Teres

Given how frightingly easy it is to disappear in a forest, the people of Smyrton aren't too far off.

SCSF: Indeed! And in their case, it would be even likelier, given how little they know about the forest.

... Where is the undergrowth? The mystery vines haven't been poisoned off, so it's not like the trees are suppressing them, so there ought to be a lot of it. Okay, yes, the Avar could be keepig it down with controlled burns, but you'd think that would come up, no?

[...]

Wait, so there's undergrowth now?

There is, but apparently no "high" undergrowth, which does not seem wholly natural to me. And yes, I would think this should have come up during the conversation, but Douglass is not good at all at including pertinent information.

Yes, exactly! The insistence that the plains are "lifeless" is easily the silliest thing so far.

If Grindle is Shra's father and Raum's brother wouldn't that make Raum and Shra uncle and niece?

Yes, she would be. That is probably due to me being an ESL. Given that, I will change it right now.

For that matter, why are you more worried about the break then the deep puncture wounds?

I guess that the cut on his neck is not very deep... but if she can know this, she can tell Grindle to put something on it to help stop the bleeding (and Barsarbe would know what the best option is), or tell Barsarbe to go ahead to keep an eye on Raum, since she is the doctor. Seriously, why is she staying behind? What if Raum suddenly falls unconscious or something?

Okay, is it just me or do the Avar have wildly different names from each other? I swear, it sounds like they have at least two totally separate naming systems!

Indeed! It cannot even be different on a family basis, either.

... Uh, how many Avar men die off for this to work? Assuming they have give birth to equal numbers of girls and boys, they don't have enough women for every man to have multiple wives. So either not all men marry and have kids - unlikely - or something causes them to die off before they can get married. (And I'm not thrilled with the lack of space for either sex to be Just Not Interested.)

I guess it might still be the former, but I simply do not know enough to say for sure now. Maybe only the clan heads are allowed to marry? That might work, but this explanation is simply not enough.

It's not dangerous for an seventeen to nineteen year old to get pregnant, my issue is that they seem to have a 'quiverfull' mindset which suggests very bad things about their birth spacing and allowances for the mother's health. (And given that most women are fertile well into their thirties, I do have to wonder why Fleat stopped having kids.)

Presumably because Bradley was of the impression that fertility stops after twenty-five and Douglass transplanted that? It does make them look quite silly for risking the health of the mother by having their children as soon as possible. (And having their children over a longer period might mean more children, which could also help fix the "too little Banes" problem.)