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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ry" data-source="post: 3588016" data-attributes="member: 8314">The AkavarsAkavars are golden-skinned, flaxen-haired, and usually quite tall.  They are often confused for Dacs, because like Dacs they are wiry and trim.  Still, Akavars stand somewhat taller than Dacs, and are often more muscular.  Akavars are a people whose homeland is the northwestern Halcyon region, between the Halcyon region and the Windswept sea.  Akavar is also the title for the region (a set of river valleys) and a breed of dog from that region.  Akavars in the cities are almost always mercenaries of one stripe or another, with a few merchants and criminals rounding out the ranks.Although Akavar culture is largely ignored by outsiders, it is complex and deep, and reflects a strong sense of family and community – as well as soldiery.  At around the age of 8 years old, male children are gathered by Akavar elders (called Shiri) and separated into groups of 4 to 6 – these groups are known as Akavans.  From this point forward an Akavan is raised as a single group – they eat together, sleep together, are judged as a group, and go through each stage of life as a group.  Still, this does not quash all individuality – each Akavar child’s family endeavors to teach him the arts of war, and great emphasis is placed on building Akavans with many different strengths.  When their members are approximately 14 years of age, Akavans are expelled from the village in a spring ritual known as the Naming Hunt.  Akavars are bound by tradition to treat such expelled Akavans (marked with soot on their faces) as if they were animals, and give them no aid until they return to their village with the head of a wild animal.  This animal then becomes the Akavan’s name: For example, the Akavan of the Swift Hawk, the Akavan of the Black Horse, the Akavan of the Sawtoothed Boar.  As of this return, the Akavan is considered to have reached adulthood.  The following year they are brought to the cities by their fellow Akavars and taught the trade of  mercenaries.  This gathering mirrors the Akavar ancestral myth: The Akavar people were once bound to an island far from the Halcyon shores, where a demon, Gaugau, ate their bodies and spirits, and ate all the strong animal spirits of the island.  As no Akavars grew in spirit from one life to the next, they were a weakened, damaged people.  They say that in those days Akavar mothers had to plead for a soul to come to her womb, for to be born only so that you would be eaten by Gaugau – in form and spirit – is a sorry fate.  But Ak, and his four brothers, were born strong-souled, and the Akavars hid them, knowing that they might one day challenge Gaugau.  But Gaugau discovered them, and brought them to his feast.  But Ak and his brothers had learned the secrets of the spirit world from the Albatross, who sees all shores, and they dove into Gaugau’s feast-fire, becoming smoke.Gaugau was enraged, for he had missed his meal, but he should have feared instead.  Ak and his brothers were carried far by a cloud-spirit, and when that spirit became a storm, they descended with the rain to a distant land filled with mighty beasts.  Ak and his brothers each hunted one of these mighty beasts, and that beast was the king of their kind: The Mountain-Lion, the Boar, the Wolf, the Hawk, and the Tortoise. So when Ak and his brothers returned, they brought with them many mighty spirits.  They threw down Gaugau, and brought their people to the strange lands, where with mighty spirits, the Akavars would thrive.</blockquote>

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