Mortal Peoples: The Aeohtar

 Origins

The distant ancestors of the aeohtar were a tribe of elves who traveled westward early in Thindul's history. In the Western Wilds, they encountered the tall anakim, the children of Endessa, whom the aeohtar quickly grew to admire. In those days, the gods still walked among mortals, and those who would become the aeohtar petitioned Endessa to transform them into a people more resembling the anakim. Endessa granted their wish, and thus they became the aeohtar.

Aeohtar Physiology

Aeohtar possess the height of their elven kin, but in their transformation they gained superior strength and speed at the expense of elven sensory delicacy. They retain, however, the impressive muscle memory of elves. Taken together, these traits make aeohtar skilled hunters and masters of hand-to-hand combat.

Perhaps more importantly, aeohtar are born from the womb in the fashion of other mortal peoples. This enabled them, in their early days, to live as wanderers in the remote wilds of Thindul, and it paved the way for the rapid growth of their empire in recent centuries.

By contrast, the ancient imperial elves, constrained by the need to remain near their dawn groves, expanded their borders by bringing foreign cities under their political control and only slowly migrating settlers and armies to their acquired territories. The aeohtar, however, have made their territorial gains through sudden military actions, capturing large swaths of land in a short time, and quickly replacing the local population with their own.

Life Cycle

As with elves, aeohtarn infants are born at a relatively pronounced stage of development, gaining skills in language and locomotion early. Their lifespans, however, are less extraordinary, limited usually to two centuries. While aeohtarn youths mature physically by twenty years of age, they are not recognized as adults until reaching forty. The time between physical maturity and adulthood is typically spent refining the skills in hunting and combat, which are essential to participation in aeohtarn culture.

In contemporary life, an aeohtarn youth is fully welcomed into adulthood only after they have made an unassisted journey from the Noble Gate to the city of Kelharak, trekking through the Squire's Sands and the Pass of Thirst. Those who fail to complete this gauntlet by age fifty are disowned, branded, and treated as orcs by other aeohtar. For them, this is the ultimate shame, and most would prefer to die in the ordeal rather than fail.

Any aeohtar who survives past around 180 years is respected as an elder. They are permitted to put aside their martial training and obligations, supported by their families and the wealth of their titles. Allowed for the first time to pursue leisure as its own end, they are affectionately referred to as hikazzost robrator, rendered in Mercantine as “those who may grow plump.”

Historical Culture

As with the anakim, physical contest has always been a linchpin of aeohtarn culture. As elvenkind has long honored Jostara through festivals of music and drama, so the aeohtar honor Endessa with athletic and martial competitions. These proceedings include hunting, foot races, feats of strength, and non-lethal combat, with ritualized wrestling as the central event.

Such competitive festivals reflect an underlying belief that morality flows from strength. The aeohtar accept the fundamental tenet of Endessan philosophy, that evil is rooted in fear and weakness, while strength and dauntlessness permit one to live a virtuous life.

Toward Empire

For much of their history, the aeohtar lived in small settlements and nomadic groups in the Western Wilds and the World's Crown Mountains, though their western territory became constricted by the expansion of qothani tribes during the Fourth Era.

Later, nearing the fall of the old elven empire, monstrous creatures had begun to proliferate across Thindul. These beings were born of magic, created by the elves and giants as beasts of war. As elven power eroded, however, the creatures spread across Thindul, particularly in wild places, including the mountainous lands of the aeohtar.

Under constant threat, the aeohtar became hardened and warlike, fighting among each other for the most defensible territories. Eventually, the aeohtar attempted to seize the orc-controlled lowlands north of the mountains, but were pushed back decisively. Fearing utter defeat, aeohtarn priests of Xogoth set on orckind a curse of wrath, causing the disintegration of orcish society. Later, after the chaos caused by Xogoth's curse subsided, the aeohtar returned for a second wave of conquest, succeeding in temporarily seizing some orcish territory.

The curse on orckind, however, had far-reaching consequences, resulting afterward in the destruction of Naihurin Etarl, and a broad civilizational collapse across Thindul. This event became known as the Orcwrath. For approximately five-hundred years, the aeohtar then were contained to the World's Crown Mountains and a small lowland region on the shores of Lake Mezas. Slowly, however, Thindul recovered from the chaos that followed the Orcwrath, and the aeohtar unified under the rule of the Royal House Mezas-Valkerth.

The Empire of Steel

As House Mezas-Valkerth waxed in power, they promulgate a new variant of Endessan theology. Their beliefs drew on Draegar philosophies concerning power and superiority. In their own system of thought, of course, the Draegar had understood dragons as the peak of mortalkind. (And the Draegar, at that point in history, thought of themselves as metaphysically indistinct from dragons).

The aeohtar put themselves in that role. They claimed to be the people most capable of strength, and therefore most capable of morality. In their new philosophy, the world was not a place where everybody could possess the strength required for virtue; rather, the strongest would inevitably rule over the weak. By engaging in imperial expansion, they ensured that those ablest to attain virtue were in a position to seize the greatest strength.

They, therefore, came to value other mortal peoples only insofar as they were of specific use to aeohtarn glory. From the sixth to eighth centuries SR, the aeohtar took territory from their northern qothani neighbors, and from the orcish-elven city states on lakes Halas and Kolsaharon. They consolidated their power in the region by pushing eastward to the borders of Norquii, seizing a vast tract of woodland from the Feldyr tribes who inhabited it.

Judging the defeated Feldyr as inferior imitations of themselves, the aeohtar obliterated the Feldyr in their newly acquired lands, scattering the survivors to the winds. Meanwhile, holding a long grudge against the qothani  for their ancient seizure of the aeohtar's western holdings, they restricted qothani residence to Ordikai Anakis and its surrounding lands.

The aeohtar saw use, however, in elves and orcs, integrating them into a rigid caste system. Atop this hierarchy, the aeohtar formed noble families who served as priests and warriors. Elves became responsible for clerical and artisanal work, while orcs were relegated to agriculture and other forms of backbreaking labor. Within this system, though elves and orcs have relative freedom of movement with aeohtarn territory, they are not permitted to leave the empire or to seek work outside of their limited purviews.

Elven citizens of the Empire of Steel are differentiated from outside elven travelers by distinctive facial tattoos, while elves traveling through the Empire are given temporary papers protecting them from harassment. Orcs do not receive even such limited consideration, however, and once within the imperial borders are not permitted egress.

Only the anakim stand outside the aeohtar's imagined hierarchy. They are regarded by the aeohtar as perfect beings to which they themselves attain. So, although the Empire of Steel could crush the anakim tribes of the Western Wilds and occupy their land with relative ease, they exercise restraint. To their minds, it would be an offensive against Endessa to destroy the people who are their spiritual model.

Frequent Conflicts

The aeohtar's core philosophy impels them to annex new territory as a matter of duty. As they see it, the outside world is full of people who are of no use, and are incapable of achieving full virtue. Only by bringing other nations under their yoke, and eliminating those who serve no purpose, can the greatest extent of virtue be brought to fruition, they believe.

The Empire launches frequent raids on both Norquii and on the Rukkarim's holdings in the Passage, routinely testing their defenses. These border-struggles have sometimes grown into larger conflicts. All sides, however, are motivated to prevent unintentional escalation, because their territories collectively form a cross-continental trade-lane on which each of them depends.

The imperial border with Ostregvaza is a different matter. It is understood that the orcs of Ostregvaza would retaliate against any provocation with their full strength. So, while both the Empire and Ostregvaza keep sizable permanent forces on their mutual border, they rarely come to blows.

Goblins and the Idrendoi-xoc

Thousands of years ago, in the pursuit of further physiological perfection, aeohtarn wizards began to develop a process by which an aeohtar might be transformed into a larger and stronger creature. Their initial experiments, however, proved a failure, instead producing the first goblins, small and short-lived creatures. An attempt was made to cull the goblins, whom the aeohtar regarded with shame and revulsion, but some escaped into the wilderness and became the progenitors of goblinkind.

Further experimentation yielded the idrenoi-xoc, standing up to seven feet tall and possessed of unnatural strength and speed, while retaining the dexterity that the aeohtar had inherited from their elven ancestors. There are downsides to this transformation, though. An aspirant idrenoi-xoc must undergo the ritual shortly after physical maturity has set in, and will almost inevitably die before their hundredth year, taken by the sudden failure of their organs while they remain in their physical prime. Moreover, the magics which produce such dramatic changes also render the subject unable to conceive offspring. Thus, idrenoi-xoct are never born, only made.

Those who undergo the ritual are usually motivated in one of two ways. First, there are those who fear that they lack the fortitude to complete their test, traveling through the Pass of Thirst. They therefore accept the terms of the transformation to avoid the shame of failure. The second group are noble children with many older siblings, who stand little chance of gaining honor through inheritance of rank. In either case, idrenoi-xoct are deeply respected in aeohtarn culture. Alongside the anakim, they are regarded as the pinnacle of mortal perfection, sacrificing the pleasures of old age for unparalleled martial excellence.