Kathar

"Here, coin speaks louder than blood, and blood is cheaper than salt."

The southern reaches of Kathar, the Untamed Freeholds, are a ruthless stretch of land where laws are local, coin is sovereign, and power is measured in muscle, magick, and what monsters you’ve survived. Once Dwarfish territory, now claimed by Orcishmercantile clans and beast-folk pioneers during The Great Schism, the Freeholds are a crucible of brutality, opportunity, and primal dominance. Vast savannahs give way to dense pockets of jungle, then stretch into unforgiving desert, each ecosystem crawling with the largest, deadliest forms of wildlife in all of Gaiatia. It is from these lands that beast-folk trace their roots, and where the ancient megafauna, dinosaurs, wyverns, and dragons, still stalk the skies and sands as apex predators. The region is fractured not by borders but by influence: war-clans turned merchants, former Dwarfish strongholds turned auction houses, temple-forts doubling as magick cults, and wandering religions chasing god-signs in sandstorms. No unified government exists. What rules endure are enforced by tradition, brute strength, or contracts thicker than blood. It is a place of extreme capitalism, biological dominance, and ancestral memory. Those who survive here become something more, and something less, than civilized.

Structure

The Untamed Freeholds are not governed in the traditional sense. Instead, power is claimed, proven, and enforced by factions of muscle, lineage, or wealth. Most dominant among them are the Orcish war-merchants, clan-based syndicates who mix martial dominance with ruthless trade networks. Titles include Warchief, Trade-Lord, Scale-Seer, and Toothholder. Leadership is rarely inherited, it's taken, usually after the last holder dies or yields.

Culture

The Freeholders value might, profit, and memory. Honor is paid to ancestors through deeds, not words, and strength, whether of arm, voice, or coin, is seen as sacred. Hospitality is enforced by tradition, betrayal by blood. Religion here is private, whispered over fire or in battle, not bound to institutions. Beasts are revered and mimicked; every clan claims spiritual ties to some apex predator, real or imagined.

Public Agenda

Survive. Thrive. Expand. The Freeholds claim no interest in external conquest, but all seek internal advantage. Whether through trade, territory, or tamed beast, each faction's goal is to outlive its rivals and cement its legacy in fang, scale, and stone.

Assets

Their true wealth lies in:

• Megafaunal dominion: Some clans tame or weaponize dinosaurs and wyverns.

• Ruined Dwarfish infrastructure: Repurposed for fortresses, vaults, and mining.

• Beast-folk legions and mercenaries.

• Trade hubs for narcotics, exotic furs, alchemical bones, dragon-scale armor, and pre-Schism relics.

• Mobile strongholds carved into hollowed beasts, walking siege-camps.

History

Once Dwarfish highland kingdoms, the southern lands fell during the Schism. Orcish clans rose from the ashes, seizing war-torn cities and making pacts with beast-folk tribes who had always dwelled in the outer wilds. Over centuries, former citadels became freeholds, old halls turned bazaars, and the region embraced the chaos as identity. No king has ruled here since.

Disbandment

No central body exists to disband. Factions rise and fall. Syndicates split, merge, devour each other. Cities burn and are rebuilt by rival hands within weeks. Only the land persists.

Demography and Population

Estimated 300,000 across scattered strongholds and mobile camps. Mostly Orcish and beast-folk, followed by smatterings of Humans, Goblins, and exiled Dwarfs. Low urban density; highly migratory.

Territories

Former Dwarfish provinces now divided into Freeholds. Territory is claimed through conquest or sacred pact, not inheritance. Some lands are jointly shared with wandering beast-folk clans.

Military

No standing army. Each clan maintains a warhost. Specialized warriors include:

• Beast-riders (raptors, drakes, and bone-beasts).

• Scale-guard (armor forged from dinosaur hide).

• Bloodcallers (berserkers who drink frenzy drafts).

Technological Level

• Firesteel weaponry.

• Organic war-beast breeding.

• Fossil alchemy.

• Pre-Schism salvage adaptation (limited).

• No formal science institutions, knowledge is hoarded or mythologized.

Religion

Animist and totemic. Gods are seen as beasts, ancestors, or sky-signs. The Bone Circle, a mystic sect, communes with spirits through fossil rites and tooth-lore.

Foreign Relations

• Tense with Everwealth: Reliant on trade, but mistrusted.

• Unstable treaties with dragon-kin and Aquian smugglers.

• Hostile to Knight Orders and Dwarfish restorationists.

Laws

• Do not steal from your host, and be caught.

• Betrayal is death, for you and your family.

• No beasts may be hunted unless fully used.

• Strength decides leadership.

• Kin-slaying is unforgivable.

• Punishment is often trial by beast.

Agriculture & Industry

• Nomadic herding of massive beasts.

• Bonecrafting, fang-forging, scale-weaving.

• Firesteel mining (from molten stone caverns).

• Salting and exporting giant predator meat.

Trade & Transport

• Massive caravans on mammoth-sized lizards.

• Sky barges (semi-functional pre-Schism relics).

• Secretive desert trade paths mapped by scent-marking and blood totems.

• Sea access via Bareshade and the Broken Horn docks.

Education

Oral tradition, combat-based mentorship, and tribal tutoring. The wise are respected, but book-learning is rare and sometimes distrusted. Alchemists and fossil-seers hold social reverence.

Infrastructure

• Hollowed beast-bone bridges.

• Scavenged Dwarfish aqueducts.

• Stone-hewn lairs within cliffsides.

• Forge-pits using dragonfire vents.

• Fossil temples carved into extinct beast corpses.

Mythology & Lore

According to southern Katharan myth, the world was not created, but hunted into being. The first breath was a cry of challenge from the First Beast, and from its echo the world was shaped. Land rose where it stamped, water pooled where it drank, and fire sparked from its eyes. The stars are said to be the scattered bones of predators too mighty to die fully, their spirits still watching the world below. Every species was once part of a Great Hunt, a cosmic pursuit where only the most cunning, strong, or loyal were spared extinction. Those who survive carry fragments of those divine instincts within them. Among the most sacred myths are those of Zha'Roka, the Serpent Who Swallowed Time, and Ha'Koruun, the Sun-Lion Who Devoured Death. Their eternal conflict drives the cycle of the dry season and the monsoon, birth and starvation, war and peace.

Divine Origins

This religion emerged long before the Schism, in the days when the Dwarfish still ruled and beastfolk were feral, fragmented clans. Passed down by oral tradition and bone-carved glyphs, it formed from ancestral reverence and raw necessity: a faith rooted in predator hierarchies, survival lore, and seasonal myth cycles. Every clan adapted it slightly, but the central beliefs, the Hunt, the Trial, the Great Track, remained unchanged.

Cosmological Views

The world is not a gift or a punishment, it is a test. Life is an endless migration across the Great Track, a spiritual path shaped by the pawprints of the gods-beasts who came before. Each soul begins as prey and must prove its worth through endurance, instinct, and strength. The unworthy are devoured and forgotten; the worthy are reborn as spirits that join the Eternal Stampede across the sunlit sky, guiding their descendants through dreams and omens.

Tenets of Faith

• Survival is sacred - to endure is to honor the gods.

• All things are prey or predator - know your place, and rise when ready.

• Ancestral blood remembers - do not dishonor those who walked before.

• The Hunt redeems - challenge is not cruelty, but ritual.

• The body lies; the spirit runs - physical death is not the end if the heart was strong.

Ethics

Mercy is not a virtue, but restraint is. Killing is acceptable if it respects the cycle, wanton slaughter or cruelty to the dying is seen as a defilement. Cowardice, betrayal, and waste are grave sins. Sharing food, guiding the young, and honoring one’s kills (even enemies) are signs of spiritual strength. To kill a fellow believer without cause is to curse oneself to walk the desert of bones, never reborn, never remembered.

Worship

Worship is action, not words. Ritual hunts, offerings of blood and bone, and fire-dances are common. Devotees carve the names of their fallen into Ancestor Stones, pouring fermented blood or burning sweet herbs as tribute. Night vigils during storms, fasting under dragon-filled skies, and painting one's face with ashes are common devotional acts. Children are taught to track, to run, to fight, not just for survival, but as sacrament.

Priesthood

Known as Track-Keepers or Spirit-Walkers, religious leaders are chosen not by bloodline, but by survival trials and signs from the spirits, often through visions, unusual animal behavior, or enduring deadly rites. They wear the hides of sacred beasts, carved masks of bone, and brands of fire. Their authority is respected not only due to faith, but fear: many are battle-scarred, half-wild, or rumored to speak with beasts.

Granted Divine Powers

Faithful priests and warriors of this path are often granted heightened instincts, precognition in battle, endurance beyond mortal limits, or the ability to call upon Totem Aspects: fleeting boons that let them mimic the strength of sacred animals (e.g. the crushing charge of the Rhinarok, the heat-blind strike of the Fire Viper, or the scent-hunting senses of the Dusk Jackal). Some tales speak of shapeshifters, those who walk too long with beast-spirits and begin to change.

Political Influence & Intrigue

Though fragmented, this faith weaves deeply through the clans, city-states, and warbands of southern Kathar. Leaders invoke its blessings during trade talks, challenges, and war. In many markets and fortified towns, temples double as courts or communal granaries, with Spirit-Walkers arbitrating disputes or interpreting omens. Some fear the rise of Unbound Totemists, rogue priests who claim to channel forgotten beasts or long-dead predators as gods unto themselves, challenging the old hierarchies and destabilizing tribal unity.

Sects

• The Ashborn - Purists who believe only those born of beastfolk blood can ascend to the Eternal Track. They reject outsiders, view most technology as spiritual corruption, and often live deep in the deserts.

• The Bone-Circle - Urban sects who focus on ancestral worship and sacrificial rites. Less nomadic, more political, they maintain elaborate tomb-complexes and conduct blood-price rituals in court settings.

• The Silent Maw - A secretive sect said to worship an unknown predator, neither spirit nor beast, that devours memories. Their rites are unknown, but their assassins are feared.

DISBANDED/DISSOLVED

"Endure, or be eaten."

Founding Date

Founded 33 years before the conclusion of the Great Schism, when the southern tribes first unified under shared mythos and survival doctrines during mass displacement and ecological chaos.

Alternative Names

'The Way of the Great Beasts', ' Path of Scale and Bone' , 'The Eldest Law', 'The Enduring Creed ', 'The Old Hunger'.

Demonym

Katharan(s), 'Endurants' A general term for adherents, also used as a compliment to mean “tough,” “tenacious,” or “unbroken” in Katharan slang.

Gazetteer

Key Freehold Territories:

• The Spire of Bone (beast-worshipping mercenary temple).

• Trade Maw (Black Market stronghold on former Dwarfish aqueduct ruins).

• Bareshade (port city overrun by smugglers and scaled beasts).

• Ashflame Bastion (Orcish-ruled former Dwarfish city of firesteel industry).

Currency

Trade is fluid, coin, relics, bone-chits, and salted beastmeat all hold value. Most standard is the "Spine," a curved silver coin featuring the profile of a slain dragon. Gold from Everwealth is welcome, but not trusted.

Major Exports

• Beast components (bone, blood, scale).

• Tamed war-beasts.

• Pre-Schism salvage.

• Firesteel weaponry.

• Illicit alchemical goods.

Major Imports

Water, Everwealthy grains, forge-grade textiles, elixirs, and spellglass.

Legislative Body

None centralized. Each faction writes its own rules. Some use oral law; others inscribe blood-pacts or enforce clan doctrines.

Judicial Body

Justice is clan-enforced. Disputes between factions are settled by combat, arbitration through neutral beast-folk, or ceremonial hunts. Within territories, chieftains or trade-priests serve as judges.

Executive Body

Enforcers, tusk-breakers, and mercenary circles. Loyalty is paid for and enforced by fear or favor.