The Tribes
Wadrhun have to eat truly astounding amounts of food to survive, the drawbacks of the immense physical gifts the Biomancers of the Spires blessed them with. Because so much effort is required to feed their population, it should be noted that only the truly best of the best are allowed to go to war.
Human concepts of classes and the differences between a warrior and a farmer simply do not work with the amount of food the Wadrhun need. To achieve this unusual balance, the Wadrhun have the system of Trials and the Bound.
Only the successful in the trials are elevated to the status of Braves and allowed to fight for their tribes. The rest are Bound, working tirelessly to feed and shelter their tribe. Thankfully the Bound are deeply respected in their communities.
All Wadrhun were made to be expendable and the Spires did not care for the caloric intake requirements because they were going to die in battle.
Conquest, their living God, has had to reshape the structure of their species while battling against genetic crafting increasing aggression, rage, and chemicals that flood their body with fulfilment and pleasure as they fight.
The Tribes are ruled by five members: a Chieftain for the Warriors, a Mistress for the Bound, a Predator for the Speakers, a Scion for the Cults, and a Shaman to represent the Elders.
Heartbreakingly, an “elder” in Wadrhun society is any person who has lived for more than 40 years. Above even the tribal counsel is Conquest, called Ukunfazane by her people. A living goddess that walks among the people, recently the Ukunfazane has appointed three matriarch queens to rule in her stead while she is away. The matriarch queens are warriors, and the other races of Ea would be wise to fear them. For a society that prizes fertility and the sacredness of creating life to send their Queens to battle only proves one thing; they are without equal in all aspects of slaughter.
The Cults
Time has given the Wadrhun and Conquest a much deeper understanding of what exactly they are. Conquest and her siblings War, Death, and Famine were created from Godstuff. Primordial forces were woven into their DNA. These primes possessed a power that could have destroyed this world had they been allowed to survive and thrive. Even now, hundreds of years and many generations later the genetic echoes of these primes can overpower a Wadrhun.
To combat this Conquest used her knowledge of her siblings to redirect these urges, as overcoming them was out of the question. Conquest has turned to the Cults and given them this responsibility. Cults were established for all four primes and given the charge of channeling this power to the betterment of the tribes reframing the almost uncontrollable impulses towards something positive. The cult of Death slowly changed their viewpoint to become healers and midwives. The Cult of War became artisans and are still the only tribesmen allowed to work metal. Famine was the most difficult, as he is the most powerful and dangerous of the primes, Conquest reshaped them into the historians of their fledgling society channeling hunger into a desire to save their peoples history. Conquest herself had to reshape herself. From literal expansion and domination to victory and adaptability. The cult of Conquest are the leaders and teachers that ensure the forward momentum and survivability of the tribes.
The cults have a monumental task, the Godstuff that flows in their veins makes their instincts primordial and powerful, created from the forces that made this world.
The Speakers
I covered the speakers a lot in part one, but here are a few more details. The Spires have never given a gift to other races that wasn’t a double edged sword until the speakers arose within the Wadrhun. Many consider it to be an accident, and there are few details understood about their ability to communicate with animals. It relates to their increased hearing – those with the ability can improve it, but those born without the ability will never receive it.
Speakers do not simply understand and soothe beasts, but they are able to truly converse with them, a very key and subtle difference. The intelligence of the beast plays into the ability of a speaker to communicate with it as beasts of minimal intelligence are unable to communicate back. The speakers of the tribes have begun intricate breeding programs allowing even those species of lesser intelligence to awaken after generations and become companions for the speakers.
My Personal Custom Tribe – The Shepherds
Working full time with troubled and abused youth gave me a lot of inspiration for my custom tribe. My basis for my tribe was what would an outcast look like in such a young society, a society that truly cannot waste the manpower, but does. So many of my patients deal with this exact problem of abandonment and feeling like an outcast. I wanted to pay homage to that. So I developed the Shepherds, Speakers of such talent and ability that they lose the will and ability to interact with their own kinsman. Becoming more and more one with the beasts and distant from their kin. Their social interactions becoming more and more difficult for all parties involved. Their actions and reactions becoming alien and dangerous. Whether by choice or by force they are forced out of hearth and home, eventually after time these outcasts began to find each other, both through their increased hearing and the stories told to them by passing animals.
Finding each other had proven to be healing to the Shepherds, a community that understands each other is powerful. As they roamed the lands with their pack they encountered a human shepherd, finding it hilarious to see an individual unable to speak to their animals, and the softness of their land and flock they jokingly took up the name. As their pains and emotional wounds healed the Shepherds began to use their abilities for the good of their kin establishing a network animals to watch the tribes and provide food for their group. The human nations would describe them as a mercenary force, the more religiously inclined might call them divine intervention, the Shepherds show up with perfect timing when a tribe is about to be overcome, arriving in a stampede of claw and feather, and fighting with a savagery beyond even a blood berserker. Moving in eerie cooperation with the most dangerous predators to roam this world they save their kinsman from certain destruction. As the battle ends their kinsman attempt to repay them, with money or goods. The Shepherds simply request a night around the fire sharing their company, hoping to receive what they have been denied for so long, connection with their kin.
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