The Raven Lodge

The Raven Lodge is a semi-secret brotherhood that encompasses all three of the barbarian nations, the Sjøfolk, the Skogfolk, and the Gressfolk. While as a rule membership is limited to members of the barbarian peoples, they have been known on occasion to open their ranks to other peoples that they deem worthy. Their goal is to protect the Manneskor peoples from the depredations of the orcs and various giant races of the Tågbaf mountains and the goblinoids of the Ethicter Forest. In the last century or so that charter has expanded to fight against the encroachment of the Frontier Lands kingdoms into traditionally manneskor territory.

Structure

The Raven Lodge is divided into individual lodges, each headed by a warrior and a shaman who are identified as siblings (brothers, sisters or brother and sister) the warrior leader being responsible for affairs of the material world, while the shaman leader is responsible for dealing with metaphysical affairs. There is no other ranking within lodges, as once one has been initiated into the lodge, he or she is a member in full, with all the rights and privileges that entails. There is no organization above the lodge level with individual lodges having autonomy in their area though situations that affect more than one area will bring individual lodges together to cooperate in dealing with the events. When two or more lodges work together the overall leader is determined by a contest of strength for the warriors while the shamans have more esoteric means of determining their overall leader.

Members are invited to join by existing members based on their performance in battle, or sometimes the games played by the manneskor. Those who are invited must undergo a harrowing initiation, with those surviving being hailed as brothers.

Culture

While the Lodge itself doesn’t teach that the manneskor are inherently superior to other peoples, most members do believe that the manneskor way of life is superior to that of other peoples, considering “civilized” folks to be soft. Consequently, they fight to preserve the tribes of the manneskor both from the many nonhuman threats as well as encroachment by the civilized folks. They look with disdain on those who don’t live off the land as they and their ancestors did, that includes manneskor who adopt the ways of the mangen folk (become domesticated as they term it). They do acknowledge that great warriors and such can arise from amongst other peoples, they just believe that these are the exceptions, not the rule. All members of the lodge are considered brothers and sisters and bear a brand of a raven perched on a crescent moon concealed somewhere on their body. Some also carry an ornate pendant of the lodge’s emblem to identify themselves to other members. This practice is most common amongst members who travel and might have dealings with other lodges.

Public Agenda

The Lodge is an open secret with most of the manneskor and some other people aware of its existence, but don’t know what membership entails, or what the goals of the Lodge is. Consequently, the Raven Lodge doesn’t have a public agenda as such. Nor do members usually advertise their membership in the lodge.

Assets

The Lodge eschews the accumulation of material goods and luxuries as a weakness of the mangen peoples. To this end they have few assets beyond what their individual members may own. However, they have traveler’s caches dotted throughout the manneskor lands, each containing furs, dried meat, pemmican, fire starting kits, and often weapons. These caches are well hidden though members are taught how to find them, and that while they are free to make use of them when needed, they are expected to leave items when they can.

History

The Raven Lodge existed long before the mangen peoples began their colonization of the Frontier Lands. According to their oral history the lodge came into existence during a particularly bad winter, that followed several bad winters and short summers. The raids by the giants that year were particularly fierce, and many tribes of the manneskor were being wiped out entirely the people being killed or taken as slaves or worse. A meeting of heroes from all three peoples of the manneskor gave birth t the Lodge, when during their meeting when the god Sterkrig (Voimakos) appeared to them in the form of a great raven and told them the three peoples must unite in brotherhood or perish. The heroes at that meeting were not leaders themselves, but they could influence the leaders, and with the nascent lodge guiding the disparate tribes to work together they repulsed the giant marauders and survived the winter.

When better years followed the manneskor people returned to feuding and warring amongst themselves, but the lodges stayed together knowing that a repeat of those events would eventually happen. Since then the lodge has served to prevent all-out war between the manneskor people however they don’t oppose feuding and raiding believing that these breed strong warriors for their people. They also encourage competitions and games, not just within tribes but between tribes. Some of these games include ball games, skin throwing games, scraper games, wrestling, swimming, and horse fights. While the lodge doesn’t officially organize these intertribal games, their influence on the leaders is present.

When the mangen people began colonizing the Frontier Lands they Lodge wasn’t concerned as the southern lands were considered unlucky and apart from adventuring the manneskor people avoided those lands. However, when the mangen began settling further and further north, the lodge became concerned. The prompted the first mass meeting of lodges since the founding, to decide what to do. It was decided that the mangen people could have the “unlucky” lands to the south, but any attempts to settle the northlands would be met with force. This has resulted in numerous manneskor raids on the north part of Sternhellwolf.