Axebere

Axebere is a series of villages (referred to by nearest landmark) located in the arid desert, where the vegetation is sparse. Axebere grew around a series of natural springs, and is comprised mostly of humans, alongside a minority of lizard people and sandstone constructs. They are a matriarchal primitivist oligarchic anarchy that worships many deities, none having a clear majority at all. Older women have more power over the culturally enforced expectations and taboos of the Axebere villages.

Axebereans believe in absolute charity for travelers as well as locals in need, since few would survive the harsh desert otherwise. The strong are expected to do labor or go hunting to give back what they've taken and are given honor in return. Opal deposits are plentiful in the desert and are made into jewelry that are gifted freely among Axebereans.

Local crops are every part of the cactus (even needle-flower tea), agave plants, sugarcane around the springs, and a local sour stonefruit. It is largely a meat-based diet supplemented by fried or baked insects. During the wet season, everything edible gets pickled or jerked.

Magic tends to be water magic or else focused on creating and maintaining constructs. It is used freely, even by children, with harsh consequences for misuse.

Unsurprisingly, axes hold high cultural meaning associated with graduating into adulthood and the hunt of monstrous reptiles endemic to the desert. Spears and knives also have some importance, because workable metal is difficult to recover in the desert and becomes blisteringly hot daily. Shields, though uncommon, are made of scaled hide.


The Sea People

The Sea People have a complex feudal culture based around the hereditary "King of Kings" (which can be replaced by a challenger family in a ritual) ruling over various "King of the Island"s. When an island can no longer support its people, they sail to another — either founding a new island village, or going into the care of a known prosperous King. When a King of the Island dies, the strongest hunter on the island becomes the new King of the Island, making the Culling a very big deal to the Sea People.

Besides Festival Island, the nearest villages to participate in the Culling with CCV are Himene, Pahu, and (the biggest) Marae. Marae has an ancient ruin dungeon known as the Temple of Trials, which is constantly hunted for monsters, but most Sea People fight Tigers in the islands or anything that threatens from the sea.

Tropical fruits, jungle herbs, starchy roots, and sea food are the main diet of the sea people. Everything else is highly taxed and tariffed, and they trade even more aggressively with outsiders. The Sea People worship a god associated with precious metals, gemstones, deep caves, hot springs, rocky earth, and volcanoes; and a goddess associated with pleasure, music, food, birth, the ocean, and the sky. The God's symbol is the grave and he is represented by the phoenix. The Goddess's symbol is the fruit basket and she is represented by the leviathan.

Magic tends to be to reinforce the body and cultivate power and energy. Elemental magic is taboo, because it infringes on either the God or the Goddess. Cultural weapons are hardwood clubs (carved with personal histories), wide single-edged swords, and harpoons or other thrown lances. The height of beauty is to be very large in all respects: tall, fat, muscular, and loud-voiced. This is said to be the natural state of Mankind, and all smaller people are either starving, sad, or from an inglorious lineage.


The Vaslen

The distant ancestors of the Vaslen used to live in the vast ruined city that cuts across east Pen Island. They were already living outside it before a magical calamity caused the city's destruction, the proliferation of new monsters, and the disappearance of the ancient culture. Now predominantly swamp dwellers who travel between seasonal homes, the Vaslen are organized into hereditary clans and practice a form of representative democracy by sending a clan-specific chosen speaker to the High Meeting between all Vaslen clans.

Because they are always at the same place every year during the Culling, they are regular attendants and well-known to the same sedentary villages. Gar Clan and Snake Clan always have Hunters at the Culling with Coi-Coi's hunters.

Vaslen are (in)famously unpicky eaters and make bounty of the wetlands. They are masters of riverlore and marshlore, and pilot flat-bottomed longboats and rafts between foraging grounds. They'll eat anything that's in season, and pregnant women are known to eat special clay.

Shadow and Arcane magic are highly favored and tied up with their survival strategies. They have blended the two into an advanced and rigid system of rules, traded balances, and power through sacrifice. There is an unshakeable cultural belief in equilibrium and equivalent exchange.

Although all Vaslen value survival and cunning higher than stand-up fights and the bravado of trading blows, Snake Clan in particular carries secret lore about poisons and their uses for divination, healing, and (of course) terrible harm. Gar Clan have a reputation as fearless and vindictive raiders and tend to favor war-hungry Speakers at the High Meeting. Vaslen are willing to trade with outsiders but will take revenge if they feel a trade partner is trying to profit off them unequally. However, this goes both ways, and Vaslen traders caught by their clanfolk in cheating others will have the offender gifted to the injured party to do with as they please.


The Pen(ors)

The Pen, also known as the Penors, are a group of interrelated villages that predominantly live on the coasts of the biggest islands in the continental region. They are an oligarchic mercantilist society led village-by-village by councils of reputable elders. The current members of the councils invite in new members to replace their seats as they become unfit to continue, or to replace seats that become suddenly vacant. Typically, the invitations are extended to those who show the best understanding of current problems and their solutions in the village community.

The Pen hold the Heavenly Hunter as their highest god above all others. The act of hunting, especially hunting monsters, is a sacred act as well as a highly profitable venture that drives their economy. A violation of the Hunting God's edicts of Tribute, Martial Excellence, and The Culling would be one of the few grievous sins that the Pen recognize. While this looseness in restrictions has it's advantages, it also means the few that remain are followed even more zealously.

The Pen enjoy a broad diet of traded foods, though grains, fish, melons, and wild game are their staples. They are also known for their honeymeads and ales, which are as close to being held in sacred esteem as something can be without actually entering the purview of religion.

Because the hunt for men, monsters, and money are held in such exclusive regard by the Pen, there is a great deal of cultural hollowness that becomes filled with the tendency to latch onto fads and trends. These are subject to individual village whim; for example, Sati Village is obsessed with tradeable stone slabs depicting monsters and landmarks, Remrin Village has been all about the fashion and application of gearworks, and Coi-Coi Village has been fixated on an invasive species of swimming bird.

Magic tends to be both practical and deadly where the Pen are concerned. They have been known to weaponize anything, even cleaning magic.

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Pub: 03 May 2023 07:08 UTC

Edit: 09 May 2023 08:03 UTC

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