No edit summary |
No edit summary |
||
| (8 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown) | |||
| Line 21: | Line 21: | ||
=== Religion === | === Religion === | ||
The religion of the Keleta-Ru is eclectic. Many are devoted to the [[Beating Heart]], a deified form of the planet [[Kishar]] that created the islands, the Wounds in its skin, around which they live. Others worship the [[Ta-Lasau-Kori]] trees, or one or more of the wide array of [[animism|nature spirits]] that pervade the islands and the sea. Reverence for past [[ancestor worship|ancestors]] and great figures is commonplace as well. None of these are necessarily exclusive, and any one individual, band, or community may worship multiple deities, and certainly multiple spirits, simultaneously. | The religion of the Keleta-Ru is eclectic. Many are devoted to the [[Beating Heart]], a deified form of the planet [[Kishar]] that created the islands, the Wounds in its skin, around which they live. Others worship the [[Ta-Lasau-Kori]] trees, or one or more of the wide array of [[animism|nature spirits]] that pervade the islands and the sea. Reverence for past [[ancestor worship|ancestors]] and great figures is commonplace as well, as is the worship of powerful fey. None of these are necessarily exclusive, and any one individual, band, or community may worship multiple deities, and certainly multiple spirits, simultaneously. | ||
Authoritative religious leaders are completely absent amongst the Keleta-Ru. Instead, their religions tend to rely heavily on shamanistic spirit-guides to interpret meaning and communicate with the divine, yet they are in no way seen as infallible, for two spirit-guides may come to very different conclusions after communing with the same ancestor or nature spirit. | Authoritative religious leaders are completely absent amongst the Keleta-Ru. Instead, their religions tend to rely heavily on shamanistic spirit-guides to interpret meaning and communicate with the divine, yet they are in no way seen as infallible, for two spirit-guides may come to very different conclusions after communing with the same ancestor or nature spirit. | ||
| Line 30: | Line 30: | ||
The basic unit of Keleta-Ru society is the band, a small group that usually corresponds to a ship's crew. This band travels everywhere together and shares in the same experiences, at least until one or member chooses to depart for another band, something they are free to do at any time they like yet often brings sadness nonetheless. They have no formal leaders, but rather select individuals from amongst themselves to take charge of any given task, depending on skills and circumstances. Even in their settled communities on the islands, bands remain fundamental to their social life, as they often live together in a single house. Children commonly remain in their parents' band until they are old enough to travel on their own. | The basic unit of Keleta-Ru society is the band, a small group that usually corresponds to a ship's crew. This band travels everywhere together and shares in the same experiences, at least until one or member chooses to depart for another band, something they are free to do at any time they like yet often brings sadness nonetheless. They have no formal leaders, but rather select individuals from amongst themselves to take charge of any given task, depending on skills and circumstances. Even in their settled communities on the islands, bands remain fundamental to their social life, as they often live together in a single house. Children commonly remain in their parents' band until they are old enough to travel on their own. | ||
While they have effectively no social hierarchy, the Keleta-Ru give particular deference towards their storytellers and narrators. These are almost always the oldest amongst the gnomes and those who have traveled the most widely, acquiring a vast array of information, tales, and legends as they did so. Oral stories are more valuable than any trade good or precious material to the Keleta-Ru, whether practical like in the form of [[oral maps]] or purely | While they have effectively no social hierarchy, the Keleta-Ru give particular deference towards their storytellers and narrators. These are almost always the oldest amongst the gnomes and those who have traveled the most widely, acquiring a vast array of information, tales, and legends as they did so. Oral stories are more valuable than any trade good or precious material to the Keleta-Ru, whether practical like in the form of [[oral map|oral maps]] or purely fantastical tales remembered and recounted for entertainment during the endless late evenings at sea. | ||
The Keleta-Ru believe that one must fail in order to learn, and therefore do not attempt to stop others, including their children, from taking actions that might be ill advised or dangerous as long as they ultimately won't be severely hurt. | The Keleta-Ru believe that one must fail in order to learn, and therefore do not attempt to stop others, including their children, from taking actions that might be ill-advised or dangerous as long as they ultimately won't be severely hurt. | ||
=== Traditions === | === Traditions === | ||
Similarly to the Fanakara, the Keleta-Ru eschew writing, though for different reasons. To the gnomes, to physically record words is to make their meaning immutable. Whether that's a recounting of history, names, or simple facts, if it is written once it can no longer ever be changed, even if it is later discovered by the writer or reader to be untrue. | Similarly to the Fanakara, the Keleta-Ru eschew writing, though for different reasons. To the gnomes, to physically record words is to make their meaning immutable. Whether that's a recounting of history, names, or simple facts, if it is written once it can no longer ever be changed, even if it is later discovered by the writer or reader to be untrue. | ||
Many Keleta-Ru ships keep pet birds that travel with them. | |||
=== Seafaring and travel === | === Seafaring and travel === | ||
The vast majority of the Keleta-Ru spend most of their lives at sea, and are therefore extremely skilled navigators, on equal footing on the ocean as the many tribes of the Fanakara. Most of their voyages are undertaken on small outrigger canoes or catamarans, usually but not always with sails, that each can only carry a small number of individuals. To survive their trips between islands, they bring relatively minimal provisions, relying heavily on food they find or catch along the way. Most Keleta-Ru navigators hop between islands whenever possible, rather than travel in the fastest route across the Na-Gaesa, though the distances between these can still be very large. | |||
Other forms of travel used by the Keleta-Ru include [[kite ship|kite ships]], variations on their canoes that eschew sails in favor of large kites, and [[barnacle ship|barnacle ships]], smaller versions of their canoes that are designed to attach to other ships using grappling hooks. The Keleta-Ru make every effort to ensure the presence of their barnacle ships are desired, never attaching to others if they are not wanted. For the most part this is eminently practical, as almost all barnacle ships lack any forms of weaponry, and even if they did all they would do is damage the larger host ships they rely upon. Gnomish seafarers aboard these vessels typically join the crews of the host ship while they are attached, asking for little besides food and water, and sometimes not even that. | |||
Keleta-Ru ships are owned by no one, not even the band or crew that currently sails them, as said crew can change over the years and across their journeys. Instead it is the responsibility of all who currently use the ship to take care of its maintenance. Still, they often gain attachments to their vessels, hanging from them shells collected from the various places they have traveled. The Keleta-Ru almost never give their ships names. | |||
=== Languages === | === Languages === | ||
| Line 43: | Line 50: | ||
=== Arts === | === Arts === | ||
Unlike | Unlike most other surface-dwellers of the Wounds, the Keleta-Ru do not commonly engage in tattooing, but they do make heavy use of water-resistant body paints to decorate themselves. With vibrant colors usually sourced from various types of ground up shells, they paint their bodies in shades as bright as their hair, in designs that vary yet usually involve cloud-like patterns. In their hair they often wear shell and glass jewelry, traded for from island-dwellers, in arrangements that are unique to each band. | ||
The Keleta-Ru are masterful makers and users of prosthetics, preferring the use of such contraptions over advanced magical healing. They long ago learned the art of how to shape [[coralflesh]] from the locathah of the Wounds and, when required, are capable of making extensive and elaborate use of the material to shape replacement limbs. | The Keleta-Ru are masterful makers and users of prosthetics, preferring the use of such contraptions over advanced magical healing. They long ago learned the art of how to shape [[coralflesh]] from the locathah of the Wounds and, when required, are capable of making extensive and elaborate use of the living material to shape replacement limbs. | ||
In order to travel to subsurface communities, the Keleta-Ru employ advanced rebreather symbiotes that draw their ability from a certain variety of fish that the gnomes catch soon before they intend to dive deep. | In order to travel to subsurface communities, the Keleta-Ru employ advanced rebreather symbiotes that draw their ability from a certain variety of fish that the gnomes catch soon before they intend to dive deep. | ||
=== Architecture, urbanization, and migration === | === Architecture, urbanization, and migration === | ||
The Keleta-Ru hop between islands constantly. While they do have some permanent settlements, largely on the islands of Ha-Rase-Metu, any given individual spends relatively little of their life residing in an island-side home. Instead they maintain nomadic lifestyles on the waves, journeying between the many archipelagoes of the Wounds supporting themselves through fishing, foraging, and trading. Bands usually travel independently but sometimes join with others to form fleets crossing the Na-Gaesa Ocean. | |||
Island-side Keleta-Ru settlements are small villages typically built in natural harbors. Architecturally, the gnomes prefer mixed-use longhouses rather than the separate buildings for distinct purposes favored by the Fanakara, using large structures build of wood and palm leaf thatching where multiple bands reside, prepare their food, and so on. Many Keleta-Ru villages started as temporary encampments where large fleets set to shore to rest and resupply before gradually evolving into more enduring communities - those that have remained inhabited the longest are often built around [[Planar coterminalities|planar tears]], used by the gnomes to travel to other realms and acquire fantastical items. | |||
The populations of Keleta-Ru island villages are disproportionately to the younger side, owing largely to how the elders amongst the gnomes live their entire lives at sea. In general their inhabitants are highly transient, and it is unusual for any individual to remain in a permanent community for more than two years at a time. | |||
Some Keleta-Ru manage to live in communities that are permanent while still keeping to their nomadic ways. Known as [[turtle-village|turtle-villages]], these settlements are built upon rafts lashed together, most floating atop thick mats of seaweed that are solid enough to walk upon. Despite their name, only a rare few have truly been built on the backs of the giant turtles of the Wounds, but these are not completely unknown. Turtle-villages move with the whims of the seas, or those of their host creature, unable to be steered or controlled by their inhabitants. Multiple cultures of the Wounds live within the turtle-villages but they are perhaps best associated with the Keleta-Ru. | |||
=== Food and cuisine === | === Food and cuisine === | ||
| Line 57: | Line 71: | ||
=== Names === | === Names === | ||
Keleta-Ru gnomes almost always use mononyms, with no surname indicating familial relations. The | Keleta-Ru gnomes almost always use mononyms, with no surname indicating familial relations. The earliest name by which any individual is known is usually given by their parents and band, but they are not necessarily bound by this, for they are able, and encouraged, to change their name throughout their life if they find another that fits them better. | ||
=== Burial practices === | === Burial practices === | ||
Latest revision as of 02:28, 29 June 2024
The Keleta-Ru (pronounced keh-LEH-tah-ROO) are the gnomish sea-nomads of the Wounds, intrepid explorers and traders who wander the waves endlessly. Even if some choose to settle in one of their many island communities for a time, they inevitably find themselves called to the sea once again, venturing between the many archipelagos, underwater settlements, and turtle-villages of the Wounds.
Geography
Many archipelagoes and islands across the Wounds are frequented by the Keleta-Ru, but the majority of their settlements are located in Ha-Rase-Metu, the Chain, and the Wisps. The gnomes regularly wander far and wide across the Na-Gaesa Ocean, however, and may be found at sea near places as far apart as the Protectors, Phersu, and the Salt Spring Archipelago. Of all the peoples of the Wounds, the Keleta-Ru are the most likely to travel to other parts of Kishar.
Demographics
The Keleta-Ru are effectively entirely gnomish, though sometimes individuals of other ancestries join Keleta-Ru groups in their travels, occasionally even for extended durations.
Culture
Religion
The religion of the Keleta-Ru is eclectic. Many are devoted to the Beating Heart, a deified form of the planet Kishar that created the islands, the Wounds in its skin, around which they live. Others worship the Ta-Lasau-Kori trees, or one or more of the wide array of nature spirits that pervade the islands and the sea. Reverence for past ancestors and great figures is commonplace as well, as is the worship of powerful fey. None of these are necessarily exclusive, and any one individual, band, or community may worship multiple deities, and certainly multiple spirits, simultaneously.
Authoritative religious leaders are completely absent amongst the Keleta-Ru. Instead, their religions tend to rely heavily on shamanistic spirit-guides to interpret meaning and communicate with the divine, yet they are in no way seen as infallible, for two spirit-guides may come to very different conclusions after communing with the same ancestor or nature spirit.
Society
Their constant travels bring the Keleta-Ru into close proximity with many peoples, and they have taken advantage of these contacts to become the foremost traders of the Wounds. While the gnomes generally have few personal possessions, their ships are often laden down with trade goods that they ferry between far-away communities. These goods are bartered for basic supplies to restock their provisions and repair and improve their ships, with any excess devoted towards great feasts and celebrations - the Keleta-Ru almost never stockpile their wealth. The arrival of a Keleta-Ru ship invariably leads to the entire community gathering on the shore to see what they bring and eagerly offer their own goods and services in exchange. They trade with almost any and all other peoples of the Wounds, everyone from the aquatic elves of Lurath and Ethausva, the many tribes of the Fanakara, the Fjarri of the Salt Spring Archipelago, the reef-dwelling Itothani locathah, and so on. The only people the gnomes generally avoid are the Taruhmite dwarves, whose harbors they only visit for the briefest of times to offload their goods, and the Xitaxokhu sahuagin, whose trench cities they give a wide berth.
The basic unit of Keleta-Ru society is the band, a small group that usually corresponds to a ship's crew. This band travels everywhere together and shares in the same experiences, at least until one or member chooses to depart for another band, something they are free to do at any time they like yet often brings sadness nonetheless. They have no formal leaders, but rather select individuals from amongst themselves to take charge of any given task, depending on skills and circumstances. Even in their settled communities on the islands, bands remain fundamental to their social life, as they often live together in a single house. Children commonly remain in their parents' band until they are old enough to travel on their own.
While they have effectively no social hierarchy, the Keleta-Ru give particular deference towards their storytellers and narrators. These are almost always the oldest amongst the gnomes and those who have traveled the most widely, acquiring a vast array of information, tales, and legends as they did so. Oral stories are more valuable than any trade good or precious material to the Keleta-Ru, whether practical like in the form of oral maps or purely fantastical tales remembered and recounted for entertainment during the endless late evenings at sea.
The Keleta-Ru believe that one must fail in order to learn, and therefore do not attempt to stop others, including their children, from taking actions that might be ill-advised or dangerous as long as they ultimately won't be severely hurt.
Traditions
Similarly to the Fanakara, the Keleta-Ru eschew writing, though for different reasons. To the gnomes, to physically record words is to make their meaning immutable. Whether that's a recounting of history, names, or simple facts, if it is written once it can no longer ever be changed, even if it is later discovered by the writer or reader to be untrue.
Many Keleta-Ru ships keep pet birds that travel with them.
Seafaring and travel
The vast majority of the Keleta-Ru spend most of their lives at sea, and are therefore extremely skilled navigators, on equal footing on the ocean as the many tribes of the Fanakara. Most of their voyages are undertaken on small outrigger canoes or catamarans, usually but not always with sails, that each can only carry a small number of individuals. To survive their trips between islands, they bring relatively minimal provisions, relying heavily on food they find or catch along the way. Most Keleta-Ru navigators hop between islands whenever possible, rather than travel in the fastest route across the Na-Gaesa, though the distances between these can still be very large.
Other forms of travel used by the Keleta-Ru include kite ships, variations on their canoes that eschew sails in favor of large kites, and barnacle ships, smaller versions of their canoes that are designed to attach to other ships using grappling hooks. The Keleta-Ru make every effort to ensure the presence of their barnacle ships are desired, never attaching to others if they are not wanted. For the most part this is eminently practical, as almost all barnacle ships lack any forms of weaponry, and even if they did all they would do is damage the larger host ships they rely upon. Gnomish seafarers aboard these vessels typically join the crews of the host ship while they are attached, asking for little besides food and water, and sometimes not even that.
Keleta-Ru ships are owned by no one, not even the band or crew that currently sails them, as said crew can change over the years and across their journeys. Instead it is the responsibility of all who currently use the ship to take care of its maintenance. Still, they often gain attachments to their vessels, hanging from them shells collected from the various places they have traveled. The Keleta-Ru almost never give their ships names.
Languages
Nearly all Keleta-Ru are fluent in Sea-Speak and their dialects of Gnomish. Due to their wide travels and frequent trade with other peoples of the Wounds, they also commonly know languages such as Hikunza, Taruhmite Dwarven, Zabarshan Elven, and the tongues of the Fanakara.
Arts
Unlike most other surface-dwellers of the Wounds, the Keleta-Ru do not commonly engage in tattooing, but they do make heavy use of water-resistant body paints to decorate themselves. With vibrant colors usually sourced from various types of ground up shells, they paint their bodies in shades as bright as their hair, in designs that vary yet usually involve cloud-like patterns. In their hair they often wear shell and glass jewelry, traded for from island-dwellers, in arrangements that are unique to each band.
The Keleta-Ru are masterful makers and users of prosthetics, preferring the use of such contraptions over advanced magical healing. They long ago learned the art of how to shape coralflesh from the locathah of the Wounds and, when required, are capable of making extensive and elaborate use of the living material to shape replacement limbs.
In order to travel to subsurface communities, the Keleta-Ru employ advanced rebreather symbiotes that draw their ability from a certain variety of fish that the gnomes catch soon before they intend to dive deep.
Architecture, urbanization, and migration
The Keleta-Ru hop between islands constantly. While they do have some permanent settlements, largely on the islands of Ha-Rase-Metu, any given individual spends relatively little of their life residing in an island-side home. Instead they maintain nomadic lifestyles on the waves, journeying between the many archipelagoes of the Wounds supporting themselves through fishing, foraging, and trading. Bands usually travel independently but sometimes join with others to form fleets crossing the Na-Gaesa Ocean.
Island-side Keleta-Ru settlements are small villages typically built in natural harbors. Architecturally, the gnomes prefer mixed-use longhouses rather than the separate buildings for distinct purposes favored by the Fanakara, using large structures build of wood and palm leaf thatching where multiple bands reside, prepare their food, and so on. Many Keleta-Ru villages started as temporary encampments where large fleets set to shore to rest and resupply before gradually evolving into more enduring communities - those that have remained inhabited the longest are often built around planar tears, used by the gnomes to travel to other realms and acquire fantastical items.
The populations of Keleta-Ru island villages are disproportionately to the younger side, owing largely to how the elders amongst the gnomes live their entire lives at sea. In general their inhabitants are highly transient, and it is unusual for any individual to remain in a permanent community for more than two years at a time.
Some Keleta-Ru manage to live in communities that are permanent while still keeping to their nomadic ways. Known as turtle-villages, these settlements are built upon rafts lashed together, most floating atop thick mats of seaweed that are solid enough to walk upon. Despite their name, only a rare few have truly been built on the backs of the giant turtles of the Wounds, but these are not completely unknown. Turtle-villages move with the whims of the seas, or those of their host creature, unable to be steered or controlled by their inhabitants. Multiple cultures of the Wounds live within the turtle-villages but they are perhaps best associated with the Keleta-Ru.
Food and cuisine
The diet of the Keleta-Ru is overwhelmingly seafood. Though they have a particular taste for mollusks, especially sea snails, oysters, clams, and squid, they also eat large amounts of fish, crab, and turtle. Some Keleta-Ru dishes are prepared from raw seafood, while others involve the use of reflective mirror-ovens to cook while at sea. Dried fish is a staple, often hung from ropes tied between the tops of their masts and the hulls of their ships to bake in the sun. While the Keleta-Ru do not eschew eating plant-based foods, and in fact make use of many different varieties of seaweed, their diets are very meat-heavy.
Nearly all Keleta-Ru are hunter-gatherer-fishers; use of agriculture amongst the gnomes is very uncommon, even in their settlements.
Names
Keleta-Ru gnomes almost always use mononyms, with no surname indicating familial relations. The earliest name by which any individual is known is usually given by their parents and band, but they are not necessarily bound by this, for they are able, and encouraged, to change their name throughout their life if they find another that fits them better.
Burial practices
Sea burial is the most widespread burial practice amongst the Keleta-Ru, a tradition kept by all except for those who worship the Ta-Lasau-Kori trees, who instead inter the deceased in shallow graves around their sacred trees' roots.