Karuvians
While the Taalites have historically dominated the coastline of Veiama, Karuvians made their home in its forested interior.
Karuvians suffered the least dramatic change to lifestyle with the coming of The Forest. Many of the currently inhabited islands began as Karuvian settlements before they were established as protected zones. The majority of the Veiamic kingdoms today, other than the Taalish Kaleina, are Karuvian majority. However, Kaleina dominates the political, art, and military scene, so Karuvians remain slightly in the shadow of Taalites even today.
Karuvians have a poor reputation among Taalites for being sneaky and untrustworthy. The kernel of truth here is that Karuvian culture tends to be more indirect, with a preference for keeping the peace rather than being openly confrontational. Strong, public displays of emotion are frowned upon, so they tend to dance around their true feelings with allusions and unspoken understandings. This can be taken as being evasive or dishonest to the more direct Taalites.
Music and Magic
Karuvians are famous for their use of ocarinas. Karuvian music is said to be so sweet that it can sing you to sleep even without a sleeping enchantment woven into it. Other pipe style instruments are also popular, such as panpipes and flutes. Their musical style is best at enchantment magic, able to cast illusions or befuddle enemies into confusion rather than outright attacking them. The other most popular instrument is the lute. Lutes are the sacred instrument of Karu, god of the woods (both Karu and the Karuvians are named for the Veiamic word for forest). Lutes were historically used to sing the trees into better positions, coaxing branches out of the way to allow sunlight to hits crops. Legend says that the most powerful Karuvian enchanters could cause a tree to pick up its roots and walk away. The Karuvian penchant for enchantment magic is tied to the stereotype Taalites have that they are untrustworthy, cowardly, and sneaky. They're said to prefer stabbing someone in their sleep rather than facing them head on.What do you a call a Karuvian in a duel?
A poor ocarina player.
Lifestyle
In the past, Karuvians lived in small villages scattered throughout the woods with only a few larger towns that served as trading centres. Traditional Karuvian houses are built on stilts. Before the Forest took over the entire region, Veiama's interior was interspersed with forests, lakes, and swamps, with small pockets of clear, dry land. Houses on stilts enabled them to build villages even in areas prone to annual flooding, and in the winter, keeps the front door above the piles of snow. They use a combination of tree magic with slash-and-burn agriculture to clear more land for farming. For smaller plots, magic can be used to clear branches away to allow sunlight to hit plots of vegetables grown between trees. Ocarina music, tied to the goddess Kaif who holds domain over all growing things, encourages crops to grow even in less-than-ideal conditions. Farming is supported by fishing in the lakes and rivers that are never far from a Karuvian village, and hunting in the woods. Since their relocation to the islands, much of Karuvian lifestyle has remained the same. Their stilt-style architecture has found new life in enabling them to build into the lakes. Many towns now are built almost entirely over the water, with the limited dry land on the islands devoted to agriculture. Red meat is a rare luxury, for hunting on the isolated islands is far more limited, but fish remain a staple of their diet.Demonym
As an adjective: Karuvian. "She was a Karuvian woman."As a noun: Karuvian. "A Karuvian walked into a bar."
Noun, Plural: Karuvians. "Karuvians are mean lute players."
Related Organizations
Related Myths
Languages spoken