, but in an ecology where 8 months of the year is outside the growing season fire may be essential to survival along with the hunt. Gods of these things may become so important because the material representation transforms into iconic figures within the mythology of the people. That doesn’t mean those are the only things that may become iconic. The gods’ purpose is to explain things that humanity (and other races) can’t explain such as; emotions, natural occurrences, and other things that are beyond mortal control.
World-building: Hypothetically a culture in this environment would possibly be a culture that lived within cave systems that were scattered throughout the tundra. Hunting on the surface but living where the winter has no or little effect. The group would move between cave systems either via underground passages or between the seasons. The group may have a matriarchal naming system and a patriarchal leadership. Lineage would be tracked through the mother so that her heritage would be clear. That would account for origins of the groups from village to village, so people new whom they were related to.
The god of fire would be very important and considered a good deity while the goddess of snow and ice would be a harsh and unyielding force. The summer and harvest festivals would be times of marriage and celebration. Each time would be an opportunity to rejoice in the fact that they had survived another year, or a good harvest had been secured for the winter months. Storytelling may be the province of a religious specialist or possibly the eldest people of the community. There by giving the elders a sense of purpose and a respect from the younger generation. Elder people in some cultures where survival is difficult sometimes may be regarded as a burden. However, in this case they are given a cultural relevance that is unprecedented for the young. Economic relationships would generate with outsiders more over by chance or habit. Either way very limited. The limited access also means that language would change little from outside influence, and more from internal change.

World-building in Taigas

Taiga

Economy: the economy of the taiga would exist only within the group or groups of an area unless the traders encountered another nomadic group from a climate that was not their own. This climate is very harsh often with an average growing season of 3 months. These areas are often cool with rainfall that doesn’t evaporate. This creates a type of wetland. Trees here grow slowly and are often conifer rather than deciduous. Exports might include furs, but not likely as those would be used by the indigenous peoples. Bone beads might be an export as peoples of this ecology types throw nothing from the hunted kill away. They usually will not kill a young tree. With such a short growing season they are likely to be hunter-gatherers but not nomadic except by season; perhaps not even then, depending upon the availability and the materials used for housing.
Language: The languages would be fairly isolated. Parent language groups might exist but the dialects would evolve on their own; unless groups frequently can into contact with one another.
Social Structure: Leadership of the groups would likely not be in the hands of one individual, but most likely many. Harsh climates tend to produce wither singular leadership with a defined chain of succession or a groups leadership usually consisting of elders or the strongest individuals or both.
Kinship & descent: Kinship in a place like this would be extremely important particularly if the leadership was a hereditary based council of elders. Patriarchal or matriarchal descent patterns would be likely as well as either possibility for naming patters. The nuclear family would be essential to survival and would be held in the highest regard. There may be some care giving system for those nuclear families that have lost the main provider of food. An adoption system that would help the group as a whole survives.
Religion: Animistic cultures would thrive here. Supernatural forces are often used to explain the things with in nature that humankind (or other sentient being) doesn’t understand. It would most likely be safe to say that predators and natural forces would manifest as gods or demons. Some of the most powerful predators would be considered sources of power and deeply respected or feared.
World building: To create in this ecology is a two edged sword. The culture would be steeped in lore and very detailed, but at the same time to an outsider may seem sparse. People here would let nothing go to waste as resources are very limited. There for amenities would not be found as valuable even if they were in a stable living environment such as a permanent structure. Most things of extreme value that may be frivolous would be small even tiny.
Gods and people would be close. Life here is a precarious thing with potential fatality for any moment of stupidity for the one having the stupid moment or those surrounding them. There would be some animals that would become as members of the family; domesticated animals would be cared for with the utmost respect because of their rarity. Parts of nature would hold fearful supernatural entities, yet others would be good helpful. Supernatural forces, each, a reflection of the environment’s inhabitants.
Cold climate would create a reverence for furs, but summer would be fleeting and a thing to be enjoyed. Women of this culture may be just as capable at defending themselves again the natural elements of danger because men may be away for several days at a time on hunting trips to feed the group. They would also be important as the givers of life to the linage of the village. Depending on if the village is matriarchal or patriarchal males or females may take precedence for survival depending on the social structure of the group; which could vary from one small group to the next. Not a universal thing throughout the ecological area. There may even be some ritual surrounding the forced exogamy need to keep bloodlines from becoming to inter-married.

Lakes & Rivers

Economics: The ecology of lakes and rivers does promote trade. The ease of transport along water ways improves the likely hood of travel a great deal. Money systems would develop in cultures that were built up on shores, more often this would happen in lakes. Rivers on the other hand may encourage groups to become nomadic among the river systems. Entire cultures may not follow this model, so it may only be a part of the culture that does.
Language: Language of rivers and lakes would be affected by ecology. River areas are far more than lakes would exhibit an effect on the ecology of the inhabitants both flora and fauna. Rivers tend to have natural geologic boundaries that in a low tech culture could serve to create a language barrier and thereby create a large group of languages or dialects. These dialects have the potential to become isolated over generations of little or no contact with other groups. The language may have the syntax affected in that it may be a slow spoken language with long sounds rather than short sharp ones. The written part would most likely not be pictographic. However the writing would be influenced by the materials at hand to create it. A good example is the papyrus paper of the Nile as opposed to the clay tablets of Sumerian culture.
Kinship & Descent: Stationary residence creates one of two effects. A tight knit community where family is extremely important, or a looser knit group where nuclear family is important and the relationship with extended family is not stressed. The choice of matrilineal or patrilineal could be entirely based on geographic community. Travel between groups may occur therefore differences in viewpoint in descent would occur as communities may be far enough apart.
Leadership & Stratification: Leadership in a culture or grouping of smaller cultures might be formed on several levels. Group coalition in an area where travel between groups is easily achieved might be the most common. Group coalition would be particularly prevalent if the group resides around a lake or group of lakes, and then they may breaks down into smaller groups of clans or tribes. Rivers would make travel a little harder, rivers flow only on direction, making the upriver trip harder. Cultures of a river system may be divided by natural barriers. Rivers, unless they are on floodplains are normally pent up in valleys which over time have been cut through hills or mountains. Natural barriers tend to isolate groups. These natural barriers in turn create smaller groups based on the size of the geographical area in question. Therefore governing systems that apply to smaller groups would best apply here, at least in a low tech culture. In a high tech culture where travel is easier across drastic landscapes the isolation of people is less therefore the idea of small based governments or large based governments would be more flexible. Not to say that just because it’s a low tech culture or group of cultures they are going to be isolated and have a smaller based governmental system… just its more likely. Besides what happens when different small governments meet either conflict or friendship… this still may lead to smaller disagreements.
Religion & Magick: Religion among inland waters would reflect both the ecology surrounding the water as well as the presence of water. It is one of the few ecologies that often blends with another. The significance of the water ways with in the cultures would dictate the significance in the religion.
World-building: In many cultures lakes and rivers hold special supernatural significance. Usually they have connections to the underworld, or to the domain of the gods. Perhaps in this culture they will be cherished as places of purity where none may go whom do not perform cleansing rituals. Some water ways would set aside for religious specialists, yet others would be used for strictly profane practices. Women might be deemed to be unclean if they aren’t married and are of childbearing age and would have to bath here rather than contaminate sacred water with their un-cleanliness. The goddess of water would be a mother goddess to signify the cleanliness of the water. The moon would play a light role as it creates the tide flow, a male god as the character for the moon. In most cultures the moon and the sun are opposite sexes. But perhaps the moon and the sun are brothers in competition for the affection of the water goddess.
Trade would be optimized by the water ways, yet the ecology surrounding the river or lake would also affect economics. Keep that in mind. Rivers are often traveled by many groups which draw languages together, so influence from another culture’s language would be defiantly possible.
Surrounding ecologies would also affect the kinship relationships, and the rivers and lakes would alter how those base ecologies build cultures. Polygamy doesn’t seem likely unless the surround ecology would promote that behavior. If the water ways are taken symbolically into the culture marriage would be extremely important. Rivers running together and lakes as singular bodies, fed by a single tributary or multiple tributaries would affect the rules off marriage where these water ways were considered symbolic of the relationships between the sexes.
If it’s a desert the water ways become essential. Forests with river systems happen frequently, lakes also occur often within woodlands. Wetlands have a symbiotic relationship with lakes and rivers therefore the culture would incorporate them the same way. Rivers found in tundra and taigas are arid climates. Rivers often spring forth from mountain tops where ice melts and flows toward the sea. Lakes in these two areas are cold and freeze over most of the year. Apply the effects of the surrounding ecology to the river and lake systems and then incorporate it into world building cultures accordingly.

Worldbuilding in Wetlands

Wetlands (a.k.a. Swamps, Fens, Marshes, Bogs, & Bayous)

Kinship & Descent: Family life in the wetlands would be one of ever present danger. The swamps are not a safe place to wander. Fauna have an unusual ability to hide and not be seen. Vegetation on all levels here makes it extremely easy for the non-predatory fauna to hide, sometimes next to the predatory flora. This place has enough danger that the plants will eat you too, similarly so does a tropical forest.
Also large civilized populations in this type of ecology would disrupt the environment’s balance in ways that would alter the flora and fauna. People who did live in this ecology would most likely live in smaller groups, non nomadic. Families would be close together, particularly nuclear families. However, they would not be isolated. Matrilineal or patrilineal may reside here. Division of labor would be a pillar of the society, and it would need to be defined. Hunter-gatherer groups would be common because the soil in these areas doesn’t work well for agriculture. Language: Language here would not necessarily be affected by the environment. The more than likely non-isolationist nature of villages would create a stable language group barring no geographical boundaries between dialects. Most things creating true language barriers are geographical. Boundaries can also physically unique to the life forms; such as a wolf communicating with a human in the same language. Though there may be supernatural or magical means that allow for communication. Organization & Stratification: The most common way of organizing a group in this type of ecology would be more finite compared to other ecologies. It may include a council of elders. The oldest people may be revered, the dangers of the wetlands are many and to grow old may indicate wisdom apart from the group. This is the way it is in several ecologies. Usually this is more often the case in correlation with the lower levels of technology. The dangers of wetland don’t come from just the flora or the fauna, but they come from the land itself. Age might very well become a way of marking prestige. Therefore leadership may be based on age, with coming of age rituals becoming very important. Whether it is age or sex that sets up the leadership in a group; caste systems simply don’t seem to be the normal idea for a wetland culture. They could interfere with survival of the group in such a harsh environment, particularly if the swamp (insert random a.k.a. for swamp…) is prone to freezing during the winter months if the latitude or elevation permits. Economics: High trafficked trade routes in a swamp may prove to exist most often inside groups that are within the geographical boundaries. Travel with large amounts of goods for anything other than trade might not be well received unless there is a river or lake system within the swamp making transportation of goods and services less of a hardship and less expensive. Wheeled vehicles that are not of a high enough technological advancement to navigate through unstable ground and through often dense vegetation would not be used to transport goods for trade over long distances. The building of roads in wetlands would, most likely, dictate a higher level of technology than hunter gatherer, or the presence of a previous culture of higher technological advancement. Wheeled vehicles may not be used at all. Animals would more than likely be used over land, or watercrafts on river and lakes present in the area. Canal systems would indicate a large workforce (possible slave labor, forced labor by the hierarchy, and/or the technology to build them with machines. At the very least a canal built without technology would take a long time depending on the distance. Watercrafts may be the mode of transportation if a river or lake system is present, or even if the water table is high enough to create water through most of the area. Religion & Magick: Religion and magick are often related. Religion would most likely be nature based in a low tech culture, and possibly ancestor worship in a high-tech culture. Civilizations in this ecology see too much of natures precariousness within the land itself to not assign it a supernatural anima. Ancestor worship may also take hold in addition to or independently depending on the social stratification. Religion always has the potential for elaborate rituals in whatever technology level that it creates. Where there is an environment that constantly poses a threat to survival via the flora, fauna, geologic features, or weather conditions cultures are more likely to view that gods must be appeased. Such as virgins being thrown into volcanoes to appease the volcano and keep it from erupting… we all know how well that works. The rituals may or may not be deeply rooted within the culture. However influence of another culture especially with a higher technological understanding of the environment may affect these rituals. The question really is how; do the natives react to the assault on their gods. World-building in a Wetland: Isolation with in a wetland environment may be a serious issue affecting all cultures within it. So you may have many smaller groups that have language differences. The language difference because of close proximity may not create a barrier constantly. Some languages would be more common than others. Possibly even a common tongue maybe the vernacular of the majority. Economics in such an environment would prove to be interesting. Trade may use a barter system or a system of hard currency. There probably wouldn’t be market places. The swamp itself would have to be cleared. Natives would know that to do that creates more problems that it is worth. However, it does create a hunter gatherer society. That in turn because wetland is never good farm land means no agrigarian set ups. Farming would be difficult. I would be possible to cultivate an area where a grove of say berry bushes already existed. People may take the other invasive plants from strangling out the flora endangering a food source, but nothing more than that is really possible. Eventually the carrying capacity will cause one of two things to happen. The groups will split on its own to find more sustenance, or the groups will stay cohesive and move to find a lesser populated area where their larger numbers will be more easily supported.
The organization for such a group(s) could vary from one to another or there could be one intermittent council of leadership. Whether that is matriarchal or patriarchal is perhaps influential by several factors…religion, how is kinship defined. Is it matrilineal or patrilineal? This often will help define the power structure of a group. Religion may also play a defining role in the way a group is stratified. Hunter-gatherer groups tend to rely on their faith to fix sickness and to keep the environment at bay. Religion in these environments is often used to explain the unexplained particularly where technology is low. A low tech religion will often anthropormorphize something that poses a great danger; For example the Mayan and the Jaguar, the Hawaiian volcanoes and Pele, and the Greek god Zeus as the entity responsible for storms.
Religious specialists are often also caretakers of the sick. Usually only one sex has connection with the supernatural, but it would be fun if it were both. Defined by ability, or perceived ability by the current religious specialist. If it was what rituals surround this choosing, and when does it happen. Are there portents to its coming? Are there taboos? Magick of these religions is often heavily tied to the lands around it.