Rodkhora

Related to the Riaani, Rodkhora are a seafaring people native to distant Algoboa that have found niches in islands and ports across the world, having adapted in the Sixth World to modern times. Using their mastery of astronomy and sailing in their migrant fleets of canoes, they island hopped across the Farther Waters, keeping a nomadic life at sea. Rodkhora are well known for their intricate tattoos on their olive skin, a sacred act using chisels leaving the skin with grooves, unlike the needle tattooing practiced by Zafarans, which they taught to the Pashen and Ornassi, and is favored by sailors across the world. The Rodkhora are viewed with superstition by many other cultures, but through their tradition of "mesukoda" they have insinuated themselves in many parts of Uskara. When a cohort of Rodkhora youths come of age, they are left ashore to create a life for themselves, to birth and raise children, learn trade and earn a living, all the while sending coin and treasure back to their clan, keeping connected via courier albatross, another tradition first started by the Rodkhora. The Rodkhora do not practice marriage as many cultures do; everyone in a mesukoda is considered family and they love and raise children freely within its confines, and adopt others into their bands. Many believe that the mesukoda are criminal gangs, and while there's reasons that Taklo is often used as a thieves' cant, that's overall an unfair stereotype. The Rodkhora primarily venerate Amunon and Dhoad as the Riaani do, as well as Ez, though the worship of Khyber, Ragna, and the Axiomatic Church are gaining adherents. In Talingarde, Rodkhora mesukoda can be found in many coastal ports.

• Ancestry: While the Rodkhora were traditionally mainly harfoots, over the past centuries they have increasingly diversified, becoming a melange that includes even goblins and beastfolk, and not just kobolds!


• Starting Languages: Low Talirean, Taklo


• Cultural Weapons: Boarding axe, gill hook, sling, filcher's fork, crescent knife (kukri) Rodkhora have no real military tradition, and most of their weapons are improvised tools for sailing or fishing. They were the ones who taught the Magnan buccaneers how to hunt leviathans. Like the Riaani, they would prefer a pacifistic lifestyle, and fight to escape or disarm rather than kill.