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Cildru Realms
by Ty Hulse
Cultural Dimensions
Snippet of Life in Cildru Village
Lilly didn’t realize how fast she was eating until she accidentally inhaled a bit of oats and goose fat down the wrong tube. Her older sister laughed as she coughed and spluttered.
“Only you could be clumsy enough to nearly choke to death on watery oats,” Mist said, while offering Lilly a cup of buttermilk and honey.
“Just nervous,” Lilly said sheepishly between gulps of the tart, slightly sweet liquid. “How could the Bardic Council have chosen me to open the first barrel of wine in front of the whole village?” Lilly felt her normally silvery skin growing pink at the prospect of standing in front of the whole town, the spirits of the dead, and the gods while struggling with tools to open one of the large barrels of wine. Her voice turned almost hopeful but pleading. “They probably meant for you to do it right? I mean, you’re the hero.”
“The gods love a fool,” Mist said before eating a spoonful of her own food.
“That’s what the head bard said too,” Lilly said with a flush. Knowing she’d been chosen because they thought her a fool really didn’t do anything to ease her embarrassment. Why hadn’t Mist been chosen? She looked the part of someone who should be honored at the wine festival.
‘Her arms are as big as my thighs, bigger even,’ Lilly thought before taking another sip of the buttermilk. Normally she wasn’t supposed to drink such things. Butter and buttermilk were taken in tax by the reeve, who used them to pay the adventurers, like Mist, who strictly speaking wasn’t supposed to share with a simple gooseherd like Lilly on a whim.
Lilly offered Mist her cup back, but Mist waved it off, instead picking up Lilly’s cup of water with rosemary and taking a drink.
Lilly gave her sister a brief smile. “I wish we could wear red to this thing.”
“Red keeps the evil spirits away, and all spirits – devil, fairy, or angel are invited to partake of the wine.”
“I know, but I’m probably going to get wine all over my dress, and then I’ll have to dance in something stained.”
“Open a barrel from Thornfield’s vineyard, he only grows white,” Mist said. “You can wear the brownish yellow dress with the sunflowers, you look better in that dress anyways.”
Lilly felt a slight tinge of relief, at least that problem was solved. She took another drink of the buttermilk and glanced up at the heads preserved with pine resin. Even though she hadn’t taken any of them she still felt a swell of pride at the thought of all her ancestors who had. Even her sister had added a few heads of their enemies to the shelves, including a particularly fearsome wizard who gave Lilly some comfort at the moment. He was so vicious looking, she’d always figured his spirit would be one of the best guardians, and perhaps he’d lend her some strength now. For a moment she wondered about her own father’s head, taken in a battle by someone from the Treveri Cordon a few years earlier. Was his spirit watching over some other children? Keeping them safe from boogiemen and giving them comfort? She smiled slightly at the thought and took another drink of buttermilk.
Headhunting among the Cildru
For many headhunting is the most salient feature of Cildru culture. That they take the heads of their enemies and friends, preserve these in tree resins to decorate their homes is much discussed. The Cildru believe that the head is the seat of one of the three souls people have, the soul that is likely to stay behind and watch over the world. Because it is believed that a true warrior respects those who could slay them honorably in battle, their head is preserved to watch over the family of those that slew them, just as the heads of honored heroes from the family are. In essence, the soul, which remains within the head, becomes a member of the family it is kept with, which is far more respectful than leaving it alone, to rot, in the ground or some forgotten field.
Religion
If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds. – Plato
The Cildru strive to purify and strengthen their soul by turning inward through meditation, both in quiet contemplation and in learning the skills of combat. They believe that humans, having a divine spark within themselves, have the skills and wisdom they need already, but this needs to be unlocked. It is the strength of this divine spark which determines their place in the next life as members of whatever beings fits the way they lived their life; whether these be fiends, angels, or fairies.
The people of Bluebell have established six sacred groves of trees, where fiends, angels, gods, and fairies will come to visit them. Here they are able to meditate and make offerings to the natural world, the young children often dance round the fairy rings within these groves or the trees that angels visit, while singing songs about the fairies and angels while swearing oaths of familial love for each other.
Only those who are older and have developed a skill or strength that can prove useful to the fiends, will dance around their trees. For it is dangerous to ask the fiends for something, unless one has proven that they have worth to them, and there is great honor in having proven this worth. This isn’t to say that the people of Bluebell worship the fiends enshrined in these trees. There are some villages that do, certainly, but most of the people of Bluebell instead give offerings to the fiends as a bribe, to get them to leave them alone.
To the Cildru the most important part of spirituality is building personal strength and ingratiating oneself to those who are more powerful, in a way that they will care about them. Thus, all powerful beings are worthy of respect. However, different villages will emphasize different afterlife factions more, which will alter their alignment, but since enhancing one’s divine spark is of utmost importance, good aligned villages will often accept the presence of evil aligned people, so long as they limit their activities. Most villages align with the local fairy courts and spirits of nature, however, allowing them more freedom to peruse individual interest, as the fairy courts tend to have good and evil members, just as communities do.
Government
Fiercely independent minded, with a strong desire to either prove their strength or befriend someone who has, the people of the Cildru Realms are divided into hundreds of Cordons. Each Cordon is formed around a strong warrior or spell caster known as the ‘foremost’. The Foremost must be free from outside loyalties. Thus, druids, warlocks, clerics, paladins, and others who are aligned to a deity or ideal, are not acceptable choices, as they might put the interests of the power they serve above that of the Cordon. This isn’t to say that people of these classes aren’t accepted in Cildru society, clearly they gain strength and are useful, but who one would trust to be a friend is not necessarily who one would trust to be a leader. If a Cordon lacks a strong enough leader, they may split up to join other cordons who have one or seek to find someone to lead them from outside. Many adventurers who have proven themselves to be strong might be invited to lead a cordon.
The Foremost’s leadership is checked by the Paragons, that is other great warriors and spell casters within a Cordon who have also achieved high levels of prestige. These Paragons don’t rule, but they have the right to overrule a decision by the Foremost with a vote, and are often given small tasks to oversee, such as the building of new roads or making certain that the elderly are cared for in a village. Many of the Paragons themselves are elderly people, no longer able to fight, but who still have a strong divine spark that will be released from their weakened bodies once they die.
Above the Foremost and the Paragons are the Dru’adee. Councils of bards which act as a religious and spiritual guide. There are a number of different councils, each one with slightly different spiritual and philosophical and spiritual ideals, and which seeks to understand the nature of reality and to use their charisma to influence and even control the cordons. Bards are chosen as religious leaders thanks to their ability to understand many philosophies and their freedom from being controlled by a single set of deities or ideals as clerics are.
Dynasties
The system of choosing from among the most powerful people might seem not to favor dynasties, but as with everyone the foremost always seek ways to give their children a leg up. This includes, making certain that they get the best training to develop their talents, but also that they get the best equipment as well. And in a society where the foremost gets most of the money, the children of the poor can’t typically afford good training and so will usually end up with the same jobs as their parents. Finally, the foremost will tend to put their children in positions where they can lead warriors to success, which builds their reputation and makes them beloved among elite units that can help ensure that they are high in the hierarchy of Cildru society.
Dru’adee Councils
The Dru’adee are the religious leaders and arbitrators between the different cordons of the Cildru. The Dru’adee seek out mystical experiences, whether from angelic beings, fiends, or fey. For them the magical worlds are places to be explored and understood, for it is through all of these realms that the true nature of the world and humanity was created. Thus, there could be no happiness or joy, were it not for the primal chaos of the Abyss or the oppressive law of the Hells, just as there couldn’t be without good planes or the ambiguous fey.
In addition to sending their souls from their bodies to experience the other worlds, the Dru’adee train by turning inward to develop their own power and by memorizing the stories and laws of the Cildru. Once they have achieved a certain level of competence, they are sent to oversee aspects of a Cildru village, or eventually to lead an entire Cordon. Because their thinking tends to be supernatural, and difficult for ordinary people to fully grasp, they allow the foremost to do most of the work of actually leading people, choosing instead to direct the foremost when they feel the foremost is making mistakes. This relationship has occasionally led some bullheaded foremost to try and rebel against the Dru’adee, but while the Dru’adee will war with each other through their cordons and compete for power, their council will not abide a cordon rebelling against the Dru’adee assigned to lead them. The Dru’adee are by far the largest organization in Cildru, much larger and wealthier than any Cordon, and so they can and have, easily crushed any Cordon that rebels against their power.
The two most important deities of the Cildru are Witspater (or Father of knowledge) and Ruxmatire (Mother of the Boar)
Witsupater
Father of Knowledge
Born to an uncaring divine being of unknown origin and the dryad Ruxmatire, Witsupater was a relatively poor fairy, part of no pantheon or fairy court, he survived by using his cunning to steal what he and the other fairies without a court needed. He wanted much more than this, however, so he began using his cunning and charm to steal secrets. He was traveling to the castle of a devil in order to steal a book when he came across a beautiful blossom covered hill. In that moment he realized that nature could also offer him what he sought. So, after stealing the book from the devil he set out into the wild to meditate on the nature of the world and his own divinity, it was here that he discovered some of the truest secrets to happiness, the nature of reality, and to unlocking is own potential.
After this meditation he became a warrior king, uniting other lone divinities, fey, and even mortals. Under Witsupater’s guidance this army of divine beings conquered vast swaths of the divine world and took great power unto themselves.
Ruxmatire
Boar Mother and Witsupater’s mother.
The spirit mother of a glade of oak where the boar loved to find acorns to grow fat before winter came. Ruxmatire enjoyed a quiet and humble life when she saw a shimmering being, more beautiful than she would have imagined possible. The two of them spent many blissful years together, before the being had to return from whence it came, leaving Rusmatire with their infant son to raise.
In order to properly care for her son, Ruxmatire began to expand her domain, aiding swineherds and hunters who entered the woods, and granting the strength of the boars to great warriors. All the while she taught her son how to meditate, how to provide veneration to other beings with important divine sparks, and how to hunt and fight.
Although Ruxmatire has many roles, it is her combination of aiding warriors and those traveling in the forests for which she is most worshipped. For she has become venerated as a protector, one who can help those who are in danger to stay safe.
Examples of a Few Cordons
Derkoswer
The Derkoswer is one of the largest Cordon’s in the eastern section of Cildru. Their already warlike and dour nature was enhanced by the fact that the Azurfell Duchy has recently conquered many of the Cordons near them. Rumors of spies and assassins sent by the Azurfell to root out the weaknesses of each village, and cause trouble where they can, has caused the Derkoswer to be far more standoffish than most. That said, they are proud of the wine they make and the grain they grow, and love to show these off to potential merchants who might purchase them. Further, their respect of strength means that adventurers can expect to be efficiently and formally greeted by the curt villagers and introduced to the leader of the village.
Life
The Derkoswer are far more egalitarian than most Cordons, thanks in large part to the fact that they face a very real threat that has forced more farmers to spend time as warriors and warriors to spend their down time helping on the farm to make certain there is enough food for campaigns and sieges.
Through the laughter and songs that are normal for the Cildru, hangs a tension, for everyone in Derkoswer is waiting for the Azurfell offensive to begin anew. For the finale that will either give them victory or one final moment of glory. This knowledge that they will have to fight for their future against a much larger nation has led the people of Derkoswer to feel a strange sense of calm and purpose.
The Derkoswer live in nuclear family unites, with a few family members unable to inherit land being adopted into the family in order to help work the large fields of grain and vineyards. In addition, the wealthier land owners occasionally those who don’t have enough land to make a living on it alone to help with larger tasks such as the threshing and planting. Theirs is a fairly hard life, requiring many hours of work every day. Many believe, however, that they can find a sort of peace in the repetitive rhythm of hard work.
Battle
The majority of the Derkoswer’s battleline are barbarians, and they center their strategy around these barbarians’ ability to gain resistance to most attacks for a short time. Their barbarian units take turns acting as the front line so that their front line will have resistance to most attacks for as long as possible. Their wizards and clerics tend to focus on protective magics, adding to the front lines already formidable ability to take punishment. Unable to hurt them, most of their foes will eventually break and flee, rather than continue to fight. Which is why, for now at least, the Azurfell has chosen to take their fight to other, easier to conquer, Cordons and into the Sword Duchies.
Important local deities
Ethelthex Lake
Each village of Cildru has its own water spirit, whether this be a lake, stream, river, or other. This spirit of the water manifests either as a massive trout, a beautiful but exceedingly slight woman, or a serenely swaying tree growing beside the water. Ethelthex Lake is a fairly young water way, and more precocious than most lakes. Stories often center around her doing something embarrassing when meeting with other deities, especially the typically stodgy older lakes. The Derk find these stories funny, all be it a little embarrassing as they tend to cling fairly close to tradition themselves. Even so they love their lake and do their best to accommodate her with a meal of wheat porridge and grape juice every fifth day (they don’t give her wine as she’s already clumsy and silly enough without being tipsy). Perhaps most importantly they remain as quite as possible until noon, knowing that Ethelthex, being young, prefers to sleep in, and she is often heard carousing with the forest fey and other deities all night.
Pear Tree
Unlike their lake, the great old pear tree is said to have been born from the tears of the first demon slain by an angel in the world. Whether it was just the first, as they like to brag, or simply something that happened a long time ago is up for debate (although not with them), never the less, the deity of the pear tree is old enough that it never got a name. They simply call him Pira, the old word for pear tree. He is a dangerous being, quick to punish any sign of disrespect or deviation from tradition. Many who grow sick or unlucky discovered they upset Pira in some way and must go placate themselves, begging for forgiveness.
Pira is the most common source of power for the Warlocks of the village, granting fiend or celestial powers, depending on the personality of the warlock seeking them out.
Woedwer (Common in the Central Forests)
The people of Woedwer live alongside a small tribe of wood elves, who are common in this area, and although they rarely ever see these elves, the Woedwer take many of their cultural ideals from them. Like the elves, the Woedwer view civilization as temporary, believing that only the natural world lasts by adapting and changing. Because of this the Woedwer seek to live in harmony with nature, viewing beavers as the perfect example of how one uses the natural world to help reshape nature to create something beautiful.
They build simple homes and barns, made to collapse when they move on after a few years. The advantage to this is that the collapsed home creates dens for small furbearing animals such as weasels, mink, and fox, which the Woedwer trade for food and weapons. Thus, by living the way they do they help both the animals of the environment and themselves.
Along with gaining some of what they need from fur trapping, the Woedwer also use their ability to speak with the spirits of the forest to learn which trees they can cut for lumber, allowing them to be some of the only people able to gather large trees in their region, providing them with a second thriving business.
The Woedwer prefer to sell their lumber and fur as raw material, rather than crafting it themselves, as they prefer to spend their time in the forest, herding small pigs with the help of their dogs, meditating on the natural world, and hunting.
Although they have the famed aloofness of the Cildru, the Woedwera are generally more welcoming to strangers, having a strong hosting ethic that requires them to be generous with those in need, and willing to exchange with those who have plenty.
Life
Woedwer villages tend to be quiet places, but this isn’t because they are completely stoic. Rather, it’s because they have a history of dealing with woodland horrors who hate the sounds of happiness and will attack villages that are too loud. As a result, the Woedwer have learned to find pleasure in intimate activities. Quite games, the rhythm of archery practice, relaxing with friends, or simply taking in the beauty of nature.
This silence has also enhanced their already contemplative culture and causes them to spend more time in meditative activities than most of the other Cildru. Such meditation is often conducted on the roofs of their homes, especially in cold weather, as they view cold as a purifying force.
Combat
The Woedwer don’t form attachments to specific locations, making them difficult to defeat, as they are willing to leave their homes at any moment, and choose, instead, to fight a war of attrition in the forests. Most of the Woedwer are rogues, rangers, or scouts, allowing them to ambush their enemies before disappearing back into the forest. Their spellcasters focus on killing quietly, with their sorcerers often learning to cast spells without using a word, so that their enemies can’t locate their hiding places. Wizards will tend towards spells that can support archers, and last for a time so that they won’t give away the ambushes being planned with words.
Pipawer (Common in the mountains)
Pipawer are seminomadic, moving into the high mountain pastures where they tend to small gardens while herding sheep and brightly feathered, calved sized, Ornithopods (dinosaurs) in the summer. In the fall they move down to the rivers to catch fish, before moving to the forests in the winter to trap animals and use the forests to help shelter against the wind.
The Pipawer venerate and to an extent, emulate the satyrs of the mountain meadows and the groves of trees. As a result, they are indulgent to the point of hedonism. That said, they understand the importance of working hard to earn enough to put on their lavish feasts and survive. Since their primary goal in life is to join the more whimsical fairy courts after they die, they seek not simply to be strong, or to be entertained, but to be entertaining and interesting. To this end they spend a lot of time working on conversational and performance based skills.
Life and Society
The people of Pipawer live in small family groups in the high mountains through the summer, their houses being little more than sheds, as they will tend to spend more time sleeping outside, under the stars in the summer than they well inside. When fall comes they move into the valleys with larger villages of a few hundred people. It is here, in their winter homes, after they have finished fishing and the work is mostly done, that they seek to attract the fairies to live invisibly with them for a while. Often this is done through a massive display of hedonism at the beginning of winter.
Feasts, songs, dances, and plays are held to draw the fairies to the villages, and homes are kept warm and brightly decorated to encourage the fairies to stay, hidden in small homes built in the walls for them. Every year a few people, especially those who are about to die, disappear, taken by these fairies to dwell with them in the fairy court. It is this dwelling with the fairy court and returning to watch over their descendants in the winter that is people’s great desire.
Sometimes people actually get to meet their ancestors, turned fairies, to hear tales of the fairy court and life in the other world and of the past. The ability to see and eat with their most important ancestors every year, makes the people of Pipawer very traditional and resistant to change. Further, much like the fey, they are close and caring with each other but can be standoffish and even dangerous when it comes to outsiders. They do, however, get most of their wine and a number of other goods through trade, so they do allow a few people to visit their villages. For adventurers the best way to visit them is through an invitation by the Dru’adee, who frequently hire adventurers to help the one of the Pipawer villages or to gather motes of magic.
Warfare
The Pipawer appear to be aggressive fighters, attacking with an intense ferocity that causes many of their enemies to flee. That said, they always have escape plans when they engage an opponent and will quickly fall back if things don’t go their way, retreating and striking again and again until they can turn the tide. They tend to prefer fighter or barbarian classes when they are strong, with the wiser of their number becoming druids, rather than clerics. Their wizards focus on a mixture of spells to break up large formations of enemies and to cover the Pipawer retreat if that is necessary.
Blessed Cordons
The blessed Cordons have taken the unusual step of swearing some allegiance to angelic beings and the Seelie Courts of fairies, in order to fend of the armies of undead that frequently ravage their villages. This leads them to choose clerical classes more than druidic ones, however, they still choose to be led by foremost who are unaligned, and are most often likely to follow powerful wizards, thanks to their contacts with Dawnstead.
There is a stoic honor about them which outsiders often can’t help but respect and even envy. With many seeing the Blessed as beacons of virtue.
Life and Society
The Blessed view life as being akin to their large wheat and barley fields which surround small gardens and the batches of forests where the angels and fairies can live. That is, they believe that what is necessary to survive surrounds and sometimes seems to overwhelm what is beautiful, perfect, and spiritual. Yet one’s emotional focus should be on the forests and the gardens, not on the material necessity. When one is working, they should frequently look to the forests, when one is feeling sorrowful, they should work in their garden to calm themselves and to ensure that there are delicious garlics, herbs, and sweet berries to eat.
The Blessed enjoy sophisticated wit, and humor that uses clever and often understated mockery. They hold frequent meals where certain people will be designated ‘fools’ who are free to mock the way the world is and the people and deities within it. Often this highlights what people already know but it also allows people to think about things in a new way and reconsider what they believe. More importantly, however, it gives people an opportunity to laugh and something to talk about when they work in the fields.
The Blessed live in constant fear of two forces, the first are the undead which can appear at any time and seemingly anywhere. The second are the fairies without a court which are a constant problem. These fairies live alongside them, stealing their grain, putting curses on them for fun, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. These concerns have shaped their desire to find ‘purity’ as well as knowledge and strength from within.
Combat
The Blessed have far more wizards and clerics than most other peoples, with their spells focused largely on holding their enemies at bay so that their archers and catapults can be used to full effect. They also use wizards to transport and build mobile forts and siege works in pieces, with the use of spells like ‘floating disk’. This, along with their large herds of donkeys, allows them to be better supplied than nearly any other army on the field.
| “Life is a celebration and
battle is the finale.” Or so goes the saying of the Cildru who flock to
the banners of powerful warlords. The Cildru realized long ago that the
Seelie and Unseelie courts, demons, devils, celestials, and angels all
give a higher place in the afterlife to those who died with
particularly strong souls. Because of this, internal strength has
become a defining feature of Cildru religion and society. The young Cildru all train hard to become powerful warriors, rogues, or spell slingers but if their talents don’t lay in this direction, if they fail to gain the strength necessary to secure their place as a hero, they will work for and befriend those who are skilled at these things. So, while war and strength are a constant obsession for them, most of the Cildru work as farmers and craftspeople, using the money they make to provide for those who are strong enough to protect them in this life and the next. Because of the value placed on strength in Cildru society there is a lot of incentive for warriors and casters to prove their strength through cattle raids on other lands, the slaying of monsters, or wars with outsiders. As a result, life for the Cildru is never entirely peaceful, although the cattle raids and wars between Cildru villages are often ritualized enough that actual bloodshed is usually minimal, which means that most of those who farm or work in crafts live relatively calm lives. Cildru Society But when returning into herself .
. . [the soul] passes into the other
world, the region of purity, and eternity, and immortality, and
unchangeableness, which are her kindred, and with them she ever lives,
when she is by herself and is not let or hindered; then she ceases from
her erring ways, and being in communion with the unchanging is
unchanging. And this state of the soul is called wisdom. . . . The soul
is in the very likeness of the divine, and immortal, and intellectual,
and uniform, and indissoluble, and unchangeable.– Plato on Discussing
Meditation as a Path to Wisdom
The Cildru are a very spiritual people, who often turn to meditation and mystical experience for answers and to feel a connection to the divine. They believe to some extent that all truth lies within the spiritual realm, and the best way to draw it out is to get in contact with one’s own soul, and to allow the soul to feel the movement of the spirits around it. This means that the Cildru will typically set aside certain times each day to meditate and try to come to a deeper understanding of the spiritual. Although the Cildru spend a lot of time meditating, laughter is a frequent feature of their villages, as is the sounds of people practicing for battle. This latter sound seems discordant with the fact that Cildru villages, such as Bluebell, are often described as cute, with tiny wooden houses, often painted in vivid colors and tiny animals. The Houses of the Cildru village Bluebell, for example, tend to be painted in bright blues and covered in images of flocks of geese to honor the sky gods. In other villages the houses are painted red to honor the dawn, or white because that is used to depict fairyland, yellow for the sun, or many other colors. All with images of various animals on them. Quick to temper, the Cildru avoid constant fighting by reinforcing the idea of extreme manners in their children at a young age. When entering a room, they do their best to greet everyone individually and frequently hug or provide some other form of gentle physical contact to reassure each other that they don’t mean to fight. Not that this always works, as fighting is frequent enough that it can seem something of a hobby. Fights in social settings, rather than the battlefield, are usually short, and don’t result in more than some bruises and bloody noses. The Cildru’s fierce independence and the formalized, stiff way they speak with people outside their circle of friends makes them seem arrogant. With their family and friends they are an extremely warm and hearth loving people, who frequently visit each other for no other purpose but to lounge and have idol conversations. They enjoy strolling together through their rolling vineyards, orchards, or farms, and watching the elf filled forests near their homes. Indeed, in the fall they often curl up in blankets, with mulled wines, to gaze at the red and golden leaves, while pondering the spirits and animals within the woods. So despite their generally warlike nature, their frequent lounging leads many people from the Sword Duchies, or other lands, to think of them as being idol and lazy. Most of them, however, are extremely industrious farmers, producing large quantities of grain and wine. |
Cordons of the Cildru Realms Derkoswer The Derkoswer is one of the largest Cordon’s in the eastern section of Cildru. Their already warlike and dour nature was enhanced by the fact that the Azurfell Duchy has recently conquered many of the Cordons near them. Rumors of spies and assassins sent by the Azurfell to root out the weaknesses of each village, and cause trouble where they can, has caused the Derkoswer to be far more standoffish than most. Woedwer The people of Woedwer live alongside a small tribe of wood elves, who are common in this area, and although they rarely ever see these elves, the Woedwer take many of their cultural ideals from them. Like the elves, the Woedwer view civilization as temporary, believing that only the natural world lasts by adapting and changing. Because of this the Woedwer seek to live in harmony with nature, viewing beavers as the perfect example of how one uses the natural world to help reshape nature to create something beautiful. Pipawer Pipawer are seminomadic, moving into the high mountain pastures where they tend to small gardens while herding sheep and brightly feathered, calved sized, Ornithopods (dinosaurs) in the summer. In the fall they move down to the rivers to catch fish, before moving to the forests in the winter to trap animals and use the forests to help shelter against the wind. Blessed Cordons The blessed Cordons have taken the unusual step of swearing some allegiance to angelic beings and the Seelie Courts of fairies, in order to fend of the armies of undead that frequently ravage their villages. |
Cultural Dimensions
There is a large discrepancy between those who have obtained power and those who haven’t. Indeed, the whole of the Cildru society is structured around catering to and obeying those in power. And while technically anyone can come to power if they prove strong and skilled enough, those in power arrange for their kin to have better training, which frequently results in loose dynasties, in which at least some of the children, nieces, and nephews of those in charge gain high level positions. This discrepancy and the importance placed on the trappings of power has led to great value being placed on status symbols such as fashion, gilded weapons, larger homes, etc.
The Cildru believe that in order to succeed one must frequently seek out outside help and build good relations with nearly anyone. So while they have a strong independent streak they frequently seek friendships and alliances from many other peoples. After all, if the leader of a Cordon proves to be weak they will move on to a new leader.
Respect: The Cildru crave respect for whatever it is they do, and if they perceive that they aren’t being shown this respect they will quickly become rude, even when negotiating some trade or working for someone. This is one major reason why the Cildru are obsessed with formality and politeness.
Strange as it may seem, the Cildru are strong believers in caring for even the weakest members of their society. As a result, villages host frequent lotteries and festivals, with the money from these being provided to the poorest members of the village.
The Cildru don’t like surprises, because of this those who gather information and perform divinations are highly respected in their society. Another interesting result of this is that the Cildru are very talkative, frequently sharing information as a means of encouraging others to share as well. Indeed, the Cildru feel very uncomfortable with those who don’t quickly and easily share details about themselves and their honest emotions. After all, the Cildru are military minded, as such they have a tendency to plan and regiment their presence while seeking to save resources for the future. Any Cildru who can afford it has a store of food, weaponry, and other resources.
Snippet of Life in Cildru Village
Lilly didn’t realize how fast she was eating until she accidentally inhaled a bit of oats and goose fat down the wrong tube. Her older sister laughed as she coughed and spluttered.
“Only you could be clumsy enough to nearly choke to death on watery oats,” Mist said, while offering Lilly a cup of buttermilk and honey.
“Just nervous,” Lilly said sheepishly between gulps of the tart, slightly sweet liquid. “How could the Bardic Council have chosen me to open the first barrel of wine in front of the whole village?” Lilly felt her normally silvery skin growing pink at the prospect of standing in front of the whole town, the spirits of the dead, and the gods while struggling with tools to open one of the large barrels of wine. Her voice turned almost hopeful but pleading. “They probably meant for you to do it right? I mean, you’re the hero.”
“The gods love a fool,” Mist said before eating a spoonful of her own food.
“That’s what the head bard said too,” Lilly said with a flush. Knowing she’d been chosen because they thought her a fool really didn’t do anything to ease her embarrassment. Why hadn’t Mist been chosen? She looked the part of someone who should be honored at the wine festival.
‘Her arms are as big as my thighs, bigger even,’ Lilly thought before taking another sip of the buttermilk. Normally she wasn’t supposed to drink such things. Butter and buttermilk were taken in tax by the reeve, who used them to pay the adventurers, like Mist, who strictly speaking wasn’t supposed to share with a simple gooseherd like Lilly on a whim.
Lilly offered Mist her cup back, but Mist waved it off, instead picking up Lilly’s cup of water with rosemary and taking a drink.
Lilly gave her sister a brief smile. “I wish we could wear red to this thing.”
“Red keeps the evil spirits away, and all spirits – devil, fairy, or angel are invited to partake of the wine.”
“I know, but I’m probably going to get wine all over my dress, and then I’ll have to dance in something stained.”
“Open a barrel from Thornfield’s vineyard, he only grows white,” Mist said. “You can wear the brownish yellow dress with the sunflowers, you look better in that dress anyways.”
Lilly felt a slight tinge of relief, at least that problem was solved. She took another drink of the buttermilk and glanced up at the heads preserved with pine resin. Even though she hadn’t taken any of them she still felt a swell of pride at the thought of all her ancestors who had. Even her sister had added a few heads of their enemies to the shelves, including a particularly fearsome wizard who gave Lilly some comfort at the moment. He was so vicious looking, she’d always figured his spirit would be one of the best guardians, and perhaps he’d lend her some strength now. For a moment she wondered about her own father’s head, taken in a battle by someone from the Treveri Cordon a few years earlier. Was his spirit watching over some other children? Keeping them safe from boogiemen and giving them comfort? She smiled slightly at the thought and took another drink of buttermilk.
Headhunting among the Cildru
For many headhunting is the most salient feature of Cildru culture. That they take the heads of their enemies and friends, preserve these in tree resins to decorate their homes is much discussed. The Cildru believe that the head is the seat of one of the three souls people have, the soul that is likely to stay behind and watch over the world. Because it is believed that a true warrior respects those who could slay them honorably in battle, their head is preserved to watch over the family of those that slew them, just as the heads of honored heroes from the family are. In essence, the soul, which remains within the head, becomes a member of the family it is kept with, which is far more respectful than leaving it alone, to rot, in the ground or some forgotten field.
Religion
If anyone comes to the gates of poetry and expects to become an adequate poet by acquiring expert knowledge of the subject without the Muses' madness, he will fail, and his self-controlled verses will be eclipsed by the poetry of men who have been driven out of their minds. – Plato
The Cildru strive to purify and strengthen their soul by turning inward through meditation, both in quiet contemplation and in learning the skills of combat. They believe that humans, having a divine spark within themselves, have the skills and wisdom they need already, but this needs to be unlocked. It is the strength of this divine spark which determines their place in the next life as members of whatever beings fits the way they lived their life; whether these be fiends, angels, or fairies.
The people of Bluebell have established six sacred groves of trees, where fiends, angels, gods, and fairies will come to visit them. Here they are able to meditate and make offerings to the natural world, the young children often dance round the fairy rings within these groves or the trees that angels visit, while singing songs about the fairies and angels while swearing oaths of familial love for each other.
Only those who are older and have developed a skill or strength that can prove useful to the fiends, will dance around their trees. For it is dangerous to ask the fiends for something, unless one has proven that they have worth to them, and there is great honor in having proven this worth. This isn’t to say that the people of Bluebell worship the fiends enshrined in these trees. There are some villages that do, certainly, but most of the people of Bluebell instead give offerings to the fiends as a bribe, to get them to leave them alone.
To the Cildru the most important part of spirituality is building personal strength and ingratiating oneself to those who are more powerful, in a way that they will care about them. Thus, all powerful beings are worthy of respect. However, different villages will emphasize different afterlife factions more, which will alter their alignment, but since enhancing one’s divine spark is of utmost importance, good aligned villages will often accept the presence of evil aligned people, so long as they limit their activities. Most villages align with the local fairy courts and spirits of nature, however, allowing them more freedom to peruse individual interest, as the fairy courts tend to have good and evil members, just as communities do.
Government
Fiercely independent minded, with a strong desire to either prove their strength or befriend someone who has, the people of the Cildru Realms are divided into hundreds of Cordons. Each Cordon is formed around a strong warrior or spell caster known as the ‘foremost’. The Foremost must be free from outside loyalties. Thus, druids, warlocks, clerics, paladins, and others who are aligned to a deity or ideal, are not acceptable choices, as they might put the interests of the power they serve above that of the Cordon. This isn’t to say that people of these classes aren’t accepted in Cildru society, clearly they gain strength and are useful, but who one would trust to be a friend is not necessarily who one would trust to be a leader. If a Cordon lacks a strong enough leader, they may split up to join other cordons who have one or seek to find someone to lead them from outside. Many adventurers who have proven themselves to be strong might be invited to lead a cordon.
The Foremost’s leadership is checked by the Paragons, that is other great warriors and spell casters within a Cordon who have also achieved high levels of prestige. These Paragons don’t rule, but they have the right to overrule a decision by the Foremost with a vote, and are often given small tasks to oversee, such as the building of new roads or making certain that the elderly are cared for in a village. Many of the Paragons themselves are elderly people, no longer able to fight, but who still have a strong divine spark that will be released from their weakened bodies once they die.
Above the Foremost and the Paragons are the Dru’adee. Councils of bards which act as a religious and spiritual guide. There are a number of different councils, each one with slightly different spiritual and philosophical and spiritual ideals, and which seeks to understand the nature of reality and to use their charisma to influence and even control the cordons. Bards are chosen as religious leaders thanks to their ability to understand many philosophies and their freedom from being controlled by a single set of deities or ideals as clerics are.
Dynasties
The system of choosing from among the most powerful people might seem not to favor dynasties, but as with everyone the foremost always seek ways to give their children a leg up. This includes, making certain that they get the best training to develop their talents, but also that they get the best equipment as well. And in a society where the foremost gets most of the money, the children of the poor can’t typically afford good training and so will usually end up with the same jobs as their parents. Finally, the foremost will tend to put their children in positions where they can lead warriors to success, which builds their reputation and makes them beloved among elite units that can help ensure that they are high in the hierarchy of Cildru society.
Dru’adee Councils
The Dru’adee are the religious leaders and arbitrators between the different cordons of the Cildru. The Dru’adee seek out mystical experiences, whether from angelic beings, fiends, or fey. For them the magical worlds are places to be explored and understood, for it is through all of these realms that the true nature of the world and humanity was created. Thus, there could be no happiness or joy, were it not for the primal chaos of the Abyss or the oppressive law of the Hells, just as there couldn’t be without good planes or the ambiguous fey.
In addition to sending their souls from their bodies to experience the other worlds, the Dru’adee train by turning inward to develop their own power and by memorizing the stories and laws of the Cildru. Once they have achieved a certain level of competence, they are sent to oversee aspects of a Cildru village, or eventually to lead an entire Cordon. Because their thinking tends to be supernatural, and difficult for ordinary people to fully grasp, they allow the foremost to do most of the work of actually leading people, choosing instead to direct the foremost when they feel the foremost is making mistakes. This relationship has occasionally led some bullheaded foremost to try and rebel against the Dru’adee, but while the Dru’adee will war with each other through their cordons and compete for power, their council will not abide a cordon rebelling against the Dru’adee assigned to lead them. The Dru’adee are by far the largest organization in Cildru, much larger and wealthier than any Cordon, and so they can and have, easily crushed any Cordon that rebels against their power.
The two most important deities of the Cildru are Witspater (or Father of knowledge) and Ruxmatire (Mother of the Boar)
Witsupater
Father of Knowledge
Born to an uncaring divine being of unknown origin and the dryad Ruxmatire, Witsupater was a relatively poor fairy, part of no pantheon or fairy court, he survived by using his cunning to steal what he and the other fairies without a court needed. He wanted much more than this, however, so he began using his cunning and charm to steal secrets. He was traveling to the castle of a devil in order to steal a book when he came across a beautiful blossom covered hill. In that moment he realized that nature could also offer him what he sought. So, after stealing the book from the devil he set out into the wild to meditate on the nature of the world and his own divinity, it was here that he discovered some of the truest secrets to happiness, the nature of reality, and to unlocking is own potential.
After this meditation he became a warrior king, uniting other lone divinities, fey, and even mortals. Under Witsupater’s guidance this army of divine beings conquered vast swaths of the divine world and took great power unto themselves.
Ruxmatire
Boar Mother and Witsupater’s mother.
The spirit mother of a glade of oak where the boar loved to find acorns to grow fat before winter came. Ruxmatire enjoyed a quiet and humble life when she saw a shimmering being, more beautiful than she would have imagined possible. The two of them spent many blissful years together, before the being had to return from whence it came, leaving Rusmatire with their infant son to raise.
In order to properly care for her son, Ruxmatire began to expand her domain, aiding swineherds and hunters who entered the woods, and granting the strength of the boars to great warriors. All the while she taught her son how to meditate, how to provide veneration to other beings with important divine sparks, and how to hunt and fight.
Although Ruxmatire has many roles, it is her combination of aiding warriors and those traveling in the forests for which she is most worshipped. For she has become venerated as a protector, one who can help those who are in danger to stay safe.
Examples of a Few Cordons
Derkoswer
The Derkoswer is one of the largest Cordon’s in the eastern section of Cildru. Their already warlike and dour nature was enhanced by the fact that the Azurfell Duchy has recently conquered many of the Cordons near them. Rumors of spies and assassins sent by the Azurfell to root out the weaknesses of each village, and cause trouble where they can, has caused the Derkoswer to be far more standoffish than most. That said, they are proud of the wine they make and the grain they grow, and love to show these off to potential merchants who might purchase them. Further, their respect of strength means that adventurers can expect to be efficiently and formally greeted by the curt villagers and introduced to the leader of the village.
Life
The Derkoswer are far more egalitarian than most Cordons, thanks in large part to the fact that they face a very real threat that has forced more farmers to spend time as warriors and warriors to spend their down time helping on the farm to make certain there is enough food for campaigns and sieges.
Through the laughter and songs that are normal for the Cildru, hangs a tension, for everyone in Derkoswer is waiting for the Azurfell offensive to begin anew. For the finale that will either give them victory or one final moment of glory. This knowledge that they will have to fight for their future against a much larger nation has led the people of Derkoswer to feel a strange sense of calm and purpose.
The Derkoswer live in nuclear family unites, with a few family members unable to inherit land being adopted into the family in order to help work the large fields of grain and vineyards. In addition, the wealthier land owners occasionally those who don’t have enough land to make a living on it alone to help with larger tasks such as the threshing and planting. Theirs is a fairly hard life, requiring many hours of work every day. Many believe, however, that they can find a sort of peace in the repetitive rhythm of hard work.
Battle
The majority of the Derkoswer’s battleline are barbarians, and they center their strategy around these barbarians’ ability to gain resistance to most attacks for a short time. Their barbarian units take turns acting as the front line so that their front line will have resistance to most attacks for as long as possible. Their wizards and clerics tend to focus on protective magics, adding to the front lines already formidable ability to take punishment. Unable to hurt them, most of their foes will eventually break and flee, rather than continue to fight. Which is why, for now at least, the Azurfell has chosen to take their fight to other, easier to conquer, Cordons and into the Sword Duchies.
Important local deities
Ethelthex Lake
Each village of Cildru has its own water spirit, whether this be a lake, stream, river, or other. This spirit of the water manifests either as a massive trout, a beautiful but exceedingly slight woman, or a serenely swaying tree growing beside the water. Ethelthex Lake is a fairly young water way, and more precocious than most lakes. Stories often center around her doing something embarrassing when meeting with other deities, especially the typically stodgy older lakes. The Derk find these stories funny, all be it a little embarrassing as they tend to cling fairly close to tradition themselves. Even so they love their lake and do their best to accommodate her with a meal of wheat porridge and grape juice every fifth day (they don’t give her wine as she’s already clumsy and silly enough without being tipsy). Perhaps most importantly they remain as quite as possible until noon, knowing that Ethelthex, being young, prefers to sleep in, and she is often heard carousing with the forest fey and other deities all night.
Pear Tree
Unlike their lake, the great old pear tree is said to have been born from the tears of the first demon slain by an angel in the world. Whether it was just the first, as they like to brag, or simply something that happened a long time ago is up for debate (although not with them), never the less, the deity of the pear tree is old enough that it never got a name. They simply call him Pira, the old word for pear tree. He is a dangerous being, quick to punish any sign of disrespect or deviation from tradition. Many who grow sick or unlucky discovered they upset Pira in some way and must go placate themselves, begging for forgiveness.
Pira is the most common source of power for the Warlocks of the village, granting fiend or celestial powers, depending on the personality of the warlock seeking them out.
Woedwer (Common in the Central Forests)
The people of Woedwer live alongside a small tribe of wood elves, who are common in this area, and although they rarely ever see these elves, the Woedwer take many of their cultural ideals from them. Like the elves, the Woedwer view civilization as temporary, believing that only the natural world lasts by adapting and changing. Because of this the Woedwer seek to live in harmony with nature, viewing beavers as the perfect example of how one uses the natural world to help reshape nature to create something beautiful.
They build simple homes and barns, made to collapse when they move on after a few years. The advantage to this is that the collapsed home creates dens for small furbearing animals such as weasels, mink, and fox, which the Woedwer trade for food and weapons. Thus, by living the way they do they help both the animals of the environment and themselves.
Along with gaining some of what they need from fur trapping, the Woedwer also use their ability to speak with the spirits of the forest to learn which trees they can cut for lumber, allowing them to be some of the only people able to gather large trees in their region, providing them with a second thriving business.
The Woedwer prefer to sell their lumber and fur as raw material, rather than crafting it themselves, as they prefer to spend their time in the forest, herding small pigs with the help of their dogs, meditating on the natural world, and hunting.
Although they have the famed aloofness of the Cildru, the Woedwera are generally more welcoming to strangers, having a strong hosting ethic that requires them to be generous with those in need, and willing to exchange with those who have plenty.
Life
Woedwer villages tend to be quiet places, but this isn’t because they are completely stoic. Rather, it’s because they have a history of dealing with woodland horrors who hate the sounds of happiness and will attack villages that are too loud. As a result, the Woedwer have learned to find pleasure in intimate activities. Quite games, the rhythm of archery practice, relaxing with friends, or simply taking in the beauty of nature.
This silence has also enhanced their already contemplative culture and causes them to spend more time in meditative activities than most of the other Cildru. Such meditation is often conducted on the roofs of their homes, especially in cold weather, as they view cold as a purifying force.
Combat
The Woedwer don’t form attachments to specific locations, making them difficult to defeat, as they are willing to leave their homes at any moment, and choose, instead, to fight a war of attrition in the forests. Most of the Woedwer are rogues, rangers, or scouts, allowing them to ambush their enemies before disappearing back into the forest. Their spellcasters focus on killing quietly, with their sorcerers often learning to cast spells without using a word, so that their enemies can’t locate their hiding places. Wizards will tend towards spells that can support archers, and last for a time so that they won’t give away the ambushes being planned with words.
Pipawer (Common in the mountains)
Pipawer are seminomadic, moving into the high mountain pastures where they tend to small gardens while herding sheep and brightly feathered, calved sized, Ornithopods (dinosaurs) in the summer. In the fall they move down to the rivers to catch fish, before moving to the forests in the winter to trap animals and use the forests to help shelter against the wind.
The Pipawer venerate and to an extent, emulate the satyrs of the mountain meadows and the groves of trees. As a result, they are indulgent to the point of hedonism. That said, they understand the importance of working hard to earn enough to put on their lavish feasts and survive. Since their primary goal in life is to join the more whimsical fairy courts after they die, they seek not simply to be strong, or to be entertained, but to be entertaining and interesting. To this end they spend a lot of time working on conversational and performance based skills.
Life and Society
The people of Pipawer live in small family groups in the high mountains through the summer, their houses being little more than sheds, as they will tend to spend more time sleeping outside, under the stars in the summer than they well inside. When fall comes they move into the valleys with larger villages of a few hundred people. It is here, in their winter homes, after they have finished fishing and the work is mostly done, that they seek to attract the fairies to live invisibly with them for a while. Often this is done through a massive display of hedonism at the beginning of winter.
Feasts, songs, dances, and plays are held to draw the fairies to the villages, and homes are kept warm and brightly decorated to encourage the fairies to stay, hidden in small homes built in the walls for them. Every year a few people, especially those who are about to die, disappear, taken by these fairies to dwell with them in the fairy court. It is this dwelling with the fairy court and returning to watch over their descendants in the winter that is people’s great desire.
Sometimes people actually get to meet their ancestors, turned fairies, to hear tales of the fairy court and life in the other world and of the past. The ability to see and eat with their most important ancestors every year, makes the people of Pipawer very traditional and resistant to change. Further, much like the fey, they are close and caring with each other but can be standoffish and even dangerous when it comes to outsiders. They do, however, get most of their wine and a number of other goods through trade, so they do allow a few people to visit their villages. For adventurers the best way to visit them is through an invitation by the Dru’adee, who frequently hire adventurers to help the one of the Pipawer villages or to gather motes of magic.
Warfare
The Pipawer appear to be aggressive fighters, attacking with an intense ferocity that causes many of their enemies to flee. That said, they always have escape plans when they engage an opponent and will quickly fall back if things don’t go their way, retreating and striking again and again until they can turn the tide. They tend to prefer fighter or barbarian classes when they are strong, with the wiser of their number becoming druids, rather than clerics. Their wizards focus on a mixture of spells to break up large formations of enemies and to cover the Pipawer retreat if that is necessary.
Blessed Cordons
The blessed Cordons have taken the unusual step of swearing some allegiance to angelic beings and the Seelie Courts of fairies, in order to fend of the armies of undead that frequently ravage their villages. This leads them to choose clerical classes more than druidic ones, however, they still choose to be led by foremost who are unaligned, and are most often likely to follow powerful wizards, thanks to their contacts with Dawnstead.
There is a stoic honor about them which outsiders often can’t help but respect and even envy. With many seeing the Blessed as beacons of virtue.
Life and Society
The Blessed view life as being akin to their large wheat and barley fields which surround small gardens and the batches of forests where the angels and fairies can live. That is, they believe that what is necessary to survive surrounds and sometimes seems to overwhelm what is beautiful, perfect, and spiritual. Yet one’s emotional focus should be on the forests and the gardens, not on the material necessity. When one is working, they should frequently look to the forests, when one is feeling sorrowful, they should work in their garden to calm themselves and to ensure that there are delicious garlics, herbs, and sweet berries to eat.
The Blessed enjoy sophisticated wit, and humor that uses clever and often understated mockery. They hold frequent meals where certain people will be designated ‘fools’ who are free to mock the way the world is and the people and deities within it. Often this highlights what people already know but it also allows people to think about things in a new way and reconsider what they believe. More importantly, however, it gives people an opportunity to laugh and something to talk about when they work in the fields.
The Blessed live in constant fear of two forces, the first are the undead which can appear at any time and seemingly anywhere. The second are the fairies without a court which are a constant problem. These fairies live alongside them, stealing their grain, putting curses on them for fun, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. These concerns have shaped their desire to find ‘purity’ as well as knowledge and strength from within.
Combat
The Blessed have far more wizards and clerics than most other peoples, with their spells focused largely on holding their enemies at bay so that their archers and catapults can be used to full effect. They also use wizards to transport and build mobile forts and siege works in pieces, with the use of spells like ‘floating disk’. This, along with their large herds of donkeys, allows them to be better supplied than nearly any other army on the field.
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by Ty Hulse “Life is a celebration and battle is the finale.” Or so goes the saying of the Cildru who flock to the banners of powerful w...
