Last of the Omatachi
LANGUAGES
Instead of "Common," all characters start with "Omatachi." This is a language that literally nobody will be able to understand except you guys, so there is probably an advantage in that. Additional languages may only be monster tongues. When you guys encounter the common tongue, or those of demihumans, you might get some time to learn them. This is a game of discovery, so you the decision for everyone to be as information poor at the beginning is a conscious design decision.
THE OMATACHI
You are one of the Omatachi, a small but ancient group whose oral histories go back many thousands of years. Your people originally came to this land across the Blue Saltplains, riding horses made of wood, and settled in the Summerlands. The people of the Summerlands, however, had already divided up the world amongst themselves into great kingdoms and no love was given to your people and no respect was accorded to their ways. For generations, your people were pushed further and further into the wild and frontierlands of the world, where they continued to encounter settled peoples and entrenched cultures that refused the Omatachi aid or comfort. Further generations forced the Omatachi from the frontierlands into the deep and wild places of the world, where they were finally able to settle for good. In the centuries since, the isolated but talented Omatachi people have prospered, if not exactly thrived, on the edge of world. Only the Sledge People of the Ice Wall to the south live in harsher conditions, and as such, the Omatachi have become a hardy and disciplined people. While some trade is conducted with small tribes and a network of small and distant villages for steel and crafts, the Omatachi people have been content to remain relatively self-sufficient and isolated. Therefore, tales of the Omatachi have largely disappeared from the world at large, as has Omatachi understandings of the world they left behind. However, the Omatachi have hung on to many of their old ways, and somewhat compensate for this by possess skills and understandings absent from the world at large.
WHAT IS KNOWN
You live in a great and expansive wilds. It is often cold and not often pleasant. Your people are simple, if not exactly primitive, and live in a small walled settlement that serves as a nexus for Omatachi trade, society, and defense. The Omatachi subsist largely as hunters and gatherers, although simple tuber, squash, and beans agriculture provides the nutritional stability required to survive the long and harsh winters in the arboreal forests at the edge of the Fields of Ice. You are a young apprentice or relatively inexperienced assistant in or around this settlement as our game begins. Your backstory is relatively unremarkable, and you have no dark secrets or powerful fetters. Your religion is a simple one that revolves around ancestor veneration, although most of the surrounding people the Omatachi trade with practice some form of animist spirit worship. There is a small group of ANTINOMIANS that also exist among your people, who practice a monastic martial tradition brought by the Omatachi from their ancient homeland. Although these antinomians generally share Omatachi ancestor worship traditions, they do not accept any law or moral authority beyond the simple but strict code of their order, and so are often viewed as chaotic and unpredictable troublemakers rather than being understood as deeply lawful and meditative aestetics who see themselves as having transcended societal norms.
THE SUMMERLANDS
The most powerful area of civilization is a huge area called the Summerlands by your people. Not all of the people of the Summerlands are human, though most still are. It is here that the great empires and petty kingdoms of the world can be found, though much of it is still dominated by monsters and other vile and evil creatures. It has been thousands of years since the Omatachi have bothered with the Summerlands in any real way, and its many hundreds of miles away, so working knowledge of the place is pretty much zero. Someone will probably have to learn some languages eventually.
The Summerlanders to the north follow a simple pantheon of about a dozen gods. These gods don't generally have proper names, but rather have names more like titles or job descriptions as the gods of the Summerlands stand only for broad concepts and archetypes as befitting a broad tent religion. Most Omatachi obviously don't know a hell of a lot about it beyond that, although most at least know the two major evil gods of this pantheon because they'll pop up every now and then because they've been run out of their homes and are causing problems. They are:
E1. The Grinning Skull Symbol: Guess. DOMAINS: Death, Destruction, Evil, Magic, Undeath, Hatred
E2. The Dark Binder Symbol: A Black Book, Open (sometimes there is one of a variety of different symbols inside of the book) DOMAINS: Evil, Knowledge, Magic, Air, Animal, Earth, Plant, Water, Storm
