Transcript of Interview with Sitra, Thief-Queen of the Northern Essakyar Dockland.
'Tell us about your history'
I'm going to assume you mean the islands, but as for what I can say, as long as the islands have been here, there were smugglers, raiders, maybe the occasional cheese pioneer. Sure they probably came from somewhere, but that's for Grjana (mainlanders) to measure. Nobody here knows history longer than a debt.
'So do you sit on a council? Serve a ruler?'
A leader? No. We don't have one of those; well, not as such. It could be you, if you wanted. Settle a little bit of land, buy up a street, suddenly that's your little kingdom. Maybe one guy gets enough to buy up a whole city one day, never sells it? Doesn't happen here. Darjan got close once, had most of Sarnyla in pocket, but near the end even he couldn't pay his guards more than it would be worth to kill him and take it all themselves. Of course none of them had the strength of will to hold it, and it all just worked down from there. Now nobody dares raise their claim too high. It's the little trees which miss the cutter.
'You're on the port right; What does Sarnyla export?'
Simple answer: not much. Same for imports. Wenkyar and the cavalry have a good hold on the beasts of the Nahujana, and the lowlands have been tamed to the plow, but the real jewel of Suryaulan production is mystery. Truth is, we could probably map the Gruwaer if we wanted, or scale the cliffs even of Krenglan, but it's those empty spaces calling to some inner fancy which brings travellers, their coins and their wares to our people.
'And you're not a part of Nahadua? Not involved in the cheese wars at all?'
Pah. Like we need their 'Peace of cheese'. On such an intrinsically anarchic, mysterious and wild land, there's lots of militarily inclined folk, adventurers, mercenaries, guilds. All the kings of the kyar want to keep their independence, thank-you very much, and are very willing to fight to do so. The only reason we're not recorded as a part of the cheese wars is that There's no way anyone could make us, as a nation, fight, in any direction. There simply isn't enough of 'us' as a concept in these islands to try. If you looked, though, we're probably there at the key moments. Such a competetive environment breeds fighters, and somebody else's war might seem like a holiday.
'What would have us publish?'
So come, noble traveller, to this ancient land, small but mighty. Climb the soaring peaks of the Nahusar Range, traverse the endless jungles of the Gruwaer and make your claim in the land where anyone can be King. Or Emperor. Or 'insert sovereign title here'.

Was spending too long obsessing, so I decided to just get it out there, not least for J.Ed's benefit.
Got the compass and title of the map done, and most names on, just got to get scale (and maybe that last paragraph) on before I start on irreversible stuff