Culture Focus: Wuvu-lu-aua
Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2009 4:40 pm
Here's my shot at a culture focus article.
Wuvu-lu-aua: Forgotten but not Forgiven
Lay of the Land:
The Wuvu is an enormous wetland alluvial swamp with an area of about 30,000 square kilometers. It is crossed by numerous rivers and streams, and large areas are underwater at high tide.
Ecologically, the swamp is diverse. The muddy coastal areas are dominated by mangroves and nipah palms. Inland, where the swamp is freshwater, other sorts of vegetation become more common — herbaceous vegetation, grasses, and forest. A significant portion of the swamp is peatland. It is home to a wide variety of animals, including freshwater fish, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, crocodiles, sea snakes, and pigeons. Due to the unique properties of the swamp, many of these creatures are undead at any given time.
The area is so rich in Death energies that any being which dies within its boundaries will spontaneously rise again as an undead. The kind of undead is determined by the manner of death; plague deaths give rise to zombies, for instance, while death by hunger gives rise to ghouls, and death by old age gives rise to skeletons. Even some of the vegetation is undead, a phenomenon which is exceedingly rare outside the Wuvu. Fortunately, the local wildlife is accustomed to the presence of these things and will prey on the undead as readily as the living.
Major Cities:
The total civilized population of the swamp is roughly 70,000 people, and of those, about half live in the centralized settlement known as Wuvu-lu. The remainder live in smaller fiefdoms about the swamp. The second largest is Wuvu-ulka, with perhaps 9,000 people; and the smallest is Wuvu-huru, with perhaps 2,000. However, in all these settlements, the living are much outnumbered by the undead, by a factor of about 10-to-1.
Almost all buildings are either treehouses or otherwise elevated, on stilts, or stones, or in the case of extremely wealthy families, by undead creatures holding the building on their shoulders. Security in these settlements is oddly inverse to the importance of the inhabitants, with the poorest dwellings being heavily fortified and the grandest houses standing open to all comers. Displaying the confidence that others will not dare to cross you is a powerful status symbol.
Economics:
The undead inhabitants of each settlement serve as the unskilled labor force, bringing in food and water from the swamp under the guidance of Death magicians and providing other basic tasks. Indeed, the lowest position that any citizen of Wuvu-lu-aua can possess is foreman of a labor squad, and they have a generally high standard of living.
Trade with the outside world is unknown, and indeed forbidden. The Wuvu-lu-aua civilization are the descendants of the infamous Aua-lu people who committed many heinous atrocities when they used their Death magics to try and carve out an empire, before their methods invited all of their rivals to unite against them, leading to a crushing defeat. The Aua-lu remnants hid in the Wuvu swamp, and there they have been isolated to this day. It is their belief that if the existence of their society became generally known that a new concerted effort would be made to wipe them out, and they are probably right.
One implication of this trade vacuum is that anything produced outside the swamp is a serious luxury good in Wuvu-lu-aua society. Outsiders that wander into the swamp will be stripped of their every possession (and killed). Every few years, a small raiding party will be sent out to murder and rob some travelers. 'No witnesses' is the motto of these raiders. Unofficial raiding parties are sometimes led out by foolish young nobles, but this is highly illegal and subject to harsh punishment.
Law and Order:
In one sense, there is no law in Wuvu-lu-aua, since everyone does whatever they personally have the power to get away with. In practice, cities are ruled by noble houses empowered by the fealty of less powerful citizens. It is in many ways a classic feudal society arising from a lawless situation.
As a result, illegality is defined as that which the most powerful citizens find annoying, and the punishment is whatever they feel might make the annoyance stop. In most towns, things which the rulers find annoying are written down somewhere, but this is more in the spirit of a helpful guideline rather than a formal law system.
One quirk of Wuvu-lu-auan tradition is that even undead who are self-willed are considered property and not citizens. There are no liches or vampires in positions of authority.
Magical Traditions:
There is only one major magical tradition in Wuvu-lu-aua: the manufacture, and especially control, of undead creatures. Every citizen is raised in this tradition, and most are responsible for the control of 10 undead creatures, with the more powerful magicians controlling the same number of more powerful creatures. Parents are responsible for maintaining the quotas of their children until they have sufficient skill to take over.
The most significant minor tradition is that of using Death magic to keep the many diseases that simmer in the swamp at bay. There is also a small branch of researcher-magicians whose mandate is to discover new forms of undead by experimenting with ever-more-exotic means of dying and seeing what the swamp's power brings forth. This occasionally results in nearly-disastrous consequences.
Those who show insufficient Death magic talent are usually killed.
Government:
The best way to understand Wuvu-lu-auan government is as a feudal society where the peasants happen to be undead. Wuvu-lu is the capital and all the other cities owe fealty to whichever noble family rules it. This fealty is quite relaxed, and the outlying nobles send 'gifts' rather than 'taxes' to their liege.
While the structure of government in Wuvu-lu-aua is quite stable, the composition of that structure is not. Intrigues and power grabs are continual, although assassination and blackmail are far more common than open battle.
edit: spelling
Wuvu-lu-aua: Forgotten but not Forgiven
Lay of the Land:
The Wuvu is an enormous wetland alluvial swamp with an area of about 30,000 square kilometers. It is crossed by numerous rivers and streams, and large areas are underwater at high tide.
Ecologically, the swamp is diverse. The muddy coastal areas are dominated by mangroves and nipah palms. Inland, where the swamp is freshwater, other sorts of vegetation become more common — herbaceous vegetation, grasses, and forest. A significant portion of the swamp is peatland. It is home to a wide variety of animals, including freshwater fish, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, crocodiles, sea snakes, and pigeons. Due to the unique properties of the swamp, many of these creatures are undead at any given time.
The area is so rich in Death energies that any being which dies within its boundaries will spontaneously rise again as an undead. The kind of undead is determined by the manner of death; plague deaths give rise to zombies, for instance, while death by hunger gives rise to ghouls, and death by old age gives rise to skeletons. Even some of the vegetation is undead, a phenomenon which is exceedingly rare outside the Wuvu. Fortunately, the local wildlife is accustomed to the presence of these things and will prey on the undead as readily as the living.
Major Cities:
The total civilized population of the swamp is roughly 70,000 people, and of those, about half live in the centralized settlement known as Wuvu-lu. The remainder live in smaller fiefdoms about the swamp. The second largest is Wuvu-ulka, with perhaps 9,000 people; and the smallest is Wuvu-huru, with perhaps 2,000. However, in all these settlements, the living are much outnumbered by the undead, by a factor of about 10-to-1.
Almost all buildings are either treehouses or otherwise elevated, on stilts, or stones, or in the case of extremely wealthy families, by undead creatures holding the building on their shoulders. Security in these settlements is oddly inverse to the importance of the inhabitants, with the poorest dwellings being heavily fortified and the grandest houses standing open to all comers. Displaying the confidence that others will not dare to cross you is a powerful status symbol.
Economics:
The undead inhabitants of each settlement serve as the unskilled labor force, bringing in food and water from the swamp under the guidance of Death magicians and providing other basic tasks. Indeed, the lowest position that any citizen of Wuvu-lu-aua can possess is foreman of a labor squad, and they have a generally high standard of living.
Trade with the outside world is unknown, and indeed forbidden. The Wuvu-lu-aua civilization are the descendants of the infamous Aua-lu people who committed many heinous atrocities when they used their Death magics to try and carve out an empire, before their methods invited all of their rivals to unite against them, leading to a crushing defeat. The Aua-lu remnants hid in the Wuvu swamp, and there they have been isolated to this day. It is their belief that if the existence of their society became generally known that a new concerted effort would be made to wipe them out, and they are probably right.
One implication of this trade vacuum is that anything produced outside the swamp is a serious luxury good in Wuvu-lu-aua society. Outsiders that wander into the swamp will be stripped of their every possession (and killed). Every few years, a small raiding party will be sent out to murder and rob some travelers. 'No witnesses' is the motto of these raiders. Unofficial raiding parties are sometimes led out by foolish young nobles, but this is highly illegal and subject to harsh punishment.
Law and Order:
In one sense, there is no law in Wuvu-lu-aua, since everyone does whatever they personally have the power to get away with. In practice, cities are ruled by noble houses empowered by the fealty of less powerful citizens. It is in many ways a classic feudal society arising from a lawless situation.
As a result, illegality is defined as that which the most powerful citizens find annoying, and the punishment is whatever they feel might make the annoyance stop. In most towns, things which the rulers find annoying are written down somewhere, but this is more in the spirit of a helpful guideline rather than a formal law system.
One quirk of Wuvu-lu-auan tradition is that even undead who are self-willed are considered property and not citizens. There are no liches or vampires in positions of authority.
Magical Traditions:
There is only one major magical tradition in Wuvu-lu-aua: the manufacture, and especially control, of undead creatures. Every citizen is raised in this tradition, and most are responsible for the control of 10 undead creatures, with the more powerful magicians controlling the same number of more powerful creatures. Parents are responsible for maintaining the quotas of their children until they have sufficient skill to take over.
The most significant minor tradition is that of using Death magic to keep the many diseases that simmer in the swamp at bay. There is also a small branch of researcher-magicians whose mandate is to discover new forms of undead by experimenting with ever-more-exotic means of dying and seeing what the swamp's power brings forth. This occasionally results in nearly-disastrous consequences.
Those who show insufficient Death magic talent are usually killed.
Government:
The best way to understand Wuvu-lu-auan government is as a feudal society where the peasants happen to be undead. Wuvu-lu is the capital and all the other cities owe fealty to whichever noble family rules it. This fealty is quite relaxed, and the outlying nobles send 'gifts' rather than 'taxes' to their liege.
While the structure of government in Wuvu-lu-aua is quite stable, the composition of that structure is not. Intrigues and power grabs are continual, although assassination and blackmail are far more common than open battle.
edit: spelling