Ellenida has several intelli gent races, most of whom are available as player charac ters. See the character generation handouts for game stats on the various races and tribes. In contrast to most of the animals of Ellenida, the intelligent races are all warm-blooded mam mals giving birth to live young who will be nursed with mother's milk. Females do not menstruate and are fertile all year around, but mostly so in Autumn, which has a wild and abandoned character as a result.
The dominant races are the tribes of the Pithekos. Pithekos are mostly humanoid, except that their skin is rather drier and with larger and more obviously scale-like patterns than are found on humans. The northern tribes are fairly human-looking apart from their skins. Most tribes are also fairly hairless, with beards only common in the far northern forest tribes. Older people tend to go bald in the opposite pattern from humans, with hair at the side of the head going before the central strip.
The southern tribes have even less body hair and many have long manes in a mohican-like strip reaching down the back (sometimes as far as the top of the but tocks) instead of a full head of hair.
Pithekos skins come in a variety of colours but the most common are dusty pink-brown and a pale silver. Most have some sort of faint patterning visible on their skins, often enhanced with tattoos and other decoration. These are always temporary, for Pithekos shed their skins once each year. Most of the members of a given tribe of Pithekos shed their skins in the same month, but the actual month of shedding varies widely between tribes.
Pithekos eyes have a wide range of colours, with blue, grey, green and brown being the most common. Pithekos from the Northern tribes tend to be strongly built, though rarely reaching the muscular bulk of the strongest humans. They vary in height from five to six feet, with women being shorter than men.
The Pithekos form a large number of tribes and it is these tribal groups that influence philosophy, out look and personality. The main tribes will be discussed later.
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The Pagoth hail from the Northern forests. They are a hybrid of human and plant. Their form is mutable and they are able to appear either almost totally human or totally plant-like. The Pagoth are considered incomprehensibly alien in the great plains and deserts of the South, but in the colder Northlands they are treated with respect and live comfortably alongside some Pithekos tribes. It is even claimed that they can inter breed with the Pithekos.
Their unique ability to pho tosynthesise their own food gives them a longer-term and more contemplative outlook on life than the average tribesman, but they are still a life-loving people. Many are loners who love exploring and wandering but who wel come the warmth and friend ship of hearth and home all the more when they return to them. They do not like excess heat and need a cer tain ready supply of water, but they are not bothered by even extreme cold or famine.
When in company, they tend to adopt a form that is very much human, usually with tanned skin, fair or brown hair and green eyes. Some times their skin has an underlying green tinge. Unlike the Pithekos they can have quite a lot of body hair as a protection from the bit ter Northern cold; the amount of hair is another property under the con scious control of the Pagoth.
When in intermediate form, a Pagoth's limbs might turn into branches, tendrils or fungoid forms. Their plant form is usually something like a small coniferous tree or a colony of fungoid forms on a wooden base. They are not very mobile in this form and cannot react quickly, so they tend to adopt it only in times of famine where the full apparatus of plant-form is needed to survive. Alone of the intelligent races, they do not shed their skins.
The Kemes are a large and lusty race blessed with four rather than two arms, two on each side of their barrel-like torsos. They claim that they were bred to be the warriors of the gods, and their martial prowess and strength is cer tainly not rivalled by any race on the face of Ellenida. They share dominance of the Northern forests with the Pagoth and are similarly less common in the southlands.
They have smooth skins, ranging in colour from deep red through brown to black. Their skins are tough, some times even forming a hard carapace which can turn axe blows. They shed their skins once per year as do the Pithekos and some warriors have armour made out of their own shed hides, which they claim is both effective and very frightening to one's enemies. They have large dark eyes and lack hair completely.
The Svika are a slender and graceful race from the desert valleys of the far South. They are very slim of form although they are tall and this lends them a fragile look. However, they are blessed with twin attributes of great speed and great dex terity, allied to a very quick intelligence. They have a reputation for ruthlessness and pursuit of goals with fixed determination. They are highly feared as assassins, duellists and sorcerors though their lack of endur ance makes them less suited to the life of a soldier. Only a fool crosses a Svika lightly, and gladitorial matches between a Svika assassin and a Kemes warrior are great crowd-pullers.
Their skins are usually dark and dusky, sometimes even black. Their eyes are large and lack whites, giving them a highly disconcerting stare. They favour loose clothing and although they prefer the heat they are not troubled by the cold. They tend to wear metal armour to a greater degree than other races, mostly to defend their fragile limbs from shattering blows. They have manes very similar to those of the southern Pithekos, usually yellow or white in colour, and do not have much body hair.
The race of the Sathros comes from the southern plains. They are humanoid in appearance except that they have a set of mandibles or tusks at their mouths. They have smooth skins rather like the Kemes. The Sathros are regarded as uncouth and slovenly by most of the other peoples, particularly as they tend to eat a much wider variety of food including carrion and rotting matter, having a much stronger digestion than the other races.
The Sathros' primary talents are in patience and endur ance, as well as stealth and the ability to hold themselves motionless for long periods of time. They tend to be somewhat taciturn around other races but hold wild orgies when they are alone. They are very very fond of wine and can drink the other races under the table, especially the slender Svika. Many a pub brawl has started over a crowd of Sath ros' good-natured ribbing of a proud Svika traveller's inability to hold his liquor!
The Pithekos, being the most widespread race, have the most numerous tribes. They also form the most coherent tribal units, with the other races being rather less insu lar and subdivided by their tribal affiliations. To the Pithekos, three things really define a tribe:
1) The families which form the core of the tribe.
2) The lands which the tribe occupies.
3) The god of the tribe who protects and guides them in exchange for devotion.
It is the third thing which is of primary importance and so the tribes are often con sidered synonymous with the god that they follow. Some of the gods attract tribes of more than one race; in gen eral, these will share the same land but keep them selves separate when marry ing and producing children. Some of the tribes are much more widespread geographi cally then others and these may have sub-tribes in dif ferent areas.
Gods exist to protect and strengthen the tribes, and tribes exist to serve the gods in exchange for this protec tion.
Most worshippers have a fairly intimate connection with the gods and will have witnessed a physical manifestation of their god's power at a high holy day when the god come to collect tribute or during a battle war when the god strides forth at the head of the clan to lead them in battle or to struggle with the god of the enemy clan in a battle that parallels the physical battle fought by their followers.
Most gods do not require more than the odd sacrifice and prayer from their fol lowers: a libation of wine each week, a wheat grain cake, a candle burning in a shrine. At high holy days, the god will typically demand an animal be sacrificed to them; only the death gods and war gods require human sacrifice.
The gods will come to aid their worshippers as and when they can. Their power is greatest when the whole clan is gathered in the heart of the clan homelands at a place of legend, for example the cove where the god first strode out of the sea to bless his tribe. Their power, and their inclination to manifest physically, diminishes as each of these factors weakens. The god is more likely to answer prayers when a dozen worshippers are threatened than when a single one is; more likely to hear a supplicant in the clan's lands than half way around the world and is more likely to perform mira cles in a site of holy legend than in the middle of an alien city.
The most extreme example of divine aid is that the god will physically manifest to pro tect his followers. More commonly, the god might send a divine thunderbolt to slay his enemies or put a shimmering divine aura around the worshipper that turns his foes swords. The answering of a prayer is never routine and only priests and kings can expect help from their god.
Since gods and tribes are intimately linked, people who seek to devote themselves to a particular god must first join his tribe; similarly anyone joining the tribe had better at least honour the god of the tribe. People can honour more than one god but only in very rare cases can a person belong to more than one tribe, and priests many honour many gods but must devote themselves to just one.
Of course, many people live outside their original tribe, particularly those who dwell in cities. The cosmopolitan gods of towns and cities are usually more understanding about worshippers following multiple gods than the jea lous and vengeful rural and nomadic gods. It is usually sufficient to offer worship to the city's god on high holy days and offer worship to ones own god the rest of the time.
This is the single greatest family of tribes in Ellenida, followed by nearly all of the nomads who wander the plains and deserts of Northern and Southern con tinents.
Kavalarees himself is the legendary master who first tamed the beasts, and gave man the knowledge of how to domesticate them and ride them. He has seven children (their mother is the fertile earth) and these tribes form a great family each paying respect to the whole pantheon whilst following a particular patron. Kavalarees himself only appears to arbitrate disputes between his children or if the whole clan were to be threatened.
The Tribes who follow Kaval arees believe that the world is an infinite plain, created out of the eternal night by the Sun Father and the Moon Mother, who gave birth to Kavalarees as their eldest son, then made the peoples of the world to keep him company.
In the meantime, Kavalarees had sought out company of his own in the form of the animals, and had befriended and tamed them by the time that the green goddess of Fertile Earth rose to talk to him. He fell in love with her and they had seven children.
One day, first man and first woman were exploring the forests when they came across the travelling caravan of Kavalarees and Fertile Earth. They were struck in wonder at the sight of ani mals labouring for the gods and asked if they could serve at the gods' table in exchange for food and shel ter.
So came about the first great pact between the parents of the tribes and the gods and it is this pact that is still fol lowed today: the gods pro tect, feed and shelter the tribe and in exchange the tribe wait upon the tables of the gods found in each tem ple to make sure the gods are never hungry.
The rites of these gods are elemental and simple: a sacrifice of food, a short prayer of dedication, an imprecation not to forget the pact. The nomadic tribes do not have fixed temples but carry them with them either on special wagons or as tem porary tents made out of heavy black felt woven with threads of gold wire in which the fire and table are set up to honour the gods. Food is given to the gods by burning it in the fire along with special incenses and hal lucinogenic drugs so that the whole tribe will be able to breathe in the scents of paradise.
The Nomads believe that there is an eternal soul in each man and that the soul is returned to earth many times; when the soul has proved its worth, it will be allowed to ascend to attend the gods who travel the infinite plain far far beyond the reach of men, their to wait upon the gods with first man and first woman and enjoy the delights of the divine tribe forever after.
To achieve this ultimate aim a man must be brave, stoic and resolute, fearless in bat tle but gentle in times of peace, and care nothing for material things but care for his family and his tribe and above all serve the gods well.
To achieve paradise, a woman must bear strong children, be fierce in battle and support her friends, be resolute in ensuring the health of family and tribe and never be hood winked in trade or dealings with outsiders.
The Nomads burn their dead, sending them on great pyres of flame to begin their journey to the gods' caravan.
Soulatsoro is the eldest son of Kavalarees and is the embodiment of curiosity and the drive to discover what lies over the next hill. He appears as a tall man with a long drooping moustache and a beard streaked with white. He rides a fleet Kavala bird and carries with him a recurved bow and a seven arrows, one of each colour of the rainbow.
The tribes which follow Sou latsoro are the most nomadic of all, following where the great herds migrate and hunting for food rather than cultivating animals or grow ing grain.
Klopee the thief, youngest of the children of Kavalarees, appears as a lithe and cheeky young woman just out of adolescence with a quick tongue and sharp wit. She represents the joy of the young, a celebration of life and a disdain for physical possessions. She steals not for gain, but for kudos. Her followers rustle metakeenos from their neighbours and each other in an almost ritual battle of wits; the ani mals are prized much more for the game of getting them than for the fact of owner ship afterwards.
The single tribe which fol lows Deeamesos the Intermediary believe they have been given the divine duty of preventing serious wars from breaking out between the children of Kav alarees. Widely respected, they live from day to day amongst the other tribes and live off charity freely given in exchange for advice and counsel. Each tribesman can speak as many as a dozen languages and understands the cultures and habits of a dozen tribes, for he will have lived amongst them.
Deeamesos himself is a mys terious figure who rarely manifests himself physically. He is reputed to appear as a wise old Kavala bird, speak ing the wisdom of ages from a non-human beak.
Horveekos is the patron of the settled tribes, those who raise metakeenos in fertile meadows and grown corn and wheat in ploughed fields. He appears as a stout storyteller with a gammy leg, a generous-souled middle- aged uncle with a deep belly laugh and a gift for all the children. Those who follow him prize the safety and security of hearth and home over the life of the nomad, the security of stone and slate to the freedom of tent and steppe.
Pelvro is the war goddess of the children of Kavalarees. She appears at her father's left hand bearing a shield and a long spear, riding a Kedros beast into battle. Her eyes are black as night and her wrath is terrible, but she has a gentler side, that of teacher of family traditions and guardian of the ways of the tribe.
The tribes who follow her tend to live at the margins of the lands of the Children, the hardest and toughest and wildest places where battles are fought daily against beasts, elements and enemy tribes.
Platia the wide is the cook, the nursemaid, the matron and the mother figure of the Children. She appears as a middle-aged woman of gen erous proportions dressed in a leather apron, with a salt shaker in her hands. The tribes who follow Platia are settled tribes, usually in wooded wares where gather ing and hunting are impor tant but where food is also grown and raised in small gardens.
Kleevanos is the god credited with discovering fire and the secret of butchering animals and cooking the meat. He is also the herdsman and vet of the gods. He appears as an immensely well-muscled man dressed in a thick leather apron and bearing a flaming brand and a sack of dried meat over his shoulder. He is followed by the tribes who herd metakeenos on the great plains of the Southern continent. These people depend on their herds for almost all of the require ments of life and honour their god as provider, protec tor and source of practical knowledge about the world.
The tribes who inhabit the great river valleys of te Southern continent have a rich pantheon of gods but three are pre-eminent amongst them. These tribes believe that the world is a giant globe hanging from the world-thread from the bowl of the heavens. The lower half of the globe is immersed in the great river of time and it is only the world-thread that prevents the world being torn away at the mercy of accelerating time.
The primary function of their deities is to protect and pre serve the world as it is now, to prevent erosion of the world-thread and collapse into chaos. For this reason, the southern peoples tend to be rather conservative in outlook.
They believe that the world sprang fully-formed as a bubble rising from the river of time and that the fisher man god hooked the world on his line, saving it from being dragged down into watery chaos. It is he who holds the world safe from outside so he can study it; he sent down the gods so that they could hold the world-thread in place so he can complete his inspection.
Thus, the world is doomed: eventually, the fisherman god will grow bored of watch ing the world and let is slip away down the river of time.
Certain heretical sects have advocated trying to live ones life in as spectacular and outrageous a way as possible so that the eye of the fisher man god will be caught and his interest held. Most of the tribes believe that the fisher man god's mind is unknow able and that it is heretical to presume to know what will interest him. The hereti cal sects like that of Spatlos the Extravagant believe that only by flamboyance, bravery and dazzlingly out rageous behaviour can they keep the world safe for another generation.
The gods of the Southern tribes are remote from their people, for they must spend most of their time defending the world-thread which is thought to be lodged in the North Pole. The primary concern of most worshippers is not to attract the gods' attention! To this end, worship forms are all very sedate and deliberately bor ing, somnolent chants and sonorous sermons delivered in low monotonous voices.
The gods come to each city once per year to collect trib ute and to feed, for it is very hard to eat at the North Pole. Each city has its own high holy day on which the whole populace does nothing but sacrifice to the gods all that has been stored up over the last year as tribute. Many crown the services with a single human sacrifice.
The gods generally only appear on other days when angered or when someone is doing something to endanger the protection of the world- thread. Priests can call upon the god but are well advised to make sure it is a pretty dire emergency before doing so; the gods grant magical powers to each priest upon investiture so he can protect and lead the people without having to bother the gods.
The followers of the gods are believed to pass into the divine army when they die; the body is burned in order to permit the soul to pass towards the North Pole and service to the gods. Some gods are thought to allow those who serve them well to be reincarnated in the Southern world. The most trusted and most steadfast will be reincarnated as priests or kings. Priests and kings are exempt from fur ther divine service: they pass down the river of time in magical boats, exploring the great river and searching for another world to live on once the fisherman god tires of his toy. Thus, high-status people are buried in great ships, entombed near the river.
The ideal worshipper of the Southern Valley tribes is a self-reliant man who serves the gods faithfully, stores up lots of tributes, obeys the priests and kings and works hard so that the gods do not have to be distracted by worldly trivia.
Ohros the Pale appears as a tall Kemes whose skin is mother-of-pearl (a colour that the natural Kemes never bear). In his left two hands he carries a flaming spoked wheel and a box with a golden door; one of his right hands is empty but the other bears a ceremonial two- forked dagger. Ohros is a sombre and silent god, mer curial of temper and difficult to please. He ensures faithful service by the promise of life after death: if they serve him well enough they will be rein carnated once they die. The box in his hand are the halls of dead where they dying soul must tread, seeking that path that leads to the great flaming wheel through which the soul must pass to be reincarnated.
The children of the Snake god Sfayee are a tribe from the far Southern valleys in the desert. They claim to be the oldest tribe in Ellenida. They live in ancient cities, with a religiously-ordered society with absolute power residing in a few despotic rulers.
They are renowned for learn ing, knowledge and foul sorcerous powers, with a cruel disdain for anyone less powerful than themselves. Tribesmen wear flowing robes of various colours according to their station, decorated with serpentine and lizard-like jewellery. The all carry curved daggers and their warriors fight in looser silk burnous with curved bronze scimitars and metakeenos-hide shields.
Sfayee himself is a tall serpent-headed god bearing a book of sorcery and a ser pent's tooth dagger. He manifests himself mostly to take his cold pleasure from sacrifices. He demands a single human sacrifice per year (he accepts prisoners and slaves so long as they are physically perfect) and sacrifices of wealth, gold and crafted items from his worshippers. His divine interventions tend to be direct, suffusing a foeman's body with virulent poison, turning it black and swelling horribly as the foe dies in hideous agony.
Ohia is one of the chief gods of the Svika and is followed by the Pithekos who dwell within the great valley where she holds sway. She appears as a giant serpent or a woman with a cobra's head, spitting holy fire and terrible venom.
Ohia permits servitor gods to exist within he domain: so long as they pay homage to Ohia and follow her laws, they are permitted to follow whatever gods they wish. Ohia is a distant and remote god, and her people are naturally ordered and discip lined, so that she must only appear rarely to accept sacrifices or to punish blas phemers.
The tribe of Ohia are civil ized, perhaps a touch decad ent, but ruthless and arrogant, with a strong army and a large civil bureaucracy which administer the Queen dom of Ohia's Valley. The large number of men under arms are required to keep the valley safe from bar barian incursions and to keep the large numbers of slaves in the Queendom under control.
The great God is the spirit that moves in all things from the lowest insect to the greatest king and he steers the course of the world through the river of time. When the need arises, he takes on the form of one of the gods and becomes cor poreal to correct imperfec tions in the great wheel of life.
All the worshippers of the Civilized Gods acknowledge that their own personal deity is an incarnation of the great God. The choice of personal patron is made at puberty in a great coming-of-age cere mony where the worshipper humbly comes before the gods in the House of the One and All Gods and pays respect to each before settl ing on a patron and asking him to watch over the worshipper for his adult life.
Since each god is just a manifestation of the great God, the religion is very inclusive, regarding the gods worshipped by others as just other incarnations which appeared to their tribes. Everyone is free to worship his own god in the Northern cities and if asked the High Priests of Denome and Loy ismos will add a shrine to that god in the House of One and All Gods so that the incarnation can be honoured on holy days by prayer and sacrifice.
Denome is the principal female incarnation of the great God worshipped by the people of the Northern cities; the male incarnation is Loy ismos. Legend tells that knowledge of the name of the great God is granted only to the holiest priests and gives them unworldly power.
Denome is the protector of the weak and the source of shelter. She appears as a warrior woman dressed in silk and cotton armour and carrying a living wood staff. She wears a necklace whose pearls reflect the whole world.
It is said that the great God is the father and mother of all men, taking on two incar nations at once to father a child on herself, and that Denome is the first daughter of those nameless incarnations.
Loyismos is the principal male incarnation of the great God. He is the architect of the city, the keeper of the books of time and the source of all knowledge. He is worshipped as the source of fire and the great builder who set the civilized tribes apart from the wanderers and nomads by giving them knowledge of how to build cities and work in stone.
He appears as a vigorous old man dressed in a shabby robe, dusty from the trail. He wears no shoes. He carries a huge book in his hands and the book glows with the light of sacred knowledge. He bears a stone-mason's ham mer at his belt and the hammer is stained with blood.
Kreenee is the goddess of water and the daughter of Loyismos by Arethea, first Queen of the Northern Cities. She brings the water that is life to the city, watches over sailors and fisherman and is also the patron of dancers and enter tainers. She is a goddess of mystery, of moonlight and shadow and glances stolen across a crowded room.
Some of her priests and priestesses become sacred prostitutes and many who follow that profession also ask for Kreenee's blessings. There is always a fountain in each temple and each brothel contains its own small fountain and shrine.
Kreenee appears as a young woman wrapped in layers of diaphanous silks, white and green and cyan and turquo ise and blue, that shifts and flows like the water in her fountains. Her eyes are liquid blue and her skin is a delicate marbled blue and green and her beauty is said to strike men blind if she removes her veil.
Kretharee the Golden is Kreenee's twin sister. She is golden corn and warm sun shine where Kreenee is icy blue water and chill moon light. She is the goddess of the corn that grows in the field, of summer plenty and harvest. She is the patron of faithfulness and the civilized marriage ceremony is a rite of worship to Kretharee. She is widely worshipped in the country, rather less so in the great cities themselves except as part of other rites.
She appears as a beautiful young woman wrapped in silks of gold and yellow and green. She wears a single veil and it is said that anyone who sees her with her veil removed to her will instantly fall down and swear to follow the goddess for the rest of their life and serve her in any way she requires.
The Outlanders are the bar barian tribes of Kemes and Pithekos who live at the extreme edges of the known world. Their lives are very hard and very short and they have of necessity a brutal and direct view of the world. The world is a testing ground from which the strong will be chosen; he who is strong and great in battle will be claimed by his god as part of his honour guard for the forthcoming battle where the gods fight against the terrible forces of evil. There is no time to be wasted on sentiment- the strong must seize what they can as quickly as possible, have strong sons by as many women as he can, accumu late as many weapons and chariots as he can so that he is equipped to fight when he dies, then try his bravery repeatedly against the most powerful foes, carving out new lands for his sons to live in and finally meeting his end and arising to fight at the side of his god. Thus, the dead men are buried with elaborate grave goods. The dead women are also buried to serve as divine servants and advisors to the army of the gods.
Women on the other hand are consolidators, providers of men for the gods' armies. Women are expected to take all the long-term decisions to ensure that her sons and daughters do as well as possible. There is no real marriage custom; the strongest men tend to be attractive to most women and are expected to have children by as many as poss ible. The tribal leader is a man in war, expected to be young and vigorous, and a woman in peace, usually the eldest still in command of her senses. The man prise strength, the women endur ance and cunning.
Worship is simple and elemental- oaths and battle cries, blood of enemies spilt in the god's name, the god's blessing on weapons and chariots. The women of the tribes have their own secret goddess to follow, but these rites are conducted in pri vate in the women's tents and are shrouded in great secrecy and mystery.
The two main tribes of out land gods are the House of Ksenkano the Avenger and the Tribe of Faveros the Terrible.
Last modified 12 Sept 1998 Comments and Questions to: Hywel Phillips