Northerners

The Northerners are a broad family of peoples descended from the first major migration out of Hkar. The best-preserved Northerner traditions survive among the Deno’qai, the older highland strands of the Zimka, and the Vargaldi. Northern religious ideas also shaped later cultures, including regional forms of Mos Numena such as Mawaran religion. Though Northerner-descended cultures are diverse, they tend to speak languages derived from the original Northros tongue of the first migrants, and share a set of religious beliefs centered on intercession by small gods with the Divine Presence.

Nomenclature

“Northerner” is a later exonym for these early migrants and their descendants. “Northlander” appears as another exonym in some western and Drankorian-influenced contexts. Northros is a Drankorian scholarly term for the related language family, not a native ethnic name. No shared endonym is recorded, and it is not known what the original Northerner peoples called themselves. The surviving descendant peoples use their own names, including Deno’qai, Zimka, and Vargaldi.

Origins, Migration, and Settlement

The Northerners left Hkar before the rise of the later urban, arcane, and pantheonic culture that produced Mos Numena and Drankor. Their traditions preserve an older religious pattern centered on small local gods who intercede with the Divine Presence. They settled first along the western coast of Taelgar, spread northward along the western side of the Sentinels, and later crossed the mountains into the highlands and forests of the north and east. By the time of The Downfall, Northerner-descended peoples lived across parts of the west coast, the far north, and the highlands around the Sentinels.

After leaving Hkar, the Northerners had little sustained contact with their ancestral homeland. Their cultures developed in the west and north of Taelgar, often in marginal lands and on the fringes of regions dominated by older non-human peoples.

Religion

See more: Northern Folk Religions

Northerner religion is centered on a set of intercessory traditions and beliefs: small, local gods carry prayers to the Divine Presence, the distant creator and source of divine power. The small gods are not omnipresent, and their attention must be drawn by the correct rite, place, sacrifice, or custom. The major known branches of Northerner religion are:

• Tanshi Worship, practiced among the Deno’qai, in which offerings call the attention of the tanshi.
• Kestavo, practiced among the Zimka and their neighbors, centered on place-bound shrine spirits who carry prayers to Ako.
• Zariya, practiced among the Vargaldi, centered on animal spirits and the animal souls associated with Vargaldi magic.

Northern funerary traditions commonly treat the small gods as guides for the soul through the Land of the Dead, though the rites differ greatly between descendant cultures.

Language

The Northerner languages were grouped by Drankorian scholars as the Northros Language Family. Known Northros or Northros-derived languages include Deno’qai, Old Zimkovan, Vargaldi, and Mawaran. Several later languages preserve mixed inheritances. Modern Zimkovan descends from an Eastros root but carries older northern influence, while Vargaldi remains Northros in structure but has many Eastros loan words.

Northerner Cultures

The Deno’qai are an ancient Northerner culture of the western forests and foothills of the Sentinels, closely associated with Tanshi Worship.

The Zimka include an older highland strand that preserves Northerner religion and language, and a broader lowland strand shaped by contact with mariners, river traders, Drankor, and Sembara.

The Vargaldi are a Northerner-descended people of the Northern Green Sea and the great northern forests. They worship the Zariya, speak a Northros language with Eastros influence, and are closely associated with animal-spirit magic.