A human people known as the Padjii live most of their lives in or around the water. Their heritage stems from the Solavii who fled to the seas whenever the primordial continent was broken during the shattering wars and who spent all of that war drifting on the oceans. These humans only settled after that war had ended, finally landing on various islands and coastal areas around the now much changed world. By this point they have become thousands of disparate tribes, connected through tenuous and complex lines of blood and friendship forged as ships passed and routes were navigated through an oft changing sea.
The tribes are very nature oriented, generally esqueing arcane magic solely for Druidic and rarely for divine magics. Padjii Druids are some of the strongest druids on the continent and in regards to the ocean they are the strongest, often with even sea-going species coming to study under them.
Oddly enough, though they live around and in the ocean they rarely worship Boral and doing so is generally seen as bad luck and may even get a cleric of Boral shunned from some tribes. Though the druids are close lipped about it, what they will say that the sea is better without Borals involvement.
The Padjii have formed few nations, preferring to keep to small villages and settlements on islands around the world and live in peace with the ocean. Those nations that have arisen are very maritime and trade focused ones.
The Padjii Language
This human language has suffered the furthest and most extreme drift of any of the Solavii tongues, being unrecognizable as a solavii language. The only real remnant of Solavii is in the name Padjii, an ancient Solavii word for "Drifting".
Real World examples are best found among the
Taínoand
Kalinago languages, Indigenous Caribbean groups.
Their dialects can be as varied as the islands they live on and they often learn common or whatever nearby races languages so they can trade and communicate. They consider Triton to be good neighbors but have inherited a distrust of Merrow and Sahuagin through the myths and legends they carry with them from the "Drifting Times".
Naming Conventions
The Padjii naming conventions change drastically depending on the part of the world they live in, often mirroring or being adjusted based on the cultures that surround them.
What never changes is that the Padjii scribe much of their lives and history upon their body in the form of tattoos. They often do not verbalize their names past their first, sometimes using their family name if the situation dictates. Family names tend to change often as couples will often take a new one for their pairing. This is because to other Padjii, their lineage and family attachments are as easy to read on their skin as one reads a book.
The tattoos attached to tribe, family and land are a constant among them, a language in and of itself. Tattoos denoting those three major points are geometric in nature and follow a relatively strict pattern that is almost indecipherable to an outsider. Other tattoos tend to be more regional but as with most dialects of the same, are generally understood by other Padjii.
The Padjii write the stories of their lives on their skin and some denote nothing but the most important aspects while others will add tattoos for every little thing. The end result, whichever way one follows, is that many Padjii of old age are covered in as much tattoo as they are skin and are quite easy to pick out of a crowd.
For Example
Jadzia Serra is a woman named Jadzia, born of the Serra family. Her tattoos denote a family whose both lines originate from the South-Seas while she herself was born in now the dwarven stronghold-port of Slagport. Her tattoos do NOT denote a tribe, rather it denotes a lack as her people in Slagport are made up of freed Padjii slaves of many tribes who were freed and settled there.
The tattoos would show the lands her parents were from and the land that she was born in as well as her particular tribe and their tribes. The location of the tattoos are not regular but they are almost always someplace that is normally visible.
Family tattoos can go as far back as a particular Padjii wants but the tradition usually dictates two generations, not counting the bearers. Culturally it is seen as flashy or wasteful to do more and often looked at as a sign of someone whose own deeds are not enough to fill the space on their "canvas".
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