Galacriq, the Lowlanders, and the Border Tribes

FUCKING POLITICAL LORE BASIC INFO SHEET

Let's get this shit out of the way. All info is known by PCs and is roughly equivalent with their perspective.

Lowlanders: Lowlanders, milklanders, rust people, rosebuds, softlings, it's all the same to you. They are estranged from Mother Mountain. Yes, some of them carry different colors on their flags, wear different clothes, live in different buildings, but in the ways that are important the red people are all the same.

They do not know the embrace of the earth, and so they made their own stone hives to hide away in. But their lands have made them weak. Hunger is foreign or evil to them, and their precious metals fail them when they climb. The rust, the cold, the caves. 

Many times have the lowlanders attempted to take Mother Mountain. None have succeeded. None will ever succeed.

Galacriq: Long ago, the lowlanders scaled the Break and built their buzzing stone

hives to prepare for an invasion deeper into the heart of the Mountain. They are gone now; their bones litter the bottom of the Break. So many were thrown down in those days that the Red Kings never could find and bury all those shattered bodies, piled so high that some of the screaming rosebuds survived the fall. Their walls did not hold. Their hives, built upon the Veins, were merely pulsing stone bags of meat for youngling rites of passage.

The lowlanders have never forgotten. Their humiliation, their rage. Like petulant children they do not understand. Everything comes with sacrifice. Mother Mountain gives, and expects in return. They call Mother a demon, and yet all the lowlanders have done is take, and give nothing in return. No stories of loss, no stories of pain, no stories of blood.

After the slaughter, Mother Mountain made peace with the lowlanders. Not that they understood. Tell a lowlander that loss made them stronger and they will spit venom at you. Some of the tribes believe they are a lost cause. But one exception exists.

The stronghold of Galacriq survives. You have warred with them for centuries. Generations have come and gone, shedding blood into the river that irrigates their farms. And now, their princess broaches peace. Or, at least, a marriage to hold the peace. Tension and excitement is in the air.

Many of the rosebuds cannot forget their pain, but the elders of the tribes are excited. A thousand years of blood feuds. A thousand years to know each other. Somehow, these rosebuds understand you. They had to learn; how else could they survive here? They understand loss, pain, and hunger. They only need to learn to let it go. Who knows? Maybe you will embrace these red hive warriors as brothers and sisters one day.

Brotherhood of Titanium Avalanche

It was not terribly long ago that the tribes of Titanium Avalanche were strangers and enemies. Feuding and warring in the caves at the foot of the mountain. The city was not home then. The old king was of another tribe, ruthless. Those days were filled with constant fighting. With each other, with the rosebuds of the hive, and with Titanium Avalanche. 

It was your king who first wished for brotherhood. Together, the brotherhood descended the dungeon and claimed the crown from the old king's tribe, an extraordinarily difficult task. The old king's tribe was driven to the north, their bitter tears leaving crystal blooms in the snow. This is not normal. No one yet knows how the border tribes feel about this usurpation.

Now your king is bound to Titanium Avalanche. He prepares for the day when the old king's tribe may attempt to retake their city, for the day when the other tribes make their opinions known, and for when the Cloud tyrants may finally be reached. He is terribly interested in how Galacriq may make the brotherhood stronger. Perhaps, with all his plans, the rosebuds were not the only ones who learned.

Border Tribes

There are countless tribes along the Break. Dozens of them can be found with a decently thorough trip through the forests. But most of these are small. Tribes reduced to a handful or a few dozen. There are a few that are much more relevant. 

Ash Roses: Beyond Galacriq, bordered by the first mountain ridges along the Break, is the Hollow Mountain. The husk of a dead fire god, its body remained empty and devoid for as long as the tribes could remember. Too lifeless for any man, and too much light for any of the creatures below. Until, not three generations ago, it became the home of a sky serpent.

Fire and waste. Galacriq once protected another settlement; their only way to maintain a connection to the lowlands. The lands beyond the stronghold were burned to ash, the people ground to mince. Over time, the soil has become rich; perfect for grazing livestock. The personal pantry of Klauth.

The dragon has made his home in the Hollow Mountain, and seen fit to take servants for himself. For nearly a hundred years, he has plucked lowlanders and their children into his lair. Now, they worship him as a god, golden and gleaming.

The tribes have watched, nervously, as Klauth rooted himself deep inside the Hollow Mountain. They could not do anything about it, but that was before. The brother wars have ceased, and the dragon's ashen rosebuds have been seen closer and closer to the Mountain. When violence breaks, no one will be surprised.

Bloodskull: The old king's tribe. The fled, weeping, into the north. Since then, no one has seen them. An optimistic lowlander might shrug and believe that they all died in the glaciers. But the bodies counted by those who followed suggests otherwise. 

First they found the frozen bodies of the sick. Trampled into the snow, they were almost unnoticed. 

Then the bodies of the elders torn apart by wolves, rictus grins affixed and tears frozen on their cheeks; they laughed as they threw themselves into the jaws of the predators. 

Then the children, throats slit and tongues taken, left behind as a distraction at the mouth of the Cloud Maker. 

Then a mass of bodies beneath a blood lake's frozen surface. Skinned, nearly unrecognizable, with their wombs and eyes missing.

Then the clothes of their shamans. Scrimshaws, inks, necklaces, paints, all left in a clutter. Right next to hundreds of human scalps.

The warriors were never seen.

Shattered Moonlight: They live in the maze of the Cloud Maker, nestled in between the glaciers and Mother Mountain. They are not the worst neighbors, but it would be a mistake to consider them allies. Long before the brotherhood and the Bloodskulls, the local tribes feared the tribesmen of the Cloud Maker.

You may find them in the ice tunnels, hanging from the ceiling from sharpened claws, bright eyes glowing in gaunt sockets and black veins. Take a wrong turn in the maze and you will find hundreds of dancing stars hovering above you deep in the earth.

They are always ravenously hungry, and Mother Mountain loves them for being so. So hungry they are, that when they devour your flesh they will so to devour your memories and dreams. They have never lost a war. Parents tell their children not to wander into the Cloud Maker, lest the shamans steal away their souls.

If you happen upon the wasteland of spikes, or upon the skull obelisks, you will know that the Cloud Maker is near.

The Changed: The Shattered Moonlight Tribe found many things, deep in the Cloud Maker. Strange metals and strange puzzle artifacts. They learned the secrets of Change.

Once, there were tribes who sought to challenge the Shattered Moonlight tribe. Either to take the Cloud Maker for themselves, or to destroy their most threatening enemy. They lost, and became the Changed.

The Changed are not a tribe, though many tribes exist. Something about them has been unmade. Something that made them human. Some can still be recognized as the men they once were, from a distance. They will seem odd, hunched, move strangely. As you approach, you will notice the differences. 

Misshapen bodies, thick brows, strange noses. The whites of their eyes have gone. They have too much hair. They will speak in an uncanny mimicry of language. The words don't make sense, the ideas aren't there. Many of the Changed just grunt and hoot, a theatre of horrific uncomfortable almost people behavior.

They litter the north, hiding in the caves, hills, and glaciers, never far from the Cloud Maker; a permanent reminder of the dominion of Shattered Moonlight.

Longstriders: Referenced from this post. Most on this side of the mountain are dead. The cities deep within the mountain still retain some of their kind of slaves, but the tribes on the Eastern half of the Mountain were not so gentle.

A few stragglers remain. Nomadic merchants using these lands as a temporary rest or small solitary tribes. There is no great reason to kill them anymore; the war ended generations ago. Almost half of the bone used in construction of buildings, tribal ornaments, weapons, or settlements is longstrider bone.