"It was honestly the strangest thing I've ever seen. What I thought were boulders sitting along the edge of the road were in fact people. At the last moment when I realized that, I thought I was about to be beset upon. But no, they just sat there and watched us ride past. How someone can get to such a complete lack of pride astounds me to this day."
-Forshull di Hamar, Caravan leader in the city of Rainshadow
The informal assignation of 'unworthy' is deeply rooted within Rennon culture. It is an insult, a taunt, a warning. But around the edges of
The Slate Fields it has become so ingrained within the people there that hopelessness would be seen as a step up. There, the people that scratch out a meagre existence living in gravel and sand see nothing about the rest of
Ennostwell that they believe they can participate in. Life for them is nasty, brutish, and short.
Over the centuries they have become more stunted in growth and lighter red than the average Rennon. They have a harsh outlook on life and are quick to distrust outsiders. Typical Rennon qualities of strength and honor are unseen. They have no sense of martial ability or driving sense of purpose. They live shiftless and desolate lives in which they break rock and sift through sands just trying to get enough valuable building materials to trade with merchant caravans. They have no discernable culture or ceremonial rituals. When they are not breaking rock they are trapping food and straining the ash out of the water just to survive.
The first mention of the Unworthy as a collective group came shortly after the Rennon Wars of Consolidation. The general thinking is that the destruction wreaked across the rest of Ennostwell left them with a perception that life was bad everywhere. However, attempts to study their society have been very limited. One researcher has stated that "the Unworthy are a complete mystery to me and my brief time among them yielded as much as talking to a mountainside, but with less humor."* Over the years there have been attempts to rally them to one cause or another but all has come to naught. Today they are simply left alone and abandoned since that seems to be the only thing they want.
*Chom Biitulaay,
Reflections on a Life Lived Too Long, ch 9, p 242
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