Human, Jechrani
PC Statistics
Favored Class: Any
Special Abilities:
Overview
Not all humans live under the feudalistic or parliamentary institutions of the great nations. A good number of them belong to tight-knit family and tribal groups that occupy the countryside, roaming around Avlis' diverse terrain in migratory fashion. The sheer number of tribes and groups that roam the lands are even more diversified than the lands themselves. However, the myriad of units and mobile nations can be grouped into three general categories: Romini, Jechrani, and Tyeduans.
The Jechrani are a pecularity. Being a female-dominated society, these warrior tribes reside mostly in the jungles and forests east of the mountains of Galdos and Deglos. Their society was created under the pressures of the early events of the Great War, and they have remained strong and independent ever since then.
Personality
All three tribal peoples have basic personality traits that belie their rural upbringing and codes. Superstition is a mainstay of their cultures, and all of them have rich oral traditions dealing with daily life events and how a person meets and participates in life's joy and pain. This proximity with the primal forces of existence gives them an inner peace and happiness, even at the same time that it toughens them to the elements and the cruelty that life can sometimes pose.
Tribes in the land of Jechran are less migratory than the Romini. Women rule all manners of state in this land, and all Jechrani have a deeply ingrained sense of hierarchy, as well as loyalty. The bonds shared by the women of Jechran are said to transcend sisterhood, and even parenthood, for these strong bonds are necessary for their survival. To outsiders, Jechrani women are ferocious and overbearing, and more than a little condescending towards males of all races. The men are said to be timid and weak-willed, though advocates will often claim that this is only because they were raised as such. This body of tribes lives in hostile jungle and forrest environments, and their personalities reflect the seriousness of their situation. Jechrani place survival above everything, even personal relationships, and are known to be extremely focused and deadly precise.
Physical Description
For tribal humans, physical features are largely dependent on region. Jechrani are the shortest, with both males and females only reaching about 5 feet tall.
Skin and eye color also vary with region. Jechrani often have bronze complexions with green eyes, but fair-skinned specimens and specimens with brown eyes are also common.
Jechrani have large amounts of elven blood in their lines compared to the others, and the bronze coloring is thought to come from strains of ghost elven blood that originated a couple thousand years prior.
Variations in dress are too numerous to describe here. Not only do they vary with major tribal category, but they also vary with individual tribes. Northern folk tend to wear more thick animal skins for warmth. Romini folk often make clothing out of homespun material, and Jechrani are known to wear both types, with some clothing even made out of leaves and bark also.
Relations
Nearly all human tribes are viewed with suspicion by their more civilized counterparts. The feeling is mutual, for tribal societies tend to be very superstitious and slow to trust an outsider. For the most part, tribal humans do not concern themselves much with non-human affairs. Tribes will often war amongst themselves, or with neighboring groups of nationalized humans over land rights and natural resources, but rarely do they get involved with the affairs of the wider world.
Jechrani humans have excellent relations with elves in the area. Many Jechrani tribes include elven men and women as members, and some even have equal numbers of humans and elves in the same tribe, along with the half-elves that are produced from these situations. Shaahesk are the sworn enemies of the Jechrani, and the two races are always competing for resources in the area. The shaahesk see the Jechrani themselves as a resource for slavery.
Alignment
Tribal humans have no particular majority when it comes to following morals or ethics. Their philosophies on law and chaos as well as good and evil vary by tribe and by individual. Among all the races, they deviate from their creator's alignment the most often.
Jechrani Lands
After creation by Mikon, tribal humans collected in the areas all over the continent of Negaria. Some went east eventually became the warrior maidens of Jechran.
Jechrani are only marginally aware that they exist as nations. The tribes within this areas recognize a common ancestry, and to some extent, they communicate about larger matters affecting the areas where they live, but they barely hold any cohesive national ideal like the other nations of Negaria do.
Religion
The tribes of Jechran mainly worship Dre'Ana and Yeraiah to varying extents. Some worship one goddess more than the other, and others worship both equally. In some tribes, there is friction between the worshipers of the two goddesses, and in other cases war has broken out between tribes that exclusively worship Yeraiah or Dre'Ana.
Language
The language formally known as the Common Tongue was given to the first humans when Mikon created them. Since then, the language has remained largely unchanged, and it has been adopted as the universal language of Negaria by all races. Nevertheless, dialects of this language exist. The most different tribal dialect is "Jechranilae", and, as the name implies, it is spoken by the Jechrani. The language contains many bastardized elven words mixed in. While the dialect is intelligible to other Common speakers, it is hard to understand.
Names
Most tribal humans have a common tradition of being able to change one's name during their lifetime due to some great (or infamous) deed that they committed. Their last name depicts who their mother was, and they often have a clan designation after that.
Male Names
Ben, Dalar, Reo
Female Names
Analana, Lliana, Riva
Clan Names
Fawnbow, Lieulia, Spikearrow
Adventurers
Tribal humans value their home lives tremendously. After coming of age, they will rarely wander away from the tribe they are dutifully bound to protect and serve. However, many tribes have tests that require young tribal members to take long journeys of self-discovery by themselves. These can often lead to many new and interesting experiences. Other causes for leaving may include playing on their strong sense of duty and collectivism.