Vistani
Who are the Vistani?
The Vistani are wanderers who live outside civilization, travelling about in horse-drawn, barrel-topped wagons, engaging in fleeting merriment and explicit secrecy. The Vistani have been blessed with amazing mist walking prowess that allows them to traverse the mist-soaked lands of the Domains of Dread with relative ease. Though it is few Vistani who know how tenuous this connection really is.
In Spite of their isolationist tendencies, there remain innumerable observable similarities in Vistani lifestyles which bind all the tasques together as a single people. They all own the name “Vistani,” of course, a word in the patterna that translates as “human” or “thinking creature." All Vistani practice fortune-telling to some extent and all of them can invoke the evil eye. And, of course, all Vistani are possessed of the power to lay curses on other people in the most terrible ways.
One can also easily infer all Vistani are related culturally if one notes the common presence of various belongings. For example, the construction of their wagons, called vardos, are remarkably similar from tribe to tribe, and virtually all of them use such trappings as the tarokka cards of fate, knucklebones, or spirit boards.
It is possible that all these similarities occur not because the Vistani are, at their base, the same people, but because they all share the same lifestyle. They have no doubt shared and adopted one another’s daily habits through centuries of crossed paths, gravitating toward the most efficient way to live as they all do. Hence, the round-topped vardo is the wagon design most serviceable to their daily lives, the nightly campfire is the best place to pass on their culture to future generations, and so forth. As to the commonality of their arcane powers—the ability to curse, cast fortunes, and so on—one can only guess: Universal rejection by giorgios has brought them closer together, and they have combined their knowledge for mutual protection, giving outsiders true cause to fear them.
The Vistani are, simply, storytellers. Linked to the domains of dread in ways unfathomable, these enigmatic folk travel from place to place both, in and outside the Dead Domains. Vistani frequently adopts the lost and disenfranchised into their communities, making for a riotous amalgam of fractured cultures and ideologies united by the same call to pursue legends in the making wherever they occur.
The Vistani way of daily life & culture.
The Tenants of Vistani life:
The Vistani act in isolated bands far removed by distance, some of which act very differently from each other and pursue different agendas. Three tenets unite these disparate roving bands into a cultural whole.- Blood of the Covenant is thicker than the Waters of the Womb. In other words - we choose our family. You are a Vistani if the Vistani choose to accept you - you are given a new name, a new purpose, and are inducted into your new life, leaving the old one behind.
- Remember the Past, or lose it forever. Many Vistani died in both the Grand Conjunction and the events that followed. Newer members inducted into the fold don’t remember how it used to be - we must all remember the darkness of history or be doomed to repeat it.
- The Wheel Turns, and must one day come to a stop. To truly live, you must one day die. All that really matters is the journey, and how you get there. Embracing this tenet requires the Vistani to pursue a nomadic existence.
Encampment
One universal ritual is that of setting and striking camp. Sometimes the proper place to settle for the night is carefully scouted, and sometimes it is spontaneously chosen, but in either case, the male leader of the caravan (called the captain) paces out the dimensions of the site, then finds its center and declares, “Kir-yahg,” which loosely translates from the patterna as “Make fire,” although the command is strictly metaphorical. When the caravan has come to rest, the female leader (called the raunie, or Shae if they are too young/inexperienced to be properly honoured with the title of elder.) joins the captain at the center of camp and confirms his choice. There are rare cases when a raunie objects to a site, usually for mystical reasons, in which case the tribe must move on. Nomadism literally defines their existence, life without movement is not living at all.
Fire Starting
The captain supervises the gathering of firewood as his caravan sets up camp. He dictates one of a half-dozen methods of arranging the wood inside the stones. He directs the use of a fire pit if the tribe is large; if the tribe is small, he lays the fire himself. Unless the raunie commands otherwise, he chooses when the fire is lit. He ignites the kindling, or at least stands by while it is done. It is all ritual; Vistani legends frequently mention the fire starter, essentially sanctifying the role.
A Vistana captain can start a fire with wet seaweed and a piece of flint. Let it rain, let it snow, let the wind howl in the pit; he will have the fire going momentarily. There is no secret—they just do it. All Vistani can readily build a fire, not just the captains, even outcasts retain the skill.
Living off the land
The nomadic Vistani cannot grow crops but they know the flora of the forest well, gathering wild turnips, mushrooms, berries, wild garlic, and soft roots. They are quite deft with spices. They are not hunters, but they often drive herd animals or net fish, so meat is not uncommon in their diet.
Since they cook exclusively over an open fire, soups, stews, and other kettle dishes make up the bulk of their culinary lexicon. Some Vistani are accomplished poachers. Wine is as common a drink as water in many caravans, and Vistani love to engage in revelry and excess. In particular, the TASQUE NAME are known for carrying wagons of casks of foraged fruit wine. During solemn occasions such as weddings and funerals, they drink a dry berry wine, full of body and bouquet, called bourdad.
The Prastonata
One of the most vivid images a giorgio may have of a Vistani encampment is the ritual dancing around the fire, the prastonata. This ritual precedes the doroq, the telling of stories and legends. The dance tells a story of its own, not with gestures that represent words or ideas, but with movement and expressions that confer complex emotions. If times are good for the caravan, the dancer, known as the prastona, moves wildly and freely, while stressful events engender anguished gestures and mournful times yield sluggish tortured steps. While not immediately apparent, the dancer does not exactly follow the music; rather it’s the dance that drives the music, not the other way around. In her art, the prastona effectively embodies the feelings of the entire group, reinforcing their community, and dramatizing both poverty and prosperity. The prastonata is a living metaphor for the Vistani, as its constant, flowing, hypnotic motion reflects the life of these people, who never stay long enough to call any one place home. There is hardly a pause in a prastona’s dance upon which a viewer may seize before it melts away into a flurry, from the moment she poses for the first note of the violin, to the final twirl and collapse to the ground.
The Doroq
Once the prastonata has concluded, the musicians retire and the time for telling legends arrives. There are many, many more tales to tell, stories of love, heroism, tragedy, time, and countless other subjects. The Doroq is a communal experience, and a time for visitors to repay the hospitality they’ve received with stories, anecdotes or jokes of their own, to the warm reception of all in attendance. The Vistani tell them with a flair that would put bards to shame, with wide gestures, emphatic voices and tricks of magic and fire.
The Vistani relish their stories, and various caravans, tribes, and even tasques tell the same legend with virtually no discrepancies between them. The tasques know each others’ fables as well, and they sometimes debate the faults and merits of another tribe’s mythology over a bed of dying embers.
Oral Tradition
The Vistani are the proud owners of a long oral tradition stretching back into the mists of history. Vistani are trained from a young age to remember stories, ballads and lays of dark times. The telling of these stories gains them food and board where necessary, convinces strangers to loosen their tongues, and is a silent promise to the future. The Vistani generally speaking, do not write books or treatise, they simply remember and traverse history themselves.
Packing up Camp
As the Vistani are a nomadic people, a caravan cannot remain seated for too long. There are some exceptions to this, such as the Tser Pool Encampment led solely by a Shae named Madame Eva (nobody knows why she refuses to leave, but as one of the oldest and most respected Shae in the area, she is to be obeyed without question). When the time comes to depart the area and the caravan is packed up, the captain inspects the camp to be sure it has been properly cleared of all refuse and other objects, then places his hand upon the spot where the ashes of the fire pit have been buried, proving to the raunie that the fire has been completely extinguished. He moves to the center of camp, declares, “Dya-yahg” (“Leave the fire”), then leads the caravan away.
When Vistani break camp, they remove every trace of their occupation. They bury their bonfire ashes, then disguise the overturned earth with natural camouflage. They pick up every speck. Even the tracks of their vardos seem to blow away in an easy breeze.
This care is part of the ritual of striking camp, overseen by the captain himself. On a practical level, it preserves the locale for future encampments and perhaps helps erase sour memories of any giorgios who wished them gone. On a more speculative note, it protects the Vistani from curses and other evil magic. They know personal possessions can be used to focus the evil eye, so they are meticulous in removing them.
Social Organization
Dozens of individual caravans of Vistani drive their barrel-topped uardos through the world’s domains. Each caravan is part of a larger tribe, but each is also an extended family both by blood or kinship, the difference is negligible to many Vistani.
Privacy is a sacred right to Vistani. They respect the individuality of each tribal member in a most fundamental sense. While each contributes wholeheartedly to the needs of the whole tribe, they are, in turn, afforded autonomy. A Vistana may come and go as they please; better, they can remain “alone” even in the presence of other tribesmen. To indicate they want solitude, a Vistana clasps their hands before them. As long as he continues the gesture, the tribe simply ignores them as if they were not there, save for an emergency.
All Vistani are led by both a patriarch and a matriarch figure, the captain and the raunie. Each has respective duties and spheres of authority. Captain and raunie may be husband and wife, brother and sister, or even cousins, usually they will share the family name.
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