Chaigari Sunrise

The PCs are mostly members of the Illakma, a Jannuyani speaking tribe living in the Chayengar range.

Link: Chaigari Sunrise

Introduction

Anthropology

Creating an Illakma PC

Campaign notes, maps and Illustrations

Introduction

As this is an introductory adventure, all PCs will start as 'outsiders' to the Empire of the Petal Throne itself, initially ignorant of the complexity of the cultures of the Five Empires.

Who we are

We are the mighty Illakma tribe, dwellers in one of the finest valleys in the Chavengar mountains, feared by our enemies, revered by our allies for our wisdom and loyalty.

Where we are

We dwell in Illakmanu village, which has seventeen huts (two more than the wretched Uchumun tribe!) three terraced fields, one with tall wheat, and we control five upland pastures where our herdsmen keep our fine strong hmelu (six legged goats).

Our best hut is the Men’s hut, where the Dzeu (headman) keeps his bronze spear and wooden plough and the carved tallies of the herdsmen. It stands just outside the fence which marks where the authority of the Women’s Hearth begins and ends. All within that circle are subject to the rule of the Dze-uch (headwoman) and her council, and woe betide any man or woman who refuses to perform their daily tasks. 

Some young men never go within the village at all and stay out in the pastures or in the Men’s hut, just to avoid being told to hoe the fields and card wool by their mothers. They change their minds when they realise this means they never get to meet any girls and will never get married.

What we believe

Our valley was carved from the rock by the goddess Uchsvun, mother of the tribe, Queen of the green grass and sweet water. Our wise woman lives in a hut by the spring and makes the sacred drinks for the spring rites, though she does not take part herself, remaining unmarried and chaste her whole life. Each man must go to the shrine of Thek, which lies high on the bare mountain side among the snows, and place upon it a stone carved with the names of his children by the hermit there, so that all might be recognised by Thek and admitted to heaven. Prayers written on soft woollen cloth are also left there, fluttering in the breeze from a prayer-pole.

What we know

We know how to grow the tallest wheat in the mountains, we can weave the finest woollen cloth, our hmelu-dogs are the best and most loyal, we can build stout square huts from stones, mud and dung that only let in a little bit of wind and rain and pens for our sheep from piled dry stones.

We know how to terrace the steeper slopes with such walls to save and deepen the soil, and how to find clay for pots by the deep pools down the valley in the land of the Uchumun. We can chip stone to make good blades for our bows and spears, though the chlen-hide ones we get from traders are better. We know a good rate for trading hmelu cloth and leather for salt from the desert men. We know you must have salt or your neck swells and children become stunted and stupid like the Uchumun tribe.

Who are our allies?

Our allies are the Gukhu clan and the Iutamau clan. They are nowhere near as rich and magnificent as we are, and we kindly help them out when their flocks are raided, and help them take vengeance on trespassers.

Who are our enemies?

Our enemies are the A'ul, crazy thieving desert folk who live in the next valley. They herd hmelu and thus pretend to be real people, but we see through their lies. We do not like the Kraikma tribe. They do not talk properly and wear black and worship some god called Kark or Karki, something foreign and nasty anyway. They are good with spears though, and when we take their pastures and herds it will be a tough fight.

We also dislike any beast that takes our hmelu. The Hlaka, the flying people, used to do this, but after we made war on them and threw their babies off cliffs with their wings bound they stopped.

The world outside

The world beyond our valley is full of ignorant fools. The Uchumun are weak and their Dzeu is lame. They spend too much time in their fields and village being bossed about by their wives and not enough in the high pastures breathing the clean air. We took their pasturelands from them easily and stole all their hmelu, not that they were worth much, being as stunted and stupid as the Uchumun themselves.

We see traders every year who come from the north, the land of the thieving desertmen, and trade for salt. Later in the same year these traders come up again from the south with beads, pots and stuff called 'Chlen-hide' which makes good knives.

Once every seven or eight years, a priest of the God Under the Mountain comes to our village. He dresses in colourful robes edged with feathers of many colours and wears a hat with a huge plume in it to cover his bald head. He talks in a strange accent and tells tall stories. He says we are all owned by his God, which is proven by a piece of thin leather covered in squiggles. He always demands to see the herdsmen’s tallies, and then takes several hmelu away. The elders say it is unwise to stop his thieving, which he calls 'tax'. Some tribes tried once and then giants with sharp spears turned up and killed everyone. This priest is not all bad though; he settles disputes between tribes that wars have been unable to resolve and claims he can speak to the flying people, the Hlaka, and stop them stealing hmelu. Once, it is said, he came with a gang of men with bronze collars and made good paths down to the village of the Uchumun and beyond and steps up to the pastures and wise woman’s pool.

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Anthropology

The Illakma are, like all Tekumeli, copper skinned. The men tend to be darker than the women as they spend more time in the open. A fine dark tan is considered attractive in a man, denoting long hours wandering the mountains doing manly outdoorsy things and making a living for the clan, while pale women are considered attractive as they are obviously inclined to stay indoors working hard at their spinning wheels, looms and cookpots. Illakma culture is not quite advanced enough for cosmetics, but advice to young men is to spread a little dirt on your face before coming into the village, and to young women to surreptitiously dab flour on your cheeks before your young man comes home.

The Illakma are short and broad-shouldered with slightly bowed legs, not dissimilar to the physique of the Andeans. The men average five feet two inches and the women four feet eleven inches. There is some variation, and some related clans, like the Uchumun, are even shorter.

Their faces are broad-cheeked with small chins and a slight epicanthic fold round the eyes - Terrans would think them like the Nepalese - but they have thick black wavy hair and a tendency toward lighter coloured eyes. They have a higher than usual chance of having outright blue eyes, a very rare thing on Tekumel, but unlike the Tsolyani, they attach no great significance to it.

Clothing and Personal effects

The Illakma live in a colder mountain environment and wear more clothes than is typical on Tekumel, and are even somewhat prudish about exposing their skin.

They go barefoot in the valleys and in the village, but wear substantial boots when going up into the mountains. These are made from thick felted woollen cloth with leather soles and are held up with blue woollen bands just under the knees. They protect the lower legs and feet from thorns and insect stings very well. Quality pairs have patterns embroidered on them in blue.

They wear loincloths that have short fringes at front and back, and both men and women wear long tunics of lighter wool. The women's versions are usually short-sleeved and have some fancy needlework round the neck in coloured threads. These are the usual daily wear and are rarely removed to be washed, these garments are usually stained and patched, but fine ones as work by wisewomen and headwomen have snail shell and iridescent blue beetle back sequins. They are worn with leather belts which tie securely in the front and have built in pouches for sundry personal effects such as bone needles, flint retouchers, small blades etc.

The women wear hmelu hide cloaks in poor weather, but the man's hmelu-herders coat is a work of art. Made of shaggy hmelu hide taken when winter wool is at it's longest, it hangs down to the calves and has ties at the front with bone toggles. In warmer weather only the top one is done up and the coat slung back like a cloak, but when the wind comes up the herder will huddle in it like a mini tent, sticking his arms out through the side holes only when he has to. The lower fringe of the coat has coloured wool, usually red, braided into the pelt, and is hung with small slate beads. The most magnificent versions, worn by headmen on ceremonial occasions, are decorated all over in many colours and weigh a ton. All men tie at least one magic stone or bone to the hem of their herders coat. Superstitious types may have dozens. These often fall off unnoticed, and men will attribute some minor bad luck to the loss of a charm.

The hat, removed indoors, is of woollen cloth, dyed and embroidered to taste. Stripy blue and red ones are common. They are round, like a large skullcap, and have earflaps. Over this hmelu herders will wear a conical leather construction to keep of the rain.

Jewellery

They wear small bones carved with abstract symbols and stones with natural holes on thongs, but most prized are the small bronze and copper beads sold by the traders, worn on woollen bands round the wrist. The tradition of presenting your sweetheart with beads made from the canine teeth of an enemy and/or his herd-dog has died out in favour of these prettier objects, but older women still wear large amounts of these dental necklaces, handed down over generations. Some can still say in which fight a given great grandfather knocked the tooth out and who the original owner was.

Weapons

The Illakma like spears, heavy ones you can tackle a bith or zrne with, with big broad stone points (see the Clovis culture), and use slings to take small game and warn off lesser predators. Some use wooden short bows with stone tipped arrows, but many men think making arrows, or even javelins, is too fiddly and time consuming. Bone handled short stone blades are universal, everyone has one. Chlen-hide pocket-knives are a popular but expensive buy from the traders - they are sharper, but do not last as long. Usually an Illakma will carry a bit of horn set in wood to chip fresh edges on their blades as they become blunt.

Building

The Illakma use dry stone walls for everything, chinking them with turf and dung where they need to keep the wind out. Roofs are sloping, made of hmelu hide, straw thatch and branches; smoke holes and chimneys are unknown, smoke gets out through the gaps between the hides. Standards of construction vary. The huts up on the pastures used by shepherds are tumbledown and always need repairs, the granary hut is stoutly built with big lintel stones among the myriad fist-sized bits of slate that make up most of the walls binding the thing together.

Arts

The Illakma weave and sew very well, and export woollen cloth. They have to import most dyestuffs and make sparing use of colour. Their pottery is not so hot, pretty crude with indented patterns, and imports are preferred when they can be had. They carve symbols on bone, and make bone flutes, but these are average quality. One export is their fine ground slate knives with carved bone handles. Around the village and up and down the valley are carved representations of the gods, chipped out with verve and vigour on naturally interesting looking boulders and rock faces. The priests and priestesses often do these themselves - one of the few times you find a Thek priest away from his freezing hideyhole is when he is carving an ugly face to loom out over a mountain path.

They have lots of songs and stories, and play mournful music on their bone flutes telling tales of glorious hmelu-stealing raids. One favoured legend is that of Makchun, who united 12 clans into a mighty warband and conquered the world, only to fall into arrogance and hubris, before being slain by his own people. The headman of the Illakma bears Makchun's bronze spear. The tales of Illakma the Wise, son of Thek and ancestor of the clan are also popular.

For further ideas on Illakma culture look up 'Otzi the Iceman', the neolithic chap found frozen in the Alps , and Pre-Inca period Andean villages.

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Creating an Illakma PC

The adventure is at the Gritty Realism level (30 Character Points, 15 skill points) and has moderate magic (1 Skill =2 Magic).

All Illakma have the following free skills:
Speak Jannuyani 2
Knowledge: Chavengar Mountains 2
Kilalammu Etiquette 1 -applies to cultures of similar ethnicity across most of central Tekumel
Hiking 1
Occupation Tribesman 1 - this can give a bonus to the usual daily activities of a mountain pastoralist; finding lost hmelu, repairing dry stone walls, hoeing vegetable patches, chipping flint blades etc. Their culture is too small to provide for much specialisation in ways of making a living.

Other notes on skills:
Artisan skills - Stoneworking, Tanning and Woodcarving are available, perhaps others if you make a good case for them existing in a neolithic culture of about 50 souls.

The Illakma are a VERY LOW clan; they are not considered clanless, but they are pretty close.

Illakma CANNOT have the following Attributes:
Flunkies - the most a tribesman might expect is a kid to do a bit of running about for him, and this is better covered by Retainer, as such a person would fight
Veteran - no Illakma has served in the army. They would probably make excellent light infantry if anyone bothered to recruit them, but no one does.
Wealthy - The best an Illakma might expect is to be less Poor than usual (see below). There is just not the opportunity to accumulate wealth.

All Illakma MUST take the following Defects:
Poor 2 (owning a chlen-hide knife makes you wealthy)
Second Class Citizen 1 (Don't speak Tsolyani, live in the sticks, smell strongly of hmelu)
Uneducated 1 (Goes without saying)

Clan members can be priests of Thek (vaguely equivalent to Hnalla and Thumis) or priestesses of Uchsvun (equivalent of Avanthe/Dilinala). The village has a wise woman in residence, but the hermits of Thek live some distance away on a wind blown summit.

Taking the Low Status Defect makes you a member of the Milumanyani speaking A'ul clan, a people so benighted even the Illakma regard them as low lifes; High Status makes you a Black Hmelu clansman, a Tsolyani-speaking tribe who still rate Very Low, but are not automatically considered second class citizens.

The Illakma are a sexist lot, and while female herder/hunters are known, they are looked down on. On the other hand in the village the woman's word is law, and they carry out most of the useful crafts and trading activity.

  Sample Names

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