Pict

The Picts are a short, broad, swarthy-skinned folk who use talking drums to communicate over long distances. They paint various designs on their faces and breasts to indicate to which tribe they belong and whether they are merely out hunting or on the warpath. Picts are among the most unremitting savages in the world. They are highly superstitious and are given to barbarous forms of human sacrifice and torture of strangers and enemy Pictish tribes alike. Fortunately for the Hyborian kingdoms, the different Pictish tribes rarely co-operate but the Bossonians who border their lands dread the possibility of a particularly powerful shaman or strong chieftain managing to unite several tribes.
Culture: The Picts have a Stone Age culture, one of the most primitive of the area. They dwell in tribes in the game-rich forests of western Hyboria, are noted as warriors and shamans and are highly feared for their savagery. They are also exceptional trackers and hunters. The more unpleasant features of Pictish life include such practices as human sacrifice, blood-feud and burning captives alive. The fierce blood-feud the Picts have with the Cimmerians pre-dates the Great Cataclysm. Picts are also feared by the Aquilonians but occasionally trade with the Zingarans.
Religion: Pictish gods include the gorilla-god Gullah, ‘The Hairy One Who Lives In The Moon,’ and Jhebbal Sag, along with other pre-Cataclysmic gods and spirits such as the ‘Children of Jhil’ and the ‘Four Brothers of the Night’ who sleep beyond the Mountains of the Dead. We are told that Picts fear snakes, which might be a race memory of the Serpent-People of Valusia. Nonetheless, serpents do appear in their animalistic rites. The Picts believe that the souls of the dead haunt the black Mountains of the Dead in the uplands of the Dark Land.
Names: Pictish names take two forms: they are either Iroquois style names or descriptive names like ‘Hawk.’ Tribal names are also based on the tribal animal totems, for example the Wolf Clan. Examples: (male) Gorm, Sagayetha, Teyanoga, Zogar Sag. Suggestions: (male) Akando, Akonni; (female) Cara, Oheo, Orenda.