Geran's Exiles

As Vance walked through the city on his way to the Mercenary's Guild (the tram was down), he saw a notice of a play nailed to a signboard. A children's production of Geran and his Merry Fellows? This he had to see. A quick turn of the heel later and he was at Primary School 13's outdoor lawn, watching a group of small children belt out their lines.
"It is I, Geran Raefel, and I bid you welcome to the promise of equality!" A boy no older than eight, wearing a shiny frock, waved a walking stick in the air. "A promised land, without nobles or kings! Everyone who follows me will become a King in their own right!"
The hunter stifled a smile. He remembered doing something similar as a boy, playing one of Geran's followers. It was the next part that would sell the play.
And sell it the students of 13 did, as they all came streaming out of the school building wearing ridiculous ship get-up. Lining up in order, the children began to sing.

"The promised land,

the promised land,

a land where all can be free,

a land for you and me,

the promised land for all!"

The boy playing Raefel screamed, "Forward to the island and the future!", and the masses of children began to suddenly run at full speeds into each other, the children making crashing and explosion noises with their mouths as they horsed around in a scene of bedlam. The crowd began to laugh at this, and Vance couldn't help but join in. Raefel Island was named after Geran Raefel's folly, after all, and so any plays concerning the event typically followed the same overarching idea. 

Culture

Culture and cultural heritage

The people that came to be known as Geran's Exiles were followers of Geran Raefel, an adventurer turned faith-mystic of the second century. Raefel was an apostate of one of the major religions of the era (as the Saibh of this time was a patchwork of mostly theocracies and tribal faiths). As a result of his apostasy, he was to be hanged in a public square, but the rope snapped on the gallows. This was seen as a work of divine intervention, and Raefel was permitted to leave in exile.
Little is known about his specific preachings (as his proselytizing was oral, and by one account he wished that none of his sermons be written). His following, however, grew tremendously in a short amount of time, and was composed mostly of the indigent and those who had run afoul of an extant local city-state or religion. Records indicated that he and his followers travelled the length of Saibh multiple times, with his following growing steadily. This traveling group began to be likened to a swarm of locusts; cities that had been happy to see their poor join Raefel's flock began to insist more stridently that he move along, before the local forests were emptied of berries and game. 
Eventually, it became known that Raefel promised salvation across the sea, in the direction of a 'lost' island (now known as Raefel Island), where people could worship freely and the bounty of the land was to be shared by all. On the rocky shores of the southwestern coastline, his followers constructed a vast fleet of boats and set sail to the island in 140, never to be seen again, and earning their moniker of 'Exiles'.
The current community of Raefel Island, discovered much later by the Principality of Etoile, claimed to be descendants of Geran's Exiles, but this is considered to be largely fanciful. It is more likely that the current residents are descended from some mixture of future political exiles, adventurers, and pirates, all of whom regularly visited the island over the years and found no signs of a religious community.

Shared customary codes and values

In the short time Geran's Exiles wandered Saibh between the years of 136 and 140, it was known that their values emphasized community first. All resources were to be shared amongst each other so that everyone could continue the pilgrimage; those with ability to hunt and gather fed those with the ability to cobble footwear and the Exile's preferred type of travelling tent.
Whatever Geran Raefel preached, it must have worked for his converts; several of his followers were formerly bitter enemies, with allegiances to rival religions and scriptures. Some message of tolerance must have been necessary to get this fractious coalition of people to fight with one voice.

Common Dress code

One somewhat unusual custom of the Exiles was their plain, roughspun dress. Contemporary cultures and faiths tended to favor bright and bold colors, but Geran Raefel himself wore hempen clothing and encouraged others to dress simply. Combined with the relative infrequency of bathing at the time (worsened by their nomadic existence) led to the common descriptor of the Exiles as an essentially troglodytic culture, a bunch of savages in sack clothing coming and going as they pleased.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

Little is known about the customs of Geran's Followers; what is known is constructed from individual journals and state records of their visits and transits. It was known that all were welcome in their ranks, regardless of prior associations (though criminals were routinely expelled). It was known that they practiced a form of nomadic communalism, with everyone in their ranks gathering food and distributing it equally. It was also known that Geran Raefel himself was almost seen as a god walking the earth, with his speeches and conversation repeated and chanted like a mantra among the faithful. 
One point is generally agreed upon in the historical corpus. Geran Raefel promised his followers a place to go where all would be equally embraced by the light of the Gods (which gods this happened to be remains unknown). They spent years wandering Saibh, being chased away from the city-states and princely realms, searching for their promised land, and presumably never found it.