The Campaign Builder's Guild

Story I wrote just now to sort of present a new race in my setting.  Draft copy, etc.
http://files.filefront.com/Drakwerepdf/;13107152;/fileinfo.html

About the race in this:

The Drakwere
   The Republic withdrew from the land 412 years before the present, leaving behind it few relics of their rule.  Within a century after withdraw, a strange and bestial culture from across the sea to the north and west visited with the Cynning.  

Assisted by the clerics of the Republican religion, the language barrier was overcome.  They explained themselves to be the children of Bharda, an ancient dragon that sired the first of their people.  They practiced a meditative lifestyle that was under assault by other beings they shared their homeland with.  They had taken refuge on an island between the two places, and while exploring for a new home, spotted Vælen ships.

Though originally terrified by the appearance of these beings, as they stood over 7' tall and wore horns and tough, dark skin, the court began to sympathize with the refugee before them.  The court was unwilling to take them on as citizens, still unconvinced of their 'harmless' attitudes.  Having been told of their monastic lifestyle, negotiations began for a spot in a now unused portion of the mountain range in the north west of Væl.  It was, in the past, the site of a few rich graves, but had fallen to disuse over the centuries.  It was the wife of the Cynning, taking the nameless man aside, who convinced the great ruler to accept their plight and grant them sanctuary high on the mountain tops.

Within a hundred years the people had grown to accept the new residents.  They rarely left their carefully constructed mountain-top monastery, never mingled in the affairs of those below the mountain, and even once sent a few representatives to do battle against a fell Gnollish army that managed to raid the village nearest their monastery.
The Drakwere practice a form of hand to hand combat they term moordenaar.  They use few weapons; most they do use being of unusual form, but use their great strength and fortitude to carve great swaths through their foes.  It is even rumored a few can belch forth mighty gouts of fire and acid, further enhancing their martial abilities.  For all their martial might, however, their culture stresses non-intervention, and all members must strictly adhere to the concepts of their belief or find themselves cast from their monastic home.

Their written language is rather unusual.  While most cultures lay pigments upon a worked surface or etch shapes into clay or wax, the Drakwere prepare wax tablets into which they work a pattern of colored stones.  The patterns form the basic elements of their language, using distance between the individual stone elements and the displayed pattern to portray a message.  Often, Drakwere poets will devise creative word structures to harmonize the message with the raw physical appearance of their written work.  Upon completion, a tablet is fired in a slow kiln to provide permanency.  

M.

Pretty bad eh?

M.

I think its really good. I'm a big fan of monkish cultures.