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MegaraFoxfireThe Clans of the Narthskr
The People:
Hailing from the northern lands of the world, the Narthskr are a comparatively sedentary tribe who move between a number of rocky outcrops on the mountain based on the seasons. During the warmer months they descend lower down the slopes, enjoy the bounty of hunting, fishing, and gathering stuffs that can be taken from the forests at the foot of the mountains. When the temperatures drop, however, and lots of resources become scarce, they retreat further into the mountains where they live off the excess they have collected and hide away scraps in case of times of shortness in the highest points that remain permanently frozen - though they live lower than that.
The lifestyle and climate has made the Narthskr a tough and gritty people, used to hardship and unafraid to suffer for their survival. This does leave them less populous than other tribes which enjoy a simpler and easier life, but the question of moving down from the mountains has been rejected flatly any time it comes up. They are a highland people, this is all they have known.
The Faith:
The Narthskr practise a form of ancestor worship, honouring their dead for the loss of each person is felt even more acutely than in other tribes. If the person lived to the benefit of the society, their name and deeds will be remembered in the Laaj Wal. The Laaj Wal is the Narthskr equivalent to a consecrated ground; found on the apparent location of the first Narthskr home, it is a cliff face, oddly smooth and sheer, which has the names and deeds of every past member of the tribe to die having completed services to the tribe. Suffice to say those ejected from the tribe are not remembered there.
The path to this mystical area is dotted with shrines erected by the different clans to the memory of truly remarkable people. Most complete offerings with small crafted object, as the act of creating such a trinket is supposed to channel the energy of the crafter into empowering the ancestors spirit. Another outcome of an existence that allows little time for leisure or play.
The Leader:
The Narthskr exist in perpetual danger, as do all in this age, and so do not waste the young and energetic on matters of tribe direction, instead utilising the wisdom of the old and the frail. The eldest member of each clan acts as the head of their family and, regularly, meets with the other elders to discuss any matters concerning the tribe as a whole. Given the autonomy of most clans in the tribe, however, there has been no need for any extensive mechanism of governance.
The Home:
There are a number of rocky outcrops with enough flat space amongst the mountains and in the highlands near the forests in the north to allow for the tribe to move according to the seasons around a single area. With one permanent residence near the Laaj Wal, which they inhabit in force during the bleakest and coldest winters, leaving the barest makeshift houses for people to live in during the warmer months in case they need the Laaj Wal, their home at all other times is an easily packed away and moved collection of tents. The secrets of farming and husbandry allude the Narthskr - keeping them from the age of bronze - and so their travels down the mountain are more expeditions for resources than any actual attempt to reside there any longer than necessary.
The Conflict:
Given that permanent warriors are nothing but a drain on resources most of the year round, the Narthskr have none. Instead each person is held accountable for their survival and, if a rival tribe comes into conflict, required to serve the interests of the tribe and repel aggressors. The tools of war are their tools of hunting, a flint spear meant for a boar kills a man just as easily.
The Story:
The Narthskr tell their children a story that in the time before people, giants and great natural entities fought for dominance over existence. Each sought to exact their will permanently on the land and, in time, destroy all others. There was no single victor, however, and imstead an uneasy peace was established, creating the world in a changing image where one part of nature struggles with the other and the weather, enviroment, and land changes according to who is winning this conflict. The beings, no longer corporeal, live as spirits in the land now.
It was following this that the first people emerged, having been hiding the previous violence and uncertainty in a different world. They came down from the mountains and dispersed into their tribes to eek out a new existence in the new peace of the world. Acceding to the story tellers the peace cannot last, and the world goes through a cycle of peace and conflict when the spirits fight once again. The last recorded moment of this was the previous age of ice that settled on the land and finally passed.
Persons of Note:
To be expanded.
