A Lowlander's Gloss of the Rise & Fall of the Pach-Pah Empire, Part 5.

Click here to view Part 4 on the Pach-Pah Empire



"I call to order the 298th Grand Resolutions Council, and the 2,980th Convening of the Large and Small Workers' Assemblies!"
- Officiator Thonapa Namdol, at the most recent overlap in annual and decennial meetings between the loose governing bodies of the People's Anarcho-Syndicalistic Communes of Pach-Pah Yul, 293 AR

"RECALL DELEGATE SAMTEN TITU! GUAMANSURI FOR LARGE COUNCIL!"
- An election season leaflet from Pansech Province, circa 246 AR.



The last Miqh Pach-Pah was buried without blessing or ceremony (but also without further insult or defamation) in an undisclosed location in one of the gardens of his palace. The bodies of his advisers would hang over the broken gates for some time in cages gilt with all of the precious stones and metals which they had fostered the mining of. The empire without an emperor entered a deep and extended period of mourning and protracted activity. The Pach-Pahs vanished from international commerce and society almost entirely as they attempted to piece their homes and lives back together, to say nothing of the internal struggles of understanding who and what they now were.

With the collapse of the semi-divine cult surrounding the Miqh, those with faith shaken yet unbroken turned in greater numbers and in greater piety toward the other gods of the mountains. They threw themselves upon the mercy of the deities of right conduct and justice, and prayed for those who had been lost to the underworld. A deep, collective sense of grief, guilt, and catharsis kept them united, where once the ties of common government had done the same.

This marked the point in time when the gods of the underworld were also venerated. Prior to that, stretching as far back as the early period of Pach-Pah history, those of the deep and dark places had been feared and warded against. Evil was associated with them, and they were only appeased in an attempt to ward off misfortune. Now, the fear remained truer than ever, but it was laced with a desperate hope that those whom they had taken into their keeping were being treated well. Indeed, the living hoped that the same could be had for themselves, if a buried death awaited them in the end. the practice of digging architecture entirely below the surface was abandoned in the same decade as the Collapse, save for when a temple dedicated to the gods below needed building.

The surviving instances of nobility throughout the provinces remained in the custody of various groups of revolutionaries for some time, but further spilling of blood was out of the question, now that everyone had seemed to finally "wake up" from the illusion of bloated royalty. The memoirs of former governors and their children are well-documented in the following century, as they attempted to reintegrate with those whom they had stayed above and separate from. Progress was slow, and famine was frequent in those regions where infrastructure had been damaged the most heavily. But in their reduced state, the people of the mountains consolidated, and experienced a measure of regrowth.

Eventually the question of "what next?" was difficult to ignore. And unlike the aftermath of our own experiences of disaster, vast gulfs of distance between major players did not prevent the highlanders from achieving greater cooperation once again. In the first of many summits to come, the representatives of each former province met at the base of the peak where the ruined imperial palace once stood. With each was an entourage of representatives of each industry found in that province, for over the course of the empire's history, its people had undergone quite a significant degree of specialization into various disciplines.

The various members of each regimented form of livelihood, whether they were the heads of valley ranches or of stoneworking groups, quickly found themselves in agreement about what their respective peoples needed and wanted for the future. Of course they did not agree so readily with each other group's decisions, and bickering ensued. It was only by taking on a role of arbitration did the representatives of each province at large manage to instill a state of quiet order, from which the first rough agreements on group policy were drawn up. Each industry would work toward both representation and self-regulation, and each regional government would work together to maintain a level of cooperation and public welfare between all moving parts. "Solidarity Without Kings" became something of a rallying mantra for the Pach-Pahs.

It would be a dizzying and frankly impossible task for an indigenous expert on political history of the Pach-Pahs to produce a comprehensive and all-encompassing list of the various changes between that point and now, and being that I have neither the blood ties nor the training to do so, it would be doubly so for me to attempt. But I can say with confidence that, despite nearly three thousand years of time passing, the Pach-Pahs have maintained a remarkable degree of faithfulness to that first council's resolutions. There have been many changes, transformations, and upheavals since, with more than one Trade War or would-be monarch inflicting themselves upon the people of the mountains. But in the spirit of perpetual revolution, each of these challenges has been met, dealt with, and then spun to resemble that old precept.

Before my more aristocratic readers tear this document up in a white-knuckled rage, be aware that though they constantly push against it, hierarchy is difficult to avoid entirely within this patchwork blanket of industry-communities. Furthermore, a continued and heavy emphasis upon family lineage among all Pach-Pah groups maintains a somewhat clannish divide between larger industrial groups, as well as a fairly consistent and conservative outlook on (albeit recently-created) tradition.

This, as well as limited international trade, has occupied our southern neighbors since before our own empire was divided. All things considered, they have done remarkably well for themselves. And I dare say that we have many lessons in adaptation, damage control, and human spirit to learn from them.

On a more scholastic note, I would also like to take the opportunity to push the support for Pach-Pach archaeological research. The discipline has its roots in the mountains, yet has enjoyed relatively little adaptation to the lowlands, even in regions as fixated upon its past as the denizens of Deneroth.

It is with determined optimism that I state my recently-approved budget¹ for an expedition into the mountains to accompany one such archaeological project will generate enough northern interest in the practice that Deneroth or even Nambar may soon host their own departments of history-through-earth-sifting.



¹ The initial offer of ten pounds of electrum is barely enough to cover the costs for equipment and non-university personnel, let alone the need for transportation and lodgings over a four-month period. It was quickly expanded to twenty-five pounds once I pointed out to the treasurers' council that they and everyone else on the University's campus would be free of me for a full quarter of the year if the funding was sufficient.

Hylek's Hundreds, Part 1.

"The Hundreds stand high, unbowed and unbreakable!"
- A common rallying chant of the Hundreds.

"Tens of thousands, alike but better, have fallen before us. What chance have you?"
- Acting Commander Fextaenius, to the free-bodied masterminds of the Rioter's Syndrome Rebellion at Ul-Qib. They had precisely no chance at all.

"Hah! You think a knife in the heart will kill me? They tried that already, you churl; it doesn't work!"
- Dornarseh, Breacher-Captain of the Forlorn Heap Hundred.



It would be naive of me to assume that the entirety of my (admittedly limited) readership has not heard at least a handful of the tales passed down from generation to generation about the exploits and deeds of the legendary mercenary company known as Hylek's Hundreds. But I would be remiss not to offer at least a cursory overview of their history for the sake of outsiders, the uninformed, and those who might stumble upon this record in a day when they have passed from memory, inconceivable as that sounds and has sounded for the past four hundred years.

Hylek's Hundreds are said by the archives at both Deneroth and Nambar to have been founded in 124 P.R. by the eponymous Gertisch-Haraalian warrior Hylek. Physical evaluation records recently recovered in Serminwurth support this, giving the names of several high-profile and particularly exquisite specimens among the Hundreds dated to 109 P.R. Hylek drew upon the masses of soldiers left unemployed by the conclusion of the Third and final Trade War, which had escalated to the point of wide-scale mobilization of armed ground forces alongside the more typical naval powers which had more-or-less carried the last two conflicts along. As a result of this, the original composition of each Hundred was culturally and ethnically varied, though most tended to hail from the lower classes of Ersuunian society- independent officers from moneyed families tended to have far easier times landing peacetime careers in many parts of the empire following the War.

Beyond these few concrete facts--Hylek's first decades of activity and the original Hundreds--little else is known that doesn't read like fantasy and propaganda, even coming from the most reputable of sources. The Hundreds, always numbering ten such miniature legions and totaling one thousand soldiers beside captains, adhere to this magic number rigidly. To the point that they give the impression of their members' immortality. Each morning after even a savage battle, the ranks remain perfectly filled with the same number of men as had been preparing to fight the day before. Even in the most inhospitable of environments, bereft of a baggage train or follower camp, these spontaneous reinforcements seem to find a way- if they are reinforcements at all. None of the Hundreds are ever known to suffer disease or malnutrition, both known as sometimes supreme killers of soldiers everywhere. The remarkable physical condition each member of the Hundred showed, even from the earliest days, was what led to those valuable examination files being recorded by the morbidly fascinated bodily experts at Serminwurth.

Only, it is difficult to disprove these heroic myths. Even under the supremely close surveillance of onlookers drawn from miles around to watch the few battles which the Hundreds are contracted for, not a one in his distinctive blue uniform and armor has ever been found among the dead or gravely wounded. They come up clean, year after year, as the victories unfurl before them, and in the history of their entire company, not a single retired member has ever been encountered, or even recognized as a possibility. There are even academics among the much-reduced intellectual class of Meroth who believe that Hylek still leads the company in private, despite necessarily being several centuries old by this point.

Even now, we are to believe that he contributes to the undying legacy of the Hundreds as moral soldiers of fortune, only ever supporting the cause of those whom they deem righteous. According to tradition, the current face of the company, one Fextaenius of Porylus Mons, bluntly refuses each proposal made to them. Then, the perpetually-wandering host departs with all haste, leaving the prospective employer in their dust. In most cases, that is that. But in the rarer instances where one ultimately succeeds, it is only after repeated and spectacular efforts are made to catch up with the Hundreds once more, pleading more dearly each time than the last, until at last the person in question is moved to give a rousing speech which can adequately extol the virtue of their mission and all which it stands for. Only then does the hidden Hylek reveal himself, and give his word. In an unusually large percentage of contract records dug up from the Coin-Keepers of Abbas, the spontaneous omen of three eagles appearing before the would-be hero bearing olives and arrows is recorded no less than fourteen times within the span of forty years.

Everything surrounding Hylek and his men is unnervingly perfect and made for the grandest of narratives and praise-poems, and I cannot find a single piece of evidence to bring these miraculous accomplishments into question.

Which is precisely why I believe them to be miracles.

Gender & Family in the Fokari Tribes.

"What should we name her, when the day comes? She needs a beautiful name to grow into."
"How about Alyah?"
"After your aunt? She had a nose like a falcon's beak! Better to choose Golnaj, in honor of my mother..."
"You mean the one whose face is like a salt flat?"
- Fokari parents bantering over the cradle of their newborn.


Generally speaking, there are two genders among the Fokari. These are male and female, and again generally speaking, each of these genders encompasses a broad range of roles, customs, and expectations for those included within it. The most visible example of the sexual division of roles in a Fokari tribe is the existence of the Speaker and Seer. The former, a tribal archivist and overseer of youths within various age groups, is always male, while the latter, the preeminent or sole shaman of the community, is always female. This lines up somewhat appropriately with the general Fokari worldview of dualism and differing halves. But there are more divisions of labor less ritualized than either Speaker or Seer, and there are many more scenarios where these spheres may overlap in daily life.

Women are the commodity powerhouses of sorts in each family, weaving, felting, doing needle-work, and more rarely woodworking or clay-making, when available plant matter and water permits. Men will scrimshaw, tan hides or process meat, or work metal in exceedingly rare cases, but they more often attend to hunting and the maintenance of the tools relevant to it. War is ideally a male affair, but then again war is ideally avoided whenever possible, and pragmatism often calls on all to defend kith, kin, and yuum herds. Both men and women may tend to the tribe's herds, often in larger numbers of shepherds per animal head than in cultures where the use of domesticated horses is common. These house industries are overseen by the elder married couple of each family, with active parents generally exempt from the most rigorous and time-consuming projects unless a grandparent can manage their children for them.

Fertility and the bearing of children is not a private matter for families in a Fokari tribe. Because of the fluctuating access to resources common on the wasteland fringes, the family heads and other elders try to maintain a certain population range from generation to generation, encouraging marriage and reproduction here or discouraging it there. The range has initially soft limits at either end, but the sudden and severe under-or-overpopulation of a tribe's territory can lead to either voluntary assimilation into another band, or the cleaving-off of groups into new tribes. Allegations of adultery arising from unexpected children are dealt with in the same discreet manner as other disputes, with a mish'khiltah rarely ever being needed. Couples who plan for a single child and receive twins or triplets are celebrated as being gifted by the spirits despite the extra burden, but couples who do not limit themselves after multiple instances of childbearing face social stigma of varying severity, mother and father alike. The exposure of newborns is rare due to an association with blood-guilt, but it is not an unheard-of practice. Children who are both needed and desired must still survive the challenging first two years of life before having a celebrated and official name-day.

Being one of the few hereditary roles in Fokari life, chieftainship is passed down from parent to selected heir. As a general rule, the chieftain selects their youngest adult child of the opposite sex who is unmarried, in the belief that this will ensure the new chief's full dedication to their duties, as well as prevent a dynasty of personality from forming through successive generations of fathers and sons or mothers and daughters. Of course succession does not always come to pass in this way, either because of fate, or by personal choice of the chieftain.

Marriage may still occur when children are unneeded, and there is nothing to stop a married couple from constructing their own tent and living together within it. But a low fertility does not mean that infertile or discouraged couples are forever without children. Attrition and challenges to life expectancy are found at all age ranges, and in the event that a youth is orphaned of both parents, or a nuclear family unit is overwhelmed with needs, a foster pair may take them in. These foster parents are typically of the same extended family through one side or the other, so it is not uncommon for these children to be raised by aunts, uncles, or cousins. Often, these foster parents are couples which include one nyaak partner.

Literally meaning "mirrored", a nyaak Fokar is one who identifies and behaves as the gender opposite of the one they were born into. In mythic traditions held by many tribes, they are the result of a spirit being incorrectly clothed in flesh during the movement from the spirit realm to the physical world. A Fokar cannot identify as nyaak until they are of the age to be able to complete the adulthood rituals typical for all members of the tribe. But after that point and upon completion of these events, they are treated in accordance with their truer, unfleshed self. A male is for all intents and purposes a woman, and vice versa. From a certain sociological perspective, couples including one nyaak serve to limit population growth somewhat, and so they are valued as naturally-occurring moderators despite their rarity in the tribes overall. In this way a dualistic binary is maintained, but a mode of transportation between the two points is made available.

A Lowlander's Gloss of the Rise & Fall of the Pach-Pah Empire, Part 1.

Click here to view Part 2 on the Pach-Pah Empire.



"You people price chipped rocks for almost half as much as a silver and turquoise brooch!"
"No one was murdered or starved to deliver these finished "rocks" to you."
- Banter heard upon the traders' streets leading to Addas Bazaar, a place uncommonly reached by highland traders.

"Their guild-heads' tendency to collect and ship off to the regional capital the vast majority of each community's earnings is almost as confounding as each denizen's mighty enthusiasm to have it done."
- Jor Lertuul, A Travelogue of the Southern Reaches.



To the inhabitants of the enormous basin which makes up the purported heartland of the Ersuun-descended peoples, the distant Pashel mountain range to the south-by-southeast is no more grand than the closer Oron'er Range, but not nearly as tantalizing to those with a belief in the fantastic. It does not figure heavily in most local mythic traditions either, although a remarkable and compelling argument has been made in recent decades that the Pashels are one and the same as the legendary Yorl'di peaks which were said to cradle the folk-hero Haraal. This argument was formulated and contributed to extensively by our own late Berschut Groz, Head of the Department of Comparative Mythology.

May Our Eternal Scholar Laizij keep him in His vast libraries, forever favored and tenured.

Putting briefly aside the mythical (and I emphasize "briefly"), I believe it is in the interest of current geopolitical discourse to synthesize and appreciate the full scope of our records on the Pashels, particularly concerning the civilization which thrives there, and which has thrived for thousands of years already, separated from us by only a relatively few miles, plus several thousand feet of elevation.

To begin, a small linguistic observation is in order. To many of us northerners--or perhaps "lowlanders" is a more appropriate term in this context--the mountains are named the "Pashels" in each of six or seven language families, depending on how one treats the branching theory of Middle Misrel. But to the denizens of those mountains, they are named the Pach-Yul. Because of this I believe that all other variants are in fact derivative of that original term, which translates literally to "Land of the Earth".¹ Similarly, these mountains are inhabited by a remarkably homogeneous people self-identified as the Pach-Pah, or "People of the Earth". To others somewhat less sensitive to the realities of divergent humanoid polymorphism, they are often referred to by names and slurs derisive of their height (or lack thereof).

It is true that Pach-Pah (there is no difference between singular and plural forms of the name) tend toward short heights, relative to those of Ersuunian or Nambarish stock. In the absence of concrete statistical data, I must rely on anecdotal evidence that their people can have individuals of roughly four-and-a-half to five feet in height, with the former apparently treated as quite average and the latter having a very slight stigma for tallness.² But the Pach-Pah possess quite proportionate limbs despite their adaptations to the height and cold of their homeland, and with that I would like to discredit the vulgar assertions of their stuntedness or malformed nature which can be found within the libraries of our very own University. Short as they may be, they are men and women, as akin to us as the famously tall and hearty Reossos trailblazers of the east are. And might I add that some among the Pach-Pah may very well view us as goofy and aberrant in our height. Would you have these stereotypes persist and contribute to the regrettable gulf between our vigorous cultures?

The Pach-Pah lead diverse lives today, though their traditional mode of life was one of semi-permanent herding centered around several species of graceful and woolly (if hypersalivating) even-toed ungulates adapted to their precipitous and rocky home. This proud old tradition continues to exist and today, and its supplies the people with clothing, meat, and dairy products (including a certain cheesy alcohol fermented from them). Alongside these herders exist the remarkable vertical farmers of the lower slopes, whose history and immunity to a fear of heights is deserving of a volume all of their own. Other roles include trading, both internally and with outsiders, though the two are distinguished from one another by a system of barter and favor-keeping within, and a more traditional currency-based system without. There are also craftspersons dealing in a wide range of disciplines and materials. Each livelihood is both protected and regulated by fairly nebulous and permeable bodies of workers and administrators which may be glossed here as being trade guilds, though it should be noted that these groups combine vocation with heritage and bloodline in a way unseen in more local cities.

Stonework holds a special place in the culture of the Pach-Pah, for many of their dwellings are made of earthen material set partway into the ground as a means of enduring the coldest winters on the mountains. Smaller, finer types of stonework exist as well, with the cut and polish of sedimentary pebbles being said to rival the luster of a diamond.

These sayings are a somewhat dubious honor to the Pach-Pah craftspeople in question however, owing to their people's long and sordid history with precious metals and gemstones.



¹ This direct translation unfortunately lacks the rich and subtle connotations of each syllabic unit, which draw in suggestions of elevation, majesty, motherly nurturing, and proto-nationality.

² "Upon being dubbed "Inti the Tall" in good-natured jest, Inti the Diplomat reportedly punched Sornes of Meroth in the gut and demanded recompense while in the presence of his entourage, only to privately apologize to Sornes later on and explain that it was a matter of personal honor and familial dignity." Manjus Terg, Salvaged Records on Pre-Rupture Foreign Policy at Meroth and Deneroth, parchment 23.

Ergil-Who-Is-Death.

"He does not punish. He does not reward. He doesn't judge at all. He simply is; a withered hand to hold on the last, long journey."
- A literal translation out of Esgodarran prose taken from Nares Saton's Elegies.

"Don't fear Death- fear where he's taking you."
- A prominent graffito scrawled over the threshold of a funerary home in the Lower-East Tier of Deneroth.

"Relish the sting! It means the Horned One hasn't yet claimed you."
- Hital, elated as always to be performing burn debridement without any anesthesia handy.



When death comes, not everyone has a tribe to cut them apart, or a bird-spirit to whisk them away to the sky. For many, the only company to be had in death is silent and solitary Ergil.

As his epithet "Ergil-Who-Is-Death" suggests, Ergil is the state of death, and everything which is dead is entered into his being, at least temporarily. He is not a god, at least not the kind which needs worship and sacrifice, though he does receive both on occasion. He is somewhat closer to a force of nature, in a restrained and creeping sort of fashion. But he is also an individual, acting separate from or within himself in a manner surprisingly personal to each lost soul.

Upon death, the individual is commonly believed to be lost for a time without time ranging from hours to years, in which the soul is tossed back and forth upon the currents of some roiling sea of unbeing. But this transient phase ends, and then the dead "wakes up". They are greeted with a place not too vastly different from the location in which they died, with certain marked differences. In some stories this is a pallid mirror of the world of the living, while others hold it to be the actual, physical world through different means of seeing. Without the veil of mortal eyes, the spirit can see the world quite differently- perhaps, as it truly is.

Regardless of what the nature of this place is where the dead find themselves, it is somewhat of a dreary place. The sky remains perpetually overcast, and though the constant wind can feel quite damp, no rain ever falls. The world stretches out in all directions, silent and dead but for the wind in the grass or the flowing of stagnant-smelling water. Geography wears thin the farther away from one's site of death one goes, and beyond that, space itself begins to deteriorate, until a truly alien landscape stretches out before one's unveiled eyes. If this is the land of the dead, it can give the impression that one is the only dead thing anywhere, ever, for not a single other soul is ever to be seen. Black-feathered birds or small flies can occasionally be seen, as well as brief and distant views of dark shapes shifting about, but nothing pays the dead any heed. None but Ergil.

He appears sometime after the dead's wakening, typically from a great distance at first, no different from the other furtive black spots on the horizon. But though he moves slowly, he advances inexorably toward the spirit. Some flee what they see as this approaching apparition of doom, and beat a hasty retreat through the weird land which now keeps them. And because the spirit needs no sleep, nor food or water, the chase can last indefinitely. But Ergil's slow and steady approach never leaves him farther away than the horizon, a constant reminder of the inevitability of death.

Some remain quite ignorant of their own death, while others refuse acceptance, traveling through as many stages of grief as the living they left behind might feel. Though countless ages and trackless wastes may separate the dead soul from where they began, the time always comes when they stand in silent acceptance, and the master of that self-same domain comes to rest before them.

The avatar of death is quite featureless. He stands immensely tall, twelve feet or more at times, perpetually enveloped by a cloak of frayed black feathers and scraps of fur. His arms and legs, when visible, are as black as his garment, long and gangling, and terminating in gnarled claws. Contrasting with these dark hues is the dingy whiteness of bandages wrapped haphazardly around his body, stained with blood or antiseptic here and there- some believe these to be the remnants of dressings stripped from the bodies of those who died in agony under the ministrations of physicians, who finally came to know release from Najis the Healer. A more bleached shade of white is his head. Or, what passes for one.

Ergil has no visible face, for the head which caps his eerily long neck is mounted by the immense skull of a bovid shaped into a mask. Because of this, plus the large wooden staff or crook he is sometimes depicted with, he is known as the Horned One, or the Moldering Shepherd. His gender is inferred as male only due to the large and impressive horns which adorn the skull, suggesting that it had once belonged to a great steer. Either Death cannot speak, or he does not care how any including his newest guests refer to him. All he will do, is extend his hand.

He does not force the spirit to take his gesture, and will even continue to follow the dead on their aimless journey across the vast and empty vistas of that place, ever a silent companion walking a few paces behind and beside, as tireless as his charge.

When the hand is at last taken, he will not take initiative even then. Rather, the land seems to reorient itself and regain some measure of coherence around the two, and the correct path reveals itself. And so it is that Ergil and the spirit walk together, hand in hand, neither leading the other, until the destination is reached. Other times, if in life one was too young or old to walk, or some disability gripped them, Ergil effortlessly carries them in his musty yet gentle embrace, going where the dead would go as if they themselves were walking that way.

The final destination may be an opening into a vault in the earth. It may be a craggy pinnacle enveloped in a shaft of light piercing the ever-present clouds. Whatever it is, the immediate and profound sense of belonging which takes over the wandering spirit ends all travel. Ergil acts as final witness to the departed and their departure, and then he vanishes again over the horizon.

Ergil-Who-Is-Death has accumulated a great deal of frightening iconography over the ages, making him appear sinister and even violent in nature. The addition of a cruel-looking harvesting scythe in some depictions contaminated by a certain grain-god has not helped matters. But to those who pray to him and officiate funerary rites and interment, his even-handedness and gentleness are emphasized.

He is no one's enemy. Only another step to be taken.

Magic in the World.

(While many of my posts dedicated to this nebulous and poorly-defined setting have included mysticism or magical elements, I haven't yet gotten around to explaining how it actually works. Or even delving if it does work in a fashion which allows for explanation. It was always present at the edge of my consideration, but finally I decided to do something more with it after I read this post.

The RPG Blog Carnival

Found within is a pretty neat way to advertise oneself while also engaging with others who are interested in the same topics as you, just by writing a specialized blog post. It's a fun community-building mechanic, and I decided I'd throw myself in with the rest of 'em. This month's topic is, of course, "Magic", and the carnival is being hosted by Kobold Press. Check out their published books sometime, if core materials for your game of choice aren't quite cutting it.

Without further ado, here is another manuscript picked up off of the scattered mess of papers found on the desk in Roberick Bertrum Litte's subscalanean abode.)

"Pontificating blowhards, and elitist know-it-alls more arrogant than Ivory Tower alumni alike, will try to tell you that there are sharp divides between different forms of magic, whether they call them "schools" or "domains", or what have you. They will argue which ones come from rigorous arcane study and which ones must be earned from the gods. Which are inherent gifts or curses of the individual, and which are obtained from one's environment. They will exalt the benefits of their own path while belittling or outright demonizing all others. The worst part about it is that they are all right- but only barely."

- Elrusyo, "hedge magician" pen pal & outside contact of Roberick Litte.

A holistic approach to understanding the various forces, practices, and phenomena collectively known as "magic" is about as difficult to formulate as it would be to explain the third dimension to a group of flat pictures who can't stop fighting one another long enough to act as a good audience. But despite these odds, the attempt has still been made, and to a degree, the challenge overcome. It would appear that, even including systems of magic which operate under the belief of one incredibly narrow specificity (i.e., that all of a practitioner's power derives from a single boulder out in a field), all traditions seem to share the concept and acceptance of a plane or similarly distant yet permeating place in which the powers dwell. For some this is the land of the gods, while for others it is a roiling chaos of nondifferentiated cosmic soup. But the act of engaging with it, regardless of medium, seems to be enough to effect some sort of change upon that plane, insofar as some of that energy and potential is siphoned off.

The skeptical reader may now be thinking that this is all beginning to sound very much like a fairtale-esque case of "belief makes it real". And the skeptic would be correct.

(The skeptic should also be wary if they are reading this article within the walls of Deneroth, because the University enforcers can sniff out a curious mind from up to forty yards away.)

Belief is an immensely important element of engaging with magic. Without it there is no magic to speak of, after a fashion, and the mind is like a blank spot- a hole in the tapestry of the universe's mysticism. But belief is not all that is needed. One needs to be dedicated to a form of practice which evokes magic in any of its forms. This is most obvious in the case of rigorous study of the "laws" (more like gentle, self-enforced suggestions) of magic by wizards, or by the equally dedicated and self-effacing devotion of one's body and soul to their deity of choice. But the need for a system and skill is still present elsewhere. Even among those hot-blooded "sorcerers" of the Occident who claim to be able to evoke power by virtue of being themselves, there is a requisite belief in the self, and ability to empower and manifest the self. Much like a braggart about one's own deeds, a sorcerer out of practice is much more bluster than blaster.

This, coupled with the general belief that magic is unique to the sentient mind or things invested with power by the sentient mind*, suggests that all effects are indeed being drawn from the same source. To borrow from the metaphors of oracles, it may very well be that all forms of magic access the same place from which knowledge and godheads may (or may not) arise.

Observing upon the existence or nonexistence of the gods is something for an entirely different article, however. I have only just recently been forgiven by the Tower censors for including in one journal the various unflattering limericks which refer to Laizij, our eternal scholar and university patron.

What I openly wonder now, is how exactly all of these different-yet-similar means of drawing power from this "plane" interact. What would happen if two practitioners tried to draw out the same motes of force? Could they bereave one or the other of that power and leave their evocation wanting? Could they cancel one another out, as the sensationalist talk of "antimagic" from the northeast would suggest? Is the font of magic instead so vast as to make individual magic-users like rafts adrift in a sea, utterly unlikely to ever encounter or ram into one another?

Could this sea ever be drained?

* The recent reports of levitating sheepdogs in the southern reaches of our nearby Akell-Ar Valley are as of yet unsubstantiated. An attempt by one Eneko Sehi to have an expedition and study funded, while demonstrating a promising degree of initiative, has been met with red tape by the Committee for the Preservation of Esgodarran Wildlife.*

* Note that there are no native Esgodarrans present on the Committee at this time, nor have there ever been, nor do any current members of the Committee speak the indigenous dialects.

Hobs and Hellos.

Well, I guess I better start somewhere.

Hello, all! Or no one. Whoever winds up reading these posts. I am the Furtive Goblin. Call me Furt for short, if you really want to.

I've been a longtime lurker on the internet, avoiding social media as much as I could, but this summer I've been entertaining illusions of grandeur. So I've decided to start up Yet Another Fantasy Gaming Blog (maybe I should have named this joint YAFGaB).

I won't promise a posting schedule, since I've got senior papers and unemployment to worry about. But if you're the type to enjoy twists on standard fantasy settings and the occasional bit of system-agnostic lore, drop by once in a while and see if I've cooked up anything to your liking.

Without further ado, have some horseless steppe nomads.

The Fokari

"We are the People of Clay. We do not crumble. We do not crack. We mold ourselves to the will of our Tribe."

- The Speaker's Oath

Little is known, and even less has been seen, of a group of people said to live upon the boundaries between civilization and the untouched wilds of the Lukran Wastes. While many look upon the pirates and mariners of the southern islands as the least "civilized" people, these waste-dwellers are hardly recognized as a people at all. Indeed, to most bordering tribes and polities they exist only as myths, and as bogeymen for small children. But the peoples of the Taleen borderlands and the camel merchants foolhardy enough to caravan through the steppes surrounding the Lukran Wastes know full well that something--someone--is out there. And that someone knows far more of their neighbors, by comparison. If you were to take and put together all of the stories told of them, one would think the wanders in the wastes are a vicious and savage race who know nothing of society and live only for blood-lust, greed, and the sewing of fear.

The truth, however, is significantly deeper.

In their own tongue, which is a remarkably varied language composed of several dozen regional dialects, they are the Fokari (sing. Fokar). Somewhat shorter than average, but strongly built and mildly bandy-legged, these tawny-skinned, hairy, and snub-nosed people are consummate survivalists who have made their home in a land which gives up nothing easily. While the steppe is green enough at its edges, much of the interior is a vast, cold desert climate with exceptionally little rainfall and no large native animals to speak of.

The Fokar tribes hunt, as well as herd small and hardy livestock, most prominently a stocky breed of long-furred goat called a yuum. They dwell in camps of circular or pointed tents constructed of tough, decorated felt and the few pieces of wood and other plant matter they have access to out on the steppe, turned into poles and segments of latticework for their walls. Rather than wandering aimlessly as some might think, they depart from a region according to a carefully-calculated and surprisingly accurate seasonal calendar, leaving one area before it has been overgrazed or stripped of its other resources, and entering a new area which, while seeming untouched, has likely been part of a tribe's nomadic rotation for generations. Where water is found in natural bodies, they produce durable and practical pieces of claywork which nonetheless exhibit their own subdued, elegant art style. When pasture land becomes too scarce or a feud breaks out between two families, they mediate their disputes so that the issue is brought to as swift and as practical an outcome as possible. Punishment may be corporeal when needed, but exile rather than capital punishment is the most severe ever meted out.

Through it all, the Fokari make do without engagement with distant but lucrative caravan trade routes, nor with access (lawful or otherwise) to the products of agricultural societies. This has proved surprisingly fruitful in the past, as they have avoided the major conflicts which have devastated empires and rearranged huge swaths of the world throughout history. And on the other end of it all, they have come out mostly unscathed and mostly unknown.

Each tribe is led by a council of elders, chief among them being the elected positions of Speaker and Seer. The Speaker is always male, and is the somewhat more public face of the group, announcing decisions as well as officiating tribal and inter-tribal events in the camp. He is also a lore-keeper who commits to memory the entirety of the tribe's oral history, as well as decent swaths of the histories of related tribes. His is the duty of monitoring all youths in a tribe, watching them for any aptitudes as they reveal themselves, and guiding them on the path deemed to be the best compromise between tribal value and individual passion.

The Seer, by contrast, is always female. She is a shaman; the one who looks to the future rather than the past, reading portents and omens in the natural world and in the seemingly random events which befall a tribe. She consults with the grim and collective spirits of the tribe's ancestors, and negotiates with the fickle and capricious spirits of the land. She is also a priestess to the tribe, connecting her people with the vast and rich mythology of the tribes possessed of qualities of animism, totemism, polytheism, and dualistic bitheism. There is a proper and hereditary position of Chieftain as well, but in practice it wields little more power in decision-making than any other elder or respected tribe member with a vote.

Each tribe of Fokari is essentially independent, and they generally only intermingle or confederate with other tribes during extremely important social or religious events, or in times of dire need.

The smaller their numbers, the harder they are to detect, after all.

The less known about their movements, the safer they are from the outsiders and soil-slaves.