Ni’jal Culture

GroupingsN'Jal Society--Anatomy of a Tribe

Ni’jal have a very intricate social structure.  All Ni’jal live in Families which consist of a married couple plus, if any, their offspring, biological or adopted.  Two or more of these family units, connected by bloodline, live together to form a Household.  1-20 of these households, not always connected by blood but usually by some commonality, are grouped together to form a Clan and two or more Clans form a Community.   A territorial bounded social group composed of one to possibly scores of Communities form a Tribe.  The population of a Tribe can range from 100 to thousands.


The Southern Swamplands are incorrectly named, for they are not so much a swampland as they are an intricately woven pattern of natural canals.  The canals serve both as natural boundaries between Clans, Communities, and Tribes, and also as a natural deterrent against possible invasion from the Emperor.  The Emperor Endorak’s strongest advantage in his rise to power was the use of highly trained cavalry.  One mounted troop is worth ten on foot.  Unfortunately for the Emperor, the natural system of canals in the Southern Swamplands render this advantage moot.

obsidian arrow headsSomething that is rarely known among the kingdoms is that there is no iron in the Swamplands.  Because of this the Ni’jal never learned to work steel and have no steel weapons, or tools of any kind.  Their material of preference for creating weapons is obsidian (molten volcanic rock/glass).  Unfortunately they have never been able to create such obsidian that would not break when used against harder materials such as steel.  It is largely because of this, that the Crimson Warriors have become so proficient at hand to hand combat using their bodies as a weapon.


There are many roles within Ni’jal culture but most of them are closely tied to the sea or water in some way.  Every Ni’jal learns to fish, swim, and fight in some way.  Ni’jal also excel at building and operating sailing vessels.  While their vessels are not as big as the ones that the dwarfili create, they are lighter and faster on the water.  Other roles in the Ni’jal culture include chanter, healer, carpenter, shipbuilder, navigator, fisherman, hunter, barkcloth maker, sennit decorator, and carver.

Through Foreign Eyes

The rest of the land, especially the Emperor, think that the Ni’jal are all Crimson Warriors and they are feared for this reason.  The Land also believes that they are united as one people.  As such they could annihilate the empire, however the Ni’jal fight amongst themselves almost as much as the dwarfili.  The Ni’jal are at least united in keeping this tightly guarded secret, for as is true with all cultures, the threat from outside is greater than the one from your neighbour.


Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s