Yezel Mora
Yezel Mora
Religion
Traditions
-33% Land Attrition
-5 Years of Separatism
To Walk on NailsLike the lands of our neighbours, in Yezel Mora we call no man more cursed than a King, who must take on the unique burden of our people. Every swamp troll of stature carries one or two of these shadow-drunk implements of iron, both symbols of authority and implements of great power, but the Nail King is more laden than any other. \n\nWe are a fractious, feuding lot, and it takes a figure with the authority of Mama Hireet herself to corral so many disparate voices. To keep the shambling horrors at bay and prevent our very destruction, the Sisters must have power, must feed from discord and suffering. In return, it is the duty of the Nail King to keep their terrible hunger at bay. \n\nIn his dual duties, to unite the people and make war against the ignorant, the Nail King is forever a moment from disfavour. If he fails to keep up the campaigns which maintain our power, he is first castigated. If he still does not redeem himself, he is overthrown. A great mother is also stern, for the betterment of her children.
+15% National Tax Modifier
Ritual ScarificationFor as long as we have dwelled in the Shadow Swamp, the shadow-infused plants have been important to our survival. The magic within them is amplified when woven into the skin in the form of beautiful, terrible patterns. Faced as we are with the relentless landscape and animal threat of our swamp, these scars have helped us to rest easy and tempered our fear of the unknown; they also bind us to our environment, preventing the loss of our souls after death. \n\nWe prepare a ground paste of the Hattiatia, a vine uniquely infused with the essence of the Shadow Plane. Coating ceremonial stone daggers with this mixture, we make a hundred cuts, tearing open our flesh to create huge woundworks, the excruciating poison stymying our natural regeneration and fixing the work in place. Each design is unique, a pattern-language of pain by which our young prove their adulthood. The greatest of scars, for the most respected of our warriors, are carved with sap from the Yezelne Nisha, which offers supreme protection. Our fighters know they are safe from all harm, in this world and the next. What is there possibly to fear?
-10% Morale Damage Received
Two Worlds, One LifeWe believe that all beings live two lives: one in the waking world and one in the dream world, a plane of shadow and echoes. If we want to prosper, we must align both lives together. Every day we rise and gather the tribes together to discuss the meaning of our dreams. While we often cannot understand their meaning, it is paramount to correct our sleeping actions in the waking world. Living in the two worlds is like weaving a basket with straw; those unable to align the weave properly are unwound.
-5% Advisor Cost
+2 Tolerance of the True Faith
Water Spider DoctrineNote the Yazwudu, the spider which, lurking at the banks, can dispatch a full-grown toad many times its own size. As it devours its prey, the adrenaline of the terrified frog hastens the blood, making for a headier and more delicious drink. With this parable, Granny Ilfa has taught us that there is power in terror. A man tied in Flying Squirrel pose feels the slow, terrible ache of his joints dislocating. He is a mighty warrior, once the pride of his village; he will not die for very many hours. A while along the road, another is trussed in an identical way - each can catch the moans of the other at the very edge of hearing. \n\nThis slick red chain stains the earth as it goes, marking the route to our territory like a stream to the mouth of a river. It strengthens us, and gives our Wise Three succour enough to work their great magics. Not only torture can achieve our ends in this. Corrupt a well, and the clever can feed on that anguish for the months it takes for disease to claim the people. Prune a little off the top, the vast human herd of the Mengi, and they will return, intent on vengeance, only to fall once more into the Water Spider's snare. It is a cycle which forever feeds us, as the litter of leaves on the swamp floor decays and feeds the trees.
+5% Discipline
The Honesty and Pacts of Swamp TrollsUnlike most mortal creations, lies do not live beneath the dark ferns of the Shadow Swamp. By some power, all swamp trolls are compelled to honesty. Despite the blessed modesty they exhibit on this topic, it is widely believed that this honesty comes directly from the Sisters Three, our hag benefactresses. It is, however, an unshakeable and indisputable fact that none of us harbour the ability to tell a direct lie and that a vow, once given, will never be broken. \n\nThose unschooled in our ways might take this as a sign that we are incapable of misdirection - this is an error they inevitably live to regret. Though the foolish troll is an open well, those of wisdom know to wind the truth in coils of technicalities, half-truths, and digressions. Thus, despite our word always being true, few can see through the clever troll’s well-sown undergrowth to garner any of this truth for themselves. And many who bargain with us find the contents of their bargain to be drastically different to what they presumed, despite no lie passing through the mind, let alone the lips, of their trollish deceiver.
-0.15 Yearly Corruption
Refuge in DarknessAuntie Komina taught the first of us to take a single step forward and out of this world. She tells us rightly that all great journeys arrive eventually at the self. Trembling humans may fear the cold and dark, as rodents do, but we know there is a blanket of night which comforts the soul and offers rich and beautiful pathways. For some, this means walking in dreams, following Aunty's footsteps into a thousand nocturnal worlds. For others, it is the means to disappear and reappear, to shrink into the murk of the swamp and lunge back out. In such a way we take captives and inflict terror. At our most powerful, we have cultivated techniques to trap prisoners in shadow worlds of their own fear, a rich vein of misery for our Wise Three to tap.
+100% Army Tradition From Battles
The BindingAt the centre of our ancient swamp lies the Shadowroot Matriarch, a singular being, the greatest strangler fig on Halann. Like its tiny echoes, it chokes the life out of other plants, feeding on their essence for its own renewal. It is the source of all entropy in our world and the other, and it is both Death and Destruction; mourned death, but also the necessary death of nature. \n\nAn easy thing to say, and an impossible thing for a conscious being to accept. To die without protection is a terrible thing. Leave this life naked of tattoos or the proper rites and one forfeits one's soul to the Matriarch, to be wrung out and reincarnated as a Shambling Mound, an unthinking behemoth of the swamp. These beings have terrorised us for generations beyond count, and their fate will not be ours.\n\nThrough the beneficence and goodwill of our patronesses, the Clever Three, our powers over the Matriarch have grown. They have taught us to take a little of its essence and cleverly turn it against our doom. With each driving of a sacred nail into the flesh of the tree, we divert its rage. A time is soon coming when, buoyed by new wisdom, we will cease to be in thrall of this mindless death, and all naysayers and doubters will be swept aside.
-4% All Power Costs
Ambition
+15% Manpower Recovery Speed
History
TBD
Strategy
TBD