Twekkin Ethnicity in Skeigham | World Anvil

Twekkin

A sudden noise woke Teomin from his so well deserved sleep. Confused he got up and shambled sleepily towards the window. In the remaining heat of this summer night, several dark figures had gathered in the alley below him and they kept talking weird gibberish to each other. Loud gibberish. In the middle of the night.
 
Angrily he reached to the side, grabbing a pebble from his windowsill. A short burst of magic and the pebble zoomed with a blue glow towards the group of young men, that quickly scattered. All except one, who slumped to the floor. Teomin turned away and walked back to his bed. He did not care about the boy in the alley, nobody would. After all, that was only a Twekkin.
 
Twekkins are to be found in many bigger cities with emerging industries, especially around Maned's Crown and Apac's Sword. They are mostly human, few of them above sixteen years old and they have many dwarven mannerisms. They all have usually unkempt hair, bound back in a rushed braid, wear clothes similar to smith's attire and dwarven-grade gloves even when outside of a forge. They are hard workers but known to be very rude and aggressive towards the upstanding citizens.
 
The citizens attitude towards the Twekkin ranges from indifferent to hostile. Despite their good reputation as hard workers, they are never employed for long, usually they are the first to be send away when work gets sparse. As a result they do not feel high loyalty towards their employers. Rumors and accusation of thievery, sabotage and recklessness are becoming louder and louder.
 
Recently, the Twekkin started to group together in small gangs, usually loitering but also committing increased number of crimes. The city guards or security forces are showing more and more aggression towards the hopeless, homeless and often malnourished Twekkin.
 
Rumors of available work in other cities causes Twekkins to often migrate in groups somewhere else. This way, this phenomenon is consistently spreading across the lands.
 

History of the Twekkin

 
The emergence of the Twekkin is a rather recent phenomenon. In the recent decades, many families migrated into bigger cities, especially into dwarven settlements to find work in the growing manufactories. Due to less workers being needed in farming and life stock herding, this especially hit many human families from the Lands of Sevelang, Ethoressi, and Rhomedan that had successfull dwarven hotspots very close by.
 
Those families settled with a quasi dwarven settlement, like Bun Daresh and got children in these cities. Not few if them they died early due to harsh working conditions in dwarven workshops, that were prevalent at first. Many of their children grew up as orphans and were taken in to dwarven custodiy as part of one of many initatives by the dwarven councils. This generation grew up to be humans with dwarven customs and mannerisms, not quite accepted by dwarves but very much disliked because of their behavoirs by the human cultures their families originated from.

Naming Traditions

Masculine names

Many Twekkin take their given human name and add to them dwarven sounding suffixes. It is common to find names like Theor-kosh, Gavin-tesh, Florin-dur.

Family names

Twekkin fully dropped their former family Names. This already led to some frictions with the authorities, since the registration for work required the full name, including the family names. As a placeholder, to get some work, they often put a dwarven word for "Smith" or "Metalworker" as their last name. Therefore you can encounter "Smotak", "Tronak", "Sendesh" and "Remenesh".

Workers Wanted

 
Salvatore's Saw Shoppe offers honest work for upstanding citizens. Good pay and meal included. Twekkin need not apply.
- Poster pinned to several doors around Toranai in 1689 AR

 

City Guard reports increased burglary

 
Within the past few weeks, city guard has dealt with a higher number of burglaries. Stolen was in most cases food supply in medium quantities. City Guard is rounding up suspicious Twekkin groups to confiscate the stolen goods.
- Published in the Garonur Report in Maned 1690 AR

Twekkin accused of manslaughter

 
We are happy to report that the gruesome murder of the honorable tailor Harmon Swiftsow has finally been cleared. Unsurprisingly a Twekkin has been taken into custody after he tried to fence the gentleman's pocket watch.
- Printed on leaflet titled the Freysteyn Chronicle in Halua 1691 AR

 

Big explosion in manufactura

 
After a mishandled boiling device exploded in fabric manufactura, the owner claims a high loss in goods and machinery. Apparently, a number of Twekkin have been fatally injured as well but no other citizens have been severely injured.
- Written down in the offical internal chronicles of Teefhaven in Femezu 1691 AR


Comments

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Jul 6, 2018 06:59

I like the use of newspaper excerpts on the side, to really show what others think of the Twekkins.
There's certainly something both sad and chilling about "He did not care about the boy in the alley, nobody would. After all, that was only a Twekkin.", perhaps the narrator's complete and utter disregard for the fact that he's killed someone.
It's also kind of sad that despite the kindness (or at least pity) the dwarves had for the orphans, everyone around them rejects their very existence and presence.

Jul 6, 2018 07:30

Yes... how *did* you do that? I still don't understand the theme system. At all.

Jul 6, 2018 07:38 by Vertixico

In this case is used a sectIon:boxed - the name boxed I chos emyself. This creates a div with the class "boxed" that I could then adress in my css. That is a Grandmaster+ Functionality though

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Jul 6, 2018 07:35

Sounds like a recipe for violence.   Do the humans have something against Dwarves in general? It seems odd they'd willingly go to the Dwarven sweatshops, which are presumably run by Dwarves with Dwarven mannerisms, but take so much exception to orphans who act like them. How do the children of surviving human parents act?   Also, does the presence only of male naming traditions imply Twekkin and/or Dwarves are all male?

Jul 6, 2018 07:49 by Vertixico

The Human and Dwarven cultures are vastly different when it comes to socially accepte dbehavior. With those "uruly" children coming to human towns, looking human but behaving antisocial, that only creates tensions. And yes, twekkin are predominately male, since they were physically mor efit to be trained in the workshops.

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Jul 6, 2018 07:35 by Tikal

Interesting spin on dwarfs! And the newspaper clips on the side are awesome!

Jul 6, 2018 07:50 by Vertixico

Thi sis mor eabou tthe humans growing up with dwarfs and not the dwarves themselves though. Still, I am glad you enjoyed it. If you do, don't forget to hit that Like button as well =)

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