Bardagi
A race of warmongering survivalists from Bardaga, who celebrate all forms of successful pugilism and the art of surviving a terrain which is avidly attempting to destroy them. According to one of the four Bardagi I, the Book of Knowledge, had the honour of interviewing, their cosmogony goes something like this:
When the world was newly spun in the heavenly fields, the deities Bar and Dag looked upon their creation with a tense pride. Bar wished their creation fields of plentiful flora, fauna as vast and mighty as the dragons, hydra, unicorns and minotaurs they heard about a few Realms over. Being quite satisfied with the aesthetics, Bar created the Bardagi to tend all these massive creatures, having forgotten to double-check her work for scale. Before she could realize she made the Bardagi minuscule in comparison to their supposed pets, she went to make herself a snack.
Enter Dag, Bar's snot-nosed little brother, who seeing Bar's pride over her creation decided it was his mission in life to wreck it. Why? Because he wanted to giggle at how the creatures fell down. And seeing as how Bar and Dag's parents left them to tend the Realm while they took a prolonged vacation, Bar was technically in charge because she was slightly older.
Dag hated this, and began to scoop his hands into the multi-prismic rainbow chrome rings Bar created around her planet, casting bits and fragments down onto the idyllic but unfortunately scaled planet below.
The Bardagi began to be squished by the multi-coloured meteors, the dragons and other fauna roared up to their goddess in their travails. The plantlife were the only ones who realized 'holy frick, the gods are going to kill us' and toughened up their petals. Finally, the cries of the Bardagi reached Bar, who smacked her brother to stop killing her things.
This was, until one group of the Bardagi decided they didn't need Dag at all, and crafted a slingshot big enough to send one particularly nasty meteor back through the skies and take Dag's eye out in vengeance.
Only Bar could hit her brother.
Ever since, Bar and Dag take turns hurtling meteors from the heavens down upon the planet below, constructing even more terrifying alpha predatory monsters and the Bardagi begrudgingly continue to attempt to build apology presents large enough to appease their gods... gifts which are constantly destroyed in medias-progress until the only thing left is conducting feats of renown big enough to be shouted and sung by a chorus of Bardagi the gods can hear.
That, and buy enough time for their mages to finish developing the portal magic capable of getting them off their doom-planet and to a place with zero meteor strikes, where the lighting of a candle won't cause a fireball large enough to take out an entire nomadic war-band.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Bardak
Culture and cultural heritage
The entirety of Bardagi culture can be distilled into a single phrase: Be Tough Enough to Survive.
Thus, open pugilism, survivalism and feats of bravery are their only goal before their generally short lives are snuffed out by their angry deities, who according to their cosmogony, 'chuck rocks from the sky in an attempt to knock as many of them out as possible before they can be enough of a nuisance to have to listen to in their prayers'.
Common Etiquette rules
Share the work, share the food & run fast.
Common Dress code
Armour crafted from the sinewy petals of the Gaglak plant, or if all else fails, boots crafted from the pulverized bone meal of various monstrous creatures whose bodies don't instantly get vaporized by
Foods & Cuisine
As the atmosphere has too much oxygen to make fire a reliable cooking source (the explosions are too devastating to ignore), the Bardagi 'cook' their food with acid. A fascinating use of ceviche and various forms of pounding tough starches into gooey powders, the cuisine of the Bardagi follow their cultural practices of 'beat anything which attacks into submission, burn them with acid until their proteins are digestible in the strong Bardagi gut'.
Whether the Strong Bardagi Gut is a biological imperative or only a commonality of those limited Bardagi who survive their pupal phases remains unknown at this time.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
Running across an open meteor field, in an attempt to get to the other side where the training grounds are situated.
According to Minitron, the attrition of 'children who make it to training' is higher than usual for more common Realm infant mortality rates.
Coming of Age Rites
Running back across the meteor field, in an attempt to return to the migrational grounds after training. Even fewer survive, or as the Bardagi say, 'their names meant nothing'.
Funerary and Memorial customs
As between the constant meteor strikes, and prevalence of dragon-sized murderous fauna there is usually not much left of any deceased Bardagi, their funerary rites appear to consist of mentioning the dead in song, only if they died in a particularly spectacular way.
Thus, one of the highlights of Bardagi culture is the attempt to 'die well' and be sung about around the glow petals during their night cycles.
Common Taboos
Lighting fires.
Historical figures
Puvkip the Brave, who attempted to throw back one of the divine meteors, and was beaned in the head by a space rock.
Dopa Mihami, who challenged a lavender dragon to a belly rub and was eaten in three chunks.
Koopcabana, who climbed the highest glitter volcano with a cap made of armour petals, capped off the volcano and waited for the pressure to pop and hurtle him into the sky so he could hand the gods a cease and desist fruit basket.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Strength & resilience, true beauty comes with war wounds from glorious battle, and the ability to survive the hazardous terrain of their home planet.
Gender Ideals
Who cares what bits one has, when the only thing which matters is their ability to build meteor-proof dwellings, procure acid for cooking & can wrangle even the most docile of killer animals!?
Courtship Ideals
Kill all others until only five are left. Five is best, for there will always be attrition.
Major organizations
The Gaaagh are the only organized collection of Bardagi mages, who worked tirelessly to discover a way off the planet. They succeeded, and the Bardagi formed war bands to conquer the first place they could go.
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