Mwangi
Eons ago, the Mwangi people ruled the interior of Garund, warring against the bloodthirsty cyclopes of Ghol-Gan and mastering the art of magic by emulating the practices of the continent’s abundant extraplanar beings. When Azlant fell and the other civilizations lay shattered by the horrific cataclysm that was Earthfall, the Mwangi people and their lifestyle remained relatively intact, and they spread across the land while other cultures struggled to survive. Today, the Mwangi range across the breadth of Garund, from settlements on the broken, storm-wracked western shores to trade havens lining the northern and eastern coasts, and can be found almost anywhere on Golarion. Their long history and far-reaching migration during the Age of Darkness have divided the Mwangi into four distinct cultures, and they are both numerous and diverse as a result.
The Mwangi people include cosmopolitan seafarers, isolationist villagers, bureaucrats of ancient city-states, and wandering hunter-gatherer tribes, all bound together by a common history. The average Mwangi—if such a person truly exists—is both self-reliant and community-minded, able to survive on her own and to work harmoniously with others. Born in an environment that devours the works of human hands, Mwangi culture emphasizes the mind and body as the only truly reliable tools.
In Garund, Mwangi fashion varies just as widely, though the clothing of those who dwell in the Mwangi Expanse is more colorful than most Avistani apparel thanks to the easy access to a variety of dyes and semiprecious stones there. Intricate weaving or beadwork mark clothing with special or ritual significance; such garments are often given as gifts to loved ones. In other lands, Mwangi generally adopt local attire, but retain a few traditional flourishes.
Love of learning—shared by children and adults alike—is a predominant trait across the myriad Mwangi settlements and tribes. Children learn about music, history, biology, and spiritualism as one integrated lesson rather than distinct subjects, and life lessons and historical perspective are distilled into easily recalled songs and chants. Most also learn a half-dozen variations of their local language so they can trade, argue, and flirt with neighbors, and speak the polyglot trade tongue used to communicate with those from outside their region. Shared songs and history foster a mutual identity, and learning numerous languages while young helps break down cultural barriers imposed by isolation.
During Earthfall, Mwangi scholars rescued tomes and scrolls from their great libraries and took to wandering as society crumbled. Ten thousand years later, the Mwangi people still support networks of wandering scholars, who carry heavy loads of books—some carefully hand-copied from originals first written thousands of years ago—between tribes and cities, educating anyone willing to listen. Young adults travel with these old masters, forming roving universities whose students help shoulder the burden of caring for the caravan and maintaining its libraries while studying all manner of lore. Tutors foster any gift for magic, both divine and arcane, in their students, presenting them as useful tools within the grasp of anyone with the will and intelligence to seize them. As a result, dabbling spellcasters are far more common among the Mwangi than in other civilizations.
Mwangi excel at coming together in response to crises, be it to build a home, or to form empires to battle greater threats, such as the bloodthirsty hordes of Usaro or the haunted horrors of Ghol-Gan. Open-minded Mwangi know that their strength lies in the well-being of their siblings, friends, and neighbors, and strive to protect, nurture, and understand them. In more sinister Mwangi subcultures and settlements, this civic-mindedness instead manifests as the belief that an entire clan is only as strong as its weakest link; in such settlements, those deemed soft or useless are brought into line with violence, paranoia, and threats—or even culled. This sense of community and shared burden extends to the supernatural beings with whom Mwangi often live side by side; spellcasters and other spiritually sensitive Mwangi use their gifts to aid their human and spiritual neighbors alike.
Most Bonuwat pay homage primarily to Gozreh and Desna. Those Mwangi who make a living on the open sea hedge their bets by offering up prayers to Besmara and any relevant local gods in hopes that pirates and harsh weather might overlook their passing. Mauxi faith incorporates many elements of Garundi religion—especially the worship of Pharasma as the ultimate force of change and adaptation—as well as calling on powerful ancestors and seeking counsel from the dead. The Bekyar embrace the practice of juju, which consists of equal parts political maneuvering and communing with spirits known as wendo. They also worship demon lords such as Angazhan, Dagon, and Zura. Zenj spirituality is widely varied—many of the Zenj venerate Gozreh and Nethys, either as gods or as powerful spirits, practice shamanism and the Green Faith, or combine faith and diplomatic relations in unique forms of religious practice centered on the supernatural creatures with whom the Mwangi share the land.
Bonuwat: This coastal people ranges from Rahadoum through the Sodden Lands and into the Shackles. Most Bonuwat make a living harvesting the bounty of the sea as fishers, crabbers, traders, sailors, shipwrights, or salvagers, and many take their first steps on a ship’s rolling deck. They are by far the most widely traveled of the Mwangi people, and nearly all Avistani envision Bonuwat traits when they imagine life in Garund as a whole.
Bekyar: Like Cheliax and Nidal far to the north, the Bekyar people chose wicked routes to power to survive harsh times. They embraced the worship of demons and hostile spirit beings, and created a mercenary society that prizes strength and survival at all costs. Aggressive conquerors and slavers, most Bekyar are shunned by other Mwangi.
Mauxi: The Mauxi bear little cultural resemblance to their cousins, instead taking more after the Garundi they have lived among for millennia. Most consider themselves a distinct people, unrelated to the Mwangi, but a growing minority advocate for tracing their roots, reclaiming their lost identity, and understanding what ancient forces drove their ancestors out from the Mwangi Expanse, over the Barrier Wall mountains, and into Thuvia and Osirion.
Zenj: Actually a collection of dozens of ethnicities spread across the interior of Garund, especially in the Mwangi Expanse, the Zenj are roughly divided between jungle-dwelling cultures in the north, savanna-dwelling people in the south, and urban civilizations peppering the Expanse in various city-states and small nations. The nomadic savanna tribes tend toward matriarchy, while jungle tribes are more sedentary, with men traditionally ruling the political scene. The city-states and small nations vary widely, many of which take their characteristic cultural elements from their rulers or divine patrons.
Despite their tense relations with Chelaxians and consequent suspicion of Avistani, most Mwangi get on well with the neighboring Garundi and Keleshite peoples. Trade, travel, and intermarriage are common, and in settlements near borders—such as those of the Mauxi— Mwangi locals have intermarried with their Garundi or Keleshite neighbors to such a degree that they have melded their parent cultures into a distinct new form, and often serve as diplomatic bridges between the parent cultures. The Zenj share territory with the Ekujae elves, and children with elven ancestors are common among the Mwangi. The Ekujae vex Mwangi historians, however, as they claim several ancient Mwangi cities deep within the jungle and maintain them in isolation, preserving the past impeccably but barring human inheritors from their own legacy, and refusing to comment on why they do so. Many of the other humanoid races—such as dwarves, halflings, and gnomes—are found throughout Garund, though they’re less ubiquitous in the Mwangi Expanse than in other lands.
Mwangi share a significantly more respectful relationship with fey, outsiders, and even undead than with most human ethnicities, and most accounts credit the Mwangi with originally learning the magical arts from the supernatural creatures with which they share close ties. This reverence for the spirit world often proves common ground for Mwangi and Tians, who also do not view it as strange to converse with the dead and other spirits.
Mwangi adventurers are comfortable as both leaders and followers, and adapt easily to companions’ habits and beliefs, no matter how bizarre they may seem. They thrive in groups that understand that success is shared, and enjoy friendly ribbing and competition, though few stay long in a group that allows itself to become embittered by internal politics. They also may find it difficult to understand a companion who insists on taking a resource that would be more useful in the hands of a different party member. In general, however, Mwangi adventurers have considerable patience for their companions’ individual quirks and preferences, as long as they don’t threaten the group’s cohesion.
The Mwangi people include cosmopolitan seafarers, isolationist villagers, bureaucrats of ancient city-states, and wandering hunter-gatherer tribes, all bound together by a common history. The average Mwangi—if such a person truly exists—is both self-reliant and community-minded, able to survive on her own and to work harmoniously with others. Born in an environment that devours the works of human hands, Mwangi culture emphasizes the mind and body as the only truly reliable tools.
Appearance
Mwangi features are extremely varied, with little to physically mark them as a single people beyond a strong and usually broad bone structure, darker skin tones, and a tendency toward dark hair. The Zenj people of the continental interior and southern savannas are both the most numerous and the most varied in their coiffure and attire; they’re the shortest of the Mwangi people and tend toward compact, athletic builds. The coastal Bonuwat, who intermarry most frequently with foreigners, have eyes of brilliant shades of brown, green, hazel, gray, or blue. Most of the isolationist Bekyars stand a head taller than other Mwangi and have muscular builds. The Mauxi share many physical traits with their Garundi neighbors, including freckles and thick, straight hair with a wider range of hues than the hair of other Mwangi ethnicities.In Garund, Mwangi fashion varies just as widely, though the clothing of those who dwell in the Mwangi Expanse is more colorful than most Avistani apparel thanks to the easy access to a variety of dyes and semiprecious stones there. Intricate weaving or beadwork mark clothing with special or ritual significance; such garments are often given as gifts to loved ones. In other lands, Mwangi generally adopt local attire, but retain a few traditional flourishes.
Society
Golarion’s tropical regions provide an abundance of food and unique survival challenges. Mwangi city-states, seasonal tribal grounds, and fishing settlements all flourish without the heavy agriculture or bulky trade networks that other empires rely on, and pockets of Mwangi people may live in isolation for years or centuries before reconnecting with their kin. The inhabitants of one town may have an entirely different dialect, religion, and diet than their neighbors just 50 miles away. The self-sufficiency of Mwangi communities has prevented individual settlements from being dragged down by the misfortunes of others in the area. It allowed the Mwangi to recover quickly after Earthfall, and continues to make them resilient survivors.Love of learning—shared by children and adults alike—is a predominant trait across the myriad Mwangi settlements and tribes. Children learn about music, history, biology, and spiritualism as one integrated lesson rather than distinct subjects, and life lessons and historical perspective are distilled into easily recalled songs and chants. Most also learn a half-dozen variations of their local language so they can trade, argue, and flirt with neighbors, and speak the polyglot trade tongue used to communicate with those from outside their region. Shared songs and history foster a mutual identity, and learning numerous languages while young helps break down cultural barriers imposed by isolation.
During Earthfall, Mwangi scholars rescued tomes and scrolls from their great libraries and took to wandering as society crumbled. Ten thousand years later, the Mwangi people still support networks of wandering scholars, who carry heavy loads of books—some carefully hand-copied from originals first written thousands of years ago—between tribes and cities, educating anyone willing to listen. Young adults travel with these old masters, forming roving universities whose students help shoulder the burden of caring for the caravan and maintaining its libraries while studying all manner of lore. Tutors foster any gift for magic, both divine and arcane, in their students, presenting them as useful tools within the grasp of anyone with the will and intelligence to seize them. As a result, dabbling spellcasters are far more common among the Mwangi than in other civilizations.
Mwangi excel at coming together in response to crises, be it to build a home, or to form empires to battle greater threats, such as the bloodthirsty hordes of Usaro or the haunted horrors of Ghol-Gan. Open-minded Mwangi know that their strength lies in the well-being of their siblings, friends, and neighbors, and strive to protect, nurture, and understand them. In more sinister Mwangi subcultures and settlements, this civic-mindedness instead manifests as the belief that an entire clan is only as strong as its weakest link; in such settlements, those deemed soft or useless are brought into line with violence, paranoia, and threats—or even culled. This sense of community and shared burden extends to the supernatural beings with whom Mwangi often live side by side; spellcasters and other spiritually sensitive Mwangi use their gifts to aid their human and spiritual neighbors alike.
Faith
Mwangi religious beliefs vary widely, with different settlements worshiping different deities, demigods, empyreal lords, demon lords, elemental lords, local spirits, or venerated ancestors.Most Bonuwat pay homage primarily to Gozreh and Desna. Those Mwangi who make a living on the open sea hedge their bets by offering up prayers to Besmara and any relevant local gods in hopes that pirates and harsh weather might overlook their passing. Mauxi faith incorporates many elements of Garundi religion—especially the worship of Pharasma as the ultimate force of change and adaptation—as well as calling on powerful ancestors and seeking counsel from the dead. The Bekyar embrace the practice of juju, which consists of equal parts political maneuvering and communing with spirits known as wendo. They also worship demon lords such as Angazhan, Dagon, and Zura. Zenj spirituality is widely varied—many of the Zenj venerate Gozreh and Nethys, either as gods or as powerful spirits, practice shamanism and the Green Faith, or combine faith and diplomatic relations in unique forms of religious practice centered on the supernatural creatures with whom the Mwangi share the land.
Culture
Thanks to the incredible longevity of their culture, which dates back beyond Earthfall and the Age of Darkness, the Mwangi maintain complex and highly varied societies, but a few key aspects still bind them as one people.Diversity
Mwangi are a diverse human ethnicity found across most of the northern half of Garund, and have spread far beyond its shores. Four major ethnic subgroups and dozens of other smaller groups have diverged from a common predecessor; they now bear little resemblance to one another beyond their homeland and distant history.Bonuwat: This coastal people ranges from Rahadoum through the Sodden Lands and into the Shackles. Most Bonuwat make a living harvesting the bounty of the sea as fishers, crabbers, traders, sailors, shipwrights, or salvagers, and many take their first steps on a ship’s rolling deck. They are by far the most widely traveled of the Mwangi people, and nearly all Avistani envision Bonuwat traits when they imagine life in Garund as a whole.
Bekyar: Like Cheliax and Nidal far to the north, the Bekyar people chose wicked routes to power to survive harsh times. They embraced the worship of demons and hostile spirit beings, and created a mercenary society that prizes strength and survival at all costs. Aggressive conquerors and slavers, most Bekyar are shunned by other Mwangi.
Mauxi: The Mauxi bear little cultural resemblance to their cousins, instead taking more after the Garundi they have lived among for millennia. Most consider themselves a distinct people, unrelated to the Mwangi, but a growing minority advocate for tracing their roots, reclaiming their lost identity, and understanding what ancient forces drove their ancestors out from the Mwangi Expanse, over the Barrier Wall mountains, and into Thuvia and Osirion.
Zenj: Actually a collection of dozens of ethnicities spread across the interior of Garund, especially in the Mwangi Expanse, the Zenj are roughly divided between jungle-dwelling cultures in the north, savanna-dwelling people in the south, and urban civilizations peppering the Expanse in various city-states and small nations. The nomadic savanna tribes tend toward matriarchy, while jungle tribes are more sedentary, with men traditionally ruling the political scene. The city-states and small nations vary widely, many of which take their characteristic cultural elements from their rulers or divine patrons.
Everyday Magic
The Mwangi live with the supernatural rather than standing apart from it. This trait proved invaluable after Earthfall, when the Mwangi hero Old-Mage Jatembe used folklore and spiritualism to coax arcane secrets from angels and devils alike and returned the lost art of magic to Golarion. Jatembe and his disciples codified the modern schools of magic used around the Inner Sea, and in their wanderings taught arcane and divine spellcasting to any who would learn. Magic is an everyday resource among the Mwangi people. Low-level spellcasters are more common than merchants or blacksmiths in most settlements. The Mwangi use magic to solve problems for which other cultures rely on sprawling infrastructure or physical labor, and Mwangi parents and instructors teach it alongside reading and music.Misinformation
Most Avistani consider the Mwangi Expanse a land of monolithically tribal, superstitious people who invariably attack and even—in the wilder tales—eat intruders, and believe any trace of civilization there vanished in lost ages. Most of these stories arise from a combination of willful ignorance, attempts by Taldor and Cheliax to justify their campaigns of conquest in Garund, and the former Chelish colony of Sargava’s close contact with the aggressive Bekyar people. In fact, most Mwangi people, like most Avistani natives, live peacefully in small towns or travel the land. The Mwangi tend to be better educated in history and languages than their northern counterparts, and the Mwangi Expanse hosts some of the greatest schools of arcane learning on Golarion, including the legendary Magaambya in Nantambu. Rumors of superstition persist because the Mwangi embrace magic as a tool of the common people rather than a high-minded study, and because they negotiate with and work alongside their supernatural neighbors rather than driving spirits out. Far from the Expanse being a land devoid of civilization, most Mwangi city-states simply lie deep within the thick jungles of Garund’s interior, where few foreigners venture. And while many ruins dot the land, Garund’s harsh environment can cause a settlement abandoned only a generation ago to appear long lost to an outlander’s eyes.Relations
Sheltered by the Barrier Wall Mountains and the treacherous Arcadian Ocean, the Mwangi Expanse spent millennia in regular contact with the Garundi to the north and the Keleshites to the east, but isolated from the peoples of Avistan, with only individual travelers venturing so far abroad. Following the ill-fated efforts of Taldor’s Sixth Army of Exploration to conquer Garund, 2,000 years of quiet, limited trade between the Mwangi and Avistani people began. In 4138 AR, Cheliax carved out a parcel of land south of Lirgen to found their colony of Sargava. Lirgen and Yamasa bristled at the incursion, and eventually sealed their borders to Chelish ships. Initial peaceful contact with Bonuwat and Zenj tribes became more fraught as Chelish settlers encroached further and further on Zenj lands and cities. Over the intervening centuries, numerous battles and small wars have broken out between locals and settlers, and tensions continue to simmer.Despite their tense relations with Chelaxians and consequent suspicion of Avistani, most Mwangi get on well with the neighboring Garundi and Keleshite peoples. Trade, travel, and intermarriage are common, and in settlements near borders—such as those of the Mauxi— Mwangi locals have intermarried with their Garundi or Keleshite neighbors to such a degree that they have melded their parent cultures into a distinct new form, and often serve as diplomatic bridges between the parent cultures. The Zenj share territory with the Ekujae elves, and children with elven ancestors are common among the Mwangi. The Ekujae vex Mwangi historians, however, as they claim several ancient Mwangi cities deep within the jungle and maintain them in isolation, preserving the past impeccably but barring human inheritors from their own legacy, and refusing to comment on why they do so. Many of the other humanoid races—such as dwarves, halflings, and gnomes—are found throughout Garund, though they’re less ubiquitous in the Mwangi Expanse than in other lands.
Mwangi share a significantly more respectful relationship with fey, outsiders, and even undead than with most human ethnicities, and most accounts credit the Mwangi with originally learning the magical arts from the supernatural creatures with which they share close ties. This reverence for the spirit world often proves common ground for Mwangi and Tians, who also do not view it as strange to converse with the dead and other spirits.
Adventurers
Given their traditions of wandering scholarship, far-ranging travels, and rich libraries documenting the discoveries of magical heroes, many Mwangi set forth in search of mysteries, adventure, and other challenges. Those who seek out the adventuring lifestyle often do so to aid their people, to recover lost secrets, or to better themselves, while those who fall into adventure by accident have likely found themselves in the middle of some political dispute, supernatural hijinks, or the machinations of grand empires. The widely traveled Bonuwat are more likely than other Mwangi to pursue a life of excitement, but many Zenj and Mauxi yearn to understand the world and go to extreme lengths to uncover buried secrets. The Bekyar rarely leave their territory except on lightning raids, but exiles are more likely to become adventurers than settle down in another society. Some of the Inner Sea’s greatest spellcasters, including High Sun-Mage Oyamba of Nantambu and the shaman-priests of Mzali, hail from the Mwangi people and their ancient schools of the arcane.Mwangi adventurers are comfortable as both leaders and followers, and adapt easily to companions’ habits and beliefs, no matter how bizarre they may seem. They thrive in groups that understand that success is shared, and enjoy friendly ribbing and competition, though few stay long in a group that allows itself to become embittered by internal politics. They also may find it difficult to understand a companion who insists on taking a resource that would be more useful in the hands of a different party member. In general, however, Mwangi adventurers have considerable patience for their companions’ individual quirks and preferences, as long as they don’t threaten the group’s cohesion.
Where on Golarion?
The Mwangi people have expanded to occupy much of Garund, most notably in the Mwangi Expanse—named for their civilization—and the storm-wracked remains of Lirgen and Yamasa, the area now known as the Sodden Lands, and the Shackles. The seagoing Bonuwat people suffered the most when the Age of Lost Omens began, but remain numerous along Garund’s west coast. The Bonuwat are also the most far-flung of Mwangi peoples, cropping up in ports across Avistan, Casmaron, and even Arcadia, giving foreigners the impression that Bonuwat tradition and seamanship represent the Mwangi people as a whole. The Bekyar people claim informal and ever-changing borders, but range across southwestern Garund, constantly skirmishing with Sargava’s southernmost border. The Mauxi people are primarily found in Thuvia, especially traveling its deserts or carving out a settled life alongside Garundi locals in isolated communities in the Barrier Wall Mountains. The Zenj truly dominate Garund, ranging from fishing villages along the west coast to farming communities along the Expanse’s major rivers to massive city-states deep within the jungle interior, as well as hundreds of small forest- and plains-dwelling tribes throughout the Mwangi Expanse and extending far to the south.Playing a Mwangi
The disparate Mwangi people are the heirs of ancient civilizations that thrived in Garund countless generations ago, of which little is known and even less is understood by outlanders today. If you’re Mwangi, you likely:- Welcome members of different cultures, having been raised in a society composed of many diverse traditions.
- Have a fluid understanding of your place in the community, and are ready to help however you can in a time of crisis.
- Began your education at a young age and studied a wide range of topics, from history to finding shelter in the wild.
- Take great pride in your people’s mastery of magic, be it arcane or divine in nature.
- Possess little patience for prejudice or narrow-mindedness; everyone has a strength that can bolster the community.
- Assume most non-Mwangi don’t understand or respect your culture and background.
- Make assumptions about your culture based on incomplete knowledge of your people’s history.
- Presume that your skill at survival means you have no place in civilized society.
- Expect you to be an expert on druidic magic, nature, and ancient ruins.
- Confuse your actual ethnicity with that of one of the other Mwangi peoples.
- Believe you worship mysterious spirits or obscure gods.
- View you as either a trusting innocent from an isolated culture or as a practitioner of esoteric magical traditions.
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