The painted ones

## History

The painted ones were
first met when the people of the kingdom pushed towards the east
coast during the great expansion of 116. The Angleadd settlers
stumbled upon small villages and crude temples dedicated to unknown
gods, but few living people were ever spotted. When contact was
finally established with a sizeable group of natives, the lords who
had laid claims to the land sent heralds with offers of trade and
inclusion into the growing kingdom. The reply shocked settlers
however when the decapitated bodies of the heralds were discovered
impaled on stakes outside their camps one morning. The Angleadd lords
responded to the actions of the natives with a great show of force,
sacking the closest village and putting it to the torch. They had
however miscalculated the numbers of the tribesmen, and as they
celebrated their victory over the savages another warparty fell on
them. Of the roughly two thousand settlers and warriors who had
travelled east, just a couple hundred survived to bring the news back
to the capital. King Vaerrac, the ruler at the time, was shocked and
enraged by the news of the hostile natives, and for the first time in
almost a century he called all his vassals to war.

The years that followed
was almost as bloody as the throne wars two centuries earlier, with
thousands of warriors fighting to more or less eradicate the painted
ones and claim vengeance for those killed during the initial contact.
By summer of 121 all known villages and towns were razed to ground,
and the painted ones were declared vanquished and beaten. Scattered
tribes survived however, and in more secluded parts of the kingdom
stories are still told of surprise attacks by painted warriors who
kidnap and slaughter travellers and villagers. Some lords and their
warbands usually strike back and burn some village or another if
found, but no decisive victory has of yet been claimed.

## Culture

The painted ones are so
called for their habit of covering themselves completely with
chalk-white paint and mud, and then adorning their faces and bodies
with symbols unknown to the scholars of Angleadd. They usually carry
crude weapons made of either bronze, copper or stone, but they are
brutally effective with them and can be a threat to even a trained
and well-equipped warrior. As far as anyone can tell their culture is
built upon the belief that a demon used to rule the land, and to
fight his powers they take the heads of fallen enemies and use them
as “spirit guards”. The idea behind these guards is that the dead
will never let their gaze wander, so only they can be trusted to keep
their eyes on the demons. The main problem with this is that
according to the elders of their tribes, anyone who are not one of
them are in service of the demons and therefore must be killed.

The painted ones are
extremely superstitious, seeing spirits, demons and greater beings
all around them. They hold great faith in the power of magic and
spirits, and their tribes is usually ruled by a shaman. The word of
the shaman is the law of the tribe, and anyone who objects to his
ruling is immediately executed and either sacrificed to one of their
gods or chosen to be a spirit guard. Conflicts sometimes arise
between the different tribes when their shamans don't agree about
something, but such conflicts are usually resolved through the trial
of champions. Each shaman chooses one warrior from his tribe to
represent him, and these warriors then fight to the death in a
neutral spot chosen by both tribes. The belief is that the gods will
grant the one who is right victory. After the conclusion of such a
battle the losing shaman will be sacrificed, ending with the victor
eating the hearts of both the shaman and his fallen champion in order
to gain the blessings of the gods.

The tribes usually live in
secluded villages, hidden away from the lands of the demon-men as
they call the Angleaddans. After the initial war they fled their
ancestral homelands and settled new villages throughout the
wilderness. Their settlements are centered around the temple of
guardians, where the heads of their most ferocious foes are displayed
both in and around the structure. This is also the home of the ruling
shaman and his or her apprentices. The remaining structures are
placed in a rough star-pattern spreading out from the temple. Some of
the older and larger villages are usually encircled by a wood or
stone wall, decorated with heads and symbols of power. With the
hostility between the kingdom and the tribes never diminishing, the
number of such large villages are believed to be quite low. The
buildings and such are usually quite crude, and it is unknown if the
tribes have any form of art or crafts apart from the basics they need
to survive. Since noone has managed to meet them on peaceful terms,
most just assume that they live for nothing but war. Anything from a
couple dozen families and up to several hundred individuals can live
in a village. The population tends to be quite fluid, as villages
will relocate or join up whenever there is need for it.

Gender holds little
importance for the painted ones, and any member of a tribe can hold any
position. The only positive observation that has been made by kingdom
scouts is that they value skill and knowledge above anything else, so
a strong female warrior holds as much chance to become a warleader as
her male counterparts. Likewise there has been several reports about
tribes ruled by female shamans.

## Physical description

The average tribesman
stands just under 6ft tall, with a rather heavy build and well
developed muscles. The females are roughly the same size as their
men, and both genders are known to be equally determined and
ferocious. Their skin is quite pale, though it is seldom seen due to
their custom of bodypainting. Their hair is usually dark, but apart
from shamans and other leaders the tribals tend to shave their head
completely. Most of them have grey eyes and are known to see better
in the dark than their kingdom enemies.