Swingers Ethnicity in Valley of Man | World Anvil
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Swingers

by hughpierre

Culture

Culture and cultural heritage

Swinging

Through specialized equipment, swingers gain great leg strength and mental fortitude honed through constant practice.  

Cold Forging

Cold forging is the act wherein a swinger lowers a cable connected to his or her body harness on one end and a bucket of whatever material to be transmuted. To make it more complicated, the forger does this while they are swinging at an exaggerated length from their focal point; making it dangerous and potentially uncontrollable even to veterans of the craft. But it is deemed necessary in order to reach the top of Licking Lake.

Average technological level

Directional Gear

A set of equipment carried on ones person consisting of hand grips, leather straps and elastic-sprung grapple-hooks.  

Shadow Cloaks

The still living banshees tamed and trained by their owners to drape their boneless form around and follow their commands. Banshees are known to partner with only one master throughout their lives, and grant their wings to a swinger in flight.  

Cold Forge

The unfathomable coldness found just above the very bottom of Giantsfall is fabled to alter conventional materials of man into newer composites that are widely traded and sought after. The cold forge in immovable and vast; and reaching to have to get its touch inspired the swinger's mad pursuit in swinging from the ribs that project off the canyon walls.

Common Dress code

Coat

Heavy green, brown or black, hip-length with hooded cloaks lined inside and on the rim where it opens with fur.

Breeches

Both sexes wear lighter coloured pants, and dark knee-high leather boots.
 

Swinger Uniform

Sash
Dark brownish in colour worn around the waist and connected with the internal leather straps of their directional gear.
Harness
Shirts that encompass much of the body below the neck and where lines of bihorn leather and banshee straps are attached.
Shadow Cloak
Bands, laces and strips of banshee hides that fly and flap behind the rushing winds as a means to slow a person and maintain a straight path.
Hide Sac
A soft container where rolls of banshee rope are stored in the lumbar area of the back.

Art & Architecture

Fall Wall

  The furthest west of the chasm is a slab of porous wall that extends both above and below sea level. It is geographically considered a part of the southern most pillar that makes up the Floodgates but its material makeup is very distinct.   Many end-end caves pocket the outer facade but their porous nature makes it easy to carve and expand them into permanent dwellings.

Tents

  Observers, can usually find conical tents at the apexes of the giant's ribs. Wraps of cloth and sticks, swingers carry with them as part of the mobile lifestyle. These are far simpler versions of the Rangers' humble homes and far less colourful.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

First Flight

A specific tradition where is newly realized swinger transverses a sizable length of the whole of the giant's open belly.

Birth & Baptismal Rites

Tall Fall

Even if a person has no intention of ever swinging from the giant's ribs, no one is considered an adult, man or woman, until they had willingly thrown themselves off a tall place. As a measure of ones courage, it entails tying a long length of vines to ones leg and jumping off a cliff or wooded platform tower amidst a crowd of several swinger clans.

Coming of Age Rites

Leap of Faith

The time where a swinger-in-training jumps into the ravine for the first time and is totally reliant on their own prior skills and power.

Free Fall

As much a proof of competency as bravery; free falling involves a swinger disengaging their line mid-swing to enter a fall/glide for some distance before shooting a grapple to regain control.

Funerary and Memorial customs

Carry and Drop

Starting from the Fall Wall, a pair of swingers who knew the deceased in life are the first to swing with the grapple in one hand swinging once by a rib and the body connected by a harass and hook in the other. After the carrier's first pendulum swing, the body is transferred to the next carrier who does the same after their one swing before passing the load to another person who knew the dead.   From a resting position, it seems to be a race or a game where the participants pass along a lumpy package as they travel along the giant's open belly. Once all the actors had a chance to carry the body once after one swing, the body was finally let go and allowed to drop into the ravine. It is emblematic that the further the rag wrapped body is delivered from the Wall, the greater the impact he/she had on those during their life, and so lived a full life.

Common Taboos

Leaving Giantsfall

The directional gear that is heavily associated with swinger culture and extremely useful in navigating their home terrain, but useless nearly everywhere else. Training in its utility improves ones breathing, but durability in the soles and endurance in the common air is considered less than with other men; which makes long travel from the giant's ribs harsh.

Common Myths and Legends

Between Sun and Shadow
Myth | Jan 15, 2024

Girl Goddess

A creator deity of the swingers who is often told of being naive and in need of protection from herself. But it is through her innocent nature that she becomes to the mother of humanity.
Machy
Physical / Metaphysical Law | Dec 24, 2020

The Great Flood

Of the stories belonging to the swingers, the one most certain to be true is the prediction of their demise. Unsurprisingly, ultimate doom is said to come for when the Fall Wall falls and the Pearl Sea comes rushing in to fill the gorge.

Major organizations

Clans

Many clans offer services to travelers, sportsmen, companies, or tourists through the uneven and disconnected paths between the canyon ribs. And it is through this that outsiders most recognize swinger family groups. However, they are a people who have no conception of patrilineality or matrilineality.   Personal independence is fierce amongst the nomadic people. Members of a clan are never permanently aligned; being welcomed to leave, join others, rejoin later or found new clans, that may themselves disband for members to pursue new aspirations.

Banshee
Species | Jan 15, 2024
Encompassed species
Related Myths
Related Locations

STR (Choose the lowest roll as modifier)
CON
DEX
INT
WIS
CHA
Armour 2d6
HP 3d6+6 ([min+max]/2)
Speed 2d10+10 ft

Unit of Distance

One swing is the movement of a swinger suspended from a rib, acting as a focal point, and the horizontal distance between the two high points of a pendulum's arc.   This is useful to no other than a swinger and has confused many groups being guided by swingers on the distances crossed which have led to logistical shortages during travels.


Cover image: Leap of Faith by Roger Creus Dorico

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