We are the nomads of the Waste, the vast desert between Dragon Pass and the eastern kingdoms of Teshnos and Kralorela. Our lives are the harshest in the world. We survive through the bounty of Waha, who taught us to bind ourselves to the spirits of the animals we ride: sable, antelope, bison and others.
of Chaos remnants. When he had made the world safe, the yellow-bellied sun emerged from its cowering place and shone on us again.
My History
Waha is no ordinary god. When other gods retreat at the beginning of the time, he continues to oversee his dusty land as a great spirit.
For over 200 years, we are left alone by our neighbours. Our land is too scorched to covet. We raid each other and are raided in turn. Eventually our martial prowess is too great to be ignored, and outsiders hire us as mercenaries. We fi ght for the World Council from 230 onwards.
The World Council makes a new god and we do not care, so long as we are paid. The new god becomes Gbaji, a Chaos creature. Only outlaws stay to take his coin. The rest of us retreat to our homeland. Gbaji is killed, far away from us, in 450.
The despised Pure Horse People invade us in 620. They are Pentans, sent by the wyrmfriends of Dragon Pass, who hate us because we raid them. The horse people become the biggest tribe in Prax. They win but we are not destroyed.
In 720, God Learners show up, looking for the magic-fi lled cradles giants use to send their babies downstream to the sea.
They found a town, Feroda. Traders and others come here.
The Horse People like it because they get rich. We like it only because we raid the traders.
Our raids against the Horse People grow so strong that they have to send dragons against us. In 740, they defeat us. Our anger festers.
The God Learners build another town, Robcradle, to better loot the secrets of giants. Waha does not like this. The giants are his friends. He goes to the giant Paragua and proposes a war. We fi ght with Waha, all of us tribes together, which hardly ever happens. The giants fi ght, too. They smash Robcradle.
They drive off the God Learners. They drive off the Pentans.
No feud stays settled for long. Thirty years later, a human hero called Pavis, who wielded elf magic, leads a battle to retake Robcradle. His weapon is a giant stone statue he brings to life in troll country. Waha fi ghts the statue; it beats him down and slashes his tendons. A dragonfriend magician, Varajiia Nopor, hurts him with wrongful magics.
Pavis declares victory, then comes to Waha and heals him.
Waha acknowledges him as a son and agrees to retreat from the world, like other gods did 800 years before. We weep.
Waha assures us we can still draw on his magic and protection, so long as we follow his laws.
Pavis rules Prax for the wyrmfriends. With dwarfi sh help, he erects a bigger city on Robcradle’s ruins and greedily names it for himself. We raid its caravans.
In 860, Pavis retires permanently to his palace. He selects the Arrowsmith Dynasty to run the city. We all know it is really the wyrmfriends in charge, behind the scenes. We raid their caravans.
Our raiding grows too potent and about eight years ago the wyrms send more Horse People to put us all down again. We are on the run now. Our fury sustains us. Eventually the feuds will again turn in our favour.
It is the way of the desert. One day’s king is the next day’s slave.
My Life
Our lives are lived in concert with the animals we ride. They are our mounts. We feed from their blood and milk. When it is time, we butcher them, according to Waha’s laws. He invented the Peaceful Cut, which allows the animal’s soul to detach painlessly from its body and return to the great spirit herd. From there it will be reborn to us, perhaps as early as the next calving time.
Animals can have their spirits awakened inside their bodies.
They become as intelligent as you or I. They can cast spells and obey complex instructions. They are like family to us. You do not butcher an awakened animal, just as you would not butcher your son or brother.
Each tribe feuds with the others. We are all Waha’s children but he wants us to be strong. In order to be strong, you have to be willing to take food to fi ll your bellies.
Men are men and women are women. To mix roles is against Waha’s commands. Women are life keepers. They own the basic herds, cooking implements, tents and household tools.
They tend herds, heal people and raise children. Men are death keepers. We get to own only the beasts we capture from others. We run the herds and perform the butchering, raiding and defensive fi ghting.
Waha arranged us into families. Families travel together as clans. All the clans of a single herd animal constitute a tribe.
When in doubt, favour your family over your clan and your clan over your tribe. You may raid other clans of the same tribe but should expect to be ill treated if you steal from other families of your clan.
The leader of the clan is the khan. His wife is the queen. The tribal leaders are High Khan and High Queen.
Waha decrees a terrible punishment for wrongdoers. They are banished from their tribes. They may no longer gain nourishment from the meat of their tribal animal and are left alone in the desert to fend for themselves. Only the toughest survive banishment.
You can know much about a Praxian by the animal he rides:
Sable riders are political and opportunistic. They make overtures to the God Learners and wyrmfriends alike. Their only true ally is themselves.
The Bison people are bluff and surly. They are the opposite of the Sables, always getting into trouble with whoever is in power.
We High Llamas are said to be arrogant and, like our animals, prone to spit on those beneath us. We say, it is hard to spit and not hit an inferior.
The Impala riders are pygmies who swarm their foes. They are demanding and obstreperous. It is plain to see that they are making up for their minute stature.
Everybody hates the blunt, unsentimental Morokanth. They are not human but plump quadrupedal animals with fat, in-curving snouts. When Waha held the fi rst lottery to see who would ride and who would be ridden, the Morokanth cheated. Thus they marshal a herd of unintelligent humans.
You can tell it is wrong, because they cannot ride the humans and must walk beside them.
There are smaller, oddball tribes: the plodding, short-sighted Rhino; the fl eet, elusive Zebra; the female-only Unicorn tribe. The Bolo riders herd bipedal dinosaurs. The Ostrich riders are the most foul tempered of any of us. And that is quite the statement to make.
My Magic
Waha does not give us magic. He teaches us to get magic from spirits. We do Common Magic, like everyone else, but our great workings are spirit summonings.
Why I Adventure
Our spirit powers are uniquely suited to our inhospitable land.
When we wander, it is in search of wealth for our people.
Sometimes we go a long way to raid. Favourite targets are Dragon Pass, Teshnos and the troll land of Dagori Inkarth.
A Praxian left behind after a disastrous raid may continue to wander before coming back.
The banished often leave Prax entirely, seeking their way as mercenaries or freebooters in far-off lands. They often secretly yearn for the home clans they have been forever severed from.
Pamaltelan
We are the Agimori. In our language, this means ‘We Who Die and Come Again’. We are the people of Pamalt, the god who did not fall when the Chaos monsters came. He protected our tropical continent. Its lands were ravaged but not so badly that they could not recover quickly. We count ourselves more blessed than the northern peoples and are grateful to Pamalt for his strength. We live in the idyllic grassless savannah at the centre of the continent.
My Myths
Earthmaker made the world. You can tell that from his name.
He made everything in it. You can tell that by looking around you, smelling the goodness of the earth and the plants. There are terrifying things in the world but they are not his fault.
They came after.
Earthmaker got tired after a while, with all his making. So he made giant spirits to shape the world for him. The fi rst and best of these was Pamalt, who was brave, kindly and clever. He
is our ancestor. It is his job to keep the land alive and our job to help him. We benefi t from this, of course, but it is our joy to preserve life.
The time when Earthmaker lived was the best. He would do anything you asked him. If you wanted a cooling lake where the animals could drink, he would reach down, scoop it out, spit into the hole and there you were. A cooling lake. If you got tired of eating boar, then he would make antelope, too.
The best request Pamalt ever made of him was to create a family. And just like that, Earthmaker did it.
There was Aleshmara, who was like Pamalt’s mother, although she was made afterwards and did not give birth to him. She is the matriarch of his family, keeping the goddesses in line and telling Pamalt what to do, when he needs it.
For his wife, Earthmaker made Faranar and she is the wife of wives. She rules the domestic realm, owning the living quarters, containers, tools and ovens. Her most important job is looking after the babies.
To aid Pamalt with wisdom, Earthmaker provided Cronisper the Rememberer. His job is to keep track of the songs, the paints and the location of the wisdom roots. He was like Pamalt’s uncle.
To give Pamalt strength, but more importantly comradeship, Earthmaker made Balumbasta, who is very strong, so strong that he could make himself a range of mountains overnight, but not so smart. He is like Pamalt’s youngest brother and shows us how being smart does not matter so much if you are good-hearted.
Pamalt’s next youngest brother was Rasout, the hunter. His job was to chase animals across the veldt and bring them back as food. To keep him from being too proud, Earthmaker created the Runthing, the prey Rasout could never catch. His worshippers see this at least once in their lives. They never catch it, either.
The oldest brother next to Pamalt was Vangono, the warrior, master of the spear. Earthmaker said his job would come later.
Also Earthmaker made Naruma, who could see something that did not exist at the time. Nobody knew what his job was but Naruma and he was not saying yet.
When he was done, Earthmaker sat down on a tussock of soft vines, tired out. He farted and out came Bolongo the Fool. He was Pamalt’s cousin, who could never remember the difference between right and wrong.
Seeing him, Vangono said, ‘He is stupid. Stupid people get you killed. Earthmaker, let me pierce him with my spear.’
However Earthmaker went to sleep, saying that even wrongness had a purpose.
Much later Bolongo took a knife and slit Earthmaker’s throat.
He did not mean to kill him. He did not even know what death was. No one did. Earthmaker’s was the fi rst death. After that death could not be kept from the world and we all die, when our time comes.
As he died, Earthmaker’s last words were to Vangono: ‘Now you and Naruma will see what your jobs are.’
Earthmaker’s death emboldened the bad beings at the edge of the world, who had always wanted in but were afraid to cross him. Now they poured in and made war on Pamalt and his people. Vangono took up his spear and found he could now breathe three types of fi re. He leapt on the monsters, slaying them. But many more came.