Enyu (N-you)
Humans who dwell in the perpetual gloom of Skovasil, the enyu are extremely pale due to their lack of sunlight exposure.
Naming Traditions
Feminine names
Many feminine Skov names are based on words for color or brightness, such as Jecho (Yellow), Barslit (Our Green), Speodir (Shine Brightly).
Masculine names
Many masculine Skov names are based on words for valuable traits, such as Chitsio (Strong one), Vzrolk (Bringer of Curiosity), Frokmen (Protecter)
Family names
Family surnames are usually based upon what the overall profession of the father is. Common surnames include Skodnat (Locksmith), Vrulvit (Woodcutter), and Mibjodet (Monster-Slayer)
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Most enyu speak Skov Common.
Average technological level
Withertree wood is incredibly hard and exceptionally flammable, allowing for the construction of hearths that can burn for days on end, but harvesting the wood is quite difficult, as cutting down that hard trees is a lengthly and taxing proccess. Most poorer Enyu substitute wood with Znasti (Burning Dust), a foul-smelling peat easily harvest from the ground. Due to the darkness of Skovasil, the Enyu have developed the Glek, also known as the Luma Lantern. These lanterns mix small small shards of withertree wood, Znasti, and Glitru, a bean-based oil from the Glit bean, a pungent bean that is used both in cooking, coffee, and oil. While the lanterns give off a rather repungent smell, they are capable of burning for hours and hours on end.
Common Etiquette rules
The Enyu are a highly suspicious people, as it has helped them survive in the Realm of Shadow. Most Enyus prefer to meet other in public spaces, and an invitation into an Enyuan home is a sign of great trust.
Common Dress code
The enyu wear tight, warm clothing, usually in many layers, both to help protect them from the cold of Skovasil and to guard them from any diseases carried by the various monsters that often prowl the realm. Despite constantly covering up, the Enyu are very open about their bodies, due to the need to constantly inspect bodies for wounds that could fester into necrotic diseases. They usually have communal baths in large bathhouses as both ways to inspect bodies for wounds and to save on wood and heat.
Art & Architecture
A common ore in Skovasil is known as Skvevri (Meltstone), a mineral that has a low melting point, allowing for it to be easily sculpted without using much wood. The iron produced from Skvevri has a dark black color and a flowing texture, leading Enyuan buildings to have a large, gothic appearance. Large amounts of Skvevri is usually reserved for either large public buildings, such as governmental centers, churches, or the mansions of the wealthy. Due to wood being difficult to harvest, wooden structures and objects are also held as status symbols for the wealthy.
The less wealthy typically utilized a foundation of leffover Skvevri to build the outer skeleton of their houses, then used a mix of mud and clay to create the walls and inner coating. These dwellings are known as Kremara (Mud House), and are built this way due to the constant need for fire and warmth in the house causing risk for houses made entirely of wood. In most Kremara, the center of the dwelling is a large firepit, known as the Sletpark (Warm Center), The Sletpark served both as a kitchen, warming center, and the bedroom for the inhabitants of the Kremara. Most Enyuans lack formal beds, instead sleeping on mud molds on around the Sletpark, utilizing heavy blankets. Having a private sleeping room is another sign of a wealthy status.
Foods & Cuisine
Trees known as Withertrees dominate the land of Skovasil, and these trees grow, small, incredibly bitter berries that are good for assuaging hunger pains. Witherberries are used heavily by laborers to help them get through long work days, but long-term consumption of Witherberries lead to digestion and other health problems.
Mushrooms are a common plant in the realm, able to grow in the minimal light. Enyuans have developed a bread known as Pochli (Rot Bread), made out of cultivated mushroom yeast. It has a quite pungent smell and taste, but is incredibly filling. Similiarly, an alcoholic beverage is cultivated from another strain of mushroom, mixing both alcohol and a small amount of psychedillic properties to make a very potent beverage known as Khveskek (Life Water).
Common Customs, traditions and rituals
Every Enyuan family has a large tapestry that depicts their family history and tree. These tapestries, known as Ancestral Tapestries are woven together over the course of years by Enyuan women.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
One of the first things that most Enyuan parents do after the birth of a child is to hand a handcrafted charms, designed to protect them from evil. Most charms are superficial, but more wealthy parents can affored to have silver charms made, which can actually provide a small level of protection against many of Skovasils dark creatures. These charms often take the shape of the families crest, and many Enyu never remove these charms. While the practice has mixed reception, many wealthy folk even brand or permanetly imbed their young with silver linings, so that these charms become permanently part of their bodies.
Coming of Age Rites
Young Enyu are often simply refered to as Sprints (litterarly translanting to offspring).
Most male Enyu must serve at least some time on a town guard or militia, and a common rite is for a male Enyu is to watch over their family household for an entire night and day by themselves (or in groups of other coming-of-age men for larger or more dangerous areas).
For female Eynu, their coming of age ceromony is in the form of replicating their family tapestry, adding a new element of their own ascention to adulthood, as well as their siblings, if they have them.
Funerary and Memorial customs
Enyuan funerary customs vary whether or not they dwell in the Free Lands or the Necromantic Baronies. Enyuans who dwell in the Free Lands will often bury their dead in a (hopefully) consecrated graveyard to prevent it raising as an undead.
Those who live in under the Necromantic Barons often have their bodies used in necromantic rituals. The vampire of Exha often drain the blood of the elderly to create spawns, or remove blood from corpses to create wine. The litches of Oss utilize the bones of the dead to craft fortifications, while Caromid uses the flesh of the dead to craft various golems and even large buildings. In Anima all bodies are sent to the Soul Sanctum, where their essence is harvest to power the nation and create spectral guardians. While reception to these actions vary wildly, with most baryonic Enyu subjected to large levels of propaganda to get them to accept such conditions, Free Land Enyuans are horrified by the stories from their southern brethren. They often even embellish these stories to even higher levels of hysteria.
Common Taboos
For Free Land Enyuans, necromancy is the most abhorrent practice possible, as it is used by the enemy barons of the South. Clowns, and carnival-like aesthetics are a symbol of the hated Grimm, the first corporeal undead, and thus anything resembling his carnival are chased out of town in a mob of pitchforks and torches. Destroying an Ancestral Tapestry is also a high crime, especially if fire is used in the destruction. Those who destroy an Ancestral Tapestry are often chained up in a high-undead area and left to be consumed.
For the Enyu dwelling in the territory one of the barons, their taboos vary by region. Necromancy is accepted, if not even mandatory, or at least the Enyu living there must outwardly present such ideals. Those dwelling in the vampiric Exha Baronies have very strict, non-violence rules, as the spilling of blood is reserved for their vampiric masters, and garlic is a forbidden food.
In the Ossan barony, destroying items of personal property is anathema, as one may never know what may secretly be a phylactery of a lich overlord. Killing direct family members is also more heavily punished than other murders in Ossan lands, a decree descending from the Oss families unique magic of passing their undead spirits through family lines.
In Anima, the area is filled with large crystal beacons know as Soul Beacons. Damaging any of these Soul Beacons will immediately summon hostile spirits who will attempt to rip the soul out of the offender, forever binding it to guarding the crystal. If one manages to actually destroy a Soul Beacon, Anima herself will descend on her spectral dragon, and personally collect the soul of the offender and their entire family line for an eternity of torment.
In Caromid, damaging a noble's property (which usually includes a zombified servant) usually results in the offender or one of the offender's family members being gifted to the noble as property as recompense. Said gift is usually slain and zombified into a new servant. These causes many to act very cautiously around even the most basic of zombie slaves, as their natural decay can often be misconstrued as intentional damage.
Common Myths and Legends
Most Enyuans are not very religious, as the gods of have never seemed to have blessed Skovasil with much protection. Some will worship various deities of protection, or fighting of the undead, such as the dwarven goddess Herthicara, the alkan god Anubis, or the Tengu god Thoth. Some worship a member of the human pantheon, but most have heavy focus on specifics of other realms, which doesn't lead to many Enyu to gravitate towards them. More sinister Enyu, or most dwelling in the Necromantic Baronies, worship Grimm, the god of corporeal undead, or the Dark Spirit, the god of night and incorporeal undead. All Enyuans are heavily suspicious, and have many different superstitions regarding the areas surrounding their villages.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Enyuans generally care more for signs of survivability and stability than physical beauty, and it is very common for most Enyuan to get some sort of major scar or wound in their lifetime.
Gender Ideals
In the Free Lands, male enyu take the roles of laborers, usually felling and harvesting witherwood or mining Skvevri, and acting in town militias. Woman tend to the household, educate youth, and most importantly, weave and embroiling the families clothing, blankets, and tapestries.
Gender roles are less defined for the Enyu of the Necromantic Baronies, as they are much more at the whims of their particular baron. Most barons care little for the overall actions of their servants, as long as they don't interfere with the barons goals. In most of the barons, mindless undead take on most of the manual labor, leaving the Enyu of both genders to take on more admisistrative roles. Magic is much more availilble for most baronic Enyu, should they show an aptitute for it.
Courtship Ideals
Free Land Enyuans offer the parents of potential partners a dowery, as proof of the Enyuans ability to survive and provide in the harsh Skovasil lands. This dowery is often seen as commission, where the male provides the money, and the female will then weave a new Ancestral Tapestry, combining elements of both families. Theses tapestries are later shown off at the marriage ceremony. These marriage ceremonies are usually held during the (relatively) warmer summer months, where large festivals are held where many betrothed celebrate their marriages simultaneously. This is mostly done to save wood, and to greater protect the community, as such ceremonies often involve long bonfires that can attract monsters.
Those that dwell under the thumb of the Barons often are paired based on the whims of the barons or their subordinates. Those in the Exha Baronies often still partake in the presenting of the doweries, but hold personal familial ceremonies instead of communal ones. Ossan families are incredibly specific, and make arranged consanguineous marriages, often between distant cousins. Anima often utilize necromantic rituals to summon the spirits of their ancestors (or have those spirits request leave from their service duties), who must approve of the wedding, and weddings are large, personal family gatherings between the two families.
Sex is a complicated matter for the Enyu, varying heavily by region. Save for their communal bathtimes, most Enyu are very reserved in revealing themselves, as their heavy clothes protect them from danger and provide much needed warmth and removing them makes them feel uncomfortable. Due to their family housing often lacking privacy, and the many risks that come with a pair sneaking away from home for a good time, most Enyus wait until marriage and the construction of their own houses until they indulge. Those that dwell in the vampiric Exha Baronies and the Ossan Lands have a much looser and less fearful view towards sex, as the vampire use their charms to encourage promiscuity, and the Oss's interest in expanding familial lines leads their Barons to encourage breeding. Anima has no particual interest in the body, and due to the prevelance of diseases brought on by Caromids zombified slaves, the Enyuans in those territories are even more conservative when it comes to sexual matters.
Relationship Ideals
Enyuans are very close to their family members and those of their community, but are heavily wary of any outside their direct community. An Enyuan that moves to a new community will have a tremendous uphill battle in earning the trust of the other community members. Most Enyuans have very close relationships with their mothers, regardless of gender, while the father is often a more distant figure, as they are often out working in the dangerous outdoors. Due to large mortality rates among men, villagers will often come together to support each other in times of need.
Most villiages are lead by a male mayor, who is elected for a life term, but will generally retire in their late 60s and act as an advisior for the new, young mayer.
Major organizations
Many Enyu toil under the rule of one of the four necromantic barons, but a large amount also dwell in the Free Lands, mostly in the Eastern Free Lands.
Random Enyu Homelands
| % Rolled | Homeland | Trait Gained |
|---|---|---|
| 01-20 | Freeland City or Village | On Guard |
| 21-40 | Remote Highland Town | Carefully Hidden |
| 41-60 | Vampiric Barony | Disillusioned |
| 61-70 | Necromantic Citadel | Inured to Death |
| 71-80 | Dark Forest | Brave |
| 81-90 | Scoured Desert | Relic Hunter |
| 91-96 | Shadowy Ocean | Ghost Sight |
| 97-00 | Unusual Homeland | (Roll on Unusual Homeland table) |
Encompassed species
Related Organizations
Languages spoken
Related Locations
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