Aomori Strix
Strix fiercely defend both land and air in their mountain territories. Deadly but wise, strix would prefer to live quietly, yet time and tradition have taught them the wingless peoples of the shores and lowlands cannot be trusted, and that only fear and bloodshed will protect their homes. Fortunately, the strix excel in this regard.
The strix’s territory is limited to strange rock spurs and unnaturally deep crevasses. Those brave or foolish enough to advance soon encounter dozens of perched strix warriors glaring with tilted heads and squatting just out of arrow range. Before flying away, the winged humanoids verbally assault the invaders in the Strix tongue, something more akin to an eagle screeching than a cultured language, and prepare to release a barrage of boulders down the cliffs to sweep flightless enemies off the spires to their deaths.
They refer to their individual domains as kingdoms, despite the small size of them compared to the kingdoms the PCs would be more familiar with. Leaders of many tribes meet once every so often to discuss things. Maybe some sort of pilgrimage. Leaders are headmen, chiefs, chieftains, shamans, and elders. Strix regard nature with a mix of respect and fear. They're right in the middle of it and it is deadly, but also is it what they have and it's deadliness protects them as well.
Base culture off of Aiel:
Kingdom=clan
King(or Queen)=clan chief
Witch=Wise One
When the times comes for a new king, the candidates must complete a dangerous and/or difficult task. The candidates attempt it one at a time generally starting with any children of the previous king going from oldest to youngest, then going to other members of the kingdom going by loose popular vote (there is no counting, but still). Aside from the task to be completed this is all just tradition with no actual rules and the candidates are those who volunteer themselves, but there is a strong expectation that certain members will try (like the previous king's children).
Failure of the task nearly always leads to death and any who do return without having completed it are heavily stigmatized, though there is no such consequence for backing out before attempting it. Any who complete it could be marked in some way like the dragon tattoo for the Aiel.
The Elves come to the strix at irregular and unpredictable intervals, except right after a new king is crowned. Nobody knows how they know though. They are powerful mages and often offer assistance to the strix when they appear. They're part of the reason why magic is so revered. Maybe they also have a part in it's rarity among the strix? They are probably using the strix for their own purposes. Do any strix suspect this? Just how deep does their influence go?
Magic users are extremely rare in their civilization compared to those of Londe. Due to this casters are very feared and respected and any that are found with the ability are trained to be witches. Their rarity may simply be due to the nearly religious reverence for magic and the belief that it cannot be taught and one can only be born with it (sorcerers) or be granted it by a powerful being (witches). This may lead to their being many among them who are capable of using magic but will not be able to do so without learning. As an example, wizards (who study the use of magic) will never occur, but sorcerers (who have an innate sense of how to use the magic in their blood) will.
The Witches might communicate with each other in some way such as through dreams. They might all have the Lucid Dreamer feat as a result of their training to maximize how much they can do and communicate in these dreams. By casting dream or dream council or by having the feat, a member of a dream council can enter a shared dreamscape with the caster and any others who do this and can interact and speak freely instead of being restricted to a limited number of 25 word messages. The Witches Speak in Dreams major hex could also be used for this.
The Stone Familiar wondrous item can store up to 500 levels of witch spells. This could be used by the actual "Witches" to share spells between each other and between generations. They could have so many that they have all witch spells, and probably several duplicates.
A common trait among Witches may be red eyes. This would be the reason why Espowyes asked Marcoth if he was a Witch before any of the others who displayed magical ability.
The most common full caster classes for "Witches" will probably be witches, druids, sorcerers, and oracles. Those that are granted power (witches and druids) will most likely be more common than those with an in-born ability for it (sorcerers).
Since casters are meant to be witches, a strix who is known to be able to use magic must work towards that and cannot become a king. This could be a reason for Espowyes hiding his magical abilities.
Maybe make Mephistopheles their patron. Could have freed them from the Syrinx and showed/ taken them to the cities. Purpose is to mold them into his servitor race or a way to manipulate the world without anyone knowing he's responsible?
Recommended to replace the Hatred racial trait with Weapon Familiarity in bows and short swords due to no previous contact with humans and so no racial hatred.
Naming Traditions
Other names
Names based off of Native Americans.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
The strix language is a strange creole of Azlanti and Infernal.
Encompassed species
Related Organizations
Comments