An introduction to the Grimdowns (Dark Silver)

[Kindling]

THE GRIMDOWNS

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South of the Black Lands of the Zorr, between Old Lacedon and the Mountains of Ancient Lament is a country of bleak moors and forest valleys called the Grimdowns.
It is a great long country, with many settlements separated by miles of elf-haunted, mist-shrouded beast-places. It is struck by shattering cold in winter and washed in warm rain and pale sunshine in the summer. It is wild land, but good land, and though the three peoples that call it home are hard, strong folk, they are also well-fed.

Grimdowners

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Typical male names: Aelred, Aesc, Aedelstan, Cenhelm, Cyneric, Deorwine, Eoforgar, Hereward, Osgar, Paega, Wilmaer, Wulfhere, Wulfric
Typical female names: Aelfgifu, Aedelflaed, Cyneburga, Ealdgyth, Eoforhild, Friduswyth, Haldryth, Leofdaeg, Mildgyth, Sunngifu

The most numerous of the peoples of the Grimdowns are known simply as Grimdowners. They live in a myriad of scattered steadings, farm-towns and hill-forts and each little township is like a province unto itself, overseen by the local thane.
These thanes are warrior-nobles elected to office by the strength of their own sword-arms, and they keep around them bands of fighting-men called gedriht - hero-born sword-wielders who keep the peace through strength and cruelty, hunting down outlaws and fighting off enemies and raiding Snaketalkers.
The gedriht are assisted in war-times by the geoguth and the duguth, volunteer spear-bearers and shield-men from among the common Grimdowners, the geoguth being the more untried men while the duguth are veterans who have fought before and won renown. In true desperation the thanes can also call upon the fyrd, so that every able-bodied man in their domain must take up arms, geoguth or no.
The lands of a thane are rarely extensive - perhaps a handful of towns and a hill-fort or two at the most. Occasionally, through bullying or promises and gifts, one thane will bind his neighbours to his service and name himself earl or king over them, but such realms rarely last long once the overlord has died, so that the political geography of the Grimdowns is never stable for long.
Grimdowners, especially the thanes and gedriht, see God as the solar horseman, a noble warrior like themselves who rides from conquest to conquest across the sky each day. The Goddess, for them, is a vampire queen deep in the earth, the God's skulking, deceitful enemy who drinks the blood of innocents from an iron cup.
Grimdowner settlements are usually small affairs, but in each there is always a mead-house where the local ruffians meet to drink and bet on throws of the rune-bones, while on the curtained upper platforms passing gedriht and other wealthy travellers sit and smoke pipes as they sup their ale.

Earth Tusk

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Typical male names: Alfarr, Asgeirr, Birgir, Egill, Eirikr, Folki, Hakon, Havardr, Hrodgeirr, Kori, Ragnvaldr, Sindri, Tryggvi, Valdimarr
Typical female names: Alfhildr, Audrhildr, Bothildr, Brinja, Grimhildr, Gudridr, Hjordis, Ingvildr, Ragna, Sigrun, Svanhildr, Vigdis, Yngvildr

Ruled by the triumvirate of King Red Ivarr, King Grey Vigi and King Bronze Hrafn, the people of the Earth Tusk hold territories in the far north of the Grimdowns.
For the people of the Earth Tusk, or Tuskers as others often call them, the God is in all men and the Goddess is in all women, and the two are one and the same, and so in all living things.
The Goddess, being at once all women, has innumerable vaginas, and the God, being at once all men, has innumerable penises - but as they are also the same being, the one single life in the world, they must have both, and so the earth, the domain of the Goddess, is a vast penis - woman's penis. And so also the sky, the domain of the God, is a vast vagina - man's vagina.
At the heart of the Earth Tusk's lands is the Earth Tusk itself, the great natural monolith for which they are named and about which they have built their chief settlement. It is the ultimate symbol of their faith, a huge phallic rock that thrusts up a thousand feet from the woman-penis of the earth, penetrating the waiting man-vagina of the sky.
Tuskers offer animals to the deities by butchering them in specially dug pits and allowing their blood to drain into the waiting earth for the Goddess to drink, then hanging the meat and bones from surrounding trees as an offering to the God in the heavens. Trees for them are lesser versions of the Earth Tusk; up-thrustings of earth-power into the sky. In times of war they kill captured enemies in the same manner to bring them victory in coming battles.
Like the thanes of the Grimdowners, the three kings of the Earth Tusk each commands gedriht, and can call on geoguth, duguth and fyrd to fight for them in war-times. King Bronze, however, also has the fealty of the renowned Fylja, an order of heroic and brave shield-maidens trained to fight since childhood when they are selected from among the tallest girl-children of the Earth Tusk.
The Fylja are said to be as strong as horses and worth five lesser warriors in battle. Men who marry Fylja are often envied, for it is seen as a great honour.

Bol-Kith

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Typical names: Beautiful-One, Bright-Gaze, Grey-Fate, Honour-Born, Night-Child, Oak-Built, Praise-Song, Sacred-Word, Shield-Heart, Silver-Spear, Strong-Hand, Sword-Gift, Winter-Born

Once the lords of the great citadel of Bol-Dinas, the Bol-Kith are the heirs of the legendary Fire-Crowns, and for them God is the Sacred Everlasting Flame in the heart of the earth and the eye of the sun.
The memory of the great pyromancers who were their ancestors is dim nowadays with the Bol-Kith. To imitate the Fire-Crowns of old they ritually singe off all their hair and wear peculiar red vestments. There is no raging sorcery in them now, though. They cannot conjure fire, wield it sword-like as their forefathers once did.
There is another, subtler, kind of magic to them though; a magic of the mind that once made them the fearsome reavers of Bol-Dinas. Throughout their life, their every action, thought and trial, they seek to make their hearts and souls like unto the flames of God - bright, eternal, all-consuming and relentless.
This spirit of fire dwells within all Bol-Kith, even as they wander raggedly about the Grimdowns driving their flocks through the lands they once terrorised. Their neighbours fear or distrust them for their burning gazes and holy madness.
They also admire them though, for they have an insane bravery and a capacity for incandescent cruelty. Many Grimdowner thanes hire youths of the Bol-Kith to serve amongst their gedriht as mercenaries, and though these warriors may distinguish themselves, winning renown and plunder, they always return to the wandering, sheep-watching, meditative ways of their people to finish preparing their smouldering souls before death takes them.
There are many shrines of the Bol-Kith in the quiet and lonely places of the Grimdowns, away from any settlements. Their fire-pits often lie cold and untended for months or years at a time, until a band of Bol-Kith passes to rekindle them and burn sacrifices and chant lullaby-prayers to the embers as they cool. Grimdowners and Tuskers avoid such places when they discover them, fearful of the sorcery of the Bol-Kith's mad faith.