Difference between revisions of "Kamsa"

Revision as of 21:39, 29 January 2005

This is not a private project; feel free to add characters, clans, locations, etc.

The Kamsa are a barbarian people of the North. They dwell on the Black Crag Mountains west of Whitewall, on the slopes that face the Silent Meadow of Dust (Block L4 on StephenlS' map). There are perhaps thirty thousand men, women, and children.

Economy

The Kamsa live on a combination of mobile agriculture (i.e., they plant a crop of hardy plants and come back a season later to harvest it) and subsistence hunting and gathering. They supplement this with trade and raiding. They have several breeds of domesticated goats and dogs, providing them with ready sources of wool, meat, and pack animals. Internally, they have a complex system of gift-giving that acts as a barter economy. The Kamsa do not take or own slaves, though they have no moral objections to the practice.

Politics

The Kamsa are organized into around 20 clans, each of which has a totem beast or bird. The clans vary in size from a couple hundred to almost two thousand members, and cover territories ranging from tens to hundreds of square miles. Territories are marked primarily by landmarks or stone cairns, and border disputes are the most common cause of clan conflict.

Intra-clan politics are family politics, as nasty and brutal as you might expect.

Inter-clan politics are a bit more formalized. The eldest sisters and brothers of clans meet during Calibration at a landmark chosen the previous Calibration, to settle disputes, establish territorial boundaries, and make agreements. This meeting is usually accompanied by a small trading festival complete with feuds, marriages, parties, and the like.

Religion

A practical people, the Kamsa revere whichever gods benefit them the most. They have a careful relationship with the many gods of mountain, stream, and forest, and a strong ancestor cult. This last is under constant pressure from the deathlord the Bishop. Finally, each tribe worships its own totem god, usually a minor animal god that knows a good thing when he sees it.

The Kamsa have not fallen under the rule of a Lunar Exalted in many centuries. This is primarily a matter of chance, and a pack might well find a clan or two a malleable and willing group of followers.

Daily Life

The Kamsa have a system of braids, which signify rank and status. Every adult Kamsa will have a braid on the left temple, with colored threads running through it. While the intricacies of the system change from clan to clan, some general rules are usually followed.

• The length of the braid indicates status and respect; the longer the braid, the more status a person has.
• The threads indicate a person's clan and position. Usually, a clan will have a pattern of two or three colors unique to itself.
• Certain colors of threads knotted at the upper part of the braid indicate special status or position:
  • White thread: Mourning widow or widower
  • Red thread: shaman
  • Green thread: available for courting
  • Intertwined blue and black threads: Married

I've derived the Kamsa names from Finnish; here's a Google search of Finnish Names

Comments

See JesseLowe/Kamsa for how they've developed in my Pirate, Monkey campaign. -- JesseLowe