THE
BROWNIE
RACE |
The smallest intelligent race of all of Caelereth, Brownies average about half a fore in height. Their skin comes in all the shades of tree bark, with matching hair and eyes. They are strong for their size, energetic, and agile, with a tendency to be mischievous. Redbark Brownies (all female) have an innate potential to become adept at Life Magic (a form of Xeuá magic).
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Appearance.
Laid out end-to-end, a little bit less than seven Brownies make a ped, on average.
Their skin comes in all the shades of a tree bark, with matching hair and eyes
(more info), and they have a somewhat angular look, having high cheekbones and
a rawboned but lithe build. They are strong for their size, highly
energetic and very agile, with a tendency to
be mischievous.
Mode of Living/Habits. Brownies tend to live in large to VERY large communities. They
live in trees, under trees, on the ground, under the ground - just about everywhere,
so that a small area can host a large Brownie population. Brownies are generally
cautious of big people, especially elves.
Family, Society and Culture.
Brownies generally have strong family ties. They enjoy and utilize nature, and
often prefer to live close to it, but do not particularly reverence it,
except as a renewable resource and as a dwelling place for the spirits of rock,
tree, and stream. They are fun loving, independent, cautious but confident,
reckless and a tad mischievous. Each tribe is culturally
distinct from each of the others.
Brownies
tend to dress in mouseskin or the skin of other small animals, or in leaves
and other tree-parts. Coming from the greatest Herb, their knowledge of roots
and herbs and plants of all sorts and their uses is exceptional. They thus excel
at the healing arts, and also at the art of potions and poisons.
Brownies have a gestation period of
80 days, or 2 2/3 months.
Single
births and twins are equally common. Triplets are as common for them as twins
are for humans,
quadruplets for them as common as triplets for humans,
and so on.
The
average number of surviving children per family is somewhere between 4 and 5.
On average, only half of children born survive to childbearing age even under
favorable conditions, mainly because of predators and accidents. In these rare
places having conditions favorable to Brownies, maximum life expectancy is around
60.
When hunting or fighting Brownies tend to use bows, arrows, blowguns, spears,
deadfall spikes or any other weapon that can be sharpened to a point, on which
they smear concoctions that will bring sleep, unconsciousness or death (or
worse) to those that are pierced by such weapons. See the individual tribe
entries for particular methods and weapons unique to each tribe.
Life
Magic,
a sort of magic which
Xeuátan Khaelvan III. in his Magic Compendium interprets as a specification of
Xeuá magic,
is unique to Brownies. While members of other races can learn the basics, only
a rebark Brownies can become truly adept. Brownies believe that the moment of
their creation from pieces of bark ripped from the
Tree of
Life instilled in
them the potential to manipulate life and living things to a great degree. It
is said that the knowledge of
Life
Magic
today is paltry compared to that which was wielded in long-ago
Birn.
Diet. Each of the tribes has a somewhat different diet.
LLaoihrr
grind greenbark moss and bake the result into bread, just as the ancient
Birni did.
Memnoor are not fussy, eating any of the plants of the desert, and the
meat of any animal they can get their hands on, including those summoned from
other worlds through the Void for this express purpose.
Aohu'o live almost exclusively
on what they hunt, eating roasted meat, flavored with available vegetables,
fruits, and herbs. Milken share the food of the
Helcrani.
Rat Brownies scrounge
for scraps.
Beliefs. Brownies have their own story
about the Tree of Life from where they originated, which goes like this: A
jagged spear of lightning arced through the sky, cutting deep into the Tree
of Life before exploding. Leaves fell, scorched and burning, to the ground,
and the magic that tied the tree together began to unravel and then with a crackling
sound, finally burst. A burst of uncontrolled magical energies spread out in
a ripple from the Tree, altering forever everything in its path. Leaves grew
wings and became dragons. Trees and grasses argued and fought. The sky churned
in a funnel of greens and purples. The odd human was imbued with a deep natural
talent for magic. Gale-force winds blew. Pieces of broken bark from the Tree
tumbled, shimmered, and metamorphized into the first Brownies.
Tribes. The five tribes that currently exist in Caelereth consist of the LLaoihrr, Aohu'o, Memnoor, Milken, and the Rat Brownies. The following quick-reference chart shows the strengths, weaknesses, and unique qualities of each. The long-gone Birni are also included in the chart for comparison purposes.
Brownie Tribes Overview, Part I |
Llaoihrr |
Aohu'o |
Aeloians |
|
Location | The Valley of Brownies west of the Rimmers Ring. | Mainly on Akdor's central plain, but scattered bands can be found throughout Caelereth. | Just within the Etherial Void in the south of the Aeruillin continent. |
Technology | Very High (Leonardo Da Vinci) | Hunter/gatherer | High in magical, void, and inter-world technology. Average in all other types. |
Magical Focus | Life Magic | Life Magic | Balanced |
Cultural Heritage | Written Historical Records | Oral History | Communication and Networking |
Metalurgy | Limited Iron - knives only. Mostly Wood is Used. | Limited Iron - knives only. Mostly Wood is Used. | Iron, Alloy, Glass Swords and Other Weapons, Tools |
Population | As many as 500,000 | Around 70,000, divided into many bands. | Around 3,000 |
Government | Clan Based | Tribal Elders and Chief | Simple Communal Survival (Utopian) |
Religion | Casual worship of spirits of rock, tree, and stream. | Fervent worship of spirits of rock, tree, and stream. | Agnostic or atheistic. They trust in science for answers. |
Housing | In Trees | In Underbrush | In a semi-real land created by a combination of imagination and magic from the stuff of the Etherial Void. |
Language and Dialect | The LLaoihrr language, in the Browniin family, is the closest living relative to Browniin as originally created by Keekoo. | The Aohu'o language, in the Browniin family, has substituted birdcalls and animal cries for the sounds originally expressed in Browniin. | The Memnoor language, in the substituted family, has evolved to fit the environment of desert and Etherial Void in which it is used. The sounds used have thus migrated into softer ones that do not carry far, using many consonants and being the only Brownie language that can be spoken in a whisper. |
Details | [Further Details] | [Further Details] | [Further Details] |
Brownie Tribes Overview, Part II |
Milken |
Rat Brownies |
Birni (extinct) |
|
Location | In and around the city of Milkengrad. | Under most major cities throughout Caelereth. Also occasionally found in isolated areas aboveground. | Believed to have lived primarily along the northern edge of what is now the Paelelon Forest. |
Technology | Same as the Helcrani. | Stone age, at best (except for Field Rat Brownies). | Advanced technology completely integrated with their Life Magic. |
Magical Focus | Sparse Life Magic. | Life Magic, if any. | Highly advanced Life Magic, far beyond anything seen today. |
Cultural Heritage | Part of the Helcrani. | Scant oral history. | Many cultural records of the Birni were discovered by Keekoo, Greybark, and others. Their memory has been a strong influence on the Brownie tribes of today. |
Metalurgy | Same as the Helcrani. | Virtually none (except for Field Rat Brownies). | Yes. |
Population | Possibly a few hundred thousand. | There are too many undiscovered bands to be sure. Numbering at least in the tens of thousands. | In the millions. |
Government | Each Brownie family has loyalty to the Helcrani family they live with, and then to their Frata. | Each band is controlled by a chief or witchdoctor, ruling by fear. | Highly stratified oligarchy, with Redbarks at the top, Greenbarks and Brownbarks in the middle, and everybody else in the slave class at the bottom. |
Religion | They are the only Brownies to worship Avá the Dreameress. | Frantic worship of the spirits of darkness, death, and the depths. | Fervent worship of spirits of rock, tree, and stream. |
Housing | In or under the house of the Helcrani family they live with. | In sewers and other underground places under large cities (except for the Field Rat Brownies). | In, under, and around trees. Living underground as well. |
Language and Dialect | Same as the Helcrani. | The languages spoken by the Rat Brownies differ from band to band. Each of these languages is unique, and several of them may be directly descended from one of the languages spoken by the first generation of Brownies. | Several different languages were spoken in Birn, each unrelated to the others, many with their own unrelated writing systems. The Redbarks had their own secret language. The Greenbarks and Brownbarks each had their own language as well, and it was these two languages that were later adapted by Keekoo into modern Browniin. At least several other languages were spoken among the slave class. |
Details | [Further Details] | [Further Details] |
[Further Details]
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Celebrities. Keekoo is the center of Brownie history, having ended the harsh years and started three of the modern tribes.
Greybark taught the LLaoihrr
to fly again. The general of the Brownie Flying Militia in SW III, he also began
the process of joining the
LLaoihrr tribe to the future Unified
Santharian Kingdom.
Unified
early Brownie History |
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Note: The history of individual Brownie tribes can be found under their respective entries.
Information
provided by Greybark
|