#I'd be taking an EASTERN species to the WEST coast!

[crows-and-cookies]

I'm drunk right now and worried about the ethics of having a pet turtle and my friend silenced her notifications on text 12 of a 16 text rant

[hircyon]

what's the average phindian diet like on each continent?

That's a sweeping question so I'm going to go fairly general on this one. It's been sitting in my inbox for a while. To truly answer this, I'd have to map biomes and study how diets change from region to region here, and I don't have the materials prepared for that, so. Cliffs Notes time.

So globally, the Phindian diet relies heavily on insects and grain as their staples. Phindar being a warm, oxygen-rich, jungle planet, insects are prevalent, varied, and easy to raise in bulk. The Southern continent produces the majority of the planet's grain, with their slightly drier and hotter climate that makes field cultivation possible. I feel they would also have a water-reliant grain like rice as well.

The general Phindian diet is protein-heavy. The bulk of this is from insects, but they also farm synapsids similar to dewbacks as meat stock, as well as large predatory birds (think moa) in the far north. Continents with more population on the coasts than the land also have heavy trade in wild fish, but fish farming hasn't proven sustainable to the majority of Phindians. All Phindians have a wide and varied access to fruits and vegetables. Fruit takes the place of refined sugar in most recipes. There are sources of sugar capable of refining--honey and various saps--but fruit still reigns supreme.

The Northern continent has the most outside trade and the most galactically varied diet because of that. There isn't as much farmland in the North, where the primary biome is tropical forest. They have the most insect-heavy diet, regionally, where ground insects will often be more readily available than grain flour. The southern and eastern coast of the North is rich in seafood. The further north you go on this continent, the more you'd be able to find root vegetables. In the far north (around the arctic circle), where trade is very limited and communities are few and far between, the primary diet is root vegetables and those moa-like birds, as well as arctic seafood.

The Western continent is much wetter and hotter, with the planet's equator cutting across the northern coast. It's smaller than the planet's other two main land masses, so the diet here relies on what's locally available in the jungle and ocean. There's so much more seafood available in the West than anywhere else. One of the most prominent clan lines in the west came to power by mastering ocean fishing (a daring feat for a species so poorly built for swimming). There's a lot fruit, leafy vegetables, fish, crustaceans, and amphibians.

The South dominates the trade in farmed grain and meat, and so they're kind of the "breadbasket" of the planet. The typical Southern continent diet uses much more grain and red meat than other continents. Otherwise, it's similar to the North. There's almost no seafood available in the Southern continent except in coastal towns. It never became a common trade, due to the sheer amount of land.

Locally, the highest quality liquor is made in the South.

There is a sub-region in the archipelago that branches off the Northern continent; not classified as a continent itself, but its own unique culture. It extends east and then south, past the equator, so the islands vary from southern North climate to true tropical rain forest. Much like the West, this culture uses a ton of seafood and amphibians, as well as the largest variety of edible fungi on the planet. This, I think, is where most grains must evolve to grow in water, as the islands are regularly washed over by ocean storms.