Vildr

Rattling bones, ghastly faces painted in white and dark inks, with chanting whispers echoing from the dark woods. These are the sure signs one has tread into Vildr territory.
These people, rivaling the Scarn for which group is the eldest culture among the Northmen are notorious for their animalistic worship and following of the old ways. The rumors of their barbaric nature root so deep that even their name has become the basis for the word wildman.
Few aknowledge that these wildings rarely ever raise their warbanner, and when it happens it's mostly the clans that allied with Norvik that join the Scarn raids. Instead their name does not come from infamy on the warfront but a fear of the unknown.
In the deep woods the Vildr reside, thriving in places other dread to walk, as the tales speak of ancient evils that lurk within.
Certainly, these wildlings, practicioners of human sacrifices, dark arts and barbaric nature must be of similar wicked nature? Or are the rumors and stories nothing more than a hoax.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Fornscarnik

Shared customary codes and values

See to yourself, then care for the rest. These are the ancient words that the Vildr have lived by since times immemorial.
The saying wishes to honour the ways how Vildr believe that selfish acts more often than not are good, and that one should not strive to help others, before they are well of themselves. As a contrast of this idea, Vildr seem to be very cold or uncaring outwards, as they prefeer not to dabble in others business.
On the other hand they are also incredibly hospitable and helpfull towards those truely in need. This goes hand in hand with the idea to care for the rest, when no personal needs require fulfilling.

Common Etiquette rules

To nurture the world and respect all that live and breath go far beyond a simple custom to Vildr. To them, caring for nature and all life from animals to trees is as certain as wearing clothes by the dinner table. In other words, mandatory.
They don't hunt for thrill, or cut down their woods en masse to ripe more bounties than they can expend, or even to sell. Rather they only trade with nature by trying to use up everything that a kill grants. Be it bones, meat, fur and even organs and blood.

Common Dress code

Thanks to their resourcefull etiquette, Vildr have a style that many percieve as morbid or vile, thanks to their many bone trinkets, jewelery and charms. They also paint much in blood, by mixing it with certain perserving reagents. Therefor skin and fur, but also wool clothes are common in often more revealing forms, due to the deep woods warmer climates, and in the colours of shade between dark red and brown.
As a result they're often percived as loose clothed barbarians covered in blood and gore, with foul idols of bone hanging from their brided hair. Not the most flattering appearance mayhaps, but they do it to honour the sacrificed animals.

Art & Architecture

As for the buildings, they mainly consists of wood in all it's forms. Timber logs keep up sloped or rounded roofs of thatch or bark, while boiled and curved wood keep it all together between painted shapes that often depict heads of serpentine animals.
The walls are often made of clay or dug out of small hills, and in case of the first options they're almost always painted in vivid pictures that tell stories about the clans and their histories. It also happens on rare occations that walls are made only from wood, but it's more of an expensive solution if there's no other wall materials around.

Major organizations

Norvik:
Goat Clan
Wyrdling
Wyvern Clan
Myrkling
Askmunding

Middenholm:
Vildung
Ormunding
Worm Clan
Niflung

Related Locations

• Scarnza

Rite of the Wyvern:

This rite wishes to honor the wyverns as great hunters and does such in form of a traditional autumn feast with revelry and mead. It's a time of year where the Vildr come together and share their stories of glory and bounty, while they praise nature and their old gods.

Rite of the Lindworm:

A tradition of saying farewell, where the dead is sent out to the sea on a boat. The ones closest to the passed away then fire burning arrows onto the ship, to return the dead back to the muddy soil underneath the sea. This tradition follows their belief of a rebirth cycle, in a plains very different to the one they tread in life.

Rite of the Serpent:

A sacrifical rite that serves as the highest grade of punishment against the worst types of crime. It involved poisoning the prepetrator so that their senses of pain dull, before their spine is broken through a coil hinged to their neck. The rite then involves burning the dead and spreading the ashes with the wind, as a form to cleanse the sin and granting the passed another chanse to prove their worth infront of the gods.
The punishment is however often missrepresented by other cultures as some form of sacrifice to please the gods, while it is in fact far more humane than burning people alive.