The Land itself
The Isle of Dra-Makra is the collective name of the island of Dra-Makra as well as the surrounding waters and minor islands of the Great Salt Lake. Often shrouded in mists and covered in swampland the island itself is spotted with a number of minor fishing hamlets and swamp settlements, with the only major towns being the port towns of Tushina on the north western coast and the island's namesake Dra-Makra on the south eastern coast.
To outsiders, three major facts are known about Dra-Makra and the people who live there. The first is that the residents of the island many just be some of the greatest sailors and fishers in the world, somehow able to sail the dangerous waters of the Great Salt Lake safely while obtaining massive catches of fish that fishermen of other kingdoms that share a shore of the Lake simply cannot match. The second is that due to the strange currents and tides of the Lake, all ships that sink in the Great Salt Lake tend to wash ashore on either the Island of Dra-Makra itself or along a number of shallow sandbars and minor islands that are easily accessible to those who live there, allowing the islanders to have very lucrative salvage operations that give them access to wealth and trade goods they normally wouldn't process.
The third is that all attempts by foreign powers to lay claim to the island and the waters around it have ended in mysterious, ominous disaster. While the human population of Dra-Makra is generally fairly private and proud in their personal affairs, they are generally fairly friendly to outsiders and tend to accept any kingdom that invades them as their ruler without a fight and often prove to be ideal subjects who quietly work hard, pay whatever taxes or tribute is demanded from them and are generally welcoming towards priests and missionaries that arrive to try and win them over to their respective faiths.
Despite this, things always seem to go horribly wrong fairly quickly for those occupying the island. A variety of strange illnesses tend to sweep through the ranks of the invaders regardless of social standing, only abating if the victim leaves the island to return to their original kingdom or generally dying from the illness. The generally dangerously indifferent waters of the Great Salt Lake seem to turn outright malevolently hostile to any ship belonging to the occupying kingdom, resulting in many ships being caught and sunk in a variety of freak storms or tragic accidents. Nearly all attempts to send taxes back to the home kingdom fail with the wrecks of the ships carrying the cargo generally washing back ashore on Dra-Makra, often resulting in the governor or overseer of the occupation having to try and awkwardly explain to the powers that be that they are gathering the requested taxes but are just unable to get them back home safely.
This state of affairs will normally continue until the cost of trying to hold onto Dra-Makra simply outweighs any benefit of actually holding the seemingly cursed patch of swampy rock, generally abandoning it back to the locals peacefully and leaving with their tails between their legs and just trying to forget about the whole damn mess ever happened. While the Isle of Dra-Makra has never gone to war, more then one kingdom began its decline due to attempting to claim the island for themselves and losing so many resources and people in the attempt that they are ill equipped to handle further crisis or invasions.
Government
The island doesn't have what many most peoples would consider a ruler; Instead most administrative duties and decisions are made by the mayors of Tushina and Dra-Makra, each holding sway over their respective half of the island and working together for the benefit of all alongside their respective councils. The position of mayor of each respective port town is decided by a gathering of representatives from all the swamp hamlets and fishing villages within the sway of the port town in question, the representatives discussing and debating among themselves for a time whom would be best suited to take over the duties of mayor and when a decision is reached, the new mayor is elected and will remain in that position until they either die, grow unable to perform their duties and willfully step down or are deemed unfit to continue holding office and are... requested to step down.
Occasionally an official looking report and a ship baring some sort of good such as fish or treasure that has washed ashore is sent towards one of the various kingdoms that 'owns' Dra-Makra in the way of taxation, but for the most part they are simply left to their own devices.
Culture
Due to centuries of trading with/being under control of the various kingdoms that have risen and fallen along the shores of the Great Salt Lake, the people who live in Dra-Makra and Tushina understand a variety of languages that allow them to communicate with those that come to trade with them. The fluency of which these languages are known and understood by the population starts to degrade the further away from the two major ports, where the local tongue of Makrina tends to hold sway. That isn't to say that those who live in the two port towns don't speak Makrina, but they prefer to use other languages to do business with outsiders.
An interesting quirk of the people of Dra-Makra is their refusal to write Makrina down on paper or leather. Whenever they have to write using their native tongue, they will use clay or stone tablets. This is further considered weird due to the fact that they are more than willing to write on paper or leather for other languages, but still refuse to do the same with their own. They will never explain to outsiders as to why they do this.
The Dra-Makra economy seems to be primarily based on fishing, salvaging the wrecks that wash ashore and the occasional hunter or herbalist from the swamps that comes into town to trade what they have managed to locate that season. While objects like gold and other treasures are saved for dealings with outsiders, among themselves the people of Dra-Makra seem to favor the cowrie shell as the basis of their currency with each other; They're durable, they're impossible to counterfeit and they are rare enough that inflation isn't a concern. Since other kingdoms don't really want them in the form of tax or tribute, the local economy tends to survive 'tax season' rather easily.
Religion
Religious wise, the people of Dra-Makra don't seem to have temples or churches of their own. They do maintain some shrines dedicated to the ocean, but these are generally personally made by individuals or families rather then as a communal effort. There is evidence of
other faiths that have tried to establish churches and chapels in the past, centuries of attempts to convert the local population to the cause of one god or another. Such buildings have either been re-purposed or torn down for resources after the kingdom that tried to push their religion had abandoned the area and the missionaries and priests had either left, passed away or died from one of the various illnesses that seem to plague all outsiders who intend to dominate the island.
There do not appear to be mages among the local populations; No Dra-Makra mage has ever been recorded in history, which is considered a side effect of the fact that they do not seem to have a god of their own, nor really care about the deities of others.
Politics
No one is actually sure who owns Dra-Makra at this point. Because of the various kingdoms that have laid claim to it over the centuries before withdrawing resources and abandoning the place to its own devices, at least three current kingdoms claim to own the island even if they don't actively have a presence there. Despite the tactical and strategic value that owning the island would give to controlling trade on the Great Salt Lake and increasing ones sphere of influence in the area, for the most part it is ignored by its supposed owners due to the general agreement that its not worth the effort to try and hold a plague ridden, storm prone cursed piece of swampy rock inhabited largely by inbred weirdos outside of the two major ports.
Occasionally an attempt is made to turn the island into a tactical naval base/trade hub every three or four decades or so, when the memories of the last attempt have faded into myth and superstitious stories. Outside of these often doomed attempts, Dra-Makra seems to be little more then a backwater that no one really cares about that ships occasionally stop at for shelter from the common storms of the Great Salt Lake and to resupply on fresh provisions.
The Storm of the Disappearing Hobbit
Several generations before the modern day, several kingdoms around the Great Salt Lake banded together against a common thorn in all of their sides; That of the hobbit. Small, disgusting creatures that drained more from the food stories of a kingdom then most famines while offering little in return, a number of kingdoms at the time decided to rid themselves of the humanoid vermin in their midst and made the decision to 'relocate' them to the island of Dra-Makra with the hopes that if they didn't just all starve to death, they wouldn't need to think about them anymore.
The locals didn't take kindly to boat after boat of hobbits being dumped on their island who didn't really do anything expect eat all their food and steal everything that wasn't nailed down. This situation came to ahead in what historians have labeled the 'Storm of the Disappearing Hobbit': A series of massive storms consumed the Great Salt Lake and lasted for almost a week, completely stopping all water craft from sailing, destroying countless ships and killing many poor souls that were caught in the opening days of the storm.
When the storms finally subsided and water travel was possible once again, there were no longer any hobbits on Dra-Makra. There wasn't even any evidence that the hobbits had ever been there, all the makeshift shanties and shelters missing alongside their builders. The locals said nothing about what had transpired during the week long storm or why the hobbits were no longer there; The powers that be at the time didn't really push that hard either and just considered the whole thing a job well done, but the question still remains unanswered.
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