Tundra Settler

The cold surrounds you and your people forever, but you have kept your hearts warm. If the winter winds batter your homes, you rebuild them. If the ice crusts over the lake, you break through the barrier and harvest the fish anyway. If the frost threatens your crops, you fall back on the stores you thought ahead to gather. Your people know struggle, but they also know endurance.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Like other human ethnic groups, Tundra Settlers speak a unique language. They adopted the Common alphabet a long time ago. What sets apart the Tundra Settler dialect from other languages is the extensive use of sustained calls and cries, which function almost as a secondary language within the main dialect. Historically, the settlers have used them to speak across a distance when out on the frozen plain. The howls of wolves and frost creepers may have inspired them.

Shared customary codes and values

Because of the unforgiving climate in which they live, Tundra Settlers hold Hospitality as a crucially important value. Sharing one's food, shelter, and warmth is not merely encouraged but required. In Tundra Settler culture, it is believed that a person should do good to others to be treated well in return. They call it the Great Wheel of Life -- that one's deeds are spun around the wheel and returned to them, whether good or bad.

Common Dress code

The cold climate requires Tundra Settlers to dress warmly, with plenty of furs and clothes layers.

Funerary and Memorial customs

The snow, ice, and permafrost endemic to a tundra makes ground burials nearly impossible for Tundra Settlers. Instead, they traditionally cremate their dead or do burials at sea. For the latter, the body is placed on a canoe, pushed out into the middle of a lake, and then set on fire with a flaming arrow. To avoid disturbing graves while fishing, the settlers devote particular bodies of water as burial sites. These are called "Sacred Lakes" and it is forbidden for anyone to swim or fish in them.