The Northmen

Home > World > The Northmen The Northmen call themselves that to outsiders. They are very tall, large, and somewhat awkward creatures that live in the vast swamplands on the other side of the Curtain Mountains from the Moine Empire.

History of the North
Once, the other side of the Curtains was a vast, rolling flatland from the curtains in the west and the frozen snows of the north, until the badlands in the south and the Red Sea in the east. When the asteroid fell and heated the world, the seas boiled over, and in those northern plains, the water never entirely went away. The tall race who lived there survived in the crags of the mountains, much like the Moine, and in time followed the retreating water back down.

Long gone were the grasslands. Now the vast, open land was torn and dredged by flowing water, and it was lower. A swamp it had become, and a swamp it was to remain, but they were tough people, and tall, and there in the constant damp they survived.

Society
Getting a grip on Northman society is difficult at best. They believe heavily in confusing outsiders, and their very body language reflects this. They wear many layered, fringed clothing of many colors, and go to great lengths to alter their outward personality when least expected; despite this, they serve a direct heirarchy amongst themselves. Any individual member of the culture can move up or down in the heirarchy, but competition can get downright brutal in the upper teirs, and it is common for their ruler to be the person sneaky and cunning enough to not be assassinated.

To counter the inherent instability of their violent leadership, they have formed an intricate and rigidly enforced legal system which even governs what manners of assassination are acceptable. At the upper reaches of the heirarchy the limitations on what methods of violence are allowed can prove at least as daunting as the competition.

Though magic gifts are stunningly rare among the Northmen, it is not entirely unheard of; rumors, legends, and outright lies meant to confuse the issue have left understanding of magic beyond the layman, and even worked their way into the core of the Northern culture. The belief that a mage can use somethings' (or someones') real name to control them is so deeply engrained into their culture that even most Northmen never know their best friends' (or even loved ones') names. They have never told anyone what they call themselves, allowing outsiders to simply call them: Northmen.

Biology
In comparison to the other species common to the world, Northmen are enormous. At their shortest adult Northmen are nearly twice as tall as a Moline, and some of the taller members of the species can be nearly twenty feet tall. They have thick, powerful bones, and dense muscle masses as well, making them faster than their size might suggest; the opponent who judges a Northman by mass alone is making a horrible mistake.

Northmen spend much of their life from birth to death in at least a little water, and they develop powerful lungs early in life. Generations of this have made them adept natural swimmers, and a favored hunting or fighting tactic of theirs is to hide underwater and wait for an enemy to walk by.

Hundreds of years of living in the rot of a perpetual swamp has left them with extremely efficient immune systems.

Trivia

 * In early draft ideas for Pawn, the Northmen were the primary antagonists.
 * In slightly less early draft ideas, when the Moline were still meant to be elves, the Northmen were intended to be humans.
 * A few aspects of Northman dress and mannerism were originally inspired by the Balseraph from the Civilization 4 mod: Fall from Heaven 2.
 * Northmen were still going to be antagonists in the 2nd book of the Covenant arc, before that series was shortened to a trilogy.  The story of that book (Knight) has been moved in the timeline to take place after the events in the Covenant Arc, and may appear as a standalone book later.
 * Before she was the Majuai, Warin fought the Northmen while serving her military term.  While she intellectually had no problem with them after the tentative peace was established, she still had nightmares about them for many years after leaving the army, and actively avoided their embassador.