Khe'drakha Performer

Career

Qualifications

Much like the training of a religious expert, a prospective performer must spend years getting intimately familiar with the material. Given as Khe'drakha are long poems, much of this work includes committing these poems to memory, including a lot of attached mythological and religious context (up to a point, training a performer and an expert in other religious matters is functionally identical, before performers branch out into things like public speaking and the particular skills required to keep up a recitation for hours at a time).

Other Benefits

There is a lot of social clout that comes with reciting Khe'drakha, as poetry is the primary means of transmitting the oral history of the Stenza. In spite of the advent of history, archaeology, and related sciences, Khe'drakha reciters are still considered a cornerstone of Stenza culture, especially in conjunction with An'o and chant.

Perception

Purpose

Khe'drakha performance is the primary means by which oral history has been transmitted since the earliest form of Stenza civilization. Clans past and present have used it to record the great deeds of their notable persons, as well as recording the stories they have learned about the gods, hence teaching future generations about the way one interacts with the gods and spirits. This dovetails neatly with storytelling, although Khe'drakha is a lot more ceremonial and, on a level, celebratory.

Social Status

Much like being a religious expert or a ranked officer, reciting Khe'drakha can technically be considered a sought after position. However, the amount of work which goes into the profession, as well as the heavy responsibilities attached to the poems and their associated context, are widely known, and the average young Stenza is a lot more careful with their career choices than young people of other societies.

History

Each clan has had at least one Khe'drakha performer active for arguably a hundred thousand years, chronicling the myths of the clan, the deeds of its great heroes, important local events (often freak weather events; this is most common in the ancient oral histories of northern Pass clans), and other important matters. While the Unification of Clans has added a new major event across the board to be poetically described to all future generations, the role of Khe'drakha reciter has not changed all that much. In fact, the performer has been able to keep their role as one of the keystones of a clan's identity during the transition.

Alternative Names

Orator, Reciter, Keeper of Deeds

Type

Religious

Famous in the Field