Fanakara

Fanakara
Example of Fanakaran writing, showing characteristic spiraling patterns
Capital	None
Ruler	Many
Government	Various
Demonym	Fanakaran; more specific demonyms generally preferred
Adjective	Fanakaran
Languages	Sea-Speak; various regional languages
Religions	Beating Heart; Ta-Lasau-Kori; animism; ancestor worship; other faiths

The Fanakara (pronounced fah-nah-KAH-rah) are, collectively, the many disparate tribes and peoples of the Wounds. Though sometimes referred to as a coherent group, the Fanakara are anything but. In reality these largely human tribes and chiefdoms possess an endless array of traditions and can be found across far-apart islands within the Wounds, unified only by their seafaring cultures and a broadly similar set of oral histories and legends.

History

No group within the Fanakara agree as to their origin. Some claim they have always lived on the islands of the Wounds, while others hold they were placed there under the guidance of one or more divine entities. Regardless of their earliest history, the Fanakara have a millennia long history within the Wounds. Specific Fanakara peoples have their own individual stories and histories about their pasts, often full of great legends of seafarers who fearlessly crossed the waves into unknown parts of the world.

The empire of Rashareka grew out of the Fanakara peoples of the Old Twins before quickly expanding to encompass much of the Wounds. Upon the collapse of the empire in the early tenth millennium, many of the former residents of Rashareka returned to considering themselves Fanakara, if they had ever stopped to begin with.

Geography

The Fanakara can be found across the breadth of the Wounds, in places as far apart as the Wisps in the west and the Chain in the east. Most archipelagoes in the Na-Gaesa Ocean are home to at least one Fanakara people, save for the Grievous Islands, controlled by the dwarven realm of Harv Taruhm, the seasonally demon-infested Old Twins, and the almost completely uninhabited Soul's End Islands. The majority of Fanakara reside on the Chain, the Wisps, and the Angry Kings. Many are nomadic, however, and frequently relocate between islands and even archipelagoes.

Demographics

Most Fanakaran peoples are human, but they are also joined by many half-elves as well as some dwarves, elves, especially Zabarshu elves, tengu, and others. Some Keleta-Ru gnomes consider themselves Fanakaran as well - the distinction between Fanakara and Keleta-Ru is vague with often overlapping definitions.

Culture

Fanakaran peoples

There are innumerable Fanakaran peoples and tribes, each with their own practices and beliefs. While many aspects of these are shared, in particular their strong traditions of seafaring and oral stories, none are universal or without variation. Any given group may consider themselves Fanakara, yet they all have a more specific identity that is more central to who they are.

To give a small number of examples, the Hekudaki are a collection of tribes who maintain nomadic lives between seasonal camps in the islands of the Wisps. They place great emphasis on the importance of speech and language, with their leaders, the rhetor-kings, selected based on their abilities to use words to rally their people to their cause. The Gara-Minu, inhabitants of the Chain, are almost entirely egalitarian, their communities ever-shifting as they wander between the islands. In contrast, the fortified mountainside villages of the Sehi-To in Angry Kings are ruled by hereditary absolute monarchs. Others, such as the Varu, house boat-dwelling nomadic fishers and traders of the Protectors, and the Wave Striders, druids with deep connections to coral reefs, almost never set foot on land at all.

Religion

The religion of the Fanakara 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, upon which they live. Others worship the Ta-Lasau-Kori trees, or one or more of the wide array of nature spirits that pervade their islands and the sea. Reverence for past ancestors and great figures is commonplace as well. None of these are necessarily exclusive, and any one individual or tribe may worship multiple deities, and certainly multiple spirits, simultaneously.

Authoritative religious leaders are uncommon amongst the Fanakara. Individuals in these roles tend to be seen far more as spiritual advisors or interpreters who can provide hints at divine meaning, rather than as arbiters of what is holy.

Society

In the societies of most, but not all, Fanakaran peoples, social status is overwhelmingly defined by deeds, rather than by origins, wealth, or circumstances of birth. Heroic achievements confer social and political capital, and those who are willing to accomplish dangerous feats often find themselves elevated into leaders upon their return. One great deed is not enough to earn admiration and esteem in perpetuity, however, as eventually even with diligent maintenance of their tales they will be surpassed or become mundane, and therefore those who wish to hold onto their status must continually push themselves. But it is not uncommon either for such figures to intentionally allow their legends to fade, becoming content and complacent to have had their moment of fame and strength.

Traditions

The Fanakara prefer to share knowledge through oral methods rather than through written works. Most peoples have long traditions of passing oral histories and legends across generations, and it is not atypical for a story to be preserved for centuries if not millennia through this method. While some of these are remembered as entertainment, to be told around campfires or to pass the time out at sea on a long voyage, others have very practical purposes. There are the stories of past heroes and villains, from which can be learned lessons of how to act, as well as histories of the tribe or community so all know their origins and past, but there are also the narratives that serve as oral maps. These navigational aids are a method of encoding directions, routes, and geography into oral stories. To those untrained in how to interpret them, oral maps can appear little different than any other tale, as their information is provided in the form of parables, legends of past heroes and their deeds, or other common mediums. Those familiar with how they are recounted, however, know that oral maps provide an easy to remember directions for reliable routes between the many islands and archipelagoes of the Wounds.

Fanakara myth-keepers and narrators guard their stories under multiple layers of safeguards to ensure those who are spiritually dangerous or outside the desired audience cannot access it. This most typically takes the form of repeating circular motifs that are designed to trap the uninitiated, a near-complete absence of names to avoid invoking anyone or granting them power, and so forth. For similar reasons, as a rule the Fanakara eschew writing - though they certainly possess it, it is thought to be inherently risky, as physically recording words grants strength to its subjects, and one can never know when they might be writing about a Si-Namuhu or other dangerous creature. If it becomes absolutely necessary to write for any reason, the Fanakara employ a form of symbols that loops and spirals, for similar reasons as why their oral stories often circle back into themselves.

Languages

While the Fanakara have many of their own languages, Sea-Speak is widely used as well as a shared tongue. It is not unusual to find Fanakara fluent in other languages of the Wounds as well, particularly Hikunza, Taruhmite Dwarven, and Zabarshan Elven.