Wrightfolk

Names

• Those who are apprenticed properly are given Prenticenames, the name of their master as a possessive before their own. “Jhory’s Immis” for Immis, apprenticed to Jhory. These names are best-regarded in their culture, being kept even after the end of their apprenticeship to show where they come from to others.
• Everyone else simply use single names, with a last name that describes their current or last non-wright vocation, with an implied “the” between these names: Nykk Trapper, for a hunter, for instance.

Origins

• Wrightfolk are native to the lands of Ilbarych, and clearly related to the Wealdfolk.
• They are averse to the forests of the land, and regard them as useful resources and nothing more. They have a degree of superstitious dread to them.
• Long ago, they came to dwell in the hilly lands in the northeast of the Isle, eventually discovering the iron ore in those places.

Appearance

• Thickly built, but rarely above six feet in height
• Hair is a range of blonde to brown to black, most often worn short
• Eyes range from green to brown in color
• Skin is the same range of browns as wealdfolk, from a light tan hue to deep black, with most falling into a warm brown-gold complexion
• Garments are sturdily made, meant to protect the wearer from extensive hands-on work and manual labor; masters of their crafts are entitled to the wearing of a distinctive style of great coat, and ‘prentices wear a culturally distinctive apron as a mark of their status

Crafts

• The wrightfolk consider those arts by which one creates something by hand to be the worthiest of human undertaking, so much so that their whole culture is led by craftsmen.
• The master-apprentice relationship is seen as the perfection of the parent-child relationship, save where the latter is about the growth of the body, the former is about the growth of the mind and spirit. The master-apprentice relationship is given greater importance among wrightfolk.
• Wrightfolk are the finest workers of iron and steel, and by extension of other metals as well.
• They are also adept workers in wood, considering it a useful resource but refusing to invest it with honor or virtue as a refutation of all things wealdfolkish. They consider stone to be best used in building and filling barrows.
• The plow is considered one of the great innovations of the wrightfolk, along with the taming of horses, symbolized by the rings through noses to control them.
• For this reason, many wrightfolk practice piercing of the body, particularly the ears and septum, in order to wear the signs of civilization in their bodies.
• “The hammer and the ring” are the symbols of civilization among the wealdfolk, and why their city gates are overarched by a hammer-and-ring (usually a smithing hammer with a horn-ring driven through its haft).

Communities

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Religion

• The wrightfolk do not revere any gods or non-human entities.
• Instead, their ancient traditions of master-and-apprentice, considered the holiest of human relationships, extends even into their worship, with reverence toward ancestral figures called only “the Old Masters.”
• The wrightfolk inter their dead in barrows, digging deep pits and laying down layer after layer of the dead, filling them over with intervening layers of rock and soil.
• These barrows have wooden-spined leather domes over them while they are still being filled, but the entire domed structure is eventually filled in with remains, dirt, and rock, until they form barrow-hills in great circles around settlements (which are, by tradition, not permitted to grow beyond the barrows).

The Forgewise Arts

The magical discipline of the wrightfolk is known to exist, although they do not share its secrets with anyone outside of their forgeholds – not even their kin who settle outside of forgehold life. The masters of these arts do make their services available to outsiders, however, often at a precious price.

• Stielwiteg: The best-known of the forge-wise are the steel-wise smiths who alone bear the secrets of making the steel that built the Empire of old, and which still is the underpinning in the Crowndom. Though they are capable of crafting all manner of cunning works from steel, the most treasured by the Crown and its nobility are the arms and armors they create.
• Gyoldwiteg: The gold-wise adepts of the wrightfolk know the secrets of working gold, weaving enchantments of leadership and bravery, sunlight and fire into them. Though they do not make either weapons or armor, they do inlay such crafted works with magical patterns, and the jewelry and regalia that they craft from gold are all numinous with magic.
• Seolwiteg: The silver-wise
• Isénwiteg: iron-wise
• Cyprenwiteg: copper-wise

Other Wrightfolk Wisdoms

• Hlæw-Wise: The barrows-wise are speakers with the Old Masters, carrying secrets and messages from the barrows to the living. Their arts are the arts of mediumship, of being possessed by the Old Masters, and of calling upon the barrow-shades who protect the barrows from despoiling. They are also the iron-dowsers, who know how to identify barrows rich in barrows-iron and lead teams who dig it up without risking the curses of the Old Masters.
• Eoh-Wise: Those who know the spirits of horses, and by whose arts the wild herds of the land were tamed. They are said to speak a language that all horses innately comprehend, and to be able to calm or spook them by will alone. They are incredible fighters from horseback, and their magical arts can heal terrible equine wounds.
• Món-Wise: The justly-feared moon-wise witches commune with animal spirits beneath the deeps of the moon. Each phase of the moon has an entire cohort of beasts who owe fealty to that phase, and they call upon those spirits and bind them into physical bodies, fixed with ointments and blade-wrought signs to turn those bodies into spirit-traps. In this way, they give spirits bodies (by putting them into proper animal bodies) to create their familiars, and they turn men into were-beasts by trapping animal spirits within them, using the human soul as a kennel from which the spirit escapes during the proper phase of its moon by asserting itself into that person’s flesh. The moon-wise also frequently know many of the secrets herb-wise secrets of the wealdfolk.