The Rustborn
I was following the advice given in one installment of Roleplaying Tips where it was recommended that to create a new race/culture, you take the society of one existing people, the culture of a second, and place them in an unrelated bit of geography, and see how the bits interact.
So I took the society of stereotypical Germanic Barbarians, crossed it with the culture of the Dunmer from The Elder Scrolls series, and didn't really worry about the geography at first.
Started writing up factions in a bubble chart, and came up with the Band of Blood, a barbaric analogy to the Morag Tong, the Ebon Axe, a group of necromantic tomb guardians, the Darkfyrd, a training camp for war mages, and the Stone-Eaters, basically a loose affiliation of bards, sages, and record-keepers.
I'm slowly coming up with hooks, NPC's, and relationships for these factions, and brainstorming others. But the one faction that I've had the most brainbugs for so far is the Rustborn.
To the outside world, they are very similar to the Ebon Axe. Powerful families pay well to have their fallen ones interred in the crypts of the Rustborn, certain they will be well looked after. The Rustborn also hire themselves out as local mercenaries, and when their numbers allow, they will even go on the march, but only for an exorbitant fee. Any Rustborn who fall in battle are interred in the crypts, and become Rustwalkers.
To become a member of the Rustborn, the hopeful initiate dons a coat of mail and lays on a plinth in a special room of the crypts. A warm fog is kept circulating in the room for three days, serving the dual purpose of keeping the initiate from dying of dehydration and oxidizing the mail. After the three days, the mail dissolves into dust, and the initiate is given his new armor, made from bone, resin, and rust powder.
The Rustborn themselves aren't the only thing to fear in their crypts. One of the secrets of the Rustborn is that they have no mastery of the necromantic arts. Their Rustwalkers, reddish-hued skeleton warriors who patrol the halls, aren't animated corpses, but the product of ferromancers animating iron-imbued skeletons. Placing someone in the care of the Rustborn carries with it the implication that eventually they may become a part of the crypt's roving guardians. Those killed in battle are interred in stone sarcophagi, left lidless, and dressing in mail, like an initiate. Beetles are introduced to the sarcophagus to remove the flesh, and the bones are left encased in mail and allowed to meld over time.
Once the mail has fully dissolved, the sarcophagus is filled with an acid bath that leeches the rust into the porous bones. Once the skeleton has been fully imbued with the iron, it can be animated by a ferromancer. The bones are no stronger than they were before, and their combat ability is extremely limited, but they are very persistent.
There's more to be ironed out as I think of it, but this is one of the factions of tomb guardians that serve in the ancestrally-based culture of this un-named people I'm developing for a possible future campaign.
So I took the society of stereotypical Germanic Barbarians, crossed it with the culture of the Dunmer from The Elder Scrolls series, and didn't really worry about the geography at first.
Started writing up factions in a bubble chart, and came up with the Band of Blood, a barbaric analogy to the Morag Tong, the Ebon Axe, a group of necromantic tomb guardians, the Darkfyrd, a training camp for war mages, and the Stone-Eaters, basically a loose affiliation of bards, sages, and record-keepers.
I'm slowly coming up with hooks, NPC's, and relationships for these factions, and brainstorming others. But the one faction that I've had the most brainbugs for so far is the Rustborn.
To the outside world, they are very similar to the Ebon Axe. Powerful families pay well to have their fallen ones interred in the crypts of the Rustborn, certain they will be well looked after. The Rustborn also hire themselves out as local mercenaries, and when their numbers allow, they will even go on the march, but only for an exorbitant fee. Any Rustborn who fall in battle are interred in the crypts, and become Rustwalkers.
To become a member of the Rustborn, the hopeful initiate dons a coat of mail and lays on a plinth in a special room of the crypts. A warm fog is kept circulating in the room for three days, serving the dual purpose of keeping the initiate from dying of dehydration and oxidizing the mail. After the three days, the mail dissolves into dust, and the initiate is given his new armor, made from bone, resin, and rust powder.
The Rustborn themselves aren't the only thing to fear in their crypts. One of the secrets of the Rustborn is that they have no mastery of the necromantic arts. Their Rustwalkers, reddish-hued skeleton warriors who patrol the halls, aren't animated corpses, but the product of ferromancers animating iron-imbued skeletons. Placing someone in the care of the Rustborn carries with it the implication that eventually they may become a part of the crypt's roving guardians. Those killed in battle are interred in stone sarcophagi, left lidless, and dressing in mail, like an initiate. Beetles are introduced to the sarcophagus to remove the flesh, and the bones are left encased in mail and allowed to meld over time.
Once the mail has fully dissolved, the sarcophagus is filled with an acid bath that leeches the rust into the porous bones. Once the skeleton has been fully imbued with the iron, it can be animated by a ferromancer. The bones are no stronger than they were before, and their combat ability is extremely limited, but they are very persistent.
There's more to be ironed out as I think of it, but this is one of the factions of tomb guardians that serve in the ancestrally-based culture of this un-named people I'm developing for a possible future campaign.