The Levics

Though under the dominion of Kvesland, the native peoples of the Levic Marches are a group all their own, with a distinct culture and heritage unlike that of their Togarmic and Northern neighbors. With the rise of the League of Three Crowns and the development of great cities, many Levics have assimilated into the settled life of the Kvessians, Vardessians, and Togarmans that make up the League. However, the Levics are a reclusive and insular people, and deep in the woods and wilds of the Marches, there are still many villages where they hold true to the traditions of their ancestors.

The Levics are a rustic people, fair of skin and eyes, living primarily as hunters and subsistence farmers in small villages and homesteads on the cold and windswept moors. Visitors to these villages often describe them as austere in character, for the Levics are not artistic sorts, preferring simple, functional goods with little in the way of ornamentation. Though they are known as great traders of amber - in fact, much of the amber in the Lunar Lands comes from the Levic Marches - they do not make much use of it themselves; they do not even know where it comes from, only that it washes up on their shores and rivers.

However, they are known for finding whatever excuses they can to celebrate, and often times an entire village will come together to drink and sing long into the night. Among the common people, the drink of choice is mead, while Levic nobility traditionally prefer kumis - fermented mare's milk; a delicacy among the tribes, and one that is held as a mark of high status. They will even consume an entire roast horse at their feasts. Some suggest that this may point to a common origin with the Zelskys of Togarmah, but the two cultures are otherwise very different - indeed, the Levics are far more sedentary than the well-traveled Zelskys, and it is rare for them to leave their homes, fearing the night as a time of darkness and danger.

There may be some truth to this - the Levics are close neighbors of the Northmen, and long have they found the need to defend themselves against their raids. Though the western Levics, most notably the Rogdii tribe, are a warlike people, honoring warriors and conducting raids of their own (in no small part due to both influence from the nearby Northmen and by necessity to defend themselves against them), the more populous eastern tribes are more defensive, preferring to be left alone and keep to themselves. They will, however, fight fiercely if they feel they are threatened. In battle, they wear armor of leather and iron chain, and prefer sturdy wooden clubs and axes to swords. Since the coming of settlers from Vardessy, Togarmah, and Kvesland, such a stalwart way of life has only been bolstered by the periodic clashes between settlers and natives. The Levic tribes have fought many a war against the Order of the Hammer and other armies from the south, trading territory back and forth, and while the Levics are largely open to trade with League merchants, many elders fear that their way of life may be threatened by such outsiders.

In fact, the Levic need for defense has shaped their political structure. Although they are considered by southerners to be a barbarian people, the unique needs of the Levics has forced them to independently come up with something very similar to feudalism. The basic unit of Levic life is the village, often built on a hill with embankments and guard towers to watch for threats. Within a single village, decisions are made by a vote from a body of the housefathers - that is, the male heads of every household. To sit on such a council, and to enjoy other privileges such as the right to have multiple wives, a man must have his own home and his immediate family must be self-sufficient, without needing to rely on parents or in-laws. Groups of allied villages and their surrounding homesteads often band together, and these confederations are governed by both a king (who deals with all domestic business, including the maintenance of roads and ensuring production from the fields) and a warchief (who oversees defenses and is in charge of arming and directing the soldiers).

Art by Cao Viet

But no Levic council would be complete without the oversight of a druid. The Levics are Old Faith believers. Instead of discrete and personified gods, they worship their ancestors and the land itself. The druids tend to sacred groves and offer sacrifices (usually of crops, but sometimes of prisoners captured in battle) to the ancestors through immolation to ensure good fortune and rightful guidance; these groves are never to be set foot in by anyone other than a druid, or disaster will befall the people. Druids assist in governance by ensuring that policies are in accordance with the wants of the spirits, serving as judges in disputes, and attending to the Levic funerary rites, in which the body of the deceased is burned and their ashes placed in an urn, which is then buried in the ground.

Where the Levic Old Faith differs from other, similar customs practiced among hillfolk and Sonderlundings is in its degree of organization. The Levic tribes have a complex and codified priesthood, as formal as that seen among the Pantheonist cults. Each village has its own druid, and these druids all report to the Archdruid - a man who dwells in a sacred grove on an island in the Semna River in a state of permanent communion with the spirits, half-in and half-out of the Land of the Dead, in council with the ancestors. His entranced mumblings are interpreted by his apprentice, a powerful druid chosen to replace the Archdruid when his ancestors call to him and he leaves this mortal coil by burning himself alive. The current Archdruid is Segeband, and his apprentice is Rameka - a druid who has begun to fear his own mortality, believing that he is growing old with no sign of his master slowing down, and secretly plots to ensure he will become Archdruid before he dies one way or another...