Marrowmen
"Water is precious and its excess shall not be withheld. This is qasiidda." — The First of Alta Qiidu
The Marrowmen (endonym: Nakhae Rijahl) are a nomadic tribal ethnicity living in Nioa's Marrow Desert. Originating among the indigenous thri-kreen peoples of the Marrow, today they are a multiancestral culture and include the descendants of several mortal lineages. Because of their thri-kreen ancestry, Marrowmen communicate using a unique hybridized language, called Flicking. Though the Marrowmen play a pivotal role within the Nioa's history and politics, their unique culture has long been considered a mystery to outsiders.
Society
Marrowmen are pastoralists and foragers, spending much of their year guiding herds of animals to small oases and scrublands. They are famed for riding the rare sunblessed scarabs and traveling in side-winding single file. This is to hide their numbers from rival tribes and to confuse tremorsense predators like the dune bulette. In the west, where ocean winds carry moisture and nutrients to the sun-bleached shores of the Nukhotaaq, Marrowmen graze larger livestock like cattle and horses. The more nomadic tribes of the inner desert forage for resources, gathering precious black melons and jeqii gourds and hunting wild game like oryx and rabbit]. Some also herd camels, dewbacks, sheep, and goats though their flocks are often small and used for subsistence. Some sedentary Marrowmen—particularly in the east, where the foothills of the Shanindar form great canyons and rocky plateaus—live in mining settlements, gathering valuable minerals such as salt, gold, and iron. All of these communities are interlinked by a vast network of Marrowmen caravan traders, which forms the backbone of the desert economy. These Marrowmen merchants are the most well-known to outsiders, exchanging rare materials from the Marrow with grain and manufactured goods made in the Pilgrim States and the Qartagonian Emirates.Social Structure
The Marrowmen are primarily a nomadic people living in small groups of between 20-30 individuals, called broods or shifiha, and are led by a chief or iqi. These broods are interconnected to one another by large kinship networks, referred to as shinishaar, or tribes. On occasion, broods will sometimes band together under a sis, forming a redehntu or confederation. The position of chief is passed through the matrilineal female line. However, the position of sis is elected in a ritual held by the confederation’s collective of chiefs and is traditionally only led by males. While nomadic for much of the year, most if not all Herijahl broods have a seasonal encampment which they return to during the warmest months of the year. These encampments, called a siqaa or sietch, are usually constructed in natural structures such as canyons, oases, plateaus, or caves and are used to store the brood’s most treasured possessions, specifically their communal supply of water and their ancestral nesting site.Raiding
Traditionally, many Marrowmen broods partake in taserey, a kind of limited warfare similar to brigandage. These raids avoid head-on confrontations and emphasize the seizing of resources, particularly livestock, over killing others. Unlike state-sanctioned chevauchee, taserey are not designed to intentionally weaken an enemy, though they often have that effect. Instead, they are seen as an unpleasant but natural part of intertribal interactions. The rules of engagement for taserey are attested in the honor codes of the Marrowmen, with grave excesses punishable by exile or death. Should a brood or tribe refuse to honor these terms, a redehntu of tribes may be called to determine their legal status. Those that lose this status are considered dassahiila and can be treated like wild animals, opening them up to be hunted, killed, eaten, enslaved, and even tortured without repercussions.Culture
Major language groups and dialects
The Marrowmen originally spoke a thri-kreen specific language known today as Traditional Zejaach. In addition to complex vocalization, Traditional Zejaach utilized many aspects of thri-kreen anatomy to convey meaning including carapace color change, mandible trills, antennae twitching, head bobbing, and hand signs using both the shichiir and shitaach sets of arms. With so many lexical means of communication, Zejaach became something of a language family, with a great deal of dialect variation between tribes. It also was impossible for anyone but a thri-kreen to speak or replicate, leading to breakdowns in communication with outsiders.
As trade between the Marrowmen and the mortal peoples of Northern Nioa and the Mashiq increased, aspects of Traditional Zejaach fell away. This process of linguistic non-verbal decay only increased following the Reckoning of Temekan, when many mortals ended up joining tribes of Marrowmen and integrated into their society. By the time of the Palladian Era, much of the verbalized grammar of Zejaach had become replaced with that of High Draconic dialects like Qartagonian.
Today, this language is known as Flicking as a result of the seemingly rapid hand gestures that make up its sign language. Flicking uses both hand signs and verbalized phrases to convey information. This is both the result of linguistic syncretism as well as the practical realities of a culture where face coverings are a part of everyday life. Traditional Zejaach remains spoken in some isolated thri-kreen tribes and is preferred when reciting poetry. Both Flicking and Traditional Zejaach have no standardized script and though many in the Qartagonian Emirates have attempted to increase the Marrowmen's literacy, the language is unsuited to the written word.
Shared customary codes and values
Though not united politically, the Marrowmen do share a complex code of honor and hospitality. Known as alta qiida, this code governs interpersonal interactions and behaviors both within one’s brood and with other communities. Breaking or being violation of alta qiidu is thought to suggest an individual lacks consciousness and has given into their bestial greed. The Marrowmen see this as an abdication of an individual’s rights as a sentient creature, thus permitting the community to treat the individual as assahiila . This allows any member of the community to hunt, capture, enslave, kill, butcher, and even eat the transgressor without repercussions.
This clause of ta’dassahiila is perhaps the most well-known aspect of the alta qiidu. Some travellers through the Marrow have unwittingly violated the broader sections of the code and found themselves mercilessly hunted by the desert’s mysterious denizens. This has led many, particularly in the Pilgrim States and Auloa, to conclude that the Marrowmen are a cruel and corrupt people or even true monsters without the slightest conscious.
Specific Aspects of the Alta Qiidu
- Water is sacred and its excess shall not be withheld
- You must give aid to a traveller, regardless of your own ability to do so
- If someone gives you water, you have to accept it and thank them three times
Common Dress code
Like the Khaghate of Iroa, the Marrowmen are famed for their cultural dress and the strict taboos on clothing and presentation. The most iconic and common is the aanaqash, a garment with the appearance of both a veil and a turban. Traditionally dyed deep blue or smoke black with indigo and charcoal dye, these garments help repel wind and sand as well as retain precious moisture in the desert heat. Beneath these wrappings, Marrowmen are said to wear strange charcoal masks and armor. In truth, these charcoal pieces are actually warped fragments of scarab chitin, typically gathered after the creature’s yearly molt.
Legends throughout Nioa claim that this armor is in fact the flesh of the Marrowmen turned to ash by foul magic and the worship of evil spirits. The truth is somewhat more complicated than that. Sunblessed chitin, like the kind gathered by the Marrowmen, can be grafted to other kinds of chitin through elemental ritual incantations. This includes the thri-kreen, who are themselves an insectoid people with typically sandy gold exoskeletons. For generations, this technique has been used to heal injuries and extend the naturally short lifespans of the Marrow’s thri-kreen, allowing them to live an additional three decades. Overtime, exposure to the dark chitin changes the eyes of the wearer to a vibrant ultramarine, which has resulted in many outsiders referring to them as having “smoking” or “flaming blue eyes.”
The Marrowmen claim that the pharaohs of Temekan often interrogated their people for the secret of this ritual. But that every time the pharaohs tried to use it, the magic warped and twisted their bodies, killing them slowly and painfully. They believe it was the Temekanians’ inability to harness this magic that led them to consort with Deverin, the Hungering Secret, and the eventual Reckoning of Temekan.
Today, many peoples besides the thri-kreen call themselves Marrowmen. They too wear the smoke-black wrappings and indigo veils of the thri-kreen, but instead of grafting the chitin of their mounts to their skin, these mortal Marrowmen simply make armored coverings, masks, and gauntlets. They wear these over a light but padded tunic and girdle and underneath their looser wrappings to achieve the same effect as their insectoid kin. Additionally, these Marrowmen adhere to the same strict principles of dress as the thri-kreen despite the benefits and drawbacks of wearing the strange garb at all times.
Both the Marrowmen and scholars have offered up multiple explanations for their strict adherence to their cultural dress. Several scholars have claimed it was a natural result of living in the arid Marrow Desert and using the animal parts of sunblessed scarabs.
Some Marrowmen claim they wear it to form a greater attachment to the land and the creatures that call this dreadful place home. Others ward off the evil magic of the Temekanians, to remind them of the importance of living in balance with the elements, and to humble themselves before the Four Truths. All of these suggestions likely hold some truth to them as they all connect to foundational parts of the Marrowmen’s ancient culture.
It is considered qasiidda, or virtuous, for a Marrowman to wear their wrappings and aanaqash at all times, removing them only when in the presence of close family. Revealing one’s mouth or mandibles to strangers or those of higher status is considered barbaric and a grave insult. Some try to cover their mouths or mandibles if caught without a thodiir or aanaqash. An individual of great moral standing and high honor is sometimes called an "aanaqash suz," meaning “one of the aanaqash.” The aanaqash also serves as an indicator of one’s brood and wealth. The manner in which it is wrapped and folded can often reveal tribal or regional origin; while the darker the shade of the cloth, the wealthier the wearer.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
Tejiizh
The Marrowmen view all life as a balancing of nature’s four elements. They believe that water, in particular, is the most foundational element to the formation of life. This is seen in their mating ritual, the tejiizh. The brood returns to their sietch and their djelen; a sacred site which hold the clan’s supply of water. First, all of the brood’s females retreat to an isolated chamber or tent at the sietch and dig a pit in the sand, called a khiiqas. Upon lining the pit with stones, the females collectively lay their eggs in the khiiqas while chanting and saying prayers to the Four Truths. Afterwards, the female Marrowmen leave the khiiqas to the male Marrowmen, who enter the chamber and perform a similar ritual. The males produce a frothy solution of water and semen, which combine into a single clay vessel before spreading the mixture over the eggs to fertilize them. The froth then hardens, and the males cover the khiiqas in a thin layer of sand. This ensures that no member of the tribe is able to determine the parentage of the nymphs and encourages all members of the brood to assist in raising the next generation. One year later, when the brood has returned to the sietch, the eggs hatch. Despite the khiiqas containing as many as 200 eggs during fertilization, the brood usually sees only 10-20 new-born nymphs, with most being eaten by their slightly older siblings. The communal nature of the Marrowmen’s mating rituals largely removes the ability determine parentage. Marrowmen nymphs are raised by the brood as a whole, with all members of the community involved in the child-rearing process. In fact, the words for “son” and “daughter” and even the possessive case version of the term “offspring” appear to have not entered the Flicking language until well into the Palladian Era. Even today, the concept of direct lineage is regarded as bizarre and even a sign of personal greed among the more isolated tribes of the Marrow. While the brood is traveling during the rest of the year, the sietch is guarded by the tashetaddii, a trio of the brood’s greatest warriors. It is considered a great honor to guard the sietch, with most warriors expected to fill the role at some point during their lives. Should the sietch come under threat from predators or other tribes, the tashetadii are expected to give their lives to defend the encampment. Those that flee or allow a sietch to be plundered risk death or exile. The entire ritual contains clear connections between the brood’s drinking water and the brood’s reproductive “waters.” Both are protected by the tashetaddii and both also are considered an integral part of the brood’s wealth and success.Coming of Age Rites
Sekh
After their tenth year, or upon reaching sexual maturity, young Marrowmen participate in a coming of age ritual known as the sekh. Participants must journey out into the Marrow Desert to find a wild sunblessed ccarab of a similar age to the candidate. Sunblessed scarabs do not appear to be capable of domestication and so all scarabs must be tamed and harnessed in order for them to be used as mounts or beasts of burden. Marrowmen are known to form incredibly close bonds with their scarab after harnessing. When the Marrowman returns home with their new scarab, a short ceremony is performed where a portion of the Marrowman’s right chiir chitin is cut away and replaced with a portion of the scarab’s own forelimb chitin. The scarab then receives the Marrowman’s removed chiir chitin and the two are formally bonded. It is said that the bond between a Marrowman is so strong, that should they perish, their scarab will often die shortly thereafter, either of natural causes or by intentionally killing themselves. Should a scarab die or be killed before their rider, the Marrowmen believe that the rider must go forth into the desert once more to tame a new scarab. However, should no scarab reveal themselves to the rider, then it is the will of the rider’s fallen mount that the rider perish in the desert, so that the two might be reunited once more in the (Underworld)afterlife. The Marrowmen maintain that only a thri-kreen can tame and mount a sunblessed scarab. For a mortal to harness a wild scarab or ride another’s scarab without permission is to invite assahiila. Mortal Marrowmen still participate in a version of the sekh. This generally involves the young mortal stealing a portion of a rival tribe’s camel or dewback herd. They can then claim one of the stolen animals as their bonded mount, though the following ceremony does not involve any grafting but rather a simple bloodletting pact. The pact does not generally bond the rider to the animal as in the traditional sekh rite, though some mounts have been reported to have extended life spans that match those of their rider.Funerary and Memorial customs
Tho'oqaakh
When a Marrowman dies, their brood takes the body to the tribe’s priest, or thokhoraa. The priest then performs a special ceremony, known as the tho’oqaakh. It begins with the thokhoraa draining the body of its fluids and desiccating the corpse. The thokhoraa must do this without removing the dead’s clothing, as the Marrowmen believe it could impact the deceased’s sethan or honor even in death. At the same time, the family of the deceased sacrifices a goat, sheep or other animal for a funerary feast. While the meat of the animal is served, the animal’s bladder or stomach is made into a waterskin. If the animal sacrificed was not large enough to craft a suitable waterskin, the fire used to cook the animal is then used to fire a kiln and craft a sacred funerary jar. When the thokhoraa has purified the water taken from the corpse, the water is placed within the waterskin temporarily. When the feast has ended and the water has been fully removed and placed within its vessel, the fire pit from the feast is converted into a funeral pyre. The body is burnt along with the dead’s clothing, aanaqash, and thodiir. This leaves only the body’s exoskeleton or bones, depending on if the Marrowman was a mortal or a thri-kreen. If the deceased was a wealthy or high-ranking individual, the family may also pay for the thokhoraa to paint the exoskeleton or bones with ochre red dye before burial. This is believed to prevent the deceased’s body from being used in necromantic rituals. Among poorer families, the thokhoraa will often bless the remains with a simple enchantment to ward off nefarious forces. The skeletal remains of the Marrowmen are buried usually in sacred grave sites shared by the tribe. If the Marrowman died naturally or outside of ritual combat, their water is held by the brood until it can be returned to the dead’s sietch and added to their brood’s djelen. The urn itself is often carried by the deceased’s close family as a drinking vessel and a remembrance token of the dead. However, if the Marrowman died in a ni’u, or honour duel, then their water belongs instead to the victor of the duel. The victor can choose to keep the water for themselves or give it to the brood. They can also give the water back to the deceased’s family, which is considered to be an exceptionally generous and gallant act. The Marrowmen believe that if one’s body is lost or if one dies without the proper funerary rites, then their spirit will become disconnected from their body. The spirit will travel the dunes for eternity or until it can find its way to the Gypsum Forest, where it will remain until attended to by their tribe. The body of a spirit lost in this manner is said to then become a ghoul, a ravenous undead creature with no knowledge of their former life. These ghouls too wander the desert, hunting down weary travelers and feasting on the flesh of the unprotected dead. When a Marrowman’s sunblessed scarab dies, much of the same rites are held in honor of the creature. Their water is also removed, purified, and added to their brood’s djelen; and their exoskeletons are taken to special graveyards to be buried with others of their kind. The Marrowmen treat these scarab cemeteries with deep respect and consider them as sacred as any mortal tomb. Mortal Marrowmen with camel or dewback mounts often also bury their companions in these places.Common Taboos
Many of the cultural taboos of the Marrowmen are outlined as laws in the alta qiidu.
One interesting Marrowman taboo regards how they transmit and record their culture's history. The shanurehsaaq are a caste of griots or oral historians who are tasked with memorizing and keeping the myths, legends, and histories of the Marrowmen for future generations. When an anurehsaaq recites a legend from their canon, they must recite it exactly, in the original Traditional Zejaach, with no interruptions and in a single telling. The Marrowmen believe that reciting the legends in another language or interrupting the story for any reason risks "speaking the past in error," a grave breach of the alta qiidu. Those who break this taboo risk being labeled assahiila and being killed in order to protect the telling of the past.
Common Myths and Legends
Most Marrowmen do not worship the Heavenly Council and are instead highly animistic , worshiping spirits, ancestors, and the elemental forces. In particular, the Marrowmen revere the four elements of water, earth, fire, and air and refer to them as the Four Truths. They believe that the present sinfulness and inequity in the world is the result in imbalance between the Four Truths, with Earth and Fire oppressing the forces of Water and Air. This worldview is heavily informed by the environment in which the Marrowmen have developed, which is extremely arid and warm due to a lack of rainfall and coastal wind currents.
Marrowmen also adhere to many druidic beliefs, with many of them showing great aptitude for and a deep connection to green magic. Some have suggested that the sekh bonding ritual between Marrowmen and their sunblessed scarabs could be similar to the bond created by a ranger’s companion pact but on a larger and more ritualistic scale. Marrowmen rarely worship the patron of druids, Acien Tali, directly, instead venerating life as a byproduct of the balance between the Four Truths.
Over the past five centuries, several tribes of the Marrow have actually converted to Kōsism. According to the Faal Stahdim Ven, as the Coiled Hermit traveled the Material Realm, he spent many years living in and among the Marrowmen and felt that their alta qiidu reflected many aspects of his own understanding of morality and spirituality. Regardless of the veracity of this claim, much of the moral teachings of the Faal Stahdim Ven appear to be connected in some way to Marrowman philosophy, though whether these ideals originated among the Marrowmen or the indigenous dragonborn of the Upper Niru Cataracts is uncertain.
As a result of the conversion of several Marrowmen communities, the Qartagonian Emirates have begun a concerted effort to educate and engage various communities on the tenants and teachings of the Kōsite faith. These missionary expeditions have found some success, though the Marrowmen as a people have long regarded outsiders that deviate from the alta qiidu as dangerous and potentially dassahiila.
Though the Marrowmen typically venerate spirits and natural forces, one personified deity holds particular sway in the Herijahl imagination. Marrowmen deeply fear and loathe the Unspoken Oneknown as Deverin, believing him to be the epitome of evil and the greatest adversary to their people. As the god of greed, the Hungering Secret is not only responsible for dreaded famine and drought, but also for the bestial desire to steal and deprive others of food and water for personal gain. Such gluttonous behavior in the Marrow Desert leads to starvation and death and as such is seen as barbaric and bestial. The Marrowmen particularly fear Deverin’s animal harbinger and so most often refer to him as the "Lord of Locusts."
Genesis Mythology
Some believe that the Marrowmen themselves once served Deverin and were originally related to the neogi, one of his many patronaged peoples. The legend claims that during the War of the Dawn, some of the neogi were shown mercy by Acien Tali herself after a great battle. Moved by her compassion these neogi cast off their old title and renamed themselves thri-kreen. They then betrayed Deverin, bringing victory to the Heavenly Council and forcing Deverin and the rest of the neogi host to flee aboard the flying Voracious Palace. Deverin then cursed the land these traitors called home, making it barren and susceptible to the sun with which they had allied themselves. But the goddess Acien Tali gave the alta qiidu so that they might know the best way to survive in such an unforgiving land. While narratively compelling, this tale appears to be highly apocryphal and is not wholly believed by any Marrowmen tribes. It also ignores other, more corroborative legends that claim to explain the arid nature of the Marrow, specifically those regarding the final battles of War of the Dawn, the Burial of Valdra, and the later Reckoning of Temekan.Ideals
Gender Ideals
Though the thri-kreen who founded the Marrowmen typically breed through sexual reproduction, female thri-kreen are capable of parthenogenesis. In fact, despite the Marrowmen’s practice of evenly distributing the male thri-kreen’s sperm throughout the ootheca, many Marrowmen are parthenogenic copies of their mother.
This, along with the absence of sex-specific, distinguishing features in thri-kreen, has caused the Marrowmen culture to lack much in the way of gender roles and gendered concepts. Almost all aspects of Marrowmen society apply to both males and females, with the only exceptions being for the iqi and sis.
Courtship Ideals
Traditional Herijahl mating or courtship is largely impersonal with both participants actually physically separated in accordance with their gender. This is because, as a culture rooted in a thri-kreen ancestry, Marrowman society revolves around the realities of thri-kreen anatomy. Upon returning to their sietch at the height of the dry season, the female thri-kreen isolate from the rest of the brood for a communal, all-female ritual. In a special chamber or tent, the females all lay their eggs inside a sand pit lined with stones, called a khiiqas. Afterwards, all of the males enter the chamber to fertilize the brood’s eggs. The frothy, thri-kreen sperm is spread evenly across the surface of the eggs to form an ootheca, similar to those found in mantis or locust reproduction. The froth then hardens and is covered in a thin layer of sand. One year later, when the brood has returned to the sietch, the eggs hatch.
Those Marrowmen who are not thri-kreen often take this opportunity to mate with a partner, either in the bounds of an established marital relationship or sometimes outside of one. In keeping with the thri-kreen’s traditional anonymous parentage, Marrowmen who are born out of wedlock are collectively raised by the brood. Even children born to mortal Marrowmen in committed marriages are typically not raised by their biological parents, as any kind of favoritism shown to one child can be construed as greed—the gravest sin among the Marrowmen.
Relationship Ideals
With their complex mating rituals and lack of codified gender roles, the Marrowmen have developed a largely polygamous or polyandrous relationship system. Marriage among the Marrowmen often develops not out of a mutual physical attraction to one another but out of proximal circumstances. A pair of hunters may enter into a marriage agreement after several years of close interaction. Three shepherds whose sheep tend to stick together may decide to form a collective union, as relationships of up to five persons is not unheard of.
However, such marital arrangements are not entered into blindly or without consideration. In broods with significant resources and great competition, the iqi may offer an unmarried Marrowman to a neighbouring brood to boost relations or form an alliance. Shiqi will negotiate with one another, often offering concessions and future marriage arrangements in order to strike an accord. Under these circumstances, Marrowman law requires bride prices and dowries to be paid in order to facilitate the exchange.
Personal conflicts can also result in the appropriation of wives or husbands as part of a Marrowman’s property. Should a Marrowman warrior get into a ni'u1 with another warrior and lose, the loser’s property and marital relationships are surrendered to the victor. While this may seem like a method of gaining and acquiring wealth, a partnership earned through such a duel comes with its own responsibilities. Shirking one’s duty as a wife or husband, even if the relationship was won through violence is considered a grave offense and can result in adjudication by the iqi or sis. Often times, duels will be called off for this very reason or a victor may emancipate their spoils in order to avoid such duties. Emancipation does require the payment of the emancipated individual’s original dowry, as it does in any divorce proceedings among the Marrowmen.
Major organizations
For centuries, the Marrowmen have been pitted against one another by the Shanindar Empire and the Palladian Empire. After the Sundering Arcana, the Marrowmen broke away from both and with bolstered numbers became a far more formidable force. Today, the political powers of Nioa still try to control or manipulate the Marrowmen into doing their bidding, though the most powerful tribes demonstrate full and unquestioned independence.
Officially, the Marrowmen are a part of the Qartagonian Emirates. Unofficially, because of the unique nature of Marrowmen society, the inclusion of them into the Emirates with an official emir would be impossible. As such, the Marrowmen nominally elect a member of their people to serve as the Emir of Tsewa, a small oasis trading town that acts as the regional capital. However, the Emir of Tsewa has very little actual power and the position is considered a burden by the Marrowmen.
The Marrowmen are locked in a constant struggle both between their own warring clans and the Tlincali, their eternal enemies. Rarely do rival Marrowmen ally themselves and usually, it is only to face off against Tlincali. The Marrowmen consider the Tlincali to be servants of Deverin, the Hungering Secret, and the Tlincali see the Marrowmen’s adherence to the strict alta qiidu as a sign of weakness.
Demonym
Herijahl
Encompassed species
Related Organizations
Languages spoken
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