Avlis Races: Tribal Humans

[Orleron]

Tribal Humans
Not all humans live under the feudalistic or parliamentary institutions of the great nations. A good number of them belong to tight-knit family and tribal groups that occupy the countryside, roaming around Avlis? diverse terrain in migratory fashion. The sheer number of tribes and groups that roam the lands are even more diversified than the lands themselves. However, the myriad of units and mobile nations can be grouped into three general categories: Romini, Jechrani, and Tyeduans.
Owing allegance to no nation or people, the Romini are the oldest and supposed favorite mortal creation of the god Mikon. The first humans to appear on Avlis were the ancestors of the Romini, created directly by Mikon. When created, Mikon commanded them to spread over the planet and bring balance to the world. They were told to be free, yet fair, and to call no one place their home, but rather many places.
The Jechrani are a pecularity. Being a female-dominated society, these warrior tribes reside mostly in the jungles and forests east of the mountains of Galdos and Deglos. Their society was created under the pressures of the early events of the Great War, and they have remained strong and independent ever since then.
Tyeduans live in the frozen tundra in the northern part of the continent of Negaria. A hearty folk, these humans live hand to mouth. They waste nothing, and are always at work making a living among the frozen wastes, in conditions which would kill most lesser beings. Their culture contains great myths and legends that tell of the early history of the ancient spirits that once roamed the world and also of the mysterious servants of Mikon, the Mikonators, who are said to have been the forebearers of the Tyeduan gods, and some say, the Tyeduans themselves.
Personality:
All three tribal peoples have basic personality traits that belie their rural upbringing and codes. Superstition is a mainstay of their cultures, and all of them have rich oral traditions dealing with daily life events and how a person meets and participates in life?s joy and pain. This proximity with the primal forces of existence gives them an inner peace and happiness, even at the same time that it toughens them to the elements and the cruelty that life can sometimes pose.
Mikon's greatest gift to the Romini was the freedom to choose their life paths on an individual basis. He did not restrict them to the ways of good or evil, nor law or chaos. He simply told them to be. He told them that they must do what the moment requires and not to worry about past or future, but rather to exist as needed for the immediate time period. Much to Mikon's pride, his creation took his words to heart and did exactly as he bade them. The Romini spread throughout Avlis and adopted whatever personalities suited their cause. In addition to possessing the inner joy that nomad people often have, the Romini are crafty and cunning. No matter what their philosophy in life, they refuse to be oppressed and will strike back at oppression with eerie effectiveness, grace, and subversiveness.
Although they are often berated for being loyal to no one, Romini are actually intensely loyal to each other. A Romini will not kill or harm another Romini unless it is totally necessary, and even then they will seriously consider not doing it. Whenever a Romini finds another of their kind in trouble, they will always find the best way to aid them when possible. Though they are diverse and scattered throughout the world, they have a tremendous sense of their own unity and culture. Even a Romini born in Tyedu who meets a Romini from M'Chek will converse as if they were brothers who have known each other their whole lives. It is this closeness that has allowed them to survive as a people and not become so scattered that they are forgotten. If one is Romini, they are part of the overall Romini identity... one of them. If one is not, they are georgio, the term for a non-Romini.
Tribes in the land of Jechran are less migratory than the Romini. Women rule all manners of state in this land, and all Jechrani have a deeply ingrained sense of hierarchy, as well as loyalty. The bonds shared by the women of Jechran are said to transcend sisterhood, and even parenthood, for these strong bonds are necessary for their survival. To outsiders, Jechrani women are ferocious and overbearing, and more than a little condescending towards males of all races. The men are said to be timid and weak-willed, though advocates will often claim that this is only because they were raised as such. This body of tribes lives in hostile jungle and forrest environments, and their personalities reflect the seriousness of their situation. Jechrani place survival above everything, even personal relationships, and are known to be extremely focused and deadly precise.
The mystical Tyeduans also live in a hostile environment, though the pressures exterted on their people have created more male-dominated atmospheres. At best, some Tyeduan tribes have equal rights for both genders, and no female-dominated tribes exist, though many hold their priestesses in high regard. It could be said that the cold has frozen the Tyeduan sense of humor and liveliness to a core, but this is not the case. These folk thrive on humor and storytelling, and have rich traditions in each. All of their oral traditions serve the dual purpose of providing pleasure and teaching about life in the tundra at the same time, so it can be passed on from generation to generation. No other group of humans can be said to have struck such a successful balance between work and play. When the going gets tough, the Tyeduans can be extremely serious and forthright, and even hostile, but when times are gentle, they can be passionate and caring.
Physical Description: For tribal humans, physical features are largely dependent on region. Tyeduan males are the tallest of the lot, often reaching 6 ? and sometimes 7 feet. Their females can sometimes reach 6 feet also. Jechrani are the shortest, with both males and females only reaching about 5 feet tall. Romini tend to occupy the middle ranges between 5 ? and 6 ? feet for males, and 5 to 5 ? feet for females.
Skin and eye color also vary with region. The Tyeduans, who are northern dwellers, have lighter skin and eyes compared to the Romini who tend to have more olivy, even black, complexions and brown eyes. Jechrani often have bronze complexions with green eyes, but fair-skinned specimens and specimens with brown eyes are also common.
It is said that Romini stock is the purest form of tribal human that has undergone the least amount of interbreeding, and possesse the features closest to what Mikon created. Tyeduans have been rumored to interbreed with the divine servants of Mikon early on in their existence, giving them lighter coloring. Civilized humans of the Kurathene who exhibit this light coloring are also thought to have interbred with the Tyeduans. Jechrani have large amounts of elven blood in their lines compared to the others, and the bronze coloring is thought to come from strains of ghost elven blood that originated a couple thousand years prior.
Variations in dress are too numerous to describe here. Not only do they vary with major tribal category, but they also vary with individual tribes. Northern folk tend to wear more thick animal skins for warmth. Romini folk often make clothing out of homespun material, and Jechrani are known to wear both types, with some clothing even made out of leaves and bark also.
Relations: Nearly all human tribes are viewed with suspicion by their more civilized counterparts. The feeling is mutual, for tribal societies tend to be very superstitious and slow to trust an outsider. For the most part, tribal humans do not concern themselves much with non-human affairs. Tribes will often war amongst themselves, or with neighboring groups of nationalized humans over land rights and natural resources, but rarely do they get involved with the affairs of the wider world.
Jechrani humans have excellent relations with elves in the area. Many Jechrani tribes include elven men and women as members, and some even have equal numbers of humans and elves in the same tribe, along with the half-elves that are produced from these situations. Shaahesk are the sworn enemies of the Jechrani, and the two races are always competing for resources in the area. The shaahesk see the Jechrani themselves as a resource for slavery.
Aside from fighting one another, Tyeduan tribes will sometimes skirmish with Kurathene nobles in the northern parts of the Empire. They view the peoples of the empire as traitors to nature and to the spirit gods.
The Romini as a people are on tolerable terms with all races and nations, though on a societal level they are seen as thieves and troublemakers whenever they roll into town. City-folk often have stories about being cheated or kidnapped by the Romini.
Alignment: Tribal humans have no particular majority when it comes to following morals or ethics. Their philosophies on law and chaos as well as good and evil vary by tribe and by individual. Among all the races, they deviate from their creator?s alignment the most often.
Tribal Human Lands: After creation by Mikon, tribal humans collected in the areas all over the continent of Negaria. Some went east eventually became the warrior maidens of Jechran. Others went northward and formed the Romini tribes that eventually became the Kurathene Empire and the clans of Tyedu. The largest and most populous group stayed in the area of M'Chek, which was supposedly the site of Mikon's prison when he was kept by the Negerai during the early days of creation.
Jechran and Tyedu are only marginally aware that they exist as nations. The tribes within those areas recognize a common ancestry, and to some extent, they communicate about larger matters affecting the areas where they live, but they barely hold any cohesive national ideal like the other nations of Negaria do. The Romini are true wanderers, not settling anywhere for very long, and ranging very widely up and down the continent throughout their lifetimes.
Religion:
The Romini people have a great love of Mikon and his ideals of balance and choice. They are not the lawful adherents to faith like the humans found living in Mikona, nor are they zealots of balance in its aspects of give and take. Romini live by the flow of the water in the rivers, and the smell of the air in the breeze. They do what is needed, when it is needed, and never any other time.
The tribes of Jechran mainly worship Dre?Ana and Yeraiah to varying extents. Some worship one goddess more than the other, and others worship both equally. In some tribes, there is friction between the worshipers of the two goddesses, and in other cases war has broken out between tribes that exclusively worship Yeraiah or Dre?Ana.
Tyeduans have very unique religions compared to other races on Negaria. Their religion is based on ?sprit gods?, which legend holds are the offspring of refugee nature spirits and the divine guardians, or Mikonators, sent by Mikon to guard the fleeing spirits that were attempting to avoid the wrath of the evil Negerai. These spirit gods were discovered by early bands of humans roaming the north lands and the Tyeduans came to venerate them, and adopted them as their own deities. There are many of these deities that cover all walks of life and areas of nature.
Language: The language formally known as the Common Tongue was given to the first humans when Mikon created them. Since then, the language has remained largely unchanged, and it has been adopted as the universal language of Negaria by all races. Nevertheless, dialects of this language exist. Romini speak a dialect called ?Flare?, while their Tyeduan cousins speak a version called ?Northman?, or ?Spirit-kin?. The most different tribal dialect is ?Jechranilae?, and, as the name implies, it is spoken by the Jechrani. The language contains many bastardized elven words mixed in. All of the dialects are mutually intelligible, with Jechrani being hardest to understand. They are also mutually intelligible with the dialects of common spoken in the Kurathene, Seven Cities, and M?Chek.
Names: Most tribal humans have a common tradition of being able to change one?s name during their lifetime due to some great (or infamous) deed that they committed. Tyeduan tribes often take first names after animals, natural phenomena, or actions. Romini often take first names that are popular in the area where they live, and Jechrani can take either human or elven names. For all tribal humans, their last name either depicts who their father was (or mother, in the case of Jechrani), and they often have a clan designation after that.
Male Names: (Romini) Dimitri, Nicholai, Pieter (Jechrani) Ben, Dalar, Reo (Tyeduan) Moves Like Wind, Running Bear, Soaring Eagle
Female Names: (Romini) Demetria, Josalina, Vera (Jechrani) Analana, Lliana, Riva (Tyeduan) Blizzard Breeze, Snowfox, Tearing Crow
Clan Names: (Romini) Johnsking, Trenson, Rikonovich (Jechrani) Fawnbow, Lieulia, Spikearrow (Tyeduan) Clan Yeti-lo The Snowbear Clan, The Rumbling Mountain Clan
Adventurers: Tribal humans value their home lives tremendously. After coming of age, they will rarely wander away from the tribe they are dutifully bound to protect and serve. However, many tribes have tests that require young tribal members to take long journeys of self-discovery by themselves. These can often lead to many new and interesting experiences. Other causes for leaving may include playing on their strong sense of duty and collectivism.