Humans of Utregoth

## Avvar

Avvar are the semi-nomadic hillsmen of the northern wilderness and eastern coasts. Avvar are known for having blue eyes, blonde hair, and are a tall and hardy people, averaging just over six feet tall. The Avvar wear their hair shaved on the sides with the top often pulled up into elaborate braids. In addition, they are known for extensive tattoos on their faces, heads, and body. Avvar wear their beards long year round. They dress in dark muted colors, often undyed wools and treated hides.

Rather than having a complex political hierarchy like their Andle cousins to the south, the Avvar are mostly democratic. The Avvar divide themselves into city-states called holdfasts, each with its own Jarl who guides the folk in law and in battle. All the free men and women of a hold decide matters together in great annual gatherings called Things. The exception to this are the Witchlands to the south of Niflheim. There the Great Sorceress and her lesser magical sisters rule over each village and together form a kingdom like those of the Andals in the Westerlands.

Their politics may be simple but they still have a social hierarchy that divides power amongst those that can hunt or go to war, those who cannot but still contribute to the good of the tribe, and slaves. The Avvar are known slavers who put the victims of raiding and inter-hold warfare are put to work. Many slaves are often freed after a number of years and expected to live as freeman within Avvar holds.

Avvar fight mostly with axes and spears. The Avvar wear simple leather armors supplemented with iron and boiled leather, such as ring mail and scale. In addition they are often found armed with round wooden shields. They use no siege engines and rarely wage total war on one another. Instead they raid cities and outlying farms of their neighbors and the Andals to the west.

## Andle

The Andles of the south are a civilized farming people who rarely wander from from the villages they are born into, save for a small but vibrant merchant class. They are known as wearing their hair long and free with large moustaches or closely cropped beards. Andles has brown or red hair with green or brown eyes. They are known for wearing elaborately dyed clothes in bright blues, reds, and greens. Amongst the powerful elite clothing can become quite complex in it's form and design.

Andle society is based on a strict class system with a single monarch, the King at the top. Below that King are Jarls who administer large swaths of land in the King's name; collecting taxes, maintaining order, and providing troops when needed.Each Jarl has a court of Soldier-Administrators called Thanes. These Thanes are first and foremost fighting men but they oversee small sections of land, in the same way the Jarls administer for the King. Each Than in turn has a household of warrior-servants called Housecarls who act as the direct land-owners.

Land is only ever owned by nobles but the common freemen are granted use of the land in exchange for a tax paid in portions of the harvest. Below these free farmers are in turn served by the unfree. While slavery is technically illegal within the Andle realms there is indentured servitude. These indentured serfs are are often freemen who have become indebted or commited crimes and are then forced to work under the supervision of freemen with no personal property or profit from their labors.

Andles fight with spears and swords produced by blacksmiths from noble households. Mines are operated year round by serf and freeman alike. A steady supply of trade between settlements and even kingdoms ensures an availability of iron. This allows the Andles to fight in complex steel armor such chainmail and solid breastplates supplemented with iron reinforced wooden kite shields. The Andles are also known for their use of siege machines and large scale warfare wherein entire free populations are conscripted.