Revision as of 19:43, 2 December 2012

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.

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

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Law and Punishment

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.

They 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".

Shamans

Crow Shamen

White Shaman

Symbolism

Birds

Crows

Stone Faces

Circles

Other Worlds

Kikai mysticism states that there are two other planes of being, overlaid

Ne-no-kuni

"Land of Roots" - Shadow World

Takaikan

"The other face of the sea" - Spirit World

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.

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.

Profession

Common divisions of Profession are:

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Knowledge

Common divisions of Knowledge are:

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Perform

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Common divisions of Perform are:

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Other

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Magic

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History