Cultures of Iron Age Kur

Copyright Ellen Badgely & Peter Mork © 2016

"Most aspects of everyday life have rituals governing them, from stepping out of your house in the morning to visiting another village (ceremonially consuming a lot of fermented beverage is sometimes involved)."

Cultures of Iron Age Kur

Ambitus

The natives of Ambitus are the Ezolatl. Given the generally poor soil in the hills near Saltmarsh, the Ezolatl practiced a version of slash-and-burn agriculture. Every year they would pack their belongings onto llamas, move to a new valley, burn away the existing plant growth, and plant a new crop (of potatoes and plantains).

Meanwhile the desert Death tribes expanded the scope of their raids. This pushed the Te’klu from Noctis to Ambitus (across the Lance Steppes). The superior technology of the invaders (including bronze, Impulse magic, roads, and worship) allowed them to subjugate the natives.

These days, Ambitus is a widely-varied area held together under an overall ruler and his/her regional commanders through a combination of peaceful assimilation, conquest, tribute and trade. The dominant culture is the Te’klu

Because Ambitus is so broken up into microregions and microclimates, each village is pretty well-delineated in terms of what they do agriculturally: one place grows potatoes, the next grows rye, the next grows a different kind of potatoes, and so on and so forth. They accordingly define their borders pretty strictly -- lots and lots and lots of really ornate boundary stones.

Because of the specialization in activities/crops and the fact that no one place is truly self-sustaining, there is the need for a lot of trade and interaction between the different areas, which was mediated by elders for most of the Stone+Bronze Ages. In recent years they've had a more official hierarchy - how they got there (conquest vs. "join us, we're awesome!") is up to you.

Culturally, there are some pretty wide variations of how people do things from place to place, but they still generally have the same categories of rituals and activities (everybody has a series of coming-of-age ceremonies for different life transitions, for example). This helps to hold everyone together: even though your neighbors over the mountain might be supremely weird (they wear white ponchos with blue stripes instead of blue ponchos with black stripes!) you can find something in common with them. Most aspects of everyday life have rituals governing them, from stepping out of your house in the morning to visiting another village (ceremonially consuming a lot of fermented beverage is sometimes involved). Travelers from elsewhere will be given a pass at first, but seriously side-eyed if they refuse to acknowledge the importance of ritual at all. There are certain culturally-sanctioned exceptions such as a "Feast of Fools" day and so on, where things get overturned on a temporary basis. I also like the idea that there are people who have "official" sanction (from the king or similar) to go around and stir things up: like the "King's Wit" in the Stormlight Archive books by Brandon Sanderson.

The Te’klu are fond of sports and war games. Their warriors fight for glory. The Te’klu also control the tin mines (it’s illegal for a non-Te’klu to possess tin).

In small towns and border areas, the Te’klu have no need for the backwards Ezolatl. However, in large cities and expansive plantations, the Ezolatl have been enslaved to serve as soldiers (who fight for territory) and farmers. They practice a bastarized version of their original culture in which bonfires take the place of slash-and-burn.

The Ezolatl have lighter skin (in general) than the Te’klu. However, because skin color is unreliable, a slave’s ears are pierced at birth to recognize them as such immediately.

How, one might ask, are the Te’klu able to farm so widely on meager soil. The answer is guano. The Te’klu import huge quantities of quano from the Ivazazhit, the boat people of Saltmarsh. These strangers are generally welcomed throughout Ambitus.

The Ivazazhit bring quano and other goods that require boats to move quickly. Moreover, they engage in a fair amount of smuggling. In Te’klu feudal society, a superior can search anyone of lower station with impunity. However, the Ivazazhit have very strong property rights, that must be respected even by the kings. Thus, the travelers are loved, and feared.

Skills

The people of Ambitus have access to the following skills.

Starting Skills

[1] To determine a character’s background options, add up the racial cost (46 for Human, Kish) and the culture cost (0–34). Convert that total into talent points or background options using Talent Law. Many of the Kish/Ambitus combinations fall in the 76-100 point range, resulting in 50 talent points or 5 background options.