David Millians

Appearance

The Orlanthi of Aggar are known for their generally hearty build and fair complexion. These Orlanthi tend to have high brows and smaller noses. Their hair can range in color from blonde to quite black, though most tend to have hair of a darker brown. Their eyes are usually darker blues, browns, and hazels.

Men wear their hair, mustaches, and beard long. Young unmarried women wear their hair loose. Married persons wear their hair in braids, though some leave some of their hair loose. Widows wear their hair bound up or covered.

Psychology

The hill folk of Aggar share their culture with many of their Orlanthi neighbors, but the range within even Aggar can be great. They are known for being closed-mouthed. Their idea of wit is a short, snappy comeback, especially if it silences a long-winded person. They are masters of understatement. The men are more closed-mouthed than the women. Men are seen as more passionate and more easily driven to impetuous deeds than are women, who are known as the practical and more logical members of society. There are, of course, many individual variations.

Aggari Orlanthi have a reputation for being hard workers and stoic. They must work hard to scratch a living from the poor soil or catch the lean and wary deer of the hills. They often face disaster, when a flash flood carries away their crops or herds or if no game can be found. This makes them value the ability to cope with a crisis without much fuss. On the other hand, this bottled-up frustration and rage sometimes spills over in berserker fury.

Language

Aggari Orlanthi speak Aggari, a language related to those in Holay, Sylila, and Talastar and descended along with them from the language of the gods. It is structurally rich in nouns and adjectives and their extended combinations, which is in keeping with its speakers’ deep observance and appreciation of their surrounding world. Its phonemes can be similar to those in both Germanic and Celtic traditions.

Their are a number of dialects of Aggari based around the primary divisions of the tribes, so there are forms common to the Aggar Mountain Tribes, High Tribes, Hill Tribes, Mountain Tribes, and Sun Tribes. Due to their isolation, clans living in the mountains can vary even more.

Epic poems celebrate the heritage of the Aggari. They are performed at moots and feasts. The longer ones are the exclusive creations and performances of bards. They tend to have several layers of rhyme, which shows the creator’s skill and aids in memorization. There are several other formal features, the use of which demonstrates the crafter’s mastery. Strong metaphorical language is common, resulting in many layers of meaning.

Social Culture & Government

Aggari Orlanthi are divided into several somewhat distinct tribal groups: Aggar Mountain Tribes, High Tribes, Hill Tribes, Mountain Tribes, and Sun Tribes. The description below is generally true across Aggar, but some variations will be noted, and others exist. Those clans living in the mountains can be even more idiosyncratic in their social arrangements.

Aggari Orlanthi base their society on decreasingly intimate familial groupings. Their immediate family is those with whom they live, usually in an isolated stead. These families are related to one another along patrilineal lines of descent into clans, most of whom are named for a guardian or representative spirit, typically one contacted by the clan’s founder. This tends to be an Aggari’s primary loyalty.

Clans are led by a chieftain, known as a thegn. His supporters are known as carls. The thegn is selected by the carls, but the position is seen as hereditary by most clans. Most clans contain representatives of each social level and position in Aggari society. Thus, each clan will have wealthy and poor members, and each clan will have several gothi.

Aggari families are patriarchal, patrilineal in descent, and patrilocal. Women marry outside of their clan and join their husband’s clan. Dowries and brideprices exist, and their use varies depending on local conditions and needs. Women and their families work hard to assemble dowries or to increase the brideprice value. Marriages are usually large community festivals featuring gift giving, music, and dancing.

Clans are grouped into tribes. These are based somewhat on tradition, but they can be changed at any time, though this may bring down the wrath of other clans and the tribal king. Members of a single clan are sometimes members of different tribes, though this is uncommon.

For centuries, the Aggari have had a High King of all tribes, and his court has usually been at Eneal. For this reason and due to their remoteness, Aggari kings command little of their subjects’ natural loyalty. A king’s strength is been based on his own real power within his tribe and clan.

The High King of Aggar is chosen by tribal contests, though those seeking the office are usually already tribal kings. The High King collects the tribute due to the Lunar Empire in the form of silver, bronze, barley, and regiments of native warriors serving under Lunar commanders. If a tribe or clan is slow or refuses to pay the designated tribute, the High King may ignore this or raid that group or some other to make up the difference. The individual tribes remain very independent.

The only three significant cities in Aggar are Eneal, the seat of the High King, Masassakar, a hill fort and rebuilt ruin from ages past, and The City of 10,000 Magicians, a mysterious community in the southern foothills of the Aggar Mountains. The latter was once a center of study for the Empire of the Wyrm Friends. It has been closed to foreign visitors for decades.

Gothi are another element in the hierarchy of Aggari society. They are acknowledged elders within the community, though not all wise, older members of the clan receive this title. A gothi is often a priest or talented magician, so this term is also used for the animists of the mountain clans. Gothi do not necessarily have political power, but their influence can be great, and it is unwise to ignore them.

Many gothi are storytellers, and bards also fulfill this role. Stories serve to remind and bind families, clans, and tribes together and to ground an individual more strongly in the values and traditions of his or her people.

Rites of Passage

Immediately after birth, Aggari babies are held aloft atop a local sacred hill or cliff, named, and blessed. Their parents and others, usually including a gothi, witness and bind themselves to the new, young life and call on the gods, clan spirits, and natural forces to watch over the growing child.

Aggari children begin to learn their duties and skills and to assist in the household soon after they can walk. Girls are presented to Voria Springmaid, and boys are sworn to Voriof the Shepherd as they begin to follow their different paths.

Girls are initiated into the ways of Ernalda with menarche. This is a solemn, secret service and introduces the young woman to the first women’s secrets. She must begin a more restrained lifestyle, developing her appeal for possible later marriage. Girls receive secret tattoos so that their guardian spirits will recognize them.

Boys are initiated into the ways of Orlanth with their first beard growth. During or after a riotous ceremony involving drums and dance, each boy must usually survive some ordeal, typically returning from the nearby wilds with the men sometimes tormenting the youth in various forms. Each boy is marked with several tattoos, the meaning of which is sometimes known only to the officiating gothi.

Many youths are fostered at or before their initiation. This is a way to bind families within and between clans, to strengthen old friendships, to create future bonds and prevent strife, and to satisfy the need for hostages. Fosterages usually last until maturity.

At maturity in their twenty first year, young men and women swear loyalty to one or more protective gods and spirits. They also declare their immediate loyalty and align themselves informally with a tribe, typically that of their clan, sometimes that of a foster clan.

Full initiation into a cult is a major event, though its details obviously vary. Initiates become privy to cult powers and secrets and are expected to maintain and further these and the cult’s power.

Aggari marriages are made extra-clan and patrilocal. Older family members usually arrange marriages, though youths often make their interests clear and pursue their intent independently. Marriage oaths of fidelity, protection, fertility, and love are sworn before as many relatives as possible and representatives of Orlanth and Ernalda. This is usually followed by a large feast funded by both families.

Divorce is legal and socially appropriate in many circumstances. The husband or wife declares the dissolution of the marriage before the ranking clan gothi. Only the gothi can block this action, a rare action on his or her part.

A death among the Aggari is a significant event. Aggari, especially men, grieve loudly. The body itself is laid out overnight to allow for visitation. Stories are told, and many families hold a feast as part of these wakes. Just before dawn the next morning, the body is removed from the house. Men’s bodies are carried to a high rack or placed high within a tree to be exposed to the elements, the cleansing winds. The bones are removed after several weeks or a season and buried at the edge of the family’s stead lands. Women’s bodies are buried near the family’s main garden. Children’s bodies are buried like women’s.

Great chiefs and kings are burned and often buried in great mounds with fabulous treasures and sometimes slaughtered beasts and slaves.

Aggari believe that the dead can rise to haunt the living in the form of draugr or other horrors, and several traditions exist to prevent this. The words and magic of a gothi are usually enough to send the dead one’s spirit on to the awaiting gods. Grave goods are also important, for they provide for the soul’s needs, lest it need to bother the living for necessities. Finally, bodies are buried at least a man’s height below the surface in order to hold it tight within the earth’s grasp. Should a body still rise, due to dramatic circumstances, more powerful magic or a physical struggle is necessary.

Physical Culture

Aggari work in a variety of materials and have a rich, heavily decorated culture. Almost any item will receive extra attention with colored threads, small gemstones, furs of many colors, precious metals, and so forth. A wedding blanket might have an embroidered border of vibrant color which relates the story of her clan’s founding ancestor. A harp will almost always display the symbols of Donandar or Orlanth or Issaries. Animals and plants are common decorations, and clans vary in their preferences. It is often possible to tell an Aggari’s origin and affiliation by the symbols, stories, and colors used in his clothing and possessions.

Clothing

Traditional Aggari clothing is a shirt or tunic and a long skirt or kilt. More and more Aggari men, especially members of the High Tribes wear trousers, and some even don the Lunar toga on occasion. Sandals in summer and high fur boots in the colder seasons are the norm, and hoods exist for rain and cold. Lighter articles are made from linen cloth, while wool and leather are common for winter and rougher environments. Buttons are rare in the uplands, where thongs, clasps, and pins are used.

Accessories for men and women include a belt, from which hang the wearer’s many tools or weapons, pins and broaches to bind cloaks and hoods, decorated shoulder bags, hair and beard pins, rings, torcs, bracelets, and earrings. Metalwork is typically in copper or bronze, silver and gold for fancier objects.

Tools

Aggari need a variety of tools, most made from bronze, wood, bone, and stone.

Transportation

Aggar’s rough terrain and poor trails leaves most of its inhabitants traveling by foot. Those with horses are better rested but little quicker. Winter makes some areas better accessible by sledges. Coracles are used in the marshes and on some of the quieter stretches of water, but these are more useful for fishing than for travel.

Shelter

Aggari live in steads, extended, rectangular halls with outlying barns, sheds, stables, storehouses, and other buildings. A large hall will sometimes have a second story opening in the center to the main floor. The main hall has one or two cooking pits and other work spaces down the center, and the sides are lined with raised floors for use as work areas and beds. Storage is below, and some items are hung overhead. Entrances are usually at either end.

Like their clothing, Aggari buildings tend to be richly decorated and with purpose as well, their intricately carved beams, doors, and other features serving to remind mortals and spirits of the family’s strength and history.

Steads are usually built atop a small mound. These are assumed to have been raised for this purpose, but some have later been discovered to have been originally burial mounds. Larger and more powerful steads have evolved into village hill forts.

Food

Aggari have a diverse range of foods, but deep winter can be a time of real hunger. Their primary grains are barley, oats, and rye. They also have many vegetables from their gardens or gathered wild. Pork is the most common meat, and hunting provides meat as well.

Wine has replaced beer as the drink of choice in the lands under direct Lunar control.

Sports & Games

Aggari men and women play many forms of Feld Ball, essentially a form of football. Most steads have a playing area, and clan moots always have at least one large game. Some competitions can range widely between two steads, the goals miles apart.

Aggari also enjoy foot races, wrestling, and martial contests. Many Aggari view raids as a sport.

Popular games are mostly dice and board games. The former are played with polished bones and are mostly based on luck. The most popular board game, Tavl, is similar to Nine Men’s Morris, though chess is making some inroads among the High Tribes.

Pets

Aggari traditionally keep cats for hunting, though in the lowlands they have been relegated to the role of mousers and replaced by dogs. Though some stead members, especially the children, can become attached to these animals, they are generally seen as working members of the community and receive little special treatment.

Music

Aggari musicians play bagpipe, drum, flute, harp, lute, recorder, and trumpet. The bagpipe and the harp are the most sophisticated of instruments. Aggari music tends to be either energetic or melancholy.

Song & Dance

The Aggari have a number of popular melodies and accompanying and varied lyrics. Most celebrate common themes of humorous characters, lusty love, and survival against the elements. More grandiose themes tend to become stories, sometimes sacred ones, and epic poems.