Wa'ei'zha Culture Overview

### Food Production

The Wa'ei'zha herd llamas around the Grasslands. They use trained Griffons to aid this process, keeping the llamas from wandering away. Their diet centers meat and dairy products.

### Clothing

Most clothing is made out of llama wool or felt. They wear layered wool coats, often elaborately decorated, over practical riding pants.

### Music

From llamas that have died of natural causes, farmers make triangle-shaped instruments, consisting of a frame of carved bones supporting a graduated series of parallel strings made of the intestines of the dead llama, played by plucking with the fingers. These are similar to harps called Akulas.

### Family and Clan Structure

Each clan's oldest members are eligible to serve on a council of elders that meets annually at the base of the mountain. The ultimate leader of a clan is the most senior descendent of the clan founder. It is forbidden to marry within one's clan. At the annual meeting, newborns are also brought to the base of the mountain where a ritual is performed to grant them a name, one of the three genders, and membership of a clan. The family usually purchases a young griffin for their child at this time.

Following a marriage, the newlyweds set up their own tent and are gifted a portions of their parents' herds. The newlyweds retain full membership of the clans they are dedicated to and all their fellow clan members are bound to help them get settled if necessary. In the times before Waeizha was united by the Great Meghist, when all the clans fought each other, clan members acquired their spouses by abducting them from other clans and then marrying them. Nowadays, members of clans freely leave to form partnerships in which both parties maintain full membership of their birth clans.

### Royal Family and Political System

The royal family controls the Lone Mountain and the variety of resources that comes from it. First, the abundant magic that emanates from the Lone Magic is harvested in the Refreshing the Artifacts ritual and put in the three ancient artifacts. Second, the royal family breeds, trains, and sells the Griffons that only ever nest on the mountain. In addition, the royal clan has an appropriately large population of llamas, used for normal purposes, training the Griffons, and in rituals to the Sky God.

The royals have three magical heirlooms from the time of the Great Meghist: a comb that heals and tames griffins, a sceptre that they wield in battle and crown that when worn influences the mind of those the wearers speaks to, making it extremely hard to disobey a ruler while they are wearing it.

The current Monarch is Megalo. He has greatly expanded the palace and fortress complex surrounding the mountain, building mazes of walled gardens that are said to contain magical experiments. According to the journals of Melel, the royal family has become paranoid because of Bieiwa's defiance and magical strength. Megalo wonders whether he could still defeat Bieiwa in a war, and conducts experiments to try and match the efficiency and power of the Apothecaries' Guild's rituals.

Yagiazi pays tribute to Waeizha in metal, woven armor, and dried foodstuffs.

### Religion

The Waeizha worship a powerful god of the sky, who sits upon the mountains to judge all things below, and who confers power to the royal family. The Lone Mountain is sacred to the Sky God, particularly the peak which is said to touch the sky itself. The griffins that come from the mountain are also considered sacred, as is sleeping out under the open sky.

## Warriors

While in times of war all the Waeizhi old enough to ride griffins fly into battle, in times of peace people of a certain gender are reserved as warriors. Warriors are sworn to guard either a clan or the royal family and spend their lives training in the arts and magic of combat.

1. ↑ Book 3, IX
2. ↑ Book Five, 101001