WIP| The Source | According to the Keeper’s legends the Earth Mother created the Great Grass Sea, for at the beginning of time all the lands were one great steppe. To inhabit this land she birthed men second, after her beloved giants, and then came the beasts of the land, and those of the sky, and those of the waters. She crafted this world to be void of magic, but the Sky Father was not please with this, for he wanted his children to live in a world like that which he inhabited. So he tempted his children with the gift of magic. First he cane to the giants, but in their wisdom they refused for they were crafted in Her image, next he came to the humans and many refused as the giants before them had.. but some wicked hearted men accepted and so they became afflicted with the curse, and magic spread into this world from the other. When the Earth Mother heard she wept, for magic was not evil she knew, but merely opened the doors to evil. Yet even still she held hope that men would be able to bare the burden of this curse.
Unfinished... |
| Taming of the Mages | According to the legends of the Keepers their was a time when the Suufulk were ruled by wicked hearted men, mages overtaken and corrupted by cruel spirits. These men were known to the Suufulk as the Teefulk Demon Kin, what many peoples know as abominations. They ruled cruelly, forcing the people from their horses and making them work like Ruulfulk Sheep Kin (a common term for settled peoples) in fields or mines to reap foods or acquire more aethirium to feed their endless hunger. In this age of great sorrow, when hope dwindled, a hero came. His name was Baras for he shared his name with that of his people, the Barasaad, a proud and ancient collection of tribes. On his seventeenth birthday he received a vision from the Earth Mother, a vision that drove him to wander into the wilds where all knew he would surly die for he went alone and without a horse (for the Teefulk had taken their beasts). His people named him mad and all knew he would die, but the man promised to return with an answer as to how their people would be freed. And so he left, with enough food and water for seven days and seven nights. He left his wife Maala, and his three children, Bara, Malik, and Dira.
He began to walk into the heat of the plains, and with each passing day he saw great wonders that his people had forgotten about in their long toils. Tortoises that shook that ground, and great feathered beasts with teeth like swords. As the days passed though he did not find the answers he sought, despite the wonders he came across, eventually his supplies dwindled to naught. But Baras continued, for forty nine more days and forty nine more nights, in sweltering heat, without sleep nor rest from the road. He was on the verge of death and yet he continued, so dedicated was he to the service of his kin and so fervently did he believe the dream of salvation that had come to him. On the eighth morning since his supplies had failed him he collapsed to the ground, all but dead.
The next he knew he was being resuscitated by one of the giants. A women, she spoke to him in the old tongue and explained that the Earth Mother had told her to bring her tribe to this place and so she had, she was Ma’Wa’Lok’Ta the Kia’Tau (spiritual leaders) of her tribe. He lived with the giants for a time following them on their sacred paths, he came to appreciate their ways, for they truly lived in the light of the Earth Mother. Eventually after many moons, as trust bloomed between them, he shared his vision with Ma’Wa’Lok’Ta and so they both knew that the Great Mother had brought them together for a reason. Baras shared the plight of his people and the giants were moved, if by his words or by the Earth Mother’s will none truly know, and agreed to aid the man.
During the next Yema, a meeting of regional clans, the giants would motion for their people’s aid. Unfortunately the Yema occurred only once every decade, for their lives were long and to their minds it was frequent enough. Baras was enraged by this, but Ma’Wa’Lok’Ta councils patience and so the boy’s hand was stayed. And so ten long years passed, as the shadow of the Teefulk grew darker still, and yet Baras waited as he was instructed - even not knowing what had become of his family.
When the Yema assembled they too were move and agreed to aid Baras’ ailing people. For the first time the giants marched to war beside a human. They first came to the Barasaad, and Baras’ people were awed that he had not only returned but had returned with their salvation. Though his people were pleased they were also shamed, for they had allowed the Teefulk to bring Baras’ family into the mines, where they had died soon after. Baras mourned in proper fashion, for seven days and seven nights he wailed, he refused food and water, he even refused to strategize his revenge.
When they came against the Teevulk the war was fierce, for the giants were resistant to Magic’s effects, but these abominations wielded great strength. The war went in for seven years, as Baras and his allies liberated one tribe and the next, until the war came to a head at the plains of Peeselas. There among the knee high grass a battle raged seven days and seven nights without abating. It is said that the amber grass of Peeselas received its color from the blood spilt in those seven days, for so much death had befallen the place that no amount of time could see it purified. The abominations were defeated and the alliance of giants and men had taken the day, the Suufulk were freed. Ma’Wa’Lok’Ta sought to deliver the final blow to the master of the Teefulk, but Baras stayed her hand, counseling patience as she had once counseled him. She was humbled by his growth and naturally relented.
Baras decreed that the abominations would not be killed, for enough had perished and the Earth Mother loved all her children. Instead he requested that the Giants forge for him a suit of armor and a set of chains for each of the abominations, armor that would become their prisons. The giants agreed and so the Striding Folk and the Prancing Folk became as distant kin. Ma’Wa’Lok’Ta forged each suit herself, burning the runes of binding into the armor herself, to ensure even the most powerful of the abominations would not free themselves. She crafted chains to bind the arms, collars to bind the necks, and masks to silence their voices, no detailed escaped her watchful gaze. And so Baras saw to it that the mages were bound, so that they could not harm their fellows and yet they could still serve their peoples. |
| Governance of Magic | Magic is handled with great care among the Suufulk, they fear the power that mages can command, but understand the boons such powers can grant. As such mages are treated more like tools than people. Each mage is assigned a handler, a Baras, named for the first mage handler of legend. The job of the Baras is to watch over all the mage’s magical training, practice, and the magic they perform while providing a civil or martial service to the tribe. In the worst case scenario their job is to ensure that a mage is put down if they go rogue.
The mages are outfitted with heavy shoulder and breast plates, a metallic collar about their necks and cuffs around their wrists, with heavy metal chains connecting the four pieces of the suit together. Their faces are covered with a metal mask, which in turn is chained to their shoulder plates to prevent removal. Each piece of these suits is inlaid with runic magic, ensuring that a mage endures great physical pain and even death if they were to disobey their handler. In general mages take vows of silence, only speaking when in training for magic use or when actively using it. At times a mage’s mouth will be sewn shut if they have proven incapable of following those guidelines, though the thread will be removed with martial purposes. Treatment of these Teefulk can vary wildly from one Baras to the next, but it is rare indeed for a Baras to grant anything more than minor freedoms.
Strangely enough the Suufulk, for all their anti-magic tendencies, actually create abominations. When a mage comes of age, at 16, it is customary that the mage will be fitted with their armor and chains before being sent to acquire a spirit. The spirit will, almost certainly turn them into an abomination in time, as once the spirit enters the host the armor is locked and both spirt and human become prisoners within the mage’s body. The Suufulk Keepers claim that this practice ensures that more powerful spirits do not take control of the mortals body, and risk ensuing the runic bindings that imprison both spirit and mage. But the validity of this argument is unknown.
Since the time of Baras there can been strict rules against these Teefulk mages being taught, or teaching themselves, martial magic. But external pressures from all directions prompted a societal change around 10,100 AA, as migratory peoples came from the Hyperborean peoples and the Yagh. This change saw many Suufulk tribes grant martial privileges to their abominations.
To an outside observer, especially to an outside mage in a more lenient society, this treatment might seem barbaric. But it can be difficult to write them off entirely, as societies like the Azem highlight just how unequal life can be if mages are allowed to monopolize civic and social life. |
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[ANW - Civilization] The Suufulk
