Bauta (BAO-tah)

A nomadic culture of Ebigan found mostly in the southeast and uncommonly everywhere else on the continent. They are a friendly people and are welcoming to other cultures and races though they have a distinct cultural identity of their own.
Like most Ebigan cultures, their lifestyle, customs, and celebrations revolve around the natural world with an emphasis on hunting, weather, and the wind. Secrets and knowledge are also important concepts in Bautan culture and one who speaks loosely or falsely, either by accident or intent, will find few friends.

Mothtalkers

Whether by fact, superstition, or story, all are familiar with the knowledge that the Bauta are capable of speaking with moths and butterflies. Moths and their colorful cousins are believed to know many secrets and be excellent spies though their language is said to be incomprehensible to all but themselves. How the Bauta know this tongue (or how, indeed, they learn to speak it) is a mystery. Those who spend a long enough time with the Bauta begin to understand the insects as well. The most famous example of this is the sorcerer Kamit Naurhil whose plans for opening a portal to Ipsij were interrupted when he was imprisoned by a Bautan tribe. After only a single day, he began to comprehend the moths that flitted about the ceiling of his dark prison cell. They warned him of the danger of his actions and, heeding their words, he repented his plans and the Bautans set him free.
The words of moths and butterflies are valuable indeed and many of the Sunnyland-Aster pay good money to hear the Bautans recite their omens and good words. Some even travel from faraway lands for this service though such fortune-seekers are often disappointed: the insects know of the past and the present but can only offer a glimmer of the future.
Citations of Bautan "mothtalking" go back long before Helenaphe with the earliest written record dated to 1300 Anterior. There are two places in Sunnyland-Aster named the Valley of Moths and a number of villages with some variation of "moth" in their name, all of which are historically associated with the Bauta. Even the name "Bauta" is theorized by some to be a derivative of "moutha," the old Prasny word for a winged insect from which the modern word moth is derived.

Gregarious Nomads

Though Ebigana typically live in small, stable communities comprised entirely of their own kind, the Bauta are nomadic and their tribes, numbering often in the hundreds, are open to other races and cultures. Most tribes are a mixture of Ebigan, Hezethal, and Troll though various Beastpeople are not uncommon. A typical tribe will travel for several hundred miles, select a location at which to reside for a year or longer, then set off again. Historically, they have occupied the lands of Sunnyland-Aster and the upper part of Aposfabr but since the Bestial Purges  have since spread all across the continent.
Their language, simply called Bautan, has many words from Poegric, the language of the Mindreland Ebigana, though with grammar derived from the languages of Aposfabr such as Prasny and Ewninoy.
Bautan Ebigan differ considerably in appearance from their Mindreland cousins with darker fur and thicker beards on both males and females. The ears are shorter and claws longer and their eyes typically range from yellow to green.

Related Locations

• Aposfabr
• Sunnyland-Aster