The Gareshi of Planet Serntiaari
Also known as the world of Garesh, a cold world on the edge of it's star's habitation zone whose surface is dominated by oceans. Each winter the oceans would freeze solid, and the tiny island nations of the world would make war upon one another, destroying the weak and taking their resources so that stronger groups would thrive. The Indari Hegemony inducted them primarily for the vast untapped wellspring of hydrogen locked in the icy oceans, and the water itself was invaluable to support nearby colonization efforts on dryer worlds. After a brief war of acquisition, the Gareshi people are among the Hegemony's staunchest citizens and vocal supporters.
Many in the Hegemony find the Gareshi people to be a brutal and superstitious lot. They're piety to their gods is greater than their loyalty to clan or country, for in Gareshi history such institutions are often broken, absorbed into other communes, and then shattered once more. Their chief deity is Gorum, god of war, who commands his followers to cultivate a civilization of unending bloodshed. Under his doctrine, the strong rule, and the weak serve or are slaughtered. This has only helped them acclimate to the Indari's own philosophies, which is why the worship has been allowed to persist within the Hegemony.
Gareshi war orphans brought up in service of Gorum, equally taught the values of battle and religion, known as Warsworn often form mercenary warbands within the Hegemony, or serve individually as Chaplains in Hegemony military detachments or larger offworld mercbands.
Gorum - Gorum himself is generally portrayed as a man clad in iron and black furs with a great horned helm. Within the Clergy it is often debated that the figure depicted is not Gorum himself, but rather his first prophet who gathered his clan under the battle-god's banner to start the first civil war among Garesh's early colonists. With little surface area, the Gareshi colonists had little access to material assets when The Scream cut them off from the Alliance, and their technological base backslid hard, the raids contributed to a relatively even distribution of what technology was available at first, but ultimately the fighting only accelerated the world's backslide to Tech Level 2.
Grenth - It's probably worth noting that Gorum's chief opponent idealogically is Grenth (beginning a word with a "G" sound in the local dialect indicates greatness and importance, which is why it's so common). Grenth is the god of cold and death, he's said to appear to those who are alone on the icy wastes and to keep them company, his presence leaching away their heat and vitality until they perish alone in the cold. Then he shrouds them in a blanket of snow and frost, to give them a serene place of rest. Essentially, Gorum represents the colonists' will to survive, whereas Grenth is the planet itself, a gracious host but deadly by it's very nature. On Garesh, white is the color associated with death and mourning.
Warsworn - The petty warlords who made up Gareshi's petty excuse for government before the Hegemony arrived on the scene had little use for orphaned children. There was a time where they were sent out to Grenth, some of the harsher clans turned to cannibalism in an attempt to solve two problems with one stone. While the churches of Gorum were only loosely connected, they did have a degree of permanence that eluded federal efforts, churches were usually spared razing out of respect and when powers were overthrown the church usually simply bowed to a new host. No-one is sure where the idea came from, but the Gorumites began adopting children and using them as vehicles of faith.
Young Gorumites are not taught the art of soldiering immediately. Rather they are taught the oral traditions of Gorum, a series of twelve epic poems that are to be memorized and repeated without error. Admitting that one is incapable results in increased duties for a week, but misspeaking the Gorumskagat results in a harsh beating. This hammers home reverence for the word of their god, and drives home one of the first points of the worship. That fighting when the outcome is uncertain results only in unnecessary loss of life.
Once the Warsworn is capable of flawlessly reciting the Gorumskagat from beginning to end, and recite specific verses at command, they move to the next step. Riding out with the soldiers in winter under the guidance of a full priest, the Warsworn are taught to care for the weapons of war, how to patch body armor and uniforms, and are enlisted to aid in the cooking, cleaning, and medical triage that takes place back at base camp. They see up close the horrors that wars visit upon man, but also the life and camaraderie of warriors in the field. Some Gorumites never leave this stage, they become field medics, or motorpool mechanics. Those whose faith falters but who find themselves comforted by the warrior culture they're introduced to become reconnaissance specialists, drivers, or drop out of the church to become riflemen (due to the harsh winds and open tundra, the Gareshi do not employ pilots in military actions).
Around the age of 16, earlier than most Hegemony planets will accept military recruits but beyond when the Warsworn can be considered a child, they finally "earn their bones". During the warm seasons, they drill for combat duty, and when the winter comes around again they are garbed in black uniforms and placed on the front ranks. As the raids go on, each Warsworn keeps a "skull tally", noting how many confirmed kills they can claim in each engagement. When they return to the church, they pass into full priesthood. A special dress uniform is crafted, the highest skull tally being incorporated in the design as a number of symbolic skulls, though many priests chose to incorporate the skull design into the battle dress as a symbol of pride.
Priests - Priests of Gorum are employed by the Gareshi as Special Forces. Warlords often make concessions to the church of Gorum in exchange for the services of their black clad specialists. During the War of Acquisition, the Church had the highest number of active agents in the planet's history as the Warlord's scrambled to hold what they'd won. Ultimately, however, the Gorumites realized that the Hegemony's forces and technology were superior. Due to their decentralized organization, it was not simultaneous, but Order by Order the Gorumites bent knee to Aesgar's forces. Once the people realized that the Gorumites favored the invaders, morale plummeted and the planet was conquered in relatively short order.
The Hegemony has their own special forces units, however, and the Aesgar is not particularly keen to rely on a group who's first allegiance is to a god, no matter how conveniently it's worked out for their house so far. The Gorumites are still well regarded on Garesh, as the Hegemony's rule has generally been positive for the natives, who now have access to far more advanced technologies that allow them superior mining and food production opportunities, as well as the boon of offworld trade. Gorumites and those who would-be Warlords in previous ages now lease decommissioned warships from the Hegemony and found mercenary companies who're active in political hotspots throughout known space.
Appearance - As a rule, the Gareshi are a fair-skinned lot with large frames and dense bones. The bone density is important, lacking a proper agricultural backbone, the Gareshi diet incorporates a disproportionate amount of fatty meats from fish and amphibious mammalian stock native to the planet. This gives the Gareshi the impression of being hardy giants, but few of them would live far beyond forty even if they hadn't turned killing each other into their dominant cultural past time.
Fair hair and eyes that run a range of gray, blue, and green are the native norm. However, since the planet joined the Hegemony, the Gareshi's acceptance of the the Aesgar has resulted in a statistically significant number of Aesgar/Garesh couplings, and darker hair and eye colors are not considered the good omen they were once upon a time. A small counter-culture movement calling itself the Sons of Grenth is trying to preserve the culture of their home-world against the increasing prevalence of Hegemony influences, and they've been known to target "mud-bloods" as a form of protest.
In Garesh culture, one's proficiency as a warrior is considered to be an indicator of their ability to provide for a family, and, as a result, their viability as a mate. The Gareshi consider scars "sexy" and one of their favorite past times is in telling the stories behind this wound or that, a public game of one-upsmanship. Trophies are sometimes substituted for scars, but are rarely given the same weight, as they are considered somehow less verifiable than a scar. Tattoos are generally better regarded as ways to commemorate impressive moments that didn't leave a scar on their own.
Planet-side, long hair is common to both men and women, with intricate braids and hair ornaments serving to keep the dangling hair out of the way during battle. Gareshi mercs who've left their homeworld, however, ritually shave their heads before they leave the planet's surface. Once they've done this, they're free to grow their hair to whatever length they like, though few grow it to the lengths of the planet-dwellers, rarely allowing it to extend passed shoulder length. Among the Gareshi mercs, calling someone a skinhead is roughly the same as calling them a newbie or FNG. Gareshi men almost universally grow beards, and loudly appraising the feminine wiles of the clean shaven military operatives of other worlds is the Gareshi's favored means of starting a bar fight (the rest of the Hegemony is slowly coming to realize that this is an act of provocation, though somehow it doesn't seem to actually reduce the number of brawls).
--Galamore--
To the Hegemony at large, Serntiaari culture basically is Galamore. Though small compared to other landmasses, Galamore represents the only true continent on the planet, natural steam vents and rich volcanic soil made it an obvious place for the original colonization of the planet. Its position as an equatorial landmass spare it the worst of the planet's winters and made it an ideal place for a spaceport and orbital elevator. Trade offworld has turned it into a major population center.
Before the occupation, however, Galamore held a strange place among the clans of icewalkers that dotted Serntiaari. It was a holy place, the stronghold of the First Prophet, the volcanic ashes methodologically tied to the forge of Gorum himself, and the resting place of the Vault of Orm where the greatest treasures of their culture were ritually stored to be preserved into the future. It was, however, also a place of great superstition, and taboo to linger beyond the pilgrimage that the warrior cultures took their once each generation. The place where civil war had sundered the original colony, where insurgents using chemical and radioactive weapons had chased the early colonists into Grenth's waiting arms and rendered the city a ghost town for untold generations. Clanless castoffs congregated there, taking advantage of the safety of a standing city that no warlord wished to sack, even though they risked the invisible killers of Galamore.
The occupants of Galamore before the advent of interstellar trade, termed "Muddwellers", are currently experiencing something of a renaissance. Already loosely held by the Gareshi's rituals and customs, they were the quickest to adapt to the new status quo presented by the Hegemony and have significant material wealth. That said, culturally, they are are still clanless, meaning that in the eyes of the Serntiaari they can't own property, nor pass position down through heredity. Integration has brought more Icewalkers onto the sacred land, however the proud warrior cultures are often galled by the apparent wealth of the undeserving. No wars take place on Galamore, but civic violence is at a record setting high for the Hegemony, at least for a world not technically undergoing civil war. As such, within the realm of pulp fiction, Galamore is sometimes called the "City of Knives".
Aesgar nobility, strangely enough, seem immune to this violence despite their status as foreigners...how much of this is due to the Gareshi's acceptance of the house as rightful conquerors of the planet, and how much is due to the diligence of Gorumite Templars in return for the ceding of certain holy sites to their care, is up for debate.
--Gareshi views on Medicine--
Despite their penchant for destruction, the Gareshi have an oft-overlooked reverence for healers as well. The first Gareshi to leave Serntiaari were young apothecaries lulled by the promise of Indari education in the medicinal arts, and nearly all of them returned home to work their practice despite greater financial potential to be had on other worlds. To this day, though they are not innovators, the Gareshi boast some of the most accomplished field medics and paramedics in the hegemony. Outside of Serntiaari they're viewed as questionable general practitioners, though this is largely due to their bedside manor...Serntiaari doctors do not advise, nor waste their patients' time with explanations that they'll only half understand, they give precise instructions that they expect to be followed by their patients regardless of relative social standing.
Though their planet boasts no local manufacturers (due to the lack of necessary materials), the Gareshi are surprisingly fond of cybernetics, with no particular taboos against using it as a venue for augmentation rather than mere prosthesis. Beyond the practicality of allowing Warriors back into the fight after critical injuries, there are some apocryphal claims that augmentation allows one to transcend the limits of their mortality and become closer to Gorum. It is true that a particular brand of Cyberpsychosis has been witnessed on Serntiaari where extensively modified individuals claim to hear the voice of god driving them to battle, though this is still recognized as a form of insanity and treated with therapy and drugs when discovered.
--Minor Gareshi Gods--
Phera - Goddess of Hearth and Clan
The story goes that after shepherding the Icewalkers for their first century of bloodshed, the Lord in Iron came to crave companionship. His dalliances with mortal lovers had lead to a series of tragedies as mortal flesh was not significantly resilient to withstand divine passions. So, it is said, Gorum returned to the land of Galamore and fired his forge once more, crafting himself a lover from sacred iron, and quenching the hot metal in a pool of his own divine blood.
Phera is generally portrayed as a statuesque women whose skin is black as night, with a fiery mane of curly hair falling unbound to the small of her back. As a creature of iron, Phera is immune to Grenth's cold, and tends to garb herself in a simple dress of red with white geometric patterns decorating the hem. Her eyes seem to alternate between white and red depending on the portrayal, but always have a glassy gem-like quality to them.
For all their years together, Phera has never bourn Gorum a son who would take up his sword. She is, instead, the mother of the Vikari, who scour the battlefields for the noble dead, that they might join their liege and march in his legion.
Phera is regarded as the Goddess responsible for tracking the rise and fall of Clans on Serntiaari, able to discern a Warrior's lineage at a glance. all the better to reunite them with their brothers in the afterlife. Similarly, while Gorum roams the icy wastes each winter, Phera is sometimes regarded as the mistress of Holds and fortifications.
Whies - God of the Hunt
Whies is said to be the brother of Grenth, a shapeshifter born in the endlessly rolling snow drifts, whose voice is the howl of the wind in a blizzard. Unlike the other Gods, Whies does not assume the shape of a human being. Rather, he is always portrayed as a white silhouette in the shape of one of Serntiaari's native creatures. The symbol most commonly associated with him looks like a white hilloc from which massive antlers branch out like a tree, a black stickman only a third of the hill's size standing before it as a reference for the creature's size.
Unlike most Gods of the Hunt, Whies is less a hunter, and seems to take the form of prey animals. As such, he challenges the hunters who would worship him directly, leading them on lengthy hunts with cunning prey who has millennia of cunning to back him up. It's said that those hunters who can actually stalk and slay Whies may partake of his flesh, which grants them a long life nearly immune to disease or poison. Of course, since Whies is immortal, no matter how many times he is "killed", he rises again to roam the world.
Zakro - God of Artifice
It's said that Zakro was born of the first generation of colonists in Serntiaari, a mortal. When the first civil war drove the colonists out into the ice, Zakro remained in Galamore intent on preserving the secrets of the Serntiaari's star travelling ancestors. Along the way, it is said, he discovered the secret of immortality and crafted his own divinity upon Gorum's forge while the war god was away.
Zakro is the smallest of the gods, retaining his mortal stature. He is usually depicted as having a wild mane of blonde hair held back by a pair of welding goggles, wearing a heavy leather coat with a fur trim, a utility apron, and some form of modern weapon that shines with golden light. Recent depictions use vehicles as well as guns or bombs, and since the arrival of the Aesgar it is popularly believed that he has moved his workshop to the bottom of the sea (where much of the planet's ore is now mined) so as to distance himself from the domains of the more traditional gods.
Zakro is better known by his sigil, an eight-toothed brass gear with a red crosshair painted over the arms. It's the symbol of gunsmiths the planet over, as well as the symbol the Garesh use to mark caches of Pretech. The most technically adept Gareshi are sometimes called Zakro's Children, for unlike Gorum his body is still that of a mortal and it's said that he sometime disguises himself among the people to reconnect with the Gareshi.
Alyona - Goddess of Revels
Alyona is the second newest deity of the Gorumite faith, though theologians disagree regarding her origins. It seems that she's a conglomeration of a number of local deities who incorporated domains such as fertility and agriculture, their myths blending into each other as the clans who worshiped them were absorbed by one of the more successful Warlords from before the War of Acquisition. That said, the end result was a singular goddess who was at the center of a great number of festivals and celebrations, which slowly shifted people's perception of her into the patroness of such celebrations as Phera claimed the fertility angle for herself.
Alyona isn't worshiped, exactly. Rather, much like a muse, she is invoked during the planning of festivities, and again at their commencement in the hopes that everyone involved will have a memorable time. In Gareshi culture, one night stands are sometimes called a "Tryst with Alyona", though there are as many stories of the fickle goddess breaking hearts as there are of her becoming enamored with a beautiful stranger and stealing them forever.
Alyona is usually portrayed as a shapely woman in some state of distress, almost always rendered mid-dance, her blond hair bound in a long braid. Alyona features in mythology as the mother of Gorum's only son, though that story is far from a happy one (it turns out that a hedonistic mother and a distant aggressive father make for pretty dodgy parents, even in Serntiaari's mythology).
Banor - Fallen God of Lineage
The story of Banor is the last of the Gorumskagat's epic poems (barring the apocryphal Prophet's Retrospect). In it, in the aftermath of a successful raid, Gorum is seduced by Alyona who seems to be in high spirits. Though Gorum leaves with the Warriors in the morning, Alyona stays in the rebuilding hold, until she eventually gives birth to Banor.
Banor grows to be every bit the martial match of his father. His arms and armor are stronger and lighter, products of polished steel compared to Gorum's ancient iron. He is young, and his words are filled with passion, drawing many Warriors to him as he grows into a man. Unlike his father, however, he wishes to unite all of the Gareshi under his banner, and create a sprawling empire.
When Gorum and his army comes again to the realm of Banor's empire, the two gods challenge one another. On the open wastes, the do battle, their armies rushing to meet each other in divinely inspired fervors. Among the divine, Banor proves to be the greater warrior, overcoming Gorum in single combat...however, before he can deliver the finishing blow, he realizes that his great army has been slain to a man. Gorum explains that a commander is only as good as the army he leads, and while Banor's men were engaged in nation building and politics, Gorum's soldiers had been testing themselves against their peers out on the ice.
Mighty though he is, Banor is imprisoned, trapped undernieth a mountain for raising a sword against Gorum. It is said, even within the poem, that the mountain will not hold Banor forever...and when he strides the world again, he will have much more cunning. Perhaps even enough to replace Gorum, though this is approached as the natural course of events rather than an apocalyptic scenario.
Banor is usually portrayed as a reflection of Gorum in glittering steel. Unlike his father, Banor doesn't wear a helm, allowing his golden hair to hang in an array of braids along his armored shoulders. He is normally shown holding a banner pennon of green and gray, a reference to the agricultural advancements his empire had supposedly undertaken. His symbol is a mountain with a great sword plunged into it's face.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:41, Sat 29 Feb 2020.
