Plain Toiks

Culture

Shared customary codes and values

Teotlahtolli

An extreme form of devotion in which a soldier or general vowed to sacrifice his own life in battle along with the enemy to earth gods in exchange for a victory.

Labourism

The act of paying taxes or offering religious devotions through labour. Many permanent temples and channel dugouts were built through this tradition.

Common Dress code

Undergarments

An apron around the hips or loins in various modifications, made from the skins of animals and held together by a belt or girdle.

Outer Garments

Shawl

The heavy outer garment of various forms. It consisted of a large rectangular piece of rough, heavy woolen material, crudely sewn together so that the front was unstitched and with two openings left for the arms. The front could be arranged in wide folds for all kinds of products to be carried within.
It was protection from the cold winds that blow though the breezeway, and at night peasant Toiks would wrap themselves in this garment for warmth.

Cloak

A costly sleeveless wrap generally worn over the undergarment of priests and only reached to the knees. There was a long-sleeved version made of a light fabric for the high priest to wear in official functions.

Religious Head Wear

A large square piece of woolen cloth folded diagonally in half into a triangle. The fold is worn across the forehead, loosely draped around the back and shoulders. It is often held in place by a cord circlet, from where a tassels hangs with a tag on which a religious verses was written.

Footwear

Sandals of wood and leather straps were worn to protect the feet from burning sand and dampness. They were not worn in the house nor in sacred sanctuaries.

Art & Architecture

Protection Stones

Fire agate, black jewels, tourmalinated quartz, black obsidian, smokey quartz, amethyst, alabaster, lime and blood stone were some of the most after stones a settlement within Claw Marks would religiously arrange around their village as means of granting spiritual protection against demons and bad luck.
These were not great walls, however; merely large free standing boulders which encircled a site at equal distance from each other. The amount of purity, these rocks showed was an indicator to other toiks of a given village's prosperity and were sometimes stacked on top of each into pillars. It came to be a slight misconception by outsides that toiks aim to turn their cities into temples to their gods to encourage divine protection.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

Purification

Based around cleansing the outer dirt to blow or carry away the symbolic impurities. Practically, this takes the form of cleaning everyday with or without water, or specific burnings:

• sweeping a house or certain area of the ground with a grass broom
• brushing an object with a brush made of fibres or feathers from reeds or birds;
• scraping the surface of a utensil;
• shaving and cutting the hair and nails;
• removing clothing and washing it or destroying it;
• putting on clean or new clothes

Funerary and Memorial customs

Burials

The disposition wherein a dead person is placed into the ground and covered in a thin layer of dirt, sometimes with objects if the family is rich enough. Before the grave is closed, mourners are covered an earthy pigment, usually clay, while they eat and dance around the open pit housing the body. The pit remains open until signs of decomposition are shown on the corpse.

Common Taboos

Premarital Sex

Sex before marriage was considered a serious issue because is was the purview of the father to find a suitable husband for their daughters. If it was determined that he was not able to meet the promised conditions (i.e. virginity) it was considered shameful for the family.
The punishment for being caught was banishment "under the mountain" or "across the lightning". While this is a certainty for females, there is a distinction with regards to guilty males. It is possible for upper class men to pay a fine and/or receive a public flogging depending on the mood of the clan at the time.

Common Myths and Legends

A Subjugated People

Warg adventurers had time and again violated Toik sovereignty during raids and illegal crossings through their land. Until one winter solstice gangs of Nidae, Leggi, Beron and Sang descended from the shadow plain in the start of a sustained invasion and occupation future Toiks would call the Shadow Binds. Forebears to the mountain and river toiks escaped through the paths of banishment to eventually establish new homes.
However, many more were captured to be so severely mistreated as slaves that the plains Toiks effectively ceased to exist. Their blood being but a small minority inside the valley basin.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

Toiks shaved their head appear tougher and more powerful than others as an indicator of dominance, authority and as a defensive measure to stop enemies from grabbing their hair in hand-to-hand combat.

Courtship Ideals

Wrestling

Every three years, there was a three day wrestling competition organised by the leaders of several clans whereby male participants declare for a suitable female from any family and wrestle their rivals in a series of rounds from dawn to midday. The afternoons are spent in social festivities where the women being fought over are invited to interact with their suitors and potential suitors, if they do not already know them. Only the woman's champion of the day was not allowed to talk to his intended without the expressed consent of the girl's father, which he is mot like to give until the last day.
It was not that the final champion for the wife-to-be was guaranteed to wed a family's daughter, as he still had to impress the family patriarch with their wealth, reputation, entourage, prospects or general performance in the contest. The girls' feeling are also put into consideration through the mother's influence on the father.
The triennial event is judged by fathers of marriageable girls who are each looking for different qualities in their future son-in-laws. So being one of the wrestling champions does not mean that the father would approve.

Diverged ethnicities

• Mountain Toiks
• River Toiks
• Teek

Related Locations

• Claw Marks

STR	(Choose the lowest roll as modifier)
CON
DEX
INT
WIS
CHA
Armour	2d6
HP	3d6+6 ([min+max]/2)
Speed	2d10+10 ft

Historical Conflicts

Historical Enemies