The People. Umbagollians are generally self-contained people. "Our ancestors were lunatics. We should never forget that. I have noticed a disturbing habit among some of us, to tidy up the past and make our history, as they say, "more respectable," but where is the shame in a mad forebear? Are not the Mystics lunatics as well? Look at everything we have gained from our past. It is our ancestors' shame at their "disability" and their desire to "communicate properly" that drives us toward writing, music and the theatre. (I take these quotes from the work of Prof. Sanjay Portsea, a man who brings dishonour to the word, 'scholar.') It is their confusion that gave us the patience to construct tiny, working universes out of clockwork. We need that illusion of control. Thanks to their inexperience and open-mindedness, we have adapted to life everywhere, from underwater forests to the branches of trees. Without their mad sense of "being everywhere at once, inside everything," would we have the appreciation of nature and the world, that leads us to our deep belief in Connections? Without their sense of being very distinct individuals, each one a complete universe within their own skin, would we have our individuality? Passion may unite us briefly, as it did during the Exian War, but we cannot be grouped, cannot be deliberately organised and marshalled for long. We have them to thank for that. (From a letter to The Umbagollah Irregular, written by Daens Resought.) You can learn about some of our individual inhabitants, and then become an inhabitant yourself at the Citizenship page or read about one particular group in Umbagollian society, the Ferrypeople.