Wintermark people

The Winterfolk were once three entirely separate peoples: the Kallavesi, the Steinr and the Suaq. Over time their blood has mingled, but they preserve the traditions that made each individual culture strong. Which tradition you follow is not an accident of birth but a choice made by every child. Just as one might be born a peasant and rise to become a Thane, so someone can be born to Steinr family and leave to follow the path of a Kallavesi mystic or journey with the Suaq as a scout. All three are respected, as all are crucial to the survival of the nation. Although each territory of Wintermark might lean towards a particular culture – a consequence of landscape and history – many communities now contain members of all three peoples. Children gravitate towards whichever culture calls most strongly to them as they come of age.

The Steinr came from the south originally, forced northward into an increasingly hostile land. A warlike people by necessity, they nonetheless love to create unique things of beauty and purpose. Many Steinr are warriors or smiths, but whatever their calling they are bold, uncomplicated, and outspoken; and as the loudest voices in the Nation are often seen as its political core by outsiders.

The Suaq ancestral homeland is in the extreme north on shifting floes and walls of unmelting ice. They are consummate survivors who waste nothing and take nothing for granted. Most are hunters, scouts or guides, but shrewd pragmatism is the trait they bring to whatever path they choose. The traditional Suaq garb is a tight fur coat emblazoned with drawings and symbols of powerful creatures they have slain or enemies they have overcome. In warmer climes, the coat is exchanged for tightly wrapped robes.

File:WinterKallavesi2.jpg

The Kallavesi are mystics whose homeland lies in and around a great cold marsh. They are the spiritual backbone of the nation, acting as seers and guardians of the dead. Many Kallavesi are shamans, magicians or priests, but the Kallavesi honour wisdom in all forms. Kallavesi hunters and warriors use their understanding of their Skein and the interpretation of omens to guide them in ways that often seem peculiar to less spiritual people. This mysticism is the essential trait of the Kallavesi, and they understand that there is more to the world than the obvious structures that are visible to everyone.

The term Winterfolk is mostly used by outsiders, when making a point about unity, and when dealing with outsiders. When the three peoples unified as the nation of Wintermark, the term was coined as a way to refer to them as a whole. The peoples of the north are individualistic and hold on fiercely to their old traditions – consequently most people continue to refer to themselves as Suaq, Kallavesi or Steinr.

File:WinterSuaq2.jpg

The Winterfolk, and especially the Steinr, are expert craftsmen who take immense pride in the act of creation. They treat complex runic sigil-work as a necessary part of everything they make. They are perfectionists, who value quality over mass production, and their pieces are greatly prized and copied all over the Empire. While the stereotypical Winterfolk crafter is often thought of as a weapon or armour smith, they are also known for the expertise in civil and military engineering; their construction of great fortresses and other defensive structures; their delicately engraved jewellery and their practical alchemy.

Many Winterfolk have adopted the old Kallavesi belief in the Skein. Each person has a skein, a path down which that individual travels. Your passage along your path, your skein, is a single continuous journey even as you are born and reborn. It is wrong to say that things are predestined, like any path there are turnings that you can take. But some paths are much more auspicious than others. Divination through magic and studying omens allows the skilled shaman to discern the most favourable turns to make.

What binds the three cultures together into a strong nation is the idea of commitment to one’s choices. If you hunt the monsters of the icy wastes, let none escape you. If you design a fortress or a suit of armour, make it impregnable. If you go to war, be prepared to die for your cause. Everything you do is your choice and yours alone, and that is why you must stand by it, whatever the outcome may be.

Names

Traditional Steinr and Kallavesi names tend to fall into two patterns:

• {given name} {parent's name}sson or {given name} {parent's name}sdottir e.g. Hrothgar Arnesson, Adla Runasdottir
• {given name} ja {place} e.g. Aiko ja Sudenar, Eirik ja Kalpaheim (pronounced 'ya')

Traditional Suaq names are different – the Suaq are given single names of places or creatures around them, but if it is felt that they resemble one of the elders or the dead, or the mother dreams of a dead person, the child takes that person’s name. A Suaq child’s name can change a number of times before it settles.

Sample Names

• Rika Vanarsdottir
• Mimek ja Tanika
• Amaruq

Names are primarily Saxon in flavour for Steinr, Finnish for Kallavesi and Inuit for Suaq – although these have melded over the generations.