The Zu Tak
Of all the pirates of the south-western seas, only the Lintha are more feared than the Zu Tak. Their purple sails are dyed with the blood of monstrous insects from their homelands of the cursed Weeping Fen, and their ships are decorated with the scrimshawed bones of their victims. Their war barges and outrigger canoes might lack the sophisticated sails of the junks and cutters of other fleets, but the Dead who man their oars are tireless and care not for the winds.
The Zu Tak are not merely feared for their ancestor-worship, however. When they take a ship alive, living and Dead alike devour their captives in cannibalistic rituals that give them uncanny powers. The matriarch-witches who rule the tribes on behalf of their own deceased mothers know ways of weather-working and terrible curses. Through their alliances with the mad spirits of the fen and their ancestors they can becalm a fleet or snarl sails, making them easy prey for their sons and brothers.
For most of history, raids from the savage tribesmen of the Wailing Fen has been an ever-present danger for sailors travelling down that coast, but it was only ever an isolated threat. Since the lord of death known as Grandma Hunger gained control of the lands of the Dead under the fen, however, the tribes have grown more and more aggressive. Their ancestors no longer push them to war with each other and their wider reach and greater gains in raids have led to a population explosion. The Zu Tak tribes now exist above the carrying capacity of their homeland - they must raid, or they will starve.
The pirate fleets of the Zu Tak are family groups. Historically a group of brothers and cousins would take to the water to raid passing ships, or travel across the ocean in a canoe. As their raiding culture has grown and their population boomed, necessity means that their war barges are floating villages from which outrigger canoes are launched. These barges even have their dark reflections in the Underworld, where the newly Dead members of the family open their eyes.
This is producing a degree of cultural divergence between the tribes which have fully embraced the raiding lifestyle and the more conservative ones who remain in the Fen. The more cosmopolitan raiders are still ritually-cannibalistic ancestor-cultist pirates, but they have acquired some habits from the outside world. With their plundered plenty the male war-chiefs are standing up to their mothers. Some tribes with weak ancestor-spirits are now already ruled over by the men, making up for the lack of mystical potency with drug-fuelled brutality.
History
The Zu Tak are expansionist newcomers in the South West. It was only sixty years ago that Grandma Hunger devoured a sickly and inattentive Deathlord and took his power for herself. With that power, she subjugated or consumed the Greater Dead rulers of other tribes, and brought them into a loose confederation. The memories of the lord of death she had consumed told her things about the world she had never dreamed. The outside world was rich and plentiful - but also ignorant of the Dead.
The tribes tell tales that the world was wrought from the bitter salty waters of the deeps, and that the salt-laden fens they dwell in were the first and eldest part of the world that the gods made. As they tell it, they were the first race of mankind to be made. Once they were made, the gods fell upon each other and the victors devoured the defeated and with their newfound power they made the rest of the world and the other races of men. In emulation of the gods, therefore, the Takese devour powerful warriors and creatures as a mark of respect to take the spark of divinity within them.
However, a clue to their origins can be found in their similar appearances to other populations up the western coast all the way up to An Teng. Many of the Zu Tak have the same golden skin, jet black hair and high cheekbones common in the Tengese, though their unhealthy homeland where the sun seldom shines leaves them wan. There are traces of stone ruins on the edge of the Wailing Fen which the Zu Tak say were the homes of the gods when they were making the world, but architecturally resemble late Shogunate white stone structures.
Culture
The Dead rule the Zu Tak, and the living would have it no other way. Life is cruel and short in the Weeping Fen, and death comes easily. When life is cheap, the Dead have value. The sun rarely shines in that poisoned land, and this gives those who have passed from life free reign to move through the world. Clans that thrive in these conditions are those with strong ancestors who act to defend their children from the monstrous creatures and the spawn of the Demon Realm who also dwell in the fens.
In the Fens, the Zu Tak clans live on barges or on stilt houses, to keep away from the monsters that writhe through the fen-grasses. Some tribes on the edge of the Fens have peaceful contact with outsiders who pay them with copper tools and glass beads for plants and creatures they capture. For most tribes, however, the only metal they have is what they take from raiding or that they gather from the mutant beasts of the land.
Raider clans are those who mostly dwell on the ocean-capable war barges. A new war barge may start off life as a plundered junk, the shell of one of the strange beasts that sometimes is spawned in the Fens, or a network of lashed together canoes. However, they swiftly grow as the clan expands them, making areas below away from the sun where animate corpses are chained to oars. Many mature war-barges appear more like floating islands, for the Takese witches bring the cursed earth of the fens with them so they do not leave the root of their power behind.
It is believed that the kinship to the Tengese is what led necromancy and ancestor-placation to fall under the jurisdiction of the women of the Zu Tak. The tribes are both matrilineal and matriarchal, where power lies in the alliances of the eldest women and their many female descendents. Ritual cannibalism and blood sacrifice reaps a harvest of power that can be used for many things. They pay off their ancestors, bribe elementals and channel it to their own rituals - for the Zu Tak have an abnormal number of human sorcerers among their ranks.
The eldest of these witches have lived upwards of four hundred years, fattened on stolen life, and are akin to thaumaturgical academies in the breadth of their knowledge that they dribble out to their daughters and granddaughters. Still, they must be careful for the older they get the faster they burn through their stolen life and the more their obligations build up to their spirit allies. In the end, they join the ranks of the Dead - and discover if their preparations were sufficient.
For the men of the Zu Tak, violence and the drugs of the Wailing Fen dominates their lives. They live their lives under the dominion of their mothers and rely on her for what status they have. Few men reach the age of fifty before one of the horrors of the Fen catches up with them, or their body gives up from the many alchemical witch-brews they take. They epitomise the idea of living fast and dying young. Pyresnuff is the most famous of the drugs they take - a brew that uses ground firedust and makes the body burn through a week of their life in a day. Glory in battle is their utmost desire, because that earns them the chance of being selected as the consort-husband of a young witch or a heroic death that earns them a place among the ancestor-spirits - or both at once.
Vessels and Men
The Takese are not a mere pirate band - they are a society, ruled over by the Dead and by their necromancer witch-mothers, and ultimately obedient to a young and ambitious lord of Death. There are at least fifty raider-bands operating in the South West with at least a hundred fighting men in each band, giving them numbers far beyond the pirate lords of Saata, but compared to sleek-hulled junks and cutters they are slow and ponderous. Even with Dead servants to row day and night, their war-barges are not made for bluewater travel and they are useless during the typhoon season. During such times, they either retreat back to the Weeping Fen or moor by some remote island. In some cases, the Takese find a good island to wait out the hurricane season and settle it, pulling apart their war barge to turn it into a village. Woe betide anyone who was already living on such an isle.
When they attack, the Takese come in many outrigger canoes and they hunt like wolves of the sea, harrying their prey and cutting their oars, rigging and rudder before descending for the kill. They take everything of value - goods, vessels, and people. Goods they have no use for are often fenced in places like the pirate den of Saata, vessels are cannibalised for parts, and people are simply cannibalised.
Of all the pirates of the south-western seas, only the Lintha are more feared than the Zu Tak. Their purple sails are dyed with the blood of monstrous insects from their homelands of the cursed Weeping Fen, and their ships are decorated with the scrimshawed bones of their victims. Their war barges and outrigger canoes might lack the sophisticated sails of the junks and cutters of other fleets, but the Dead who man their oars are tireless and care not for the winds.
The Zu Tak are not merely feared for their ancestor-worship, however. When they take a ship alive, living and Dead alike devour their captives in cannibalistic rituals that give them uncanny powers. The matriarch-witches who rule the tribes on behalf of their own deceased mothers know ways of weather-working and terrible curses. Through their alliances with the mad spirits of the fen and their ancestors they can becalm a fleet or snarl sails, making them easy prey for their sons and brothers.
For most of history, raids from the savage tribesmen of the Wailing Fen has been an ever-present danger for sailors travelling down that coast, but it was only ever an isolated threat. Since the lord of death known as Grandma Hunger gained control of the lands of the Dead under the fen, however, the tribes have grown more and more aggressive. Their ancestors no longer push them to war with each other and their wider reach and greater gains in raids have led to a population explosion. The Zu Tak tribes now exist above the carrying capacity of their homeland - they must raid, or they will starve.
The pirate fleets of the Zu Tak are family groups. Historically a group of brothers and cousins would take to the water to raid passing ships, or travel across the ocean in a canoe. As their raiding culture has grown and their population boomed, necessity means that their war barges are floating villages from which outrigger canoes are launched. These barges even have their dark reflections in the Underworld, where the newly Dead members of the family open their eyes.
This is producing a degree of cultural divergence between the tribes which have fully embraced the raiding lifestyle and the more conservative ones who remain in the Fen. The more cosmopolitan raiders are still ritually-cannibalistic ancestor-cultist pirates, but they have acquired some habits from the outside world. With their plundered plenty the male war-chiefs are standing up to their mothers. Some tribes with weak ancestor-spirits are now already ruled over by the men, making up for the lack of mystical potency with drug-fuelled brutality.
History
The Zu Tak are expansionist newcomers in the South West. It was only sixty years ago that Grandma Hunger devoured a sickly and inattentive Deathlord and took his power for herself. With that power, she subjugated or consumed the Greater Dead rulers of other tribes, and brought them into a loose confederation. The memories of the lord of death she had consumed told her things about the world she had never dreamed. The outside world was rich and plentiful - but also ignorant of the Dead.
The tribes tell tales that the world was wrought from the bitter salty waters of the deeps, and that the salt-laden fens they dwell in were the first and eldest part of the world that the gods made. As they tell it, they were the first race of mankind to be made. Once they were made, the gods fell upon each other and the victors devoured the defeated and with their newfound power they made the rest of the world and the other races of men. In emulation of the gods, therefore, the Takese devour powerful warriors and creatures as a mark of respect to take the spark of divinity within them.
However, a clue to their origins can be found in their similar appearances to other populations up the western coast all the way up to An Teng. Many of the Zu Tak have the same golden skin, jet black hair and high cheekbones common in the Tengese, though their unhealthy homeland where the sun seldom shines leaves them wan. There are traces of stone ruins on the edge of the Wailing Fen which the Zu Tak say were the homes of the gods when they were making the world, but architecturally resemble late Shogunate white stone structures.
Culture
The Dead rule the Zu Tak, and the living would have it no other way. Life is cruel and short in the Weeping Fen, and death comes easily. When life is cheap, the Dead have value. The sun rarely shines in that poisoned land, and this gives those who have passed from life free reign to move through the world. Clans that thrive in these conditions are those with strong ancestors who act to defend their children from the monstrous creatures and the spawn of the Demon Realm who also dwell in the fens.
In the Fens, the Zu Tak clans live on barges or on stilt houses, to keep away from the monsters that writhe through the fen-grasses. Some tribes on the edge of the Fens have peaceful contact with outsiders who pay them with copper tools and glass beads for plants and creatures they capture. For most tribes, however, the only metal they have is what they take from raiding or that they gather from the mutant beasts of the land.
Raider clans are those who mostly dwell on the ocean-capable war barges. A new war barge may start off life as a plundered junk, the shell of one of the strange beasts that sometimes is spawned in the Fens, or a network of lashed together canoes. However, they swiftly grow as the clan expands them, making areas below away from the sun where animate corpses are chained to oars. Many mature war-barges appear more like floating islands, for the Takese witches bring the cursed earth of the fens with them so they do not leave the root of their power behind.
It is believed that the kinship to the Tengese is what led necromancy and ancestor-placation to fall under the jurisdiction of the women of the Zu Tak. The tribes are both matrilineal and matriarchal, where power lies in the alliances of the eldest women and their many female descendents. Ritual cannibalism and blood sacrifice reaps a harvest of power that can be used for many things. They pay off their ancestors, bribe elementals and channel it to their own rituals - for the Zu Tak have an abnormal number of human sorcerers among their ranks.
The eldest of these witches have lived upwards of four hundred years, fattened on stolen life, and are akin to thaumaturgical academies in the breadth of their knowledge that they dribble out to their daughters and granddaughters. Still, they must be careful for the older they get the faster they burn through their stolen life and the more their obligations build up to their spirit allies. In the end, they join the ranks of the Dead - and discover if their preparations were sufficient.
For the men of the Zu Tak, violence and the drugs of the Wailing Fen dominates their lives. They live their lives under the dominion of their mothers and rely on her for what status they have. Few men reach the age of fifty before one of the horrors of the Fen catches up with them, or their body gives up from the many alchemical witch-brews they take. They epitomise the idea of living fast and dying young. Pyresnuff is the most famous of the drugs they take - a brew that uses ground firedust and makes the body burn through a week of their life in a day. Glory in battle is their utmost desire, because that earns them the chance of being selected as the consort-husband of a young witch or a heroic death that earns them a place among the ancestor-spirits - or both at once.
Vessels and Men
The Takese are not a mere pirate band - they are a society, ruled over by the Dead and by their necromancer witch-mothers, and ultimately obedient to a young and ambitious lord of Death. There are at least fifty raider-bands operating in the South West with at least a hundred fighting men in each band, giving them numbers far beyond the pirate lords of Saata, but compared to sleek-hulled junks and cutters they are slow and ponderous. Even with Dead servants to row day and night, their war-barges are not made for bluewater travel and they are useless during the typhoon season. During such times, they either retreat back to the Weeping Fen or moor by some remote island. In some cases, the Takese find a good island to wait out the hurricane season and settle it, pulling apart their war barge to turn it into a village. Woe betide anyone who was already living on such an isle.
When they attack, the Takese come in many outrigger canoes and they hunt like wolves of the sea, harrying their prey and cutting their oars, rigging and rudder before descending for the kill. They take everything of value - goods, vessels, and people. Goods they have no use for are often fenced in places like the pirate den of Saata, vessels are cannibalised for parts, and people are simply cannibalised.
