Qabar-Kirkanshir cultures

General extent of the Qabar-Kirkanshir cultural sphere, great caravan route inserted along with the position of some large towns (diamonds) and the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir (star)

### Location

Central Valley and Western Badlands of the Kubrajzar

### Inhabitants

Humenaki

The **Qabar-Kirkanshir cultures** are a group of closely related humenaki peoples and cultures, sharing a common origin, whose range stretches from the upper regions of the Kubrajzar's central valley, across the treacherous mountain range and into the western badlands to the coast. They speak a language that evolved from ancient human and alminaki Toraanian languages. It now bears little resemblance to either of its parent languages, which are likely extinct now even on Toraan.

## History

> Well then, that one birthed of ink and melded of the darkness of the deeps went moaning and hearing, across the worldwater in a great slow spiral ... across the threescore or more isles, and across a continent that teemed with life. And as that raging, swirling, storming cloud of spattering colour and canorous sound bellowed hither and thither listening and sighing, breathing and crying, painting idly and deftly dyeing, there were caught up in it a myriad of beings and creations. Here a feather-haired desertman was entangled,
>
>  and there a second - a third. A wooly leaper, having long surrendered the hope of reaching the coveted stars, leaps and flies. It flies and flies - and this time there is no return to land... A great lizard came screeching, torn from the safehaven of its godmaster... And wisps of blinking light, their spirits huffing and puffing at all this exhilaration and excitement of light and sound. The great white stalker of the world's fortress gazed at the psychedelic delirium enveloping all above and all about, and it stood firm that stalwart beast as the inks whipped at him and tore his horns, and tore him too from his frosty home. Here a great flying pod went whirling off its decreed course, its spirit loosing songs of hysteria as it gave itself fully to the intoxicating celestial outflow of the great surging thing of ink & poetry. And oh! Do not think that the slumbering trees rooted to the depths of the earth did not wake - watch them stir! Watch their roots tremble! Watch their leaves rise and watch their branches sway to the cosmic song - here a root bursts, earth scatters, bark groans, trees fly... And if thus the Alder, Hawthorne, Lonethorn, what then of that fleeting creature, man? Into the song she glides, hair whipping, soul gushing the universal anthem. ...
>
> And when at last that sudden and world-shattering thing of ink & poetry faded out and utterly disappeared the beneficiaries and victims of its global raid sat dazed and at a loss, bathing in a post-epiphanic stew...
>
> A yeti moaned, a desertman sighed, a lizard hissed, a woman wiped away her tears and - ah, there it was. *..*.They took in the new world - the coloured sky, the unfamiliar boggy terrain, the mountains that rose up not far, the seemingly endless expanse of water before them, the trees everywhere. Life was abuzz here too, insects were upon them almost immediately and the sounds (the roar of a distant river, the living forest, the gentle ebbing and flowing of the waves), oh the sounds - the whispering of the waters, the muttering of the trees, the bizarre tune of the strange insects that joyed to suck their blood, and more distant too - other songs, other tunes. Oh, it sent a shiver down their spines. ...
> The yetis howled (a numbing sound), and the smaller folk looked up at them - any instinct to flee or fear was gone. A knowing glance, moments of understanding, and the lithe keepers of the mountains ambled off peaceably. In the distance great multi-coloured shooting stars zipped across the heavens, and even from here their great sound could be heard - *pewww*... *pewwwwww*... *pewwwwwww*. But... even now the lizardfolk, those itztli, gathered one about the other and, with a glance to the other smallfolk, set out on their own into the jungles. The human women and the desertmen watched them go sadly.
>
>
>
> A stomach rumbled. Somiti sighed and rubbed her tummy. The song of the world fed the soul and filled the cup, but oh! the glutt'nous stomach asked for more. And as though hearing her silent song, fish threw themselves upon the shore and the desertmen and the human women ate. And it seemed natural to them then that they should stay together...

Thus were the humble beginnings of the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples - a confused and hungry band of human women and alminaki men, whipped and battered across the world in a great storm of ink and colour and deposited in an utterly foreign land. What occurred next is not known definitively, but it is quite clear that the two bands remained together and intermarried, thus producing the humenaki who would grow into the peoples and cultures of the Qabar-Kirkanshir. It is highly likely that the very place of their deposition by Meghzaal was where the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir would eventually come to be.

Thereafter the humenaki spread across the upper river valley regions, its lakes and swamps, jungles and riverlands, coming to inhabit the mountains eventually finding a way across them to populate the badlands beyond. While maintaining one language, different cultures have emerged as the population expanded further and further from their genesis point. The city of Qabar-Kirkanshir itself has emerged, some 2,000 years later, as the dominating city-state of the upper valley and greatest humenaki population centre. Outside its immediate area of control are tribal nomadic populations living in the jungles, swamps, and riverlands, as well as more sedentary village networks, usually existing in one form of hostility or another. In the mountains, a fairly cultivated highland culture exists, with innovative adaptations to mountain life that eventually secured passage through the mountains to the badlands beyond, and the development there of oasis towns sustained by innovative desert irrigation as well as nomadic pastoral merchants who control the great trading caravan route from the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir to the far coast town of Birba-Ida.

Over their history, the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples have only met one other sapient race; the vespians. These great wasps are present both in the valley and on the badlands and a state of perpetual hostility has existed between them and the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples since time immemorial. The one exception to this is a more peaceable vespian culture based around a great oasis in the western badlands, with whom the wasteland tribes have been able to establish a trading relationship.

### Notable Events

#### Dreamhorror Attack on the Mirtaah

> While resting in the badlands, the nomadic Mirtaah tribe ran out of water in the few years after the reawakening of the gods. Desperate to get to the town of Tekhen, their impatience draws an unfulfilled horror to them in the night. On the first night it kills their *hukkam* (chieftain), and when they awake to this they call upon a druid, or *kayhin* the tribe calls them. The *kayhin* confronts the horro when night arrives again, but is unable to prevent it from killing others - Basirah, the *hukkam* first wife, Duha, his favoured *hasharaf* (a member of the tribal honour guard). The unfulfilled survives and prepares to feast on the tribe members, beginning with Inarah, the mother of Serrah and Rahma. But Serrah and Rahma have become a dreamwalker and a servant respectively, and they banish the horror before it can do so, saving the tribe. This reality is initially unknown to most of the tribe members, who assume that the *kayhin* had failed. The next morning the tribe buries its dead, Serrah and Rahma tell Zahna what happened, and the tribe eventually moves on to Tekhen, where Rahma and Serrah part ways with their people due to the influences of Aicheil and Firinn on them.
>
>

## Identity and Language

The peoples of the Qabar-Kirkanshir cultures have little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group. Individuals tend to identify with their families, tribes, and villages and do not share a broad sense of identity. The main unifying characteristic among the peoples of the Qabar-Kirkanshir culture is their language which, while divided into innumerable dialects, is generally mutually intelligible across the vast regions they occupy.

## Subdivisions

* *All images representing Qabar-Kirkanshir persons are close depictions and may not be in all ways accurate.*

The Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples are made up of two broad groupings wherever they exist; nomads and settled peoples. Thus on the western badlands there are nomadic tribes and settled oasis townships, who are quite distinct. The mountains are home to a semi-sedentary highland people. The upper river valley is home tribal people in the swamplands, jungles and riverlands, and then the more urban citizens of the city-state of Qabar-Kirkanshir. The tribal people are split into nomadic hunter-gatherers and settled village communities.

### Tribes of the Western Badlands

Pastoral nomads occupy the western badlands and are organised into tribes there. Along with their pastoral existence, they are the great force behind the incredible trading caravans that connect the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir and the eastern territories of the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples with the settlements on the western badlands all the way to the coast. Of these tribes is the Mirtaah tribe. [*see above*]

These nomads are divided into nine tribes. The tribes are not restricted to any particular geographical area, tending to roam along the caravan route, living side by side or far apart. Some tribes have a recognised leader while others do not; in both cases true power is exercised by the council of elders of each tribe who tend to have many children and grandchildren as well as material wealth. The tribes have an inter-tribal council of sorts, with each tribe appointing the head of its council to this inter-tribal assembly. The assembly does not have a leader, though an assembly speaker, known as the *mezaget* (lit. the One Who Shushes), is appointed to ensure order when the assembly convenes. The assembly is effectively an oligarchic entity that seeks to maintain tribal hegemony over the great caravan route and facilitate cooperation between the tribes to achieve the individual interests of each by securing the collective interest of all.

The tribals were the first to wander from the mountains into the badlands, and were originally hunter-gatherers and pastoralists before becoming long-distance traders due to their knowledge of the expansive areas they inhabited and good relations with highland communities.

They have long grown beyond hunter-gathering, and are now the pre-eminent traders of the Qabar-Kirkanshir zone of influence, and are also the only pastoralists who cross such immense distances with their caravan-herds. From the westernmost coast of Kubrajzar, into the mountains, and thence to the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir, it is one of the longest regular journeys undergone by any people in the world.

With time, some of the tribals were able to settle in the badlands on a permanent basis, using innovative irrigation techniques, unique weather phenomena, and oases and groundwater to set up permanent towns. These were effectively a necessity of the growth of long-distance trade, and the towns originally existed as water stops before expanding into more permanent settlements with cultures and ways distinct from the tribals.

The tribals trade in livestock such as goats, camels, yaks, and goods produced thereof like spun wool, woven fabrics, meats, dairy, and other animal-derived produce. From different places around the region, they secure for trade such things as pineapples, peanuts, squash (e.g. pumpkin), beans, tobacco, maize, tomatoes, quinoa, coca (for coca tea) and other herbs and medicinal products, wooden sculptures and other carved items, pottery, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, metals like gold, silver, copper, as well as obsidian and salt. The food obtained from trading helps offset shortages and also means the tribals are able to secure many luxury goods and are thus among the most materially well-off people in the cultural range of the Qabar-Kirkanshir.

In badland tribal society, the family plays a central role and is the primary social and political grouping, for the tribe is essentially an extension of the family. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family actively help each other, aiding members who have been attacked, paying off debts, caring for each other's young and so on.

The man, who is the head of the family unit, usually engages in trading and herding, the two primary economic activities of badland tribals, as well as hunting which is considered a manly activity.

The woman, whatever her husband's occupation, brings up the children and is the working hand that manages the family. Even children who have grown up into adults are expected to never contradict their mother or go against her wishes. Women also tend to be skilled artisans, engaging in all manner of handicrafts such as spinning wool, woodcarving, weapon crafting, knitting and quilting, embroidery, beadwork, bone carving, and basket weaving.

Very little distinction is made between one's children, nieces, and nephews. Children often move from one household to another with ease, and are made to feel at home by their aunts and uncles who, while in charge of their nephews and nieces, are their de facto parents.

Grandparents help with the less strenuous chores, such as rope-making and making bows and arrows. They also carry out trade, though at such a grand age they tend to delegate trading responsibilities to any of their adult children or kin. The primary responsibility of both male and female elders is to steer the political life and development of the tribe.

The tribal people's love of music and dance means their arrival at any location is a source of much excitement and celebration, their spectacular performances drawing local crowds. Dances are usually accompanied by lively, tuneful songs composed for the occasion, such as a marriage, a birth, or coming of age. In their dances they display agility and athletic skills as they perform acrobatics and body movements, often while holding a short spear or quarterstaff. Different dances often have particular purposes or messages. Certain dances are accompanied by songs criticising or satirising behaviour that contravenes social norms or that is individualistic and anti-social. There are also various religious dances, such as funerary ones, those carried out during healing ceremonies, and other occasions. There is generally no occasion that does not have one if not several dances.

Herdsmen and boys have different songs, as do young bachelors (reflecting their strength, priding in their exploits, expressing their passion and love), married men (reflecting their intelligence and vigilant care for their family as well as praise for their spouse and her qualities that make her superior to all others), and the elderly (often calling wayward youths to temperance and wisdom, imparting lessons, taking pride in one's children and praising them, showcasing a lack of love for the world and a readiness for death). Women at work are famous for their work songs, and on other occasions they chant lullabies and songs praising their sons and husbands. When many women gather together, they sing and dance among themselves.

In their everyday lives, tribal men wear leather short kilts and colourful blanket-like cotton fabrics with intricate symmetrical designs that cover them from shoulder to knee. They wear copious jewellery, mainly copper alloys of silver and gold - these consist of neck-chains, bracelets, and anklets. It is near impossible to find a man without a short quarterstaff or spear in hand, forming a near-permanent aspect of male dress. Women wear a thin rectangular fabric as a sarong, and like the men wear a blanket-like overgarment like a shawl.

Women tend to embellish their clothing with beadwork. They wear necklaces made of beads (with pearls being particularly sought after). Young girls tend to shave their heads clean, wearing headbands intensively decorated with beads, while older women grow their hair out and tightly braid it, entwining the beads into their hair. This is a communal process, and women tend to bond while beading each other's hair.

### Oasis Townships of the Western Badlands

The western badlands are also home to settled peoples organised in towns and villages around oases, the largest of which are the trading town of Tekhen and the westernmost coastal town of Birba-Ida.

These townspeople were originally of the tribals who wandered from the mountains into the badlands, but as long-distance trade became a more and more important aspect of tribal life some of them began settling near strategic water sources and trading resources. They used innovative irrigation techniques, unique weather phenomena, and oases and groundwater to set up permanent towns. These towns now have cultures and ways distinct from the tribals, though recognise the mutual interests that have long ensured cordial relations between them.

Adapting to live on the hyper-arid desert and coastal regions of western Kubrajzar was no easy feat. Short rivers flowing into the badlands from the mountains were first used to support intensive irrigation-based agriculture at the edges of the badlands. Agriculture was possible only with irrigation in valleys crossed by rivers coming from the high mountains. With time, a few oases (brought about by fog from the ocean to the west) were also settled. With each tribal migration, more of these oases were discovered and villages arose all the way to western coast.

This fog, which is part of the reason for the development of such large oases on the originally barren badlands, is a moist cold mist that blankets the coasts of western Kubrajzar, especially during the winter. This fog brings mild temperatures and high humidity to a tropical coastal desert. It provides moisture from fog and mist to a near-rainless region and permits the existence of vegetated fog oases. Interacting with considerable underwater reserves - in the form of fossil water aquifers - this allows for fairly stable self-sustaining sedentary agricultural communities to exist in the unforgiving badlands, making for much-needed caravan stops and trading hubs along the caravan route.

About ten to fifteen families traditionally make up a town, headed by a mayor known as a *mugahtir* (lit. the One Chosen). The title of *mugahtir* is life-long and often falls upon the most respected person in the community. As the name suggests, the *mugahtir* is chosen by the people of the village, usually by the consensus of the leading family patriarchs of the town. While the choice can fall on anyone, in some towns the process of choosing a *mugahtir* is largely ceremonial with one or two families hegemonising the role. In such communities, bitter rivalries can arise between such families as they after the role.

Within a family, the man of the home is the ultimate authority, followed by his first-born son. In a polygamous family, the first wife holds the most prestigious position among the women.

The first-born son of the first wife is usually the main heir to his father, even if he happens to be younger than his half-brothers from his father's other wives. Daughters have no permanent position in the family as they would eventually become other men's wives and so will ultimately belong to another family. They do not inherit property and are excluded from decision-making gathering within the family.

Children are named after familial ancestors such as their grandparents. The paternal grandparents take precedence so that the first-born son will usually be named after his paternal grandfather while the first-born daughter will be named after her paternal grandmother. Subsequent children may be named after maternal grandparents, or after unique events and weather conditions that occurred in the time period leading up to their birth.

Marriages tend to be arranged. The parents of a boy approach the parents of a girl to ask for her hand in marriage. If the girl agrees (and it is generally accepted that she must agree of her own free will, without pressure from any party), negotiations for dowry begin. Typically, this is a great quantity of crops or livestock. This is paid by the groom's parents to the bride's family rather than to the bride. Once the dowry is delivered, the girl is fetched by the groom's sisters to begin her new life as a wife.

Instances of eloping are common, with young men eloping with willing girls. Negotiations for a dowry tend to be conducted later. In such cases, the young man must also pay a fine to the parents of the girl.

When a patriarch gets old and hands over the running of the family estate, the sons may sometimes find a young woman for the old patriarch to marry. Such girls are normally those who were unable to find men to marry, usually because they had children out of wedlock.

Wife inheritance is also practised. A widow is normally inherited by her husband's brother or a cousin. In some cases, the eldest son would inherit his father's widows (though not his own mother).

When someone dies, there is a great celebration at the home of the deceased, with mourning lasting up to forty days. If the deceased was a wealthy or influential patriarch, a big tree is uprooted and the deceased is buried there. After the burial, another tree is planted on his grave. Being a sacred ritual, and as the tree produced would be considered hallowed, it can only be planted by a righteous lady - usually a young virgin or a very old woman.

As an agriculture society, townspeople dance and sing during harvest time. There are ritual songs and dances done during the harvesting process, and there are likewise songs and dances carried out to express gratitude to the divine for their blessings. There are also several war dances, some performed by men and others by women. Town-on-town warfare tends to be ritualistic and intended to cause injury at worst. Major dance ceremonies include the wearing of a yak head by a familial patriarch before dancing around a sacred tree in honour of one of the past patriarchs. The primary instrument used in the dances of the townspeople is the flute.

### Highlanders

The treacherous mountain regions are home to people who practice a combination of hunting and gathering, raising crops, and tending livestock, with most families involved in all these activities. These semi-sedentary people use terraces to farm potatoes, maize, and other crops. These terraces are designed to make the most efficient use of shallow soil and to enable irrigation of crops via runoff through the outlet.

At the lowest altitudes, fruits such as pineapples are grown. At medium altitudes, peanuts, beans, tobacco, maize, and tomatoes are cultivated, as are coca (for coca tea) and quinoa. Due to the unique form of terrace farming employed, crops such as maize can be grown at far higher altitudes than usual. Higher up the production gives way to tubers such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava, then to forest, and then at high altitudes to pasture for celestial sheep, cattle such as yak, goats, and Bactrian camels. Many highlanders thus also spin wool and weave fabrics and produce all kinds of animal-derived produce. Mining is also an important part of the highland economy, with the highlanders wielding a monopoly on gold, silver, and copper extraction, as well as obsidian and salt mining. This makes the highlanders particularly important trading partners for the caravaneers, from whom they extract a toll in goods for passage through the mountains.

The highlanders tend to grow more slowly than their lowland cousins and generally have smaller bodies. Moreover, they are better adapted to high-altitudes, having expanded lungs and hearts, and higher levels of haemoglobin in their blood.

### Citizens of the City-State of Qabar-Kirkanshir

In the upper river valley is the great city-state of Qabar-Kirkanshir, which is the greatest humenaki population centre across the cultural sphere. Intensive gardening, forest gardens, and managed fallows are crucial to supporting the large population. Where jungle has been cleared, maize, cassava, beans, squashes, sunflower seeds, cotton, and other crops are cultivated. These are supplemented with a wide variety of other plants either cultivated in gardens or gathered in the forest. Other foodstuff include chilies and tomatoes, and cotton seeds are ground to produce cooking oil. In addition to basic foodstuffs, prestige crops such as cotton, cacao and vanilla are also cultivated. Cotton is spun, dyed, and woven into valuable textiles in order to be traded off.

### Tribal Nomads of the Valley

Outside the city's zone, in the swamplands and jungles and on the riverlands, dwell tribal hunter-gatherers who are perpetually hostile to one another and occasionally conduct raids on caravans or into the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir's direct territories. Several of these tribes practice headhunting for trophies and headshrinking. While their violence is often directed against each other and other humenaki, their greatest hostilities are with the vespians. The jungle tribals are in many ways the great living wall of the Qabar-Kirkanshir against the vespians, preventing the great insects from completely overrunning the upper river valley.

The culture and way of life of these upper valley nomads is very much defined by the vespians at every level. Their weapons and armour are derived from felled vespians - head-dresses made of vespian manes, chitin armour, spears with vespian stinger heads, arrowheads made of vespian claws, medicines and drinks made using treated vespian poison, shields of hollowed-out swarmer armour. There are perhaps no people as martial amongst the Qabar-Kirkanshir. They secure other goods through raids on caravans or incursions against the village communities in the jungle and riverlands or against the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir itself. Women tend to be seen dressed in fine fabrics and wearing intricate jewels for this reason.

While warfare among other Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples may have a ritual aspect, with the purpose not being necessarily to kill or defeat the foe but merely to display strength and gain honour, this is not the case with the upper valley nomads whose very survival depends on honing and mastering martial and survival techniques. For this reason, gender roles are not quite as fixed as they are with other Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples; both men and women are expected to engage in warfare against vespians and in hunting animals for food.

From a young age male and female children accompany their kin on hunts, learning to use spears and bows. Children and youths are encouraged to compete with one another when it comes to hunting, with those who bring back more or greater game being honoured. There are also frequent contests of strength and fighting skill.

A boy or girl can only come of age when they have slain their first vespian and returned with its corpse to forge armour and weapons from it. Once they are recognised as adults, they can engage in sexual relations - there are no marriages, with relationships between men and women being purely sexual and temporary. A man may challenge a woman to a contest, and she may choose whether it will be one of strength, fighting capability, or something else. The two will then engage in each other in that contest, and if the man is victorious he is able to engage the woman in intercourse. If he is not then the woman's honour and prestige grows. To defeat a woman who has bested many before is considered a great feat.

It is not necessary for a man to challenge a woman he has defeated before to a duel unless she rejects him, in which case he will once more have to overpower her to gain sexual access. Some woman refuse men who have bested them before if they feel that they have been slighted, or if the man grows too cocky or begins to take her for granted. In some instances where a woman has been challenged and defeated by one man and is then challenged by another, she can assign the man who defeated her before to fight the new challenger on her behalf.

Families tend to be matrifocal and the father is unknown in most cases as women will likely have engaged more than one partner. The woman's male near of kin tend to orbit around the family, providing the necessary male presence that the children need and contributing to their training. Thus not only are families matrifocal as far as the children are concerned, but it is so for adult men who congregate around the family of their sisters. In this sense, a family that does not produce at least one female is considered dead.

Death is naturally a common occurrence for people who effectively exist on the marchlands between the nomadic vespians and the heartlands of the Qabar-Kirkanshir. These upper river valley tribals tend to retrieve and ritually cannibalise those of their warriors felled in battle, believing it adds the strength of the deceased to that of the living. The flesh may be eaten raw or cooked, in some instances the deceased is burned and their ashes are consumed along with other foods.

### Jungle and Riverland Village Communities of the Valley

The jungles and riverlands are also home to more settled peoples; simple roads and bridges link communities that are often surrounded by palisades, ditches, or moats. The villagers of the jungles and riverlands do not recognise themselves as a united group, but rather as individuals associated with their politically autonomous villages. These village networks are grouped together because of long-running kinship ties and militaristic coalitions (against the nomads and vespians) that weave the communities together.

Mature men hold paramount political and religious authority. A village headman acts as the leader of each village, but no single leader presides over all the village communities or even a fraction of them; each village is independent and autonomous. Headmen gain political power by demonstrating skill in settling disputes both within the village and with neighbouring communities. A consensus of mature males is usually required for action that involves the community, but not everyone is required to take part - and older women usually wield great influence on such decisions.

An average village usually consists of villagers, their children, and extended families. Villages vary in size but usually contain between sixty and three-hundred people. Villages are built in clearings in the jungle and are traditionally built entirely from raw materials in the surrounding jungle, such as thatched palm leaves, vines, and tree trunks. The wood is usually secured while clearing the area for the village. The village has a characteristic conical or rectangular shape, with open grounds (a plaza of sorts) in the centre measuring an average of 100 yards (91 m). The shelter constitutes the perimeter of the village and can be fortified with palisades. In this largely communal system, the entire village lives under a common roof. Each family unit has its own area within the village under this common roof, separated from others by a wooden post. Thus under the roof, divisions exist marked *only by these support posts*, partitioning individual houses and spaces - there are no walls or doors between neighbours, only posts delineate the houses. These villages are susceptible to heavy damage from rains, winds, and insect infestation, so new villages must be constructed every four to six years.

The villagers are hunters, fishers, and horticulturalists who depend heavily on jungle and riverland resources. Duties are split between men and women - gender roles are quite fixed difficult to negotiate. When it comes to securing food, it is the job of men to hunt and do the heavy work such as clearing areas of forest for the gardens. Meanwhile, garden plots are sectioned off by family and the women - who do not hunt - work in them, growing bananas, cooking plantains, sugarcane, mangoes, sweet potatoes, papayas, cassava, maize, and other crops and gathering tubers, fruits, nuts, and other wild foodstuffs. Another food source for the villagers are grubs, and they will often cut down palms in order to facilitate the growth of grubs. Women are also responsible for domestic duties and chores. In the mornings, while the men are off hunting, the women and young children go off in search of termite nests and other grubs, which will later be roasted at the family hearths. The women also pursue frogs, terrestrial crabs, or caterpillars, or even look for vines that can be woven into baskets.

Using small strings of bark and roots, women weave and decorate such baskets to use for carrying plants, crops, and food back to the village. They use a red berry to dye the baskets, as well as to paint their bodies and dye their loincloths. After the baskets are painted, they are further decorated with masticated charcoal pigment. While some women gather these small sources of food, other women go off and fish for several hours during the day.

When the soil becomes completely exhausted in an area, the villagers would traditionally pack up and move to avoid areas that have become overused, a form of shifting cultivation. However, forest gardening - which is central to the present villager way of life - means that such movement is becoming rarer and rarer. It is a low-maintenance, sustainable, plant-based food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans. In the gradual process of villages improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved whilst undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually, over time, superior foreign species were selected and incorporated into the gardens. Forest gardens are a significant source of income and food security for local village and even tribal populations.

Moreover, the jungle of the upper valley jungles is not some kind of pristine wilderness but has been shaped by humenaki inhabitants for at least thousands of years, leading to the formation of a unique black soil; a type of very dark, fertile artificial soil. This highly fertile black soil is to be found over large areas in the Qabar-Kirkanshir jungles and is a product of continuous soil management and slash-and-char agriculture over hundreds and thousands of years. The development of this fertile soil allows agriculture and silviculture in the previously hostile environment. Black soil owes its characteristic black colour to its weathered charcoal content and was likely made by adding a mixture of charcoal, bone, broken pottery, compost and manure to the low fertility jungle soil.

Black soil areas are generally surrounded by common soils - these are infertile soils. Deforested arable soils in the jungle are productive for a short period of time before their nutrients are consumed or leached away by rain or flooding. This forces farmers to migrate to an unburned area and clear it (by fire). Black soil, however, less prone to nutrient leaching because of its high concentration of charcoal, microbial life and organic matter. The combination accumulates nutrients, minerals and microorganisms and withstands leaching, and the charcoal is stable and remains in the soil for thousands of years, binding and retaining minerals and nutrients. Women are generally expected to carry 70 to 80 pounds (32 to 36 kg) of crops on their backs during harvesting season, using bark straps and woven baskets to carry their haul.

The villagers celebrate a good harvest with a big feast to which nearby villages are usually invited. The village members gather large amounts of food, which helps to maintain good relations with their neighbours, and they also decorate their bodies with feathers and flowers. The women also prepare cassava, shredding the roots and expressing the toxic juice, then roasting the flour to make flat cakes, which they cook over a small pile of coals. During the feast, the people eat a lot and the women dance and sing late into the night.

Children stay close to their mothers when young; most of the childrearing is done by women and they are expected to take full responsibility for them. At the same time, the children are expected to help their mothers with domestic chores from a very young age, and mothers rely especially on help from their daughters. Boys typically become the responsibility of the male members of the community after about age seven.

Uniquely among the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples, these village societies openly accept polyandry - with the permission of the husband, a wife may service guests or other men (it is particularly common for a husband to permit his wives to service his brothers, for instance), though there are also monogamous unions. Polygamous families consist of a large patrifocal family unit based on one man, and smaller matrifocal subfamilies: each woman's family unit, composed of the woman and her children. Life in the village is centred around the small, matrilocal family unit, while the larger patrilocal unit has more political importance beyond the village.

Marriage ceremonies are almost non-existent and are not celebrated. Marriage is treated as a social dynamic within villages, and they are pursued as a political opportunity by men who seeking alliances with other men from different villages. Polygamous marriages are common, and the demand for women outweighs the actual women population. A girl can be promised to a man at an age as young as five or six, but cannot officially be married off until after her first menstrual period. This is considered a marriageable age.

This is because the start of menstruation symbolises sexual maturity and the beginning of womanhood. Girls typically start menstruation around the age of ten to thirteen years. They are often betrothed much earlier and the marriage may only be consummated once the girl starts menstruating. When menstruation begins, the mother is notified immediately, and she, along with the elder female friends of the girl, are responsible for disposing of her old cotton garments and must replace them with new ones symbolising her womanhood and availability for marriage. During her first menstrual period, the girl is forbidden from touching food directly, and is usually fed with a wooden spoon or stick. While on confinement she has to whisper when speaking and she may speak only to close kin, such as sisters or her mother, but never a male.

Up until the time of menstruation, girls are treated as children, and are only responsible for assisting their mothers in household work. When they approach the age of menstruation, they are sought out by males as potential wives. Puberty is not seen as a significant time period with male children, but it is considered very important for females. After menstruating for the first time, the girls are expected to leave childhood and enter adulthood, and take on the responsibilities of a grown woman. After a young girl gets her period, she is forbidden from showing her genitalia and must keep herself covered with a loincloth.

A woman who has completed her nineteen-day menstrual seclusion then publicly celebrates her first menses and the onset of womanhood: her body is covered with adornments and the heady perfume of flowers and plants to make for a magnificent figure as she returns to the village. She conveys a provocative and charming sensuality; her face shows a quiet joy. Re-entering the village, she walks around the central plaza in a quiet and assured step until she reaches the abode of her parents. The high voices of women sing; signalling that woman is no longer an immature girl, she is strong and mature now, her menstrual blood proves it.

After this ceremony is over the woman is taken by her parents to the one she is betrothed to marry, usually a relative. Cross-cousin marriages between the girl and the son of a maternal uncle or paternal aunt are the most common form of marriage. Most prefer to marry within the same community, for fear of violent breakouts between different communities. Once married, the female goes to live with her spouse and must perform the chores and duties she previously did for her mother.

The elder wife in a polygamous marriage usually has precedence over the others and can act as a boss or a superior over her co-wives. As jealousies can get rife, an abusive senior wife can easily give the most unpleasant chores to the wife she chooses. The husband is meant to mitigate such jealousies by not showing favourites, but that is often an impossibility.

Due to the nature of their existence, the villagers of these upper valley jungles and riverlands live rather violent lives - between nomadic incursions, vespian raids, disputes with other villages or internal disagreements, men often die violent deaths. While inter-village warfare is common, it does not too usually lead to female casualties. Women are, however, often victims of physical abuse and anger and when other villages or nomads come raiding; often raped, beaten, and kidnapped to be adopted into the captor's tribe or village. Village men have been known to kill children while raiding enemy villages - as a lion must kill the cubs to claim the pride, so must the warriors kill the children to claim a defeated village's women.

Wives may also be beaten by their husbands, so as to keep them docile and faithful, and such tools as clubs, sticks, machetes (striking with the flat side), and other blunt objects may be used. Such acts are meant to symbolise a male’s strength or dominance over his wife. If a woman feels she can no longer bear to live with her husband due to such beatings, she may flee to live with her brothers - indeed, brothers may freely intervene to protect their sister if they feel there is such a need. Moreover, violence is not a one-way street and it is often the case that a strike from a husband is reciprocated by the wife like for like.

Village women can become witchdoctors, but not headmen. This is due to the fact that headmen are expected to be peacekeepers and valiant warriors, both of which require force and violence, which women are not considered to have according to the villager way of life. In village society, women gain respect as they age, after they marry and have children. Elderly women are highly respected and ultimately can become immune to violence and warfare between villages, able to safely travel from one village to another without fear of injury or violence from hostile villagers. Usually, elderly women are expected to recover the body of a slain member of her village killed in a raid. Although women are disrespected and belittled at a young age, they are respected and looked highly upon when they age, and come to wield much power in tribal politics and decision-making.

## Culture

### Religion

> “I give thanks to Qibbar Husnu, true light of the darkness, shamer of the dark moon. I give thanks to Ura ʿAliaa, by whose punishment we come to delight in the mercy of Qibbar Husnu. I give thanks to Miġra Zaʿl, giver of inspiration that we may well sing the praises of Qibbar Husnu. I give thanks to Buʿr Iynas the Great Old Mount, lord of the clay and father of all, by whose red earth we may learn to magnify the white glory of Qibbar Husnu. I give thanks to Zharuuʿ, by whose stars we are guided to the majesty of Qibbar Husnu. I give thanks to Kiʿranuʿjaza, who is the sea beyond the mountain, by whose spreading waters we may see on earth as we do in heaven the light of Qibbar Husnu.
> I give praise to Jinasa, in whose green bosom we are saved from the sight of the dark moon. Aid us, great Jinasa, that we may ascend the heavens on the back of the great tree and crack the dark moon so nothing but the light of Qibbar Husnu is made to shine; and that the darkness may forever shed its terror. I praise you, whom the kayhins praise; on the redland and in the mountain, upon the sea-beyond-the-mount and on its shore, and as you are praised in the swamplands and in the jungle.”
>
>

Religion among the Qabar-Kirkanshir is as diverse as their various subcultures. Origin stories can differ greatly and different villages and tribes can exhibit beliefs ranging from polytheistic belief in the gods of the *Hir* (spread by mad druids of the Circle of the Turning Away, known by some as *kayhins* by some) as seen in the above quote, to pantheism, panentheism, or pandeism. These tend to be interlaced with animism and ancestor worship. Some polytheists may believe in all the gods but worship one of the gods of the *Hir* above the others, or may believe in gods in addition to the *Hir* gods and yet worship the latter above the former.

> ...there above the wide horizon, a little cloud shading them from the sun, floated the undoubtable figure of an airborne kayhin. As he approached, they could see his endless feathery hair and dauntless beard that floated off behind him like many-coloured wings - for the forces that some of these kayhins called upon caused their hair to come alive and grow unlike that of normal folk. At last he descended from the skies above, wind whirling gently all about him and causing dust to fly off - which, strangely enough, never landed on him.
>
>

> His body boasted tattoos of different bright colours - white and red and orange - and he was also coated in ash and chalk in addition to spatterings of ink that flowed down his face and neck and seemed to flow from his eyes in dark tears. Indeed, his closed eyelids were the darkest onyx, and his lashes seemed kohled with the blackest ink. Great rosaries were piled about his neck to rest on his naked chest and, while it was not uncommon for the wandering desert kayhins to go completely unclothed, he was wearing a sarong stained with red and orange and blue and green and yellow inks. With his eyes closed, he seemed to be asleep on his feet, though when Zahna approached him he slowly fell prostrate before her and sang in a trembling voice - **“I adore and salute the eternal song in you and confirm and attest that the song is One and True; for the myriad voices that arise by dusk and dawn all point towards a god that is mighty and alone.”** As he spoke, a cool, damp wind swept through the encampment and all above them clouds formed one upon another in great mountains to shield them all from the damning sunrays. Zahna bowed her head to the kayhin who continued to prostrate himself before her.
>
>

> **“I too adore the one great song in you that gushes from and is Qibbar Husnu. By the bright rays that bring the night alight, cast out our fears and rid our sleep of fright - that death, which stole the greatest of our own may not again come cause us tears at dawn.”***[emphasis added.]*
>
>

In this exchange, the *kayhin* greets Zahna by bowing and saluting 'the eternal song' in her - a reference to the Worldsong, which he appears to believe runs through Zahna. The *kayhin* then says that the song is 'One and True', suggesting that he believes the Worldsong to be one entity, confirmed by his saying that the song points towards there being only one god who is 'mighty and alone'. It can therefore be deduced that he believes in one god only, and so is not a polytheist, and may even believe that the one god is the Worldsong, or an aspect of it.

While the *kayhins* enjoy supreme religious authority amongst the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples, their ascetic and nomadic existence, as well as their diversity of beliefs and riddling ways, means that a sacerdotal clergy has not developed and possibly cannot develop. Religious duties are thus carried out by social elders, or by those deemed to be touched by the divine in some way, but the relationship between individuals and the divine is ultimately deemed to be direct and personal.

### Funeral Rites

> The tribespeople meanwhile began preparing the hukkam’s body for burial, cleaning him with earth and dressing him in all his armours of bone and hide and putting his weapons and all of his personal wealth about him. His wives, from the most senior to the least, wailed and cut their hair, and then his sisters did likewise, and his mother and his brothers. Had they been nearer the mountains, they would have offered his body to the great white guardians that dwelled there so that his bones may return to that sacred earth, but being far from there the earth of this endless redland would suffice.
>
>

> And so with drums beating and Zahna reciting a chant of lament, they slaughtered his favoured camel and sprinkled his body with its blood. The drum grew louder and the hukkam’s wives joined Zahna’s lament, slashing their arms with bone knives so that they bled and wept everywhere. And the hukkam was buried, with his camel and weapons and wealth, as the last rays of sunlight disappeared over the distant horizon. Zahna wandered back and forth before the bleeding women, gathering up their cut up hair as a fire was prepared atop the grave, and she threw each of the women’s hair into it where it exploded and fizzled and curled into ash. None of them would remarry until their hair was as long as it had been before. *[A funeral ritual of the Mirtaah tribe, a Western Badland nomadic tribe.]*
>
>

Depending on the locale, flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional expressions of grief amongst the Qabar-Kirkanshir cultures.

### Technology

Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples have never developed wheeled vehicles. People generally travel by foot, camel, or yak, and the transport of goods is only by humans or these animals. Likewise, they have not developed sophisticated sailing methods, instead domesticating the giant river eels. There is no currency and trading is done through barter, with food being the most important commodity and effective currency.

Bridges tend to be made from rope and roads are simple dirt roads. The main exception is in the highland regions of the great caravan route, where great wood and rope suspension bridges are quite sophisticated and robust, capable of bearing the weight of goods-laden camels and yaks. These require maintenance and renewal, which the locals oversee, incentivised not only by the benefits they gain from them but also by the toll they charge caravans for crossing. In other areas, mountain trails along cliffsides have been improved or expanded to facilitate local and caravan travel.

Wood and stone carving, bead-making, pottery, gem mining, and simple fabric and leather making methods have also been mastered by the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples. Materials they are able to use or manipulate include wood, flint, bone, bark, fibres, and clay, with the most advanced weapons boasting obsidian. Architectural achievements are relatively modest, with the greatest advances being at the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir which boast great earthen walls supported by stone. In the city, copper, gold, silver, and wax are used in lost-waxing techniques (the wax acting as a temporary model before using the gold-copper or gold-silver alloy). Complex dyes, perfumes, and inks are also produced in the city, and they advanced weaving processes means that the finest textiles are to be found only in the city of Qabar-Kirkanshir.

Perhaps the area where the Qabar-Kirkanshir are most advanced an innovative is agriculture. Finding themselves in an environment where great amounts of food are not easy to secure has meant that they had to innovate over the centuries, with the result being desert irrigation, mountain terrace farming, forest gardening techniques and the development of black soil, animal husbandry - including camels, yaks, goats, celestial sheep, and giant river eels.

Another uniquely advanced area is the development of long-distance trade and the standardisation of the great caravan route by the nomads of the western badlands. Even here, however, trade remains by barter. Beyond the badland nomads, trade is local and limited.

The peoples of the Qabar-Kirkanshir have not developed a written language, their culture being purely oral. They make use of dyes, paints, and inks for fabrics, carvings, and tattoos, but otherwise have no written form of communication.

As far as warfare goes, the primary weapons used by the Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples are clubs, axes, spears, daggers, bows and arrows, poisons, and atlatls. These tend to be of bone, stones such as obsidian, or wood. The upper valley river tribals make use of vespian remains for armour and as shields, and are thus perhaps the most advanced Qabar-Kirkanshir peoples when it comes to war technology.

## References

1. ↑ Meghzaal.
2. ↑ Alminaki males.
3. ↑ Celestial sheep.
4. ↑ Itztli.
5. ↑ Leeoli wisps.
6. ↑ Yeti.
7. ↑ Magnus pods.
8. ↑ Human females.
9. ↑ Meghzaal.
10. ↑ https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5093001
11. ↑ https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5112423
12. ↑ Gibbou.
13. ↑ Oraelia.
14. ↑ Meghzaal.
15. ↑ Boris.
16. ↑ Sirius.
17. ↑ Klaarungraxus.
18. ↑ Genesis.
19. ↑ Zahna's moon-prayer: https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5112423
20. ↑ Exchange of greetings between Zahna and the kayhin: https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5112423
21. ↑ https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5112423