Peoples
The peoples of Kanturas include the diverse clans of Humans, the desert-born Tuarai, the werebeast Norsidh, the subterranean Chityra and the ancient dragons. The extinct Dwarves also remain central to the world's history through the vast underground works they left behind.
These peoples differ in appearance, customs, social organisation and their relationship with the supernatural. Their histories meet through migration, conquest, trade and the growth of settlements such as Idhelin, where several communities share the same streets while preserving distinct traditions.
Ancestry, culture and nationality are separate aspects of identity. A person's people or clan does not necessarily determine their country, occupation, beliefs or political loyalties.
Overview
| People | Principal characteristics | Historical and cultural associations |
|---|---|---|
| Humans | Diverse in appearance and organised into several distinct clans and traditions. | Trade, diplomacy, military service, ancestral observance and numerous settlements across Kanturas. |
| Tuarai | Thick-skinned desert dwellers with elaborate customs governing dress and public appearance. | Nomadic heritage, caravan travel, water, trade routes and the School for the Young. |
| Norsidh | Werebeast people, including bear, wolf and cat forms. | Nordmore, overseas conquest, seafaring and four paths chosen at the age of fifteen. |
| Chityra | Arthropodal beings united through a hive mind. | The depths of the Rivengroth, Dezdite and the concealed War of the Lower Gates. |
| Dwarves | An extinct people renowned for engineering, endurance and monumental craftsmanship. | The construction of the Rivengroth and a lost subterranean empire. |
| Dragons | Ancient, intelligent beings whose lives can encompass successive mortal civilisations. | Elu, long memory and rare individuals such as Iluzan. |
Knowledge of these peoples is uneven. In Idhelin, most inhabitants recognise Humans, Tuarai and Norsidh as the city's principal communities. The existence of the Chityra and the history of the Dwarves are deliberately concealed, while the true nature of the Viscount is a closely guarded secret.
Humans
Humans form the largest portion of Idhelin's population and belong to several distinct traditions found across Kanturas.
Six established Human clans are the Zylvaran, Faevaran, Sheorenth, Mandaru, Zansur and Mornori. Their characteristic appearances and customs provide strong communal identities, although individuals differ in temperament, vocation and attachment to tradition.
Several clans place particular importance on the age of twenty-five, marking adulthood through travel, service, ritual or a first encounter with the world beyond childhood.
Zylvaran Humans
The Zylvaran are typically pale-skinned, with blond to platinum hair and green or blue eyes. They are widely associated with travel, diplomacy and commerce.
At the age of twenty-five, a Zylvaran traditionally leaves home to spend three years in a non-Human city. The journey requires the young adult to encounter unfamiliar customs, learn how another people lives and form relationships beyond their own community.
On returning to their birthplace, they bring practical knowledge, friendships and contacts that may endure for decades. The custom has helped make Zylvaran travellers among the most visible representatives of Humanity abroad.
In cities such as Idhelin, Zylvaran merchants and diplomats often maintain connections across cultural boundaries. Their adventurous reputation reflects the importance their society places upon experience gained away from home.
Faevaran Humans
The Faevaran have a strong affinity with forests. Their characteristic appearance includes darker skin tones, black or burgundy-red hair, and dark or green eyes.
At twenty-five, every Faevaran traditionally enters military service for at least five years. This obligation joins adulthood to the defence of their realms and the preservation of their traditions.
The service shapes communal expectations of discipline and responsibility, even among those who later pursue peaceful occupations. A Faevaran artisan or scholar may therefore possess substantial military experience.
Those who settle beyond their ancestral forests can preserve this connection through family observances, military associations and the continued importance of service to their community.
Sheorenth Humans
The Sheorenth are typically pale-skinned and dark-haired. Their most distinctive custom is the creation of a lifelong record upon the body through elaborate tattoos.
The first tattoo is received at twenty-five. Its imagery emerges from a visionary experience associated with Wisdom Caapi, during which the bearer and tattooist participate in a shared dream within Xanadu.
The tattooist witnesses the vision, discusses its meaning with the bearer after waking and translates the agreed imagery into physical artwork. Neither participant needs to possess the hereditary Kindling, and the resulting tattoo is not automatically magical.
Further tattoos accumulate throughout life. By the age of one hundred, the traditional ideal is a complete body of artwork recording identity, experience and the images encountered through successive rites.
Reading another person's tattoos can therefore be an intimate act. The visible pattern may be readily admired, while its full meaning belongs to the bearer and those with whom they choose to share it.
Mandaru Humans
The Mandaru are distinguished by deep ebony skin and black hair. They are best known as the formidable guardians of Idhelin's Great Library and the necropolis of Melath Gorthrim.
Training begins at the age of five and continues throughout life. At least seventy per cent of their instruction consists of combat training, supported by the knowledge and discipline required to fulfil their responsibilities.
A Mandaru guardian must be capable of protecting people, manuscripts, burial places and restricted chambers against determined intruders. Their association with a library consequently carries a very different meaning from an ordinary scholarly occupation.
Their reputation rests upon sustained preparation: controlled movement, close observation and the ability to act decisively when a protected threshold is crossed.
Service is a powerful element of Mandaru identity. Those who abandon or are expelled from it may retain formidable abilities while losing the institutional trust that once gave those abilities their purpose.
Zansur Humans
The Zansur, often called the Wild Ones, live in small tribal communities. Their physical characteristics include darker hair and slightly longer, hairier ears.
They are known for fierce independence and considerable suspicion towards outsiders. Loyalty is commonly rooted in kinship, local obligations and the survival of the community.
Their history includes the extinction of the Minnanien, their oldest lineage. This loss forms part of a wider experience of hardship and helps explain the importance placed upon continuity and the protection of surviving traditions.
Relations with other peoples vary between communities and individuals. A Zansur who trades with a city or lives within its walls may still retain strong obligations to relatives elsewhere.
Mornori Humans
The Mornori, also known as the Dark Ones, are distinguished by blue skin and silver-coloured hair and eyes.
Their defining rite is the Sacrament of the Sun. At the age of twenty-five, a Mornori steps into sunlight for the first time, marking their transition into full adulthood.
The custom gives profound significance to the boundary between sheltered childhood and adult participation in the wider world. Preparation for the first sunlight is both a family responsibility and a communal religious observance.
The rite establishes a cultural and spiritual relationship with the sun. It should not be taken as evidence that Mornori are inherently harmed by daylight.
Tuarai
The Tuarai are thick-skinned desert dwellers whose traditions developed through generations of movement across harsh landscapes.
Their history is closely associated with nomadic communities, caravans and the maintenance of routes between dependable sources of water. War and famine drove many to settle in Idhelin, while others continue to travel through Actaeum and preserve the old ways.
Settled life has not erased their desert heritage. Knowledge of routes, water and distant trading partners remains valuable in both caravan camps and urban households.
Appearance and clothing
Tuarai skin is thick and weathered in appearance, contributing to their distinctive presence among the peoples of Kanturas.
Custom requires men to cover their faces whenever they leave their homes. Face coverings range from practical travelling veils to elaborate masks, allowing craftsmanship and personal expression within the shared obligation.
Women may show their faces but keep their hands covered. Gloves and carefully arranged sleeves consequently carry an importance comparable to men's masks.
These customs shape tailoring, work and social interaction. A well-made garment must allow its wearer to fulfil ordinary duties while observing the requirements of public appearance.
The School for the Young
Tuarai education centres upon the School for the Young. They do not share the single coming-of-age ceremony found in several other cultures; preparation for adult responsibilities develops through schooling and practical experience.
Each school contains four houses:
| House | Principal calling |
|---|---|
| The Pathfinders | Warriors trained to defend their communities and those travelling under their protection. |
| The Waterseekers | Explorers and establishers of new trade routes, whose work connects settlements and dependable supplies of water. |
| The Scrollkeepers | Bureaucrats responsible for records, administration and the written obligations of communal life. |
| The Priests | Scholars and religious practitioners concerned with learning, observance and spiritual guidance. |
The houses preserve skills essential to a mobile people while preparing students for occupations equally necessary in a large city.
Norsidh
The Norsidh are a werebeast people originating in the frozen nation of Nordmore, far to the north.
Their forms include werebears, werewolves and werecats, combining recognisably humanoid characteristics with powerful animal features. These differences occur within a shared people and cultural inheritance.
Norsidh history includes extensive conquest, raiding and overseas travel. Their expeditions eventually reached Idhelin, where some remained and established lasting communities.
Their traditions place considerable importance on ancestry, reputation, service and the obligations binding members of a household or community. Seafaring remains influential even among descendants living far from the northern coast.
The four paths
At the age of fifteen, a Norsidh comes of age and chooses one of four recognised paths.
| Path | Principal responsibilities |
|---|---|
| The Path of the Berserkirr | The warrior's calling: combat, defence and martial service. |
| The Path of the Sailor | Life at sea, including raiding, navigation and the transport of cargo. |
| The Path of the Bureaucrat | Governmental service, record-keeping and the work of scribes. |
| The Path of the Seer | Religious observance, the reading of omens and, among a rare few, the study of pactwork. |
The four paths recognise administration and spiritual responsibility alongside the more widely celebrated traditions of warfare and sailing.
Beast nature and Druidism
Norsidh beast nature is part of their people and does not depend upon the Eightfold Art.
Druidism is a separate discipline requiring the hereditary Kindling, a Full Moon Aspect and years of study. It is particularly admired among the Norsidh because of their existing relationship with animal identity.
A Norsidh Druid learns additional wildshapes through practice in Xanadu, beginning with small creatures such as stag beetles or hornets before attempting larger forms.
The glowing amethyst eyes of an active wildshape identify Druidism. They are not a universal characteristic of ordinary Norsidh appearance.
Chityra
The Chityra are an arthropodal people living within the unknown depths of Kanturas, including extensive portions of the Rivengroth beneath Idhelin.
Their bodies possess chitinous plates, jointed limbs and recognisably insectoid features. Their most consequential characteristic is a hive mind, through which numerous bodies participate in a shared awareness.
This collective existence shapes their communication, territorial behaviour and response to danger. Movements that appear impossibly coordinated to outsiders can arise from an awareness shared across the group.
The Threefold Utterance
The Threefold Utterance is a characteristic expression of Chityra communal presence:
Once. Twice. Then many times together.
A sound begins alone, is repeated and becomes a collective expression. To the Chityra, the pattern offers comfort through the presence of the greater mind.
To Greycloaks and Mandaru who have encountered them in the depths, the same sequence can announce that apparently isolated sounds belong to a much larger force. Its familiarity becomes a source of dread.
Origin and the hidden war
The Chityra were fashioned by Dezdite. When Elu denied them the spark of life, Dezdite extinguished the Dwarven people through a rite of transference and used that loss to animate his creations.
This history is concealed from most inhabitants of Kanturas.
Beneath Idhelin, Chityra expansion has brought them into conflict with the city's defenders. The War of the Lower Gates is fought around passages and fortified thresholds that most citizens never see.
The city's authorities suppress knowledge of the Chityra. Reports of insectoid figures, coordinated sounds and disappearances below the inhabited districts are frequently dismissed as superstition or conspiracy.
Dwarves
The Dwarves were a short, stocky and resilient people whose communities displayed a wide range of skin and hair colours.
For thousands of years, they built an extensive subterranean empire. Their cities and connecting roads became known to Humans as the Rivengroth, or Riven Way.
Dwarven engineering combined practical durability with exceptional craftsmanship. Monumental halls, carefully fitted stonework, bridges and connecting passages were created as parts of a functioning civilisation. Their surviving scale and precision continue to shape the lives of later inhabitants.
The extinction of the Dwarves followed Dezdite's rite of transference. Their disappearance left the underground empire without its builders, while the newly animated Chityra came to occupy its halls.
A concealed inheritance
In Idhelin, knowledge of the Dwarves is suppressed under the Veiled Concordance. Ordinary inhabitants may use ancient passages without understanding who constructed them.
Their work survives more visibly than their identity. A road can remain in use long after its builders' names, language and purpose have disappeared from public knowledge.
Iluzan is the only inhabitant of Idhelin old enough to remember the Dwarves personally. Other sufficiently ancient dragons elsewhere in Kanturas may also retain memories of their civilisation.
Dragons
Dragons are ancient intelligent beings whose lifespans allow some to remember events beyond the reach of surviving mortal traditions.
Their presence complicates any account of Kanturas based entirely upon kingdoms and settled populations. An individual dragon may preserve knowledge of vanished peoples or maintain interests extending across generations of mortal rulers.
Dragons are associated with Elu, who governs dragons, time and endurance and is depicted in religious art as a transparent, one-eyed dragon.
Iluzan and the other known dragons
Iluzan, Viscount of Idhelin, is a hermaphroditic dragon living in human guise. His true identity is concealed from the populace over which he presides.
He leads the council of ninety barons and cannot leave the city. Diplomats and ambassadors conduct the necessary business abroad on his behalf.
Other known dragons include Tilrynian, Calryr, Nyrvinas, Qurmas and Daenos.
Dragons and wyverns are distinct creatures. The wyverns ridden by the Greycloaks serve as mounts in Idhelin's army; their presence does not reveal that the city's ruler is himself a dragon.
Shared societies and differing traditions
The peoples of Kanturas meet through markets, military service, religious institutions, travel and the movement of refugees.
Idhelin provides a particularly concentrated example. Human clans, Tuarai households and Norsidh communities inhabit the same enormous city, while the hidden Chityra occupy contested depths beneath them. Much of the underground setting in which these encounters occur was created by the extinct Dwarves.
Shared institutions do not erase distinct customs. A Zylvaran's journey, a Sheorenth's tattoos, a Tuarai's schooling and a Norsidh's chosen path express different expectations of adulthood and responsibility.
Magical ability also depends on more than communal identity. The Eightfold Art requires an individual's inherited Kindling and disciplined study, while pactwork depends upon learned ritual, agreement and personal cost.
Religious imagery must likewise be distinguished from the world's living peoples. Chiron is frequently depicted as a centaur, although there are no centaurs on Kanturas.
