I mentioned briefly in the main forum that I thought about running a campaign in a setting similar to Mycenae, the Greece of the Illiad.  What I meant by that was essentially a world without proper laws, only traditions and the concept of might makes right... a perfect setting for murderhobos to romp around in.

As it happened, concurrently with that I began planning a campaign... in a bit of a stretch for me, one conducted online out of necessity, so suddenly the idea of setting became more than an interesting idea to a sort of fixed concept.

I have, of course, a fairly wide setting, but there are areas of it that have been wildly neglected in my musings, mostly on the southern continent.  Presto!

Somewhat unsurprisingly, however the culture I began developing was rather more inspired by the real world than less.  Generally I have deliberately focused on very superficial elements of various cultures, even in cases where I knew more than I used (Egypt vs Hesh, for example), in order to not draw excessive attention to my inspiration (and perhaps then to avoid critique that I 'got it wrong'. This is fantasy, bub. Hesh should be more RE Howard's Stygia than real world Egypt (though in this case: The Merchant Kingdoms of the Dragon Desert should be even MORE Stygia, since Stygia was in fact the point of inspiration for THEM)...

However, in this case the freshness of my interest in Mycenae, and, at the end of the day the unfamiliar alienness and mythicness of the setting means that Massila is somewhat more real world than usual... and yet also sharply less, as I worked harder to make it my own.

More to the point, unlike any other part of the setting, Massila was built from the ground up for a very specific campaign and type of game-play, just as much as it was built up from a very real ancient culture that was then tweaked and twisted.

Ultimately it is what it is, and I hope this, the first, raw and unfiltered look, at this part of the setting will entertain and inspire.  


I hope to put future posts into this thread, both expanding upon the original massive first post (sixteen pages in word), and more importantly carving it down to manageable, post edit, chunks.  It is very much a work in progress.  By all means, feel free to comment, to critique and to suggest.

Massila:

Being the lands on the southern and eastern coast, nearest the great Island of Tibor, their history, peoples and culture.

In the most ancient of days, when the Race of Men first appeared on Tibor, and from there conquered the entire world upon Dragon-back and spreading the Race of Men, little is said or may be conclusively known of the lands nearest Tibor itself.  It was not well occupied by Elves or Dwarves or Orcs in the days when those Races dominated the world.  It lies between two great and lethal swamp-jungles, occupied by strange reptilian races at the tail end of a great mountain range known as the Spine of the World, but it is not itself so mountainous that the subterranian races may build their citadels beneath it.

It is, in fact, a rocky and broken land, harsh and rugged.  No great Goblin Hordes swept this land, finding the pickings all too slim.

Tibor itself much resembles this land in character, with a similar climate and temperment, but the great central plains of Tibor are larger and more fertile than the small valleys that dot the coastal region, and of course, Tibor was long the ancestral home of the Dragons, where the coast merely suffered their existence when the dragons were hungry or perhaps bored.

It is believed that the first true settlers of the region, at least from the time of the Titans on, were exiles and renegades, escaped slaves and bandits, from the people of Tibor.  Those who were not welcome among the great Dragon Riders fled here, hiding among the rocks and eking a living out of the land as best they could.  Throughout the mythic ages they were unimportant, making no great kingdoms or empires, drawing little attention, though they came to be know around the southern continents for their occasional piracy, very similar in many ways, though less wide ranging and destructive, than the northern Reve peoples.  

It is only in the Banality that the Massila begin to come to the world stage in a meaningful sense. Historically the Massila have always been magic poor, barely civilized in the era of the greatest of civilizations. Some have accused them of being essentially 'human orcs', and in many ways their culture is very similar to many of the more settled rural tribes of Orcs throughout the world.  As such the Banality itself did little harm to their culture, while greatly weakening the forces around them.  

But they were already becoming ascendent locally in the centuries leading up to the Banality. First there was the destruction of the Dragon Riders, believed to have occurred at least a millennia before the Banality, though as with all Mythic Age events setting a hard date is quite difficult.  The destruction of Tibor caused a great wave of refugees from the island to settle among their kin, the Massila, fleeing whatever mysterious force destroyed the capital of the Dragon Rider Empire, and later fleeing the wrath of the now freed Dragons, before those beasts themselves scattered or were killed by enemies earned during their own enslavement.

With a great influx of settlers and the removal of the greatest pressure on their expansion, the Massila began to expand beyond tiny farmsteads and communities and could, for the first time in their history, begin creating larger settlements, and they had a need of those larger communities to accommodate the refugees swelling their ranks.  Without the Dragons constantly threatening their skies, they could, and did, build larger and more impressive buildings.  

It is believed the Tiborean Refugees brought with them the knowledge of writing and advanced crafts, though the Massila already had their own language and culture, distinct from that of Tibor, but they apparently did not bring much, if any, magic.

However, there is some debate regarding the Tiborean origins of Massila's written language. The Massila believe that writing was given to them by the Gods directly, and certainly literacy is largely contained to the priests and to holy documents... but more importantly many theologians contest that Masilla's written language appears to be directly bastardized from Divine Language, that is to say that a large number of symbols and 'letters' from some divine text... held in Massila's tradition to be directly from the Divine Law... were taken by mortal scholars and assigned meaning, in a debased form, to the Massilan Language (called Koan, or Sounds of Men).

The Priest caste of Massila was never terribly powerful or large, but they had a curious rise during the Banality, becoming more prominent. This is curious, because while the Banality is best known for the widespread failure of Magic, it was more tragic for the sudden absence of the Gods from the Realm of Mortals in ever regard.  Even after the Banality has long faded into legend, we know the Gods, while answering prayers and performing Miracles, no longer walk among mortals openly, as they did before, so the scars remain. Yet here, in this small and poor hinterland of the world, the priests flourished over the long centuries of the Banality as they did no where else.  

Well, it may be interesting to discuss why that is.  The Massila hold that the Gods walk amongst mortals all the time, frequently in disguise.  This may shape a great deal of Massila culture, but it serves to weaken the value of men whose primary purpose is to talk to the Gods. Any Massila can talk to the gods, and indeed a wise or cunning man may even know he is doing so.  While the priests still serve a useful role in divine relations, it is when the Gods are most distant that they are most necessary.

Another interesting factor is that Massila's priests, unlike the priests of most cultures, do not beg of the gods divine favor in the form of spells. Massila's Priest have never cast spells, at least not on the sort of wide spread basis common around the world. Instead they prevailed upon the Gods to act directly in the affairs of mortals, for good or ill.  So a sudden lack of direct mystic prowess would not hinder them in the least, and in fact without the Gods around to contravene them, may have enabled them to prosper by lying about what the Gods wanted.

However it may be, the end of the Banality came slowly, and as it did so did the short lived prestige of the priests.  That isn't to say that the culture of Massila returned to what it once was, though most believe that it did.  The priests, at their height had upended traditional Massilan culture and often engaged in wide ranging personal projects, unlike the more culturally constrained warrior caste's leadership, and the most beneficial of those wide ranging projects left lasting marks, improvements even, upon the culture of the region.

For example: Sailing.

The Massila have always been sailors. They had to be simply to escape the Island of Tibor originally, and again after its destruction.  The sea between Tibor and the mainland is shallow, warm and calm, and studded with islands great and small. The mainland, in contrast, is rocky, rugged to the point of impenetrability, and crossed with deep fjords, rushing mountain rivers and so forth. In short, the easiest way to get to know your neighbor was to sail.

But the trees native to the region, while useful for food, do not produce any significant amount of lumber. Thus Mythic Era Massila was largely restricted to small craft that could be made of leather stretched over wooden frameworks and other rickety structures.

To the north and south of Massila however lie to great jungles, largely avoided as cursed lands full of monsters.  However the trees of either jungle tend to grow fast, large and straight, or reasonably so, and  many make excellent timbers for ships, and indeed some of the finest early Massilan ships were undoubtedly made from trees taken from these coasts.

The Priest King Huestemos, an early example of the breed, set forth a plan of settlement and conquest of the Northern Swamps from the three Aegos he controlled.  The settlements he founded struggled and eventually failed after a period of about sixty years, but in the meantime they harvested a fantastic amount of good quality timber and began producing boats.  Even though no Massilan city has survived more than a generation or two in either swamp, there persists a long standing practice among the Aegos closest to either swamp of setting up semi-permanent logging camps, and over the centuries the Massila have become very very good boat builders... within the undemanding limits of their sea-craft.

And so, before the end of the banality the Massila had become proficient enough at boat building to begin raiding the nations that lay beyond their little corner of the world, notably the merchant cities of the Dragon Desert to the far north, and the rare coastal enclaves of the dwarves to their south... even rounding far enough to raid small villages and settlements on the coast of the Sea of Glass, orcish, elvish or human.  There is even some debate among historians if the legendary Sea Kings of Tenebria were of the Reve, which is the commonly held view, or were perhaps particularly bold Massilan sailors. Certainly their behavior after conquering the then young empire were more in line with Massilan habits than Reve.


Culture:

To begin with the Massila divide the world into three main groups: Family, Strangers and Foreigners. Family is a much more expansive world in the Massilan worldview. A king may very well consider everyone in his Aegos to be part of his family. A warrior would consider the members of his warband a part of his family. Some may consider 'community' over family, but this is both linguistically and culturally inaccurate.  A goat herder would not consider the potter across the street part of his Family, even if the King would consider both of them part of His.

A Stranger is, essentially, anyone you do not have a familial connection to, with a few caveats. To the stranger you owe a certain amount of respect and even hospitality to, remember that to the Massila the stranger you meet on the road may very well be a God in disguise.  Even if it is not, he could be a capable warrior, and to give unnecessary offense is still a bad idea.

To the Foreigner, however, nothing is owed. A Foreigner, to the Massila, is anyone who cannot speak Koan fluently. Accents don't matter, each Aegos has its own distinct dialect, but you have to be intelligible and, preferrably, persuasive.  No other consideration is warranted. If you don't speak Koan fluently, you don't deserve to be treated like a real person. If you do, then you do.

Beyond that, there is the matter of Crime and Sin.

A Crime is anything you do that might bring vaguely justifiable violence upon your head.  Being a generally pathetic specimen might bring violence to you frequently, but its not technically justifiable.  In a sense, Massila is a vengence based system, if someone is offended by what you have done and wants to kill you, it was probably a crime and you probably deserve it. If you don't deserve it your Family will seek vengence for you.  Interestingly, there are a large number of ways to avoid the otherwise obligatory bloodshed... there are very few circumstances in the Massila tradition that DEMAND violence, they merely Encourage it.

A Sin is anything you do that won't necessarily bring violence to you, but does offend the Gods. Cannibalism, for example: If you eat a man that you have killed, for any given reason, sensible people will shun you, but unless they would have sought vengence for the killing, the eating doesn't really stir up any passions (well, desecration of a corpse is a pretty big crime, though one that is almost never punished. I mean: You were bad ass enough to kill the dude in the first place, right? Who wants to risk getting killed over what you did after?), but the Gods, in the Massilan's point of view, will definitely find out and do SOMETHING about it. Since standing in the blast zone is a bad idea...

So the big question people like to ask about a culture: What are their laws?, doesn't really serve when discussing Massila.  They don't really have laws, they don't refer to laws or discuss laws. They have common traditions, things that everyone expects will get you in trouble, but mostly it comes down to not offending anyone strong enough to make your day miserable.  That said, its a surprisingly stable culture, if not a particularly vigorous one. This may have more to do with other elements of their culture, but it remains a truism.

But to understand Massilan culture, rather than focus on the rare and somewhat flexible proscriptions, let us discuss instead what is proper behavior.  We can discuss two distinct sets of values or virtues that guide the Massila, the Personal and the Cultural, or Divine.

Among the Cultural Values, called the Divine in some cases as they are believed to be in accordance with Divine Law, are Hospitality, Generosity and Respect, or perhaps Piety.  Some may include Loyalty in this particular list, rather than in the personal values.

Let us discuss each in turn.

It may be fairly said that the Massila divide the world between barbarians and civilized people by two means. The most evident is the use of the Koan Language, the second is how they treat guests. Among the Massila there is a very formal, if unwritten, code of hospitality. Not everyone obeys it completely, and rarely to an identical extent, but few people out and out disregard it completely. After all: Anyone may be a God in disguise. Also, there are deep standing social penalties for being a bad host.  But what is this ritual?  What exactly makes one a 'Good Host'?

To begin with: a stranger may present himself at the door of just about anyone. If they are of like social status, or the stranger is higher, he is a guest, if the Host is of higher status then the stranger is, or may be considered a beggar. There are some significant differences in the treatment accorded.  Most actual beggars are, socially, akin to slaves or serfs in social status, bu are free to apply for hospitality from anyone thereby.  To begin with, the stranger is not obligated to provide his name, or any personal details, and it is rude to ask before they've been seen to.  The Host, always the head of the house though they may and do delegate specific tasks to their servants or householders as appropriate, releaves the Stranger of his burden (including, incidentally, weapons), though the Stranger may demure in very exotic cases.  The Host then invites the Stranger to eat, providing food (beggars expect scraps and leftovers, guests expect at least as good a meal as the Host would eat, and in many cases better), a chance to bathe and provides a suitable bed.  A guest may stay several days without providing offense, though the exact length of time before it becomes an imposition is not fixed. A particularly agreeable host may entertain a guest for years without taking offense.  When the Guest leaves, they are provided gifts, often suitable to traveling. Even a beggar might expect a gift of some sort from a King, though it is likely to be a bag of food or a worn and stained travel cloak.  For his part the Guest is expected to be respectful, and not much else.  Neither the guest nor the host should be harmed by the action or inaction of the other.  

There are some more subtle elements at play: The host expects to one day be a guest of his former guest, and therefor to receive presents equal to what he once gave.  If there has been a recipicality between guest and host, or rather their families even over a period of generations, this creates a very weak familial bond, which may be leaned upon, or ignored by later generations.   Guests are expected, even encouraged, to provide some entertainment, such as spreading news or telling stories. Even beggars in the court of a mighty king may be called upon, though there is no demand.  Importantly: A guest is officially part of the family during his residence, with the obligations and benefits that provides.  He may be a very low ranked member of the family, but he is still, if temporarily, family.


Generosity is the handmaiden of hospitality, though it applies in a more universal sense.  All members of Massilan culture are expected to give freely and often.  Even the most tenuous bonds of friendship may be leaned upon for great, even terrible favors.  To be stingy or miserly is to be alone in a society that values connections above almost all else.  A war leader claims all the vast wealth of a plundered city for himself, all except what his warriors can carry out on their persons, but he will give the vast majority of it away, including the very best prizes, to the men who served under him. They in turn will give away the vast majority of what they receive to their own warriors, who in turn will share much of that wealth with their own families and households.  Rewards for service and loyalty are often quite outsized. Loyalty is expected and demanded, and disloyalty is punishable by death... but even so public displays of loyalty are publicly rewarded.  The only things a man is expected to keep for himself, at all levels of society, are the things necessary for his own life or that he holds most dear, such as an inheritance.  Naturally people are expected to profit by their deeds, to accumulate wealth and power, so  its not so much as that people give away 'everything', rather they can expect to give away almost 'anything'.   Conversely, however: one never, not even jokingly, asks for a gift or hints that a specific gift might be appropriate.  One is always surprised at the gifts one receives, and should protest (in many buy not all cases) that it is too generous.  One exception to protestations is a warrior NEVER protests his Time (Tim-mea), the rewards for his prowess. In fact, a proper warrior should almost always feel he is due MORE (though expressing that too forcefully, or in many cases at all,  is viewed as boasting... which will be discussed later).

Lastly we have Respect, or Piety: Respect is the better term, though by nature it has its origins in the Gods.  A proper Massilan respects the traditions of Massila. He respects the wise, the elderly, the omens of the gods. He respects his betters and does not challenge them (though, of course, if he does and wins, clearly they were not his betters). He obeys his leaders so long as they treat him with his due. Like all the 'cultural' values, it is a two way street. Respect is due, and it is owed in measures.  Showing a lack of respect for one aspect of Tradition hints at a lack of respect for ALL the traditions. If you have no respect for the traditions, then can you be trusted to respect the laws of Hospitality? Can you be expected to be Generous in turn?  This is both the least and the greatest of the cultural virtues in a sense.  If one is not Hospitable, one is a savage. If one is not Generous, than one is a miser (and a miserable person... ehm.), but if one is not respectful, the GODS will take a hand, if no one else will. But until they do you can be disrespectful and still enjoy the fruits of civilization in a more general sense.  Respect is viewed as the foundation of most of the other virtues, public and private.

Now, the personal virtues are a bit less clear cut. First, there are somewhat different virtues for each social caste.  Only the warriors are concerned with Glory, though it is the very first virtue on their minds, for example. Warriors generally discount (but don't entirely neglect) Arte, or Excellence... which is the pre-eminant virtue (and in fact defining virtue) of the craftsman cast.  Not ever caste has a defining virtue... the slaves and kings, for example, are both bereft of a defining virtue, and the priest caste has ever played but lip service to their 'stated' defining virtue of Peity (as distinct from piety as a part of Respect, above).

Let us first list the common Virtues, and discuss those.

Loyalty: This is viewed as a somewhat transcendental virtue.  A lack of loyalty is a very bad thing, a lethal thing in fact. Transferring loyalty can be done informally, but with some risk... if the new boss loses, you were disloyal.  Now: if your superior commits a crime against you, or commits a notable sin, you owe him no loyalty and may abandon or even betray him without shame.  But, and this is where the term transcendental comes into play: Those who stick by their superior despite those provocations are held in a very particular, if often silent, esteem. There is no reward due to the man who suffers the curse brought on by following a sinful leader, to reward such a man would be to disrespect the Gods, after all. But he is doing what is the very best a man can do. No one would ever gainsay such a man, not even the Gods (though they may still consign him to eternal torment alongside his boss...).  There are more than a few stories where the Gods took pity on the loyal man and elevated him, but only after he suffered their torments.   Conflicts of loyalty are a popular theme in Massilan epics.

Wisdom: This may be somewhat misleading, as it generally references all forms of applied intelligence. The Massila do not respect intelligence or learning for itself, but for what can be accomplished. A cunning and clever man is more respected than the most learned scholar. The elderly are expected to have accumulated wisdom.  A scholar who builds fantastic inventions would be highly respected for their 'wisdom' in this sense.   To a much lesser extent, sooth sayers and oracles, along with the rare sorcerers, are held to exemplify this virtue to some extent.

Shame: In a sense this is the pre-eminant virtue, though it will require some unpacking to make sense.  In general what we mean is the avoidance of shameful behavior.  In Koan, the term Shame means more or less knowing what NOT to do.  The modern idiomatic question "Have you no shame?" is a mortal insult among the Massila, though of course those who can answer that they do not have shame are, of course, immune to the insult implied.  At its core, to feel shame is to be concerned with what your Family would feel about your actions.  A warrior with no stake in a fight feels no shame for fleeing a superior enemy, but one defending his city would feel great shame for the same act.  Notably, however: Shame is not tied to failure, it is tied to action or lack of action.  

Endurance:  It may be fairly said that the Massila are happy pessimists. Life in Massila is not easy, the land is rugged and somewhat barren, they have long suffered the predations of great beasts, from dragons to more common monsters and bandits.  Any Massilan who comes through some great trial is almost puppy-eager to share with everyone he knows just how bad he had it, and how well he endured it.   While hardly masochists, they seem to get some perverse enjoyment out of life's torments.  Complaining about them is... well, mostly its bizarre behavior. Its only acceptable to complain during the actual torment itself. That's to be expected.  This does take on a somewhat perverse character regarding mourning.  Once the funeral has been conducted, even immediate family members seem almost eager to brag about how terribly it is their loved one died, as if their grief is now pride.  Conversely, most Massila distrust anything that is too easy. An easy victory feels unearned.


Now a few caste based Virtues:
Note: Anyone may uphold any of these virtues to one extent or another, this division is into the castes that are most likely to care.  Very few artisans care how much glory they earn, and for good reason... they probably aren't likely to live long on a battlefield.  A warrior praised for his exceptional skill with a spear is a fine thing, but if he never uses it to earn glory what was the purpose?

Warriors: Glory, or alternatively, Reputation.  Warriors live and die for their public reputations. They loudly proclaim themselves before every fight, they talk endlessly about what they've done... and even things they may credibly claim to have done (six arrows feathered they chest of the warrior Agotope... six archers will claim their arrow is the one that slew him.).  Lying about their deeds is the sin of boasting, and the come-uppance is usually another warrior challenging him for the glory of killing so great a warrior (or the more prosaic pride of putting a braggart down).   Naturally they love trophies of all kinds, as tangible proof of their deeds, and trophies granted to them by their peers are the best, because they are tangible proof of their glory in the eyes of their equals.   Warriors generally don't mind dying in battle so long as their glory will live on in the legends of their killer.    They respond very poorly to anything that damages their reputations, naturally.   Violently, one may even suggest.

Arte: Excellence, the primary virtue of the craftsmen, also called the Arte.  This must be considered quite seperately from laborers. An architect is a craftsman, while a stone mason is probably just a common laborer.  A number of crafts are entirely the purview of craftsmen (blacksmiths, at least those who make weapons and armor, are craftsmen rather than common laborers), while others are divided between true savants of the craft and common laborers (pottery comes to mind. Most potters are simple laborers, and may be be serfs or slaves, while makers of the finest pottery, both beautiful and functional, are held up as artisans, members of the Arte caste).  It may be viewed then as skill, rather than simply 'excellence', to possess great Arte is to possess great skill, to be better than ordinary men in doing... whatever.   It is difficult to express Arte outside of making things, at least in the Massilan viewpoint, but not impossible.

Memory: If you are a bard this is your main claim to fame, even more so than your ability to entertain. A bard should be able to recite any of the thousands of epic poems of the Massila at the drop of a hat. Of course, more so, he should be able to spin any of the many many thousands of stories from their ritualized formulaic components just as deftly.  They are also the primary source of news among the Aegos, and being able to accurately report on what they have witnessed and heard in their travels is crucial.  Being entertaining is almost secondary, though most are deft as well.

Piety: This is a particular deference to the Gods in general, and generally a specific God.  Piety among mortals is appreciated by the Gods themselves, and respected by Massilans who know of it, but is surprisingly quite rare. Priests, of course, tend to define their place in society by their piety, but it is a well known fact that Priests tend to obey the letter of the law more than the spirit when it comes to the Gods.  This sort of legalisism 'works', but it is not admired or respected particularly.   As such the actual word for personal piety is often used to mean 'hypocrit'.



Language:

A brief on the Koan language.  A word, in Koan, is made up of one or more Roots (generally not more than three). Roots may be viewed, casually, as the core vocabularity of the language itself, though if one were to speak in ONLY roots it would be nigh on unintelligible.  Roots may be nouns or verbs, and there are very few rules about pairing them, though order does matter.  For example: Artoi means  Warrior, and is made up of the roots Ar (meaning man) and Toi (meaning 'To kill'). Toiard, reversing the roots means monster.  See? One is man who kills, the other is Killer of Man.  

To those roots may be appended a number of modifiers, adverbs and adjectives (being the same thing in Koan), and then the word itself is further modified with case and tense. There are a LOT of cases and tenses in Koan.   Once the word itself is constructed, sentences are then made using the usual grammatical rules. Note that to make a word there is no difference between an adverb and an adjective, but in a sentence the difference is crucial.  

Spoken Koan tends to be somewhat lyrical and rythmic, though this is a syntactic trick rather than a nature of the words themselves. That is to say: if you construct your Koan sentences correctly, and speak them properly, it should sound a bit like a song or a poem.  If it doesn't you did something wrong along the way.  

Koan does not have 'gender'. This is across the language, there are no gendered cases, and there are no specific words differentiating male and female roles. The word for father is the same as the word for mother (that is to say: Parent).  There are a few words which can only be applied to a specific gender, and quite a few words which generally only apply to a specific gender (Warrior, for example, would almost exclusively be read to mean 'man' by a Koan speaker, but this is not demanded by nature. Female warriors can and have existed, occasioning the use of elaborate linquistic explanations. Pregant, on the other hand can only apply to a female creature barring interventions of the Gods, and thus does not require the same linquistic explanations when it does happen in legends... theoretically.)

That is not to say that there is no word for 'woman' in Koan, only that it is almost never used except when it explicitely requires a gendering... such as a 'woman warrior'.  Otherwise, context is all that is needed to provide gender in spoken or written Koan.  To express the concept of woman in Koan, the roots 'pregnant' and 'Man' are used, with the root Pregnant modified with the future perfect tense (in root form), making it a damned awkward word to build from scratch, or to interpret if you've never heard it before (typical for those who learn Koan outside the Massila culture).


Well outside the scope of actual linguistics, however, is the culture of the language.  There is a remarkable tendency in Massila to speak as if one is a character in a play. This is far more pronounced among the higher social castes... warriors take to declaiming loudly in deliberately archaic speech, speaking in third person and booming their voices to reach the nosebleed seats of an invisible auditorium... all the time, and this is not viewed as remotely odd, nor is the lack of such over the top displays viewed as odd.  Even a slowly slave goatherd may speak in public using similar artifice, though far more delicately.

There is a particular intimacy in speaking softly and, dare we say, normally.   It is never proper to declaim loudly in private with a loved one, though it is proper to not-declaim in public if one so choses.

It may be useful to study in depth the creation of Koan words for even the casual speaker for a most unusual reason. While most non-native speakers can get by quite well by learning a fairly extensive vocabulary, and understanding the most common roots and modifiers, Massilan names are almost exclusively made up of elaborately constructed words, and are meant to say something specific about that person.  These names are not obviously 'words' even to native speakers, often requiring some thought to puzzle out (and are often deliberately confusing). Likewise, the complexity of word creation lends itself to often elaborate puns.  Being a skillful speaker means, among other things, being very well aware of the many possible alternative interpretations of one's words, and may involve creating non-standard words on the spot to either create, or avoid, a particular play on words along the way.  Punning is viewed almost as a game among the Massila, closely connected with extemporanious poetry and persuasive speaking (the Virtue of Wisdom is reflected in all these uses of language...).



Social Castes:

There is a great deal of social mobility in Massila Culture. Some 'castes' may be viewed as assigned at birth or rather by circumstances, but they are not inherently closed, while other castes are entirely determined by behavior. Castes is not technically the proper word by this measure, but in practice it tends to be very much a matter of birth.  They are listed in order.

Kings/Queens:  There is no practical difference between a King and a Queen in Massila, one of the few  cases of gender neutrality in their culture.  Most are married couples, with one spouse being politically and socially dominant... usually the man and almost always the 'original' holder of the title. That is to say, marry a Queen and you become a King, but having balls would not make you the dominant spouse.  Personality and ability do matter, as does...ah... secondary Caste.  The children of royalty are accorded the same social caste, regardless of inheritance status, but this does not hold generationally.  It must be noted that this is both a social caste and a position. It is possible to lose one and not the other. A bad king may not be treated according to his station, and a former king (or a non-inheriting son) will be according the status of a king while traveling and at home.  There are a LOT of kings in Massila. Every Aegos has its own king.

Artoi: The Warriors. It is very, very rare to find a king who is not also a warrior, though ability to administer and lead is held in high esteem regardless of martial ability.  A non-warrior king may ever be at risk of losing his kingdom to an ambitious warrior, however.  Massila Warriors train their entire lives to fight, their primary interests outside of fighting are athletic activities to keep fit, and listening to tales of glory to spur them to try harder. It may be fairly said that an Artoi is the fightest fighting man in all of Haven.  Sadly they have little grasp, nor need, of tactics and barely any of strategy, which limits their effectiveness on battlefields.   Any man (or far more rarely, woman) who can fight and kill a warrior in a one on one match may honestly consider himself an Artoi, regardless of birth, and demand the respect (and pay) that comes with it.   Aside from training, however, there is the small matter of arms and armor, which are not cheap.   Artoi tend to live among their own kind, either in the household of a king or in a wandering warrior band, a lone Artoi is an aberration, more dangerous than usual.  

Priests: Often in contention with the Warrior caste, the priestly caste lacks with wealth but not the social acclaim of their rivals.  Priests are generally held as just under the warriors, but at times may be superior. They are, however, officially considered on par with the various Arte classes.  Priest are generally held to be as dangerous as the warrior caste... they can do far more damage (the Gods tend not to be terribly discriminating in their curses...), but only under exceptional circumstances. Notably: the priest caste is the only social order expected to be, and all but garaunteed to be, literate.   Priests tend to live and operate alone, they select one of their children to succeed them, and train just that one child. As a caste the priesthood is essentially male, but as the Gods often select their own representatives among mortals a very large number of women may claim Priest as a sub-caste. Also, a large number of gods (usually the female gods) demand their priests be women... so in practice the actual demographic is fairly even. The difference is largely one of perception.  There are a few more elaborate priesthoods, singular temples with multiple priests and large attendant staffs of sub-priests, but these are relatively rare.  As a general rule the Priesthood is both a birth caste and a career caste, though it tends more towards the latter.

Arte: The artisans, or craftsmen.  This is a far more varied caste, and one of the easiest ways to move up in society.  Even a lowly goatherd may be one day viewed as an Arte if he becomes reknown for his simple wisdom, or he learns to read omens with some reliability. This may not stop him from being a slave and a goatherder, mind you... but he will be accorded much more social respect for his Arte.  It is not truly possible to be born into the Arte... if your father is an acclaimed bard, you will be treated like an Arte until your adulthood, but if by then you have not learned an Arte skill (barding, say) of your own, you will not be considered an Arte yourself.

Dilettante:  A merchant, a ship master or other man of means who has not earned a higher caste. This is entirely a matter of social level, and often winds up being the default caste of men who fail at higher castes. The non-preistly sons of priests, the unskilled sons of artisans and the sons of warriors who are themselves not warriors all may find themselves counted here, though many will fall lower still.  A certain degree of wealth and social position is all that is truly required to join these ranks... again our lowly goatherd, granted freedom by his king and given a gift of wealth may be this caste for the rest of his days.  Professionals of skilled crafts who have no great gift are counted here, as are masters of semi-skilled tasks.

Farmer: There is a sub-order here. The tenders of orchards are of higher rank than the masters of vineyards, who are themselves higher than the sower of grains.  Note that this applies to Free Farmers, not slaves or serfs.  Retired warriors often lower themselves to this caste.  Those who work with such goods are of a similar level... the man who turns Olives into Oil is below the sower of grains, but above the winemaker.  Tanners, weavers and other mundane craftsmen fall into this catchall.

Laborer: again, we are talking free men. This includes all the animal herders, the workers of farms (if they are paid, of course), common sailers and low-skill craftsmen, at least in the Massilan view. Common carpenters may have a great deal of skill, but common carpentry is viewed as common labor. Note that a boat builder, or a carpenter reknown for the artistry of his works (sculpture...) would be Arte, or Dilettantes at worst.

Slaves, serfs and free beggars:  There are a number of traditional differences between slaves and serfs, which under another system might be considered legal differences, but essentially these are all roughly the same socially and are generally a matter of birth or circumstances.  A slave may be accorded higher social acclaim for skill and ability, but remain a slave. The question of precedence in caste is a tricky one. A slave who is a great teacher is treated more like a teacher (Arte) and less like a slave, though he may be bought and sold as a free man may not. A slave farmer is still a slave, though he is held in greater esteem than a slave laborer, but less than a free laborer.  


There are a number of fixed social positions that fall outside the caste system, of course. Wives have a very specific set of social positioning vis a vis concubines, but can be found at all levels of society.  A wife takes on the social status of her husband, unless her status is higher (rare), in which case he 'borrows' her status.  A husband may chose to set aside his wife for any reason, but if she does not remarry she remains a part of his family, and he may not disinherity her children unless she has committed adultery (note that only married women commit adultery. Men who sleep with a married woman also commit adultery, but by a sort of symbolic transferrance), and only if she does not outrank her husband.  A woman who choses not to marry may be as promiscuous as she likes, though if she changes her mind this may be a serious challenge (unless she also has a high social status, and marries down, in which case it is irrelevant.

Inheritance by death is considered unfortunate, even unlucky.  A man who reaches a certain age (it does vary by caste), will retire and hand over his position and wealth to his heir or heirs as he sees fit. They are then responsible for him as if he were one of their children, though due the respect of his age and position (as father).  This generally reduces the temptation to commit crimes against family members (which are sins by default), but not perfectly.  An Aegos cannot be split, almost by definition, and down the ranks... an orchard may not be split (though unlike the Aegos it is at least feasible), as a sword may not be split, so inheritances are passed on in 'wholes'.  One thing that cannot be passed down is loyalty.  Oaths and bonds of duty are to the man himself.  Slaves, however, are property and may be passed down (and yes, they owe loyalty, though it is not actually expected to be enthusiastic, to their masters).  A slave may and often does, chose not to marry and have children, though female slaves are often denied some choice in the matter, so generational slavery is somewhat rare (slaves do have some rights traditionally in Massila).


The People Themselves:

The Massila are a tall and strong race of men, very much in the mold of old Tibor. They tend to be somewhat ruddy and dark in color, not unlike the much smaller and wiry northern Kerkeshi, with dark brown or black curly hair, though lighter colors are not unknown. They may have eyes of almost any color, but again they tend to be somewhat dark.  The Men tend to be hirsuite, though beards tend to be late in forming.  It is not uncommon for a Massilan man to be beardless into his middle twenties, and beardlessness is a sign of uncommon beauty in men, while having a beard is a sign of manly maturity. Baldness among men is common, but shaving the head is not. Slaves and prisoners have their heads shaved (sometimes...).   Some Massila men view grooming as unmanly, and tend to be somewhat wild in appearance, while others take great care in their appearance.  There are warriors who spend as much time on their beards as the do training with their weapons.  Generally, one can guess where a warrior comes from by how he grooms himself with a fair degree of accuracy.  The deeper inland the more wild they tend to be, while islanders tend to heavily oil their beards, and often coil them using hot irons.  The farther north the Aegos, the more likely the men are to carefully and neatly trim their hair and beards, while the farther south the more likely they are to leave it uncut, or to trim it with sword edge when it's in their way.  

The women tend to be as tall, or nearly as tall as the men, but somewhat less broad. They tend towards large expressive facial features, with long mouths and wide eyes. As a people they are not considered particularly attractive, but individual specimens have been noted beauties even outside the confines of the Massila. Paleness is considered attractive for women (but not men), but they are not a terribly pale people, so it is an unusual woman who is considered objectively pale, rather than comparatively.   Reserve is considered an attractive trait for women among the Massila, so they often appear cold or mysterious, though it is said that men find pleasure in provoking women into losing control.  Women of the Massile do not cut their hair for their entire lives, or at least endeavor not to. Lower class women often have no choice but to keep a managable length, and it is not unheard of for women taken as slaves to be forceably shaved, though here too, only a particularly vindictive or jealous woman would force her slave women to remain shaved all the time.
The Massila have a symbolic nudity taboo, which is to say that they only concern themselves with nudity when symbolicly necessary.  The weather in the region is pleasant year round, though the higher in the mountains the cooler, clearly.  Men fairly universally wear a simple tunic, which falls short of the knees by some inches, and which is not sewn at the sides but is belted, and sandles.  However, athletic games, bathing and an variety of other circumstances are generally done in the buff.  Women cover or bare their breasts depending on fashions and other circumstances, and go fully nude when bathing or doing laundry, but generally keep their hips and legs covered. There is nothing particularly embarrassing about being naked.   Men do forego their sandals frequently, when sailing for example, and their feet are quite tough. Going unshod, or poorly shod is viewed as a low status thing rather than a proper necessity, though simply having decent sandals available is enough.  Oddly enough, Warriors (the highest caste) are the mostly likely to forego sandals on principle, many preferring bare feet when fighting for perceived, if not actual, improvement in their footing.   A Massila deliberately 'covering up' is usually sending a message, though the unspoken subtext is both fairly simple to understand and far too complex to explain swiftly.

Men exclusively wear wool or leather garments, these being the most common materials available. Even the highest king wears a woolen tunic. Priests do prefer robes, but stick to the common wool.  A man's tunic is usually made by his family, though the cloth may have been purchased. Only higher caste men wear leather belts, lower castes make do with simple hempen ropes or even rag strips.   However, they do use a wide variety of dyes and colors, taken from sea life and mountain flowers. Not present in either sufficent quantity or quality for truly profitable export, nevertheless the Massila tend to be quite festively colorful.

Women wear rather more complex garments, rarely of leather. Higher class women do wear linen or even more exotic imported fabrics such as cotton or silk.  The basis of most feminine garments is essentially a long skirt from the hips to the ankles. Lower class women may wear a longer version of a man's tunic instead, but only if involved in labor of some sort, such as working fields or orchards.  Each Aegos has its own array of costumes favored by the womenfolk, and what passes for fashions among the Massila is the slow rotation of which costumes are favored at which Aegos this generation. As women are more likely than men to permanently move, through marriage (marrying inside your Aegos is common but disfavored, especially among the higher castes), they often bring their own home costumes with them, and may blend them with local flavors.  The closer to the sea one gets, the less clothes they tend to wear, however, though the costumes of the women of the Aegos of Tibor tend to be insanely elaborate and, consequencely, comparatively modest.  Hair styles tend to follow the patterns of dress, and a woman's home Aegos can often be predicted by how she wears her hair, moreso than the clothes she wears.

Jewelry is very common for both genders. Metal, especially the more decorative metals, is comparatively common in the region, so is heavily used to spice things up. Even the lowest slave will possess a few items of metal jewelry, though it is not likely to be more valuable than a simple copper or tin medallion, poorly made, while the rich adorn themselves with gold.  Given a long history of piracy, the Massila can not be said to have a definitive style of jewelry which is uniquely theirs, they wear what they steal, and they reproduce designs which they have stolen.  Historical examples would suggest that the 'native jewelry' tended towards large solid plates of metal strung together with wire and embossed or engraved with geometric designs as the predominant local style, which can still be found as elements of more eclectic designs.

Hats. Massilan men do not wear hats. Its an insult in fact to offer one a hat. A helmet? Certainly, but a hat, never. Women on the other hand have an elaborate array of hats they wear, but they all mean very specific things. This hat is only worn by priestess of the goddess Teshemal, that hat is only worn by retired queens of the Southern Aegos's.  This hat is worn by an unmarried maiden when she first meets her betrothed and so forth.  

Militaria: Warriors always fight with a shield, unless they are archers. Always. Armor ranges from boiled leather (effective, but viewed as common or cheap), to byzanted, to fine steel.  In general armor is a simple back-and-breast, a skirt or kilt, greaves, vambraces and helmet, no matter the material. Less complete suits can be preference (there is more glory in fighting 'naked', in some men's minds), and more complete suits are available, though rare and expensive.  Warriors will spend a fortune on decorations, and a warriors armor is supposed to be as distinct as his face... to the point where cases of mistaken identity from borrowed or even captured or traded (remember: Generosity is important!) armor happens frequently in Massilan legends and stories.  Captured armor from a slain foe is a very hotly contested prize on the battlefield, though a ransomed enemy generally keeps his weapons and armor, even if they are worth more than his ransom (there is no glory in taking the armor from a living man, you see).   Archery is respected, but lightly.  Warriors are expected to be competent with the spear, the sword, the ax and, for kings, the scepter, but its is common to specialize in just one, not simply out of expedience, but also to help grow your legend.  While actual spell casting is very rare among the Massila, enchantments of arms and armor is frightfully common.  Weapons and armor both are expected to have their own legends, subordinate to their masters, and a warrior who kills a warrior with greater glory than himself will happily use the captured weapons and armor, giving his own to a subordinate.   While warriors generally deploy to war in bands (roughly the number of men who can fit on a common ship, somewhere between one and two dozen), they tend to fight alone a lot. War, to the Massila, is ideally a large number of simultanious duels.  Since that doesn't happen quite as often as they'd like, they tend to fight in ad hoc groupings. One or two 'heroes' with a number of less notable subordinates fighting in a loosely organized gang.

Pairing is very common. Two warriors will develop a habit of working together, often developing complimentary fighting styles, such as an archer sheltering behind a companion's sheild.  This is usually the result of a close personal friendship, a brotherhood, sometimes literal othertimes not.  The better warrior tends to be very protective of his friend, even if his 'style' is the more offensive and aggressive of the pairing.  At every level of Massilan culture the brotherhoods formed between unrelated men are held to be more dear than the brotherhoods of blood, though the obligations are essentially the same.  This is a frequent form of conflicting loyalties in Massilan stories, though it can also be used as a device to cut through such a divided loyalty.  A man obligated to take revenge on his mother for the death of his father is in a thorny place in Massilan culture, but if he has a Brother who can take revenge for him... though this is not perfect, as it would traditionally end the brotherhood, as he would be obligated to hate the man who killed his mother.

There are some horses in Massila, but they tend to be small and sturdy, too small to be properly ridden by a man in armor. Chariots are common, but not well developed in a tactical sense. Warriors generally ride around the battlefield in a chariot, but dismount to fight, though archers do tend to remain mounted in this case.  

Ranged combat involves, ideally, the thrown javelin, the thrown discus or shot, or, if you can't help it the bow.  Massilan bows tend to be short and very stiff, very powerful, even exhausting to use. Their range and accuracy is questionable compared to other bows, but their power is not. Bows are not used for hunting, not that there are many large game animals to hunt. Most Massilan men, of all castes, are competent with a simple sling, but to use a sling in battle is a great insult to the man you strike. Slings are for hunting rabbits and other small game.  
The Aegos:

Frequently translated into Kingdom, or less commonly into 'region', the Aegos is actually the common Massilan cultural unit.  Geographically, Massila is largely a number of modest fertile plains surrounded by rocky mountains, or alternatively comparatively small islands.  Each plain, or island, is relatively isolated and self contained. This is the heart of the Aegos.

Each Aegos will have a single heavily fortified citadel, which is a cross between a fortress, a palace and a city, somewhere within it, usually close to the water.  It will also have a number of small villages, generally no more than a couple of small freeholder or serf families, and isolated single building settlements...generally farms or orchards.  ALL of this is the Aegos, everything within a single isolated geographic unit. Most Aegos can be crossed on foot by a determined man in a single day.

The Citadels, which are some of the most spectacular constructions in the region, tend to be massive and very well decorated, at least inside. There is a caveat here: The older a citadel is, the bigger it gets. When rulership of an Aegos changes hands violently (not uncommon), the old citadel is frequently destroyed in the process. The Massila do not take half measures in sacking. A newly minted Citadel tends to be quite modest, a single long stone building with a single hearth, and a few storage outbuildings, surrounded by a stone wall, for example.  Every new king, or whenever the current king has both time and money, more buildings may be added, or new rooms added to existing buildings. Old building may be torn down and rebuilt, and room for more people becomes a necessity over time.  

Aside from simple defense, and housing for the King and his Artoi, the Citadel is also where surplus food is held. This mostly consists of bushels of cereal grains, dried salted pork (in the southern Aegos, certainly), and urns of olive oil and pickled fruits.  These may be dispersed among the poorer members of the Aegos in times of need, or held against siege.

Citadels, along with the rare individual homes of the wealthy (outside the King's Household), are built of rough or undressed stone, usually covered in plaster, which is then painted (wet or dry, depending on the local preference or skill).  Most artworks are either of pottery or carved stone, with metal being used as embellishment.  Painting is the primary form of decoration, everything in Massila is colorful (except, as they say, the land itself), and unusually, even Gold is often painted, at least in part.  Massilan artists make good use of negative spaces and abstraction and symbolic language in their craft. Choices of colors often have layers of meaning, at least as complex as the spoken language itself, though less commonly known.  It is not uncommon to discover a mural in one's palace that subtly insulted the king (at the time it was painted) through the selection of one symbolic representation of a local deity over another symbolic representation of that same deity, only generations after the insult had meaning.  

Rather shockingly there are no real temples to be found in Masilla. Certainly they refer to temples all the time, but most people would probably use the word 'shrine' instead.  With a few notable exceptions, most 'Temples' are built by a relatively poor priest and his immediate family by hand. Shabby wood or mud-brick buildings, generally not bigger than a single small room, or perhaps two, are very, very common.  Altars are somewhat more elaborate and standardized, consisting of a base of some sort that is generally not more than waist high, and supporting a statue (usually carved stone, cast (but hollow) metal (bronze), or for really poor shrines carved wood) that is generally about two feet tall standing upon it. The statue, of course, is of the God whose temple it is, and will be easily identifiable from the various symbols in the statue, from the exact pose to the location of various objects.  For many gods, a coal brazier, with a metal grate will either be in front of, or to the side of the Altar proper, suitable for burning offerings.   The Massila recognize three types of offering to the Gods, depending on the nature of the god. Burnt offerings, Buried Offerings, and Drowned Offerings, each God only likes one of the three, so only a rough third of Temples will have a brazier or other sacrificial fire.  It is very common for the 'temple' to be a room set aside in the Citadel proper, though here it should be noted that every single room in a Citadel will have its own God (generally the gods not popular enough to have dedicated temples), as will many, if not most, private homes.

The lower classes build more commonly of tatch and mud, mud brick, or even live in carefully dressed caves in the stony hillsides.  Low stone walls are very common, used to demark various parcels of land through the Aegos and to provide a modest amount of control over various herd animals.


Diet:

The Massila eat a lot of meat. More than half their diet is animal based, and most of that is fish.  Their food tends to be somewhat rich and somewhat bland, rich because they use a lot of oils and fats, bland because they don't have a lot of options, other than salt, when it comes to seasoning.  They do well with sweet, having both honey and fruits.   Meat bearing animals are the goat, the sheep and the pig. The sheep is rarely eaten, being kept largely for its wool. Goats are kept for their milk, but excess male goats are slaughtered regularly and served at religious festivals and feasts. Pigs are kept mostly for their meat and hides, and are also the only meat regularly preserved, by salt and air curing in the higher mountain Aegos.  The poor rarely eat any of the three outside of holy days, though free farmers may have somewhat greater access. The Artes and Artoi in the Citadel, conversely, tend to eat quite a lot, and only eat fish when travelling.  Feasting, or large communal meals such as held in the Citadels, definitionally excludes meals of fish in Koan.   Cereal grains are a common staple food, everyone eats a fair amount of bread, and a fair amount of porridge.  Fruits, particularly dried fruits are common for everyone, as most non-grain agriculture is orchard based. Figs and dates are very common, as are olives, which are generally reserved for oil. Grapes are grown, but rarely eaten. The Massila are familiar with 'beer', but do not make it. They drink almost exclusively wine, with a number of words for 'wine', mostly based on how much water is added.   Massilan wine is actually quite sour to most tastes, which they seem to prefer.  

The Massila do eat a number of things not commonly found in other cultures.  They render down uneaten fish (and the remains of eaten fish) into a very pungent and, by most standards inedible, paste. Quite nuitritious and durable, but definitely an acquired taste. They also eat a number of local flowers, apparently not for sustenance but as a sort of snack. The air cured salt pork they make is distinctive, but not terribly different than common bacon, but their pickled fruits are distinctive and agreeably delicious.   Very few Massila have tasted milk (beyond infancy), but they do eat a lot of cheese. By most standards, the Massila make a very poor quality cheese, but they do produce gourmands who can be quite snobbish about the tiniest differences in batches of local cheeses, most of whom disdain the 'over-processed' cheeses more popular among the Nornsa, for example.  Dairy features heavily in the Massila diet, not just in cheese, but in a variety of products, creams and yogurts and the like.  However, dairy is largely considered a 'night time' food, not something eaten in the day, and is commonly used as  a desert.

Despite, or because, a lack of general seasoning, the Massila are very creative in how they mix the ingredients available to them.  Porridges almost always contain dried or pickled fruits, and bits of air-dried meats (generally scraps and leftovers, rather than the more valuable bacons), and the variety of cream sauces they have for their dishes is simply amazing.

Like most cultures that sacrifice food animals to the Gods, the Massila only offer up the waste portions, the bones and guts and gristle, preserving the hide for use and the meat for themselves.  By ancient tradition, the lowest and meanest members of society eat first from holy festivals, after the priests of course. Sacrifices of agricultural produce is similarly symbolic, offering up the non-food portions of the crops, and consuming the food portions.. though in this case they are not shared in festivals but reserved for the priests entirely.  It is up to everyone in the Aegos to ensure the priests are not starving or lacking, so that the Gods  do not curse the community for denying their mortal servants a 'living', though the level of sustenance mandated is quite low compared to almost every comparable culture.   Generally it falls on the local king to provide first, which is one reason for the low standard, as the kings tend to be more skeptical of people they see as rivals for temporal power and authority.



It should be noted that most Aegos only claim a population of a few thousand people at most, with some exceptions. It is quite possible, if difficult, for a king to know every single member of his Aegos by name and face.  The Aegos of Tibor is one exception, having a population of tens of thousands, though the actual power of the king is relatively low, despite the number.   This does not mean there are only a few Masilla. Far from it, as there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of Aegos in this relatively tiny region, and that isn't counting their cultural cousins living farther inland, far from the sea.

Just posted and I already have an addendum of sorts, an expansion of something hinted in the initial post but not terribly clear.

The Massila have little contact with non-human races, aside from the lizard folk of the swamps (and that is entirely, unremittingly hostile from both species), at least not on the wide spread scale found across almost the entirty of Haven. They are not entirely ignorant of those races...

... but the don't actually care.

There is no Koan word for dwarf (though one could be made easily enough), or Elf or orc...  to the Massila they are all men of some sort or another.

The question is are they civilized men?

Do they speak Koan?  Do they respect Hospitality?


This should not be terribly surprising. The region around Tibor has had small populations of unusual races since time immemorial. Some have been friendly and helpful, some have been savage and monstrous.   Many have learned and adopted the language of the local humans, and the cultural construct of the Aegos is highly adaptable.  An isolated pocket of, say, Minotaur beastmen living on a single island is not to different from an isolated pocket of Massila living on an Island. Its all Aegos in Koan.   And if they don't learn Koan? Then they are barbarian savages.


An additional, more mystical addendum:

The three great Evils of Haven have an unusual status in Massila. Each in turn then:

Demonology: To the Massila there are three categories of beings. Beasts, who are mortal but unaware of it, Men, who are mortal and know it, and Gods, who are Immortal. Demons are, functional, immortal and are therefor Gods, and should be respected and treated with the sort of deference the Gods receive.  No sane man summons and commands a God. No sane man summons and commands a demon.

As might be expected, a few demons are therefore inadvertently worshipped among the Massila as Gods. This does not in any way contravene Divine Law, and thus does not offend the Gods.  

Chaos Worship: Pretty much the same. Beings from outside reality are functionally Immortal, and therefor Gods.  The primary difference here is that worshipping Chaos is pretty bad in the eyes of the Gods, normally.

However: As a general rule, the Massila do not form deep commitments to the Gods, they don't live their lives in accordance to divine plans, beyond 'not commenting sins', therefor inadvertently mistaking Cthulu for a proper God, and designating him the local god of the third linen closet of the west wing of your Citadel isn't going to draw any notice.

priests, on the other hand, tend to find their lives very interesting, and very short, if they chose to tend a temple to one of the chaos 'gods'.


Necromancy is where things get truly interesting.  As a general rule, most Massilans are very well behaved when they are dead.  They don't like being dead any more than other ghosts do, but they are far less inclined to try and do anything about it, for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that it would be shameful to haunt the living.  

So far, so good. Many cultures have less problems with the undead than is 'common', and Massila is merely par for the course for such cultures.

Where things are more interesting is that the Massila do have a rather interesting habit of sending the living, generally either powerful warriors or respected oracles or bards, to call up shades of the dead to ask for advice.  

Officially there is no such thing as divinely approved necromancy.  The souls of the dead stay in the land of the dead, and that's that.  But the Massila get pretty close. So close, in fact, that they don't seem to suffer any negative consequences for the act, no divine attempts to suppress the knowledge, and so forth.

Of course, anyone desperate enough to summon up the dead for advice is probably headed for a bad end anyway. Its not like this is done casually.

There are two major aspects of note here, beyond how they keep getting away with it. First, the Massila observe and awful lot of ritualistic, religious rules about speaking with the dead. It is very nearly comparable to the acts of demonologists (who, it should be noted, are in fact operating entirely within the bounds of Divine Law when they summon demons, if only because the Demons don't want to break Divine Law just because some mortal asked them to...).  The Massila treat speaking with the dead much as they treat speaking with the Gods, and in many cases go out of their way to placate the gods they believe they are potentially offending (there is a related addendum regarding their religion...).

Far more interesting, however, is the case that many aspects of Massilan Necromantic rituals appear to be, (to those rare experts who study such things), in a very real sense a primitive and some would say pure example of what necromancy is believed to have begun as, prior to being outlawed by the gods for its abuse (roughly stated...).  In a sense it is believed in some sense that when the Massila summon the souls of the dead to speak to them they are not practicing actual Necromancy so much as they are practicing some long forgotten cousin of necromancy.


Now, there is a distinct Caveat here. At least one mythic character of Massillan legend may be said to have practiced proper necromancy... if not in technique than in results.  While dead he convinced the Gods to let him return to the Mortal world, to Life, not once but on three separate occasions by various stratagems and deceptions... each time making excuses to remain alive after he had returned.  As a morality play, on the proper limits of cunning, upon his final death he was subject to a terrible punishment (the exact nature of which is left up to the storyteller in the oral traditions).   Massilan legends are full of bad endings for those who attempt, no matter how legitimately, to return to life.

Of course, there is another interesting facet.  It is quite common for mortal heroes in Haven to be elevated to divinity. It is considered quite proper, even wise, to refuse such an apotheosis, and there are no known Native Massila Gods.


Which brings us to our final Addendum, a brief overview of religion.

The Massila are like pretty much everyone in Haven in that they recognize all gods as being, well, gods.  Unlike most (but by no means all) cultures, they refuse to adopt a subset of the Gods for their personal use.  That said, there are certainly a small number of the actual Gods who do wind up getting the lion's share of the attention.  Simply put, no mortal man can learn the name of every single one of the gods. There are more gods who have been forgotten than there are living Massila, thats just how things are, but the Massila do make a credible go of trying to give each God they know about (individually) proper respect. If you tell a Massila about some God he's never heard of before, he will promptly point to a rock, tree or even just a worn out shoe and declare that God is now the patron god of whatever he pointed to, and he will defend that claim with a reasonable amount of diligence... such as preventing anyone else from assigning a God to that particular object, and preventing an act of disrespect to the object in question (in the case of the worn out shoe he would probably place it carefully in a hole in a rock face and cover it up, so that it would not be disrespected accidentally by being thrown in the trash).  Luckily this doesn't actually come up much, and there are simple, sensible protocols for handling common, breakable, items that might have a patron God (such as substitution...).

But the amount of attention men can give to such  vast 'set' is limited, and a reasonable number of Gods get the lion's share of the actual temples and festivals.

So far, so good.

What marks out the Massila is that none of these Gods are the 'big ones'.  The Massila recognize Death is a God, they just don't worship him. At all.  Respect? Sure.

The Sun is a very good example here. They fully recognize the Sun is a God, and a very visible, useful God at that. But they know he's busy doing his thing, blazing in the sky. He's going to do that if they do or if they don't send prayers and sacrifice his way. To them he is both a god and a nigh immutable force of nature. You don't worship immutable forces of nature, even if they are capable of holding conversations.

No, to them the only gods that really DEMAND worship are the ones with personalities, with, well, humanlike egos.  The Sun isn't really going to take offense at not being worshipped (seeing as how he did his thing before man existed to worship him, and will presumably do his thing when man is long dust...). But Versilimatu?  Dude used to be a king, and everyone knows how touchy kings can be. You better step light around him or he might just throw down, see?  

And, curiously, Versilimatu happens to be a sort of junior sun god, among other things.  Sure, he doesn't make the big light in the sky, but he's among the Sun's Household, so to speak.  The worship you might be inclined to pass on to the Sun is better spent convincing Versilimatu that you're a righteous sort of guy, and if it ever comes up he'll pass on word to the Sun proper.

There is a vague sense that its a bit overly familiar, and unwelcome to directly worship those most ancient powers. They've got jobs to do, you know? So stop bugging them and keep things to the guys who actually want to listen, right?

There is an interesting sub-case regarding the Sea.  The Massila are not deep water sailors, it is rare and frightening for them to be entirely out of the sight of land, and the waters they sail, while technically part of the sea, actually have their own patron goddess, equally old as the Sea, but not quite as... expansive (power? that's a tough question when talking about the First Gods. Mortals would declare that of course the Sea is the bigger more powerful, more important God. Missing the point that if something were to happen to this 'lesser' God that the stretch of water she 'rules' would simply cease to exist. Not that it would fall into the domain of the greater Sea, it would simply never have been anymore.  (what is that? Future past predictive tense? That's a crazy one, eh?)

So of all the well know First Gods (eldest, what have you), they barely KNOW about the Sea, because the Sea they know is an entirely different God(Dess), and is one they do, after a fashion, worship directly (though she has no priests or temples. Sailors of all sorts, along with fishermen, make regular, if simple, sacrifice to her nearly daily. Not that she cares. Like all the First she is very very far removed from human concerns.  Too busy simply being a very large body of water, really...).

For the curious, insofar as this "lesser" sea goddess has a name it is ALSO simply Sea. the Eldest Gods don't really do Names so much. Name and Function, or perhaps Nature, are essentially identical. They don't have a use for labels, and while all of them have personalities of a sort, if not always in a fashion recognizable to mortals (what is the personality of a Mountain? How would you know it was expressing that personality?). Insofar as they interact with their fellow Gods (many don't bother...), the other Gods recognize them not based on something as simple as a Name, but rather the Divine Expression of Self, the immutable fact of one's being, if you will. Just as it is impossible for a Mortal to misunderstand what a god says, or mistake it for anything but divine revalation, it is pretty much impossible to mistake two nearly identical gods for each other, at least not without a deliberate, divine attempt at deception.

As an interesting aside: when discussing things that seem abstract, but are not, such as Divine Language and Divine Law, it occurs that these may not be simply tools of the Gods so much as very esoteric, but real, First Gods.  This is more likely to be the case for Divine Language, a being that is the root concept of Language itself, from which all lesser (mortal) languages derive... but its a bit heady and outre to make that canon. Also, its two in the fucking morning here... I may be a sleep deprived basket case right now!

Eh, in case anyone is watching this space silently: I'm using this as a sort of massive brainstorm/brain dump.  History indicates that I'll tweak details as I go along, but will probably never write up a clean and coherent final product.

More relevant, I've got about six more 'posts' of main size ready to go, but since I'm tethered to my cell phone for internet, and I've already 'bought' extra band width for march, I'm gonna wait to post them until I'm on a...cheaper... internet connection. Sorry.