Races of Astrom: Mortals of Firwood

Welcome back to the World of Astrom blog! Here I’m continuing my Races of Astrom series with a sequence of posts about the different Mortal people groups in Astrom. This follows on from previous posts about the elves, dwarves and armists.

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After the recent introduction to the Mortals in Astrom generally, and these portraits of the Mortals of Aranar, the Mortals of Ciricien, the Mortals of Hendar, the Mortals of Lurallan, the Mortals of Dorzand and the Mortals of Urunmar, this is the seventh in a series of posts looking at each race of Mortals in turn. The final part in the series, coming soon, will feature the Mortals of Swordhilt Peninsula.

Firwood is the second-largest forest in Astrom, after Arkania in northern Maristonia, and its people live on the margins of the outside world. It wraps around the north-western frontier of Aranar, occupying a wedge of wild land lying between two great spurs of the Goragath Mountains that reach south and east from the main range. The land in the forest sloped gradually up from the plains of western Aranar to thickly forested hill-country and then the more sparsely wooded foothills of the mountains beyond. The elven kingdom of Ithrill lay to the west, separated by several high ridgelines and deep river gorges, and Hendar was beyond the Goragath Mountains, a journey that few adventurers lived to tell of, but it was Aranar to the south and east that had most contact with Firwood, particularly those knights of the Pegasus Clan who had holdings west of the Great North Road, in the Tyronsor Valley or in the hills north of the Silver Road.

The original inhabitants of Firwood were Wood-elves who wandered west from other colonies in Aranar. These elves were particularly secretive, even more so than the rest of their kindred, and rarely had contact with the outside world. Instead, they had a greater affinity with the wild beasts of the forests, particularly the hawks, bears, wolves, lynxes and stags that roamed there. However, even the reclusive Wood-elves of Firwood became caught up in the turmoil at the end of the Second Chapter, fighting secret wars in the run up to the Great Betrayal. Some of them retained their immortality and the faith of Prélan, but others became Mortal. In the early Third Chapter there was strife in the forest between these two groups: the faithful elves were reduced to wandering companies who gradually retreated uphill to the mountain treeline and thence into distant Ithrill; whereas the Mortals took over most of the forest and splintered into various tribes.

To most of Astrom, these hidden forest tribes were just a rumour, and even the people of Aranar knew only a little. Contact between them was limited and rare, for most of the tribes stayed hidden deep within the forest, and were considered wild savages by the clans of Aranar. There was some trade and raiding at times in both directions, but mostly the people of Firwood lived apart, untouched by the rest of Astrom. They lived mostly in kinship groups, dwelling in small, self-sufficient homesteads, although some larger tribes roamed in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the forest. The Wood-elves of Firwood had been matriarchal, and this custom carried over into many of their Mortal descendants. Necessity sometimes brought larger federations together or splintered them further into tiny, isolated communities as disease, famine, extreme weather and war rolled through the forest.

Most of the elves who kept the faith of Prélan were eventually killed or driven west into Ithrill, leaving Firwood a domain of paganism of all kinds. A whole pantheon of deities was acknowledged: a sky-god who controlled the weather overhead, a fertility goddess who governed their crops and the fruitfulness of the trees, a mountain-god who brooded over the forest from afar, and gods of different animals like the bear, the wolf and the stag, and many others, all of whom were worshipped with torchlit rituals and traditional songs beneath the trees.

Some tribes worshipped the trees themselves, revering especially large or unusual ones and carving strange signs into them. They would interpret the movement and music of wind-chimes as messages from these gods and were fanatical in protecting their sacred groves. Still others worshipped animals, particularly the mythical unicorns and Pegasi, which had not been seen in Aranar since the Second Chapter. The folk of Firwood despised the clans of Aranar for taking the symbol of these sacred beasts but having no real knowledge or reverence of them anymore.

The Mortals of Firwood excelled at covert ambush and were able to melt away into the trees without trace. They were also adept at raiding, using small forest horses to raid and pillage outlying Aranese farms and studs, but they were rarely capable of mounting a sustained threat, and fled before the heavy cavalry of the Pegasus Clan. For weapons they relied mainly on bows and arrows, dart-blowers and fire-hardened wooden clubs and spears. Their only metal came from stolen armour, weapons and tools, all of which were reserved for their great men and chiefs as status symbols.

Those tribes living near the forest margins dwelt in log-cabin villages and cultivated a wary and limited level of trade and interaction with the Pegasus Clan towns around Lake Firtyrn and in the Tyronsor Valley south-west of Hamid. In exchange for high-quality goods like metal tools, wine and fine textiles, they traded inks, dyes, herbal remedies and fur garments, the commodities of the forest. They were also excellent wood-workers, and sold exquisite hand-crafted ornaments and receptacles. The Clan Lords of Aranar forbade the sale of warhorses and metal weapons to the people of Firwood, though some knights still carried on this illicit trade.

Deeper inside the forest, other tribes and family groups lived in rustic caves or treetop dwellings, possessing some memory of elven customs but having lost much of their skill. Those living nearest the clans of Aranar dressed most after their fashion, but away from the forest borders they were mostly clad in skins and furs, and decorated themselves with bone-amulets, gem-pendants, exotic feathers and tattoos made from natural inks. They were mostly hunter-gatherers, foraging for nuts, seeds, tubers and berries, and hunting forest game like deer, boar and pheasant. Some mastered small-scale agriculture, growing oats and barley in clearings that shifted with slash and burn practices.

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Photo by Roksolana Zasiadko on Unsplash