Kikai
It is the end of the eighth month, And I have nothing to wear. Black kites fly from the hillsides, Over stone walls that we made. I will dress my children, In the only gown I have. But I will wear vines, Which I cut from trees on the mountain.
- Traditional Kikai Folksong
Appearance
The islanders almost universally have brown or black hair, nut-brown skin, and very dark eyes. They are around 5'10", and so would be considered tall, were it not for the fact that they never see outsiders.
Society / Government
Kikai is a lonely island of isolated villages, sharing a language, culture, and unifying religion. Rain comes too often, or not at all. The land of the lowlands along the coast is barren, and the high hills and mountains are choked with dense jungle.
There is no society or government outside of individual villages. The villages vary somewhat, but they are all similar in a few basic ways. They farm, hunt, or fish, and they rarely make more than is necessary to stay alive. They share a basic religion (see that section for more details). Many of them have a headman, or are "ruled" by a small group of elders, though often this is informal. With very few exceptions, they have a Noro, or shrine maiden, who is the real power in the village. For more information on the Noro, see their entry under "religion".
Children and Family
There is no formal marriage on Kikai. In more stable villages, men and women will live together and raise children together, but more commonly mothers raise the children alone. This can be either because the father left, wants nothing to do with her, or has been killed.
Despite the lack of close family ties, villagers treat each other as family members. The harvest is shared between all members of the village, for all of their labor is needed to get enough to survive. While a child may not directly be supported by their father (or indeed, the mother may not be certain who is the child's father), the father will be indirectly supporting them, as everyone who can works in the fields, or hunts, or fishes.
Role of Women
On Kikai there is a belief, called narigami, which states that women are spiritually superior. Women are said to possess greater ability to sense and connect with the other worlds. While at a local level this is consistent with practice (such as how every village has a Noro), this belief is contested by the Shamans of the island, who are equally male or female (or they could be considered neither; see their entry below). This suggests that there may have been a matriarchal society on Kikai predating the rise of the Shamans and the current religion - but there is no way to tell for sure.
Aside from the spiritual considerations of women, the sexes are largely equal, at least in village life. There is a division of labor, but men and women are equal partners. Women do often have to raise children alone, but they have the full support of the village. Though when bandits attack, women often get it worse than the men.
Law and Punishment
Law on the island operates at two levels - village law and shamanic law. Both are heavily religious.
At the village level, crimes are regulated by the headman and/or Noro. Their actual ability to enforce varies considerably, and there are no "laws" per se. Only community norms and the verdicts of the village leaders.
There are also crimes that the Shamans cover, and these are entirely of a religious nature. These crimes are even less defined than village crimes. Sometimes the shamans simply appear and take someone away, or come out of the forest and destroy a village for no clear reason.
Warfare
There is no organized warfare on the island. There are no political entities to gather armies, and the land is too weak to grow enough food to support wars.
However, due to poverty and this extreme lack of resources, fighting is all too common. Most adult men go armed, even if all they can afford is a club. Bandits roam the mountains, attacking travelers and raiding towns. When a group of bandits grows too large, they descend upon a village en masse, killing all the inhabitants, and then either leave, or turn upon each other. The island is littered with empty towns, filled with piles of bones.
Religion
Kikaian life is organized closely around religion. The islanders believe that their land is a literal hell, a resting place for damned spirits from other worlds. Each one of them believes that they committed some great wrong in their previous life, and so were sent to this island to suffer for their sins.
Every islander wants to escape from this perdition, and their whole spirit is bent towards doing so. Those who die, should they die without repaying for their sins, are believed to be reborn again and again on the island, until their dues are made. It is believed that hard work, self-denial, and kindness can move one towards escape. Shamans are thought to be on the verge of escape, and other magic users walking the path out.
For many islanders, however, this task is seen as insurmountable - any good deeds they might do, they say, would be measured like a drop of water against the sea. They accept their damnation, and seek only to ease their suffering - they steal, they fight, they indulge, but their suffering goes on.
The islanders believe in three great spirits - the land, the sky, and the sea - but these are considered to be largely impartial. While offerings are made to these spirits, it is less a form of worship, and more a ceremony of thanks for surviving the past year with as little suffering as possible.
In addition, the island is infested with innumerable lesser spirits, ghosts, and monsters. Exact opinion on these creatures is divided. Some claim that the monsters, like the land, sky, and sea, are fixtures of this hell - native inhabitants. Some say that they are also damned souls, either from other worlds, or whose crimes were so great they were made to be inhuman.
Noro
Village priestess or "Shrine Maiden". Each village (with only a few exceptions) has a Noro. In Kikaian religion, the Noro exists to provide spiritual guidance, and to intercede with local spirits to ease the suffering of the damned - her villagers.
The Noro generally lives alone, or sometimes with a few attendants, young girls from the village. Noro are expected to remain virgins. They wear all white. The Noro live in small huts or shelters near what they consider sacred spaces - sometimes springs, groves, or caves by the sea. Men are forbidden to enter these sacred spaces
The Noro, in practical terms, are not always useful, but most of them have some basic healing skill. Occasionally, they will have some actual magical power, usually being Mages. But those Noro with real power tend to not have much of it.
The Noro do communicate with/channel real spirits - this tends to have a detrimental effect on their mental health. Noro are not always reliable, and often will let their mind wander for hours at a time. Villagers say that their minds go to Ne-no-kuni, but due to their general lack of any magical power, the truth of this is questionable.
Shamans
Religious life on Kikai is dominated by the Shamans, though they do not take an active role in most affairs.
Shamans are recruited at a young age. Whenever a child shows signs that they have powers of Darkness or Life, the Shamans arrive and take them away. The family does not resist - becoming a Shaman is the closest anyone comes to escaping the hell of Kikai.
Boys and Girls are taken to become Shamans at equal rates. Yet it is impossible to tell a male shaman from a female one, and indeed it seems that perhaps these distinctions do not exist for them. In many ways it is hard to tell if they should still be considered human in a traditional sense.
A Shaman never speaks. They communicate through their actions, and occasionally by wordless messages to shrine maidens. Though, since shrine maidens are unreliable, one can never tell if it is a true message, or simply ravings.
Villagers rever the Shamans - and while the Shamans seem aloof, from the villager's point of view it is obvious. Shamans represent the possibility of escape from this hell, and the triumph over material torment. On a more practical scale, the shamans do occasionally help villages directly - creating springs, fighting off storms or monsters, curing disease. Their help comes inconsistently, but it is no more unpredictable than anything else on the island. Finally, the fact that a White Shaman comes for every last soul who dies, and performs last rites for them, means a great deal to them - the fact that any force at all cares about their living and dying.
Crow Shamen
Crow Shamen are Darkness Adepts. Outnumbering the White Shamans several times over, they are the main force of their religion.
The Crow Shamans dress in feathered black robes, which are often smeared with mud or wrapped in vines. Their faces are covered by simple, white masks. They carry a simple wooden staff.
Crow Shamans appear rarely, but each villager knows what they look like. Sometimes they are seen deep in the forest by travelers, or walking along the hills far outside a village. They are the ones who come to offer aid, when aid is offered, but they are also the ones who destroy villages in the night, sometimes for no clear reason.
White Shaman
Extremely rare, the White Shamans are the heart of the Shamanic religion. They are Life adepts. They dress in white robes, and wear a white mask similar to the masks of the Crow Shamans. Occasionally they have headdresses of horns or antlers, or of white feathers.
White Shamans are the psychopomps of the island. They appear for one purpose only - to collect the souls of the recently dead. Every time someone on the island dies, a white shaman will come - sometimes immediately, sometimes after a day or two, but they always come. They then gather up the soul, and disappear. Attempts to resist them end poorly. Yet most villagers welcome the White Shamans. The idea that someone, anyone, cares about them, is very comforting.
Symbolism
Birds
Birds are an important religious figure on Kikai. They are hated and revered, because they have the ability to fly free of the cursed island, and do not toil in the earth as humans must. The jealousy felt by islanders towards these creatures is too intense for words.
Crows
Crows are the most important bird to Kikai mysticism. Not only can they fly free, they are thought to travel to Ne-no-kuni, the shadow world, and so have great spiritual power. If is for that reason that the common shamans are called "crow shamans".
Stone Faces
The Kogai, or Stone Faces, are the primary (practically only) form of art on Kikai. Large faces of men, they are carved out of stone and set besides doorways, or at crossroads, to ward off evil spirits. It is said that they please the earth spirit, who then becomes more forgiving.
Circles
The circle represents both the island itself - a constant, roughly round border with no escape - and the constant cycle of rebirth that those damned to Kikai must suffer through. Circles are therefore used commonly in religious works - drawn on houses, or in stones on the hillside.
Other Worlds
Kikai mysticism states that there are two other planes of being, overlaid on our own realm of being. Shamans can travel to these worlds to commune with spirits, and gain more power, but their exact natures are unknown. Many of the villagers will only know them by name, having no knowledge of the form of these worlds.
Ne-no-kuni
"Land of Roots" - Shadow World
There is a lower world, contiguous to our own, which borders on reality wherever shadows fall. It is called Ne-no-kuni, "the Land of Roots". Most of the monsters, spirits, and ghosts of the island technically dwell in Ne-no-kuni.
Deep within the jungle, and high in the mountains, there is often no distinction between the real world and the shadow world. They blend together.
Takaikan
"The other face of the sea" - Spirit World
On a plane above our world, and more fully separated than Ne-no-kuni, is Takaikan, the spirit world. Unlike the shadow world, it is very empty. Takaikan is filled with bright white light - above you float calm waves, like the surface of the ocean, and you are suspended beneath them. For this reason Takaikan is called "the other face of the sea".
Takaikan is believed to be the most direct path out of this world - the best path to salvation.
Economy / Money
The island has no economy to trade of. Villages have little to no contact with one another, and there is hardly surplus for trade. The little trade that occurs is done with a barter economy.
Skills
Craft
Societies differ in what technologies they have developed. Here is listed the normal maximum for skilled craftsmen in this society - a character coming from such a society would have no higher a modifier than this (modifier being the specialization in that division of craft).
Items whose craft DC is more than the given number +15 will be rare, potentially costing twice as much as normal, and those whose DC is the given number +20 or higher cannot be attained. This rule may be broken in trading hubs, where items have been shipped in that are not domestically produced.
A zero here means that this society has no knowledge of this type of craft.
While Kikai is not technologically advanced, and very poor, an abundance of iron and need for personal protection has made ironworking a relatively advanced skill. Other craft areas have been developed primarily because they help to provide food - either through hunting, farming, or fishing.
| Division | Societal Maximum |
|---|---|
| Alchemy | 0 |
| Bowmaking | 10 |
| Calligraphy | 1 |
| Carpentry | 10 |
| Casting | 2 |
| Composition | 1 |
| Fletching | 15 |
| Forgery | 0 |
| Gemcutting | 1 |
| Glassworking | 4 |
| Leatherworking | 10 |
| Machining | 0 |
| Pottery | 10 |
| Sailmaking | 12 |
| Smithing | 14 |
| Stonework | 12 |
| Tailoring | 4 |
| Trapmaking | 15 |
| Weaving | 15 |
| Woodworking | 12 |
Heal
Healing is widely practiced, but poorly understood. Long-term care is most common, as it is used to ease the suffering of disease and age. Combat tends to be so brutal that first aid is almost never useful, and surgery, while it has technically been discovered, is effectively useless.
The most skilled of all physicians in this society will have no higher than the ranks listed below (the ranks being family modifier+specialization). The average value will be significantly lower.
| Division | Societal Maximum |
|---|---|
| First Aid | 8 |
| Long-Term Care | 10 |
| Surgery | 1 |
Profession
Common divisions of Profession are:
Farmer Fisher Sailor
Knowledge
With no education, knowledge is a rare skill. But some knowledge is picked up anyways.
Common divisions of Knowledge are:
Religion Animals The Ocean Kikai
Perform
Very few people can afford to learn an art, but most villagers can dance or sing a little.
Common divisions of Perform are:
Sing Dance Spoken Word
Other
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Magic
Kikai is a very magical island, but it produces relatively few spellcasters.
There are no Wizards on Kikai, because there is no tradition of magical theory, so intelligence alone cannot lead to power.
Mages and Sorcerers are not unknown, but are rare. Those who are born tend to not be terribly powerful. Noro (shrine maidens) who have magical powers tend to be Mages.
Adepts are by far the most common sort of magic-user on Kikai. The majority of Adepts are Darkness adepts, or occasionally Life, and are taken to become Shamans as soon as they manifest their powers. See the entry for Shamans above, under Religion.
Magic-users who do not become shrine maidens or shamans tend to leave their villages and become hermits.
