I have mentioned in a few threads, both here and on ASB, that I'm enamored by the reversed-continents map, based on an XKCD strip. I am trying to run an RPG set in that world in the Age of Sail; if I choose to run it here, I will post more details in Shared Worlds (and if I choose not to, I'll try to post game logs either there or on ASB).
At any rate, to be able to describe the places that sailors from Europe, Japan, and Malaya would encounter on their way to China, I need to come up with plausible civilizations in Siberia, centered on the Ob, Yenisei, and Lena. I'd like to not invent things from scratch, but to as far as possible base them on OTL's indigenous ethnic groups of that area, changing only those features that are clearly based on climate or population density. If you know anything about these groups, especially their lifestyle and culture before the Early Modern Russian expansion to the Pacific, then I'll be grateful for any information.
I am specifically interested in the Nenets, the Evenks, the Evens, the Khanty, the Mansi, the Yakuts, the Tatars, the Komi, and the Chukchi. But if you know something about other groups indigenous to Siberia (or the Urals, or the Russian Far East) that's not in their Wikipedia articles, I'm still interested.
At any rate, to be able to describe the places that sailors from Europe, Japan, and Malaya would encounter on their way to China, I need to come up with plausible civilizations in Siberia, centered on the Ob, Yenisei, and Lena. I'd like to not invent things from scratch, but to as far as possible base them on OTL's indigenous ethnic groups of that area, changing only those features that are clearly based on climate or population density. If you know anything about these groups, especially their lifestyle and culture before the Early Modern Russian expansion to the Pacific, then I'll be grateful for any information.
I am specifically interested in the Nenets, the Evenks, the Evens, the Khanty, the Mansi, the Yakuts, the Tatars, the Komi, and the Chukchi. But if you know something about other groups indigenous to Siberia (or the Urals, or the Russian Far East) that's not in their Wikipedia articles, I'm still interested.