"Your friend has failed in his duty. By failing to meet his quota, he has endangered our people, weakened us, and made us vulnerable to the machinations of foreign warlords! Learn from his example, and do not falter in your duties."

-The Burgrave of Sogua, Kelani Kapule

Sowsokain Culture

The Lands of Tyrants and Strife

Among the hundreds of islands in the Great Southern Sea, a common culture unites the natives that have inhabited these islands for thousands of years. It is a culture united not only by geographic proximity, but also by a shared suffering through the ages. These islands stood uninhabited by Kith or Eldar in the eldest days of Adra. Still, they were bountiful lands, with fertile grounds, fed by ancient volcanic ash, and rich ore which practically erupted from the surface on many of the islands. The first to arrive on the islands were Mermaids and Sunsokan Genasi. The former were a few select mermaids who wanted to find uninhabited lands to grow certain crops on, free from persecution. The latter were a collection of their people adventurous enough to migrate all the way to the Southern Sea, and upon arriving found lands more than fit for permanent settlement. This group were the majority of those who first inhabited the islands of the Great Southern Sea, and as such, the Sowsokain Culture can be thought of as a descendant of the Sunsokan. While at first, these peoples were at peace, and even intermingled, eventually the strife came. In an early example of dragon rule over kith peoples, a Black Dragon conquered the Flaring Islands, setting himself up as a cruel despot. He would rule from there, forcing his slave-like subjects to mine in perpetuity, and accrue for him an absurd sum of money. This wealth drew rivals, and soon the Flaring Islands came known for constant battles between rival dragons, as they scarred both the land and its people, hence their name. Meanwhile, the Alasi Islands became the object of colonial pursuits, by first the Tritonians and later by the Gamorans. The Tritonians, having used up much of the fertile land in their modest strip of land, sought out the islands as colonies to grow cereal crops. The Gamorans, seeking routes to fund their ever-growing professional army, established high-grossing cash crop plantations on the islands, hoping that the sea would protect them from any raids on their riches. The people worked under great toil, as the Genasi (and later many humans and other races) worked as slaves at worst, or indentured servants at best. The mermaids were themselves hunted down, purged as threats from the Alasi colonies, or cast aside as liabilities in the dragon mines. In recent years, things have changed dramatically. The Black Dragon Usguneth was killed by a powerful rival, and a concurrent uprising across the Flaring Islands caused the Dragon's domain to collapse. However, rather than gaining larger independence, the power vacuum was filled by a cunning family of earth genasi that established themselves as the ruling despots of these islands. Without the threat of a dragon's power, the Lemaota were forced to use brutal reprisals against constant revolts and rabble-rousing. In the Alasi Isles, the colonialists underestimated the difficulty to keep them under their control, and many of the colonies were overthrown by populist fervor. To this day, battles and invasions continue, as the colonial powers are eager to regain control of their once fruitful colonies.

          The history of the Sowsokain is the history of a people determined to rise above their oppression. Indeed, what unifies the Sowsokain as a culture, beyond the geographical conglomeration of their islands, is the shared suffering they have had to endure for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Naturally then, the Sowsokain people are hardier than most, used to forgoing luxuries and comforts, and embracing pain and sacrifice. As such, in an effort to prepare the young for the life they must bear, Sowsokain children are taught to beat their arms and legs against coconut trees, and to fast for days on end. Similar to their cultural siblings, the Sunsokan, the Sowsokain are adept at seaward travel, and expert fishermen. However, unlike the Sunsokan, the Sowsokain have long been robbed of their skills at ship building by season after season of war, domination, and impoverishment. When they do see the wide ocean, it tends to be as indentured servants to the Tritonians or the Gamorans, shipped from workshop to plantation, from shop to warehouse. Often, they serve as the free sailors on merchant vessels, or turn pirate on the dark waters. Those who can find gainful employment on the sea, or who somehow gain their own vessel, are both respected and resented by their fellows; the ultimate source of envy among the Sowsokain. The Sowsokain take easily to bloodshed. When given the opportunity, they will readily turn on their masters, whether kin or foreigners, and slay them to gain the upper-hand; only it is rare that this is a possibility. Far more often than bloody revolts, the rulers of these isles can count on this comfort with violence to use in dominating the Sowsokain. Sowsokain will fight their own, even kill them, if it means gaining a better life for themselves. Those who play at ruling these people know this, and exploit it well. Still, while the desperation among these people is great, so are the bonds of kinship. When not pit against each other, the Sowsokain are naturally friendly and jovial to each other, welcoming strangers into their homes, hosting great feasts upon modest occasions, and generally keeping good cheer, even under the harshest of conditions, so long as they are given a warm hearth and friends aplenty to sit with. The tendency to betrayal among the Sowsokain is begrudgingly accepted, while the friendly attitude between cultural comrades is stubbornly enforced. It is this good quality, not the bad, that will live on in the Sowsokain, when all else has changed.

          The Sowsokain people are most highly concentrated in the isles of the Great Southern Sea, in particular the Flaring Islands and the Alasi Isles, though members of the culture can be found in ports and aboard vessels throughout Adra. The races of the Sowsokain Culture are most predominately genasi, elves, humans, tritons, and tabaxi. No unified pantheon for the Sowsokain exists, but popular gods among the common man are Ariendale, Eoulous, and Alas. Among some of the more authoritarian regimes, like that of the Lemaota, Sorthal's pantheon enhances their cult of personality. Sowsokain tend to be hardy, enduring, and kin-loving. They also tend to be treacherous, violent, and desperate. The two most common languages among the Sowsokain are Sowsokain (spoken between members of the culture), Merspeech, and Terran (both spoken with outsiders).

If you choose the Sowsokain Culture, you gain the following:

~Either a +1 to your Constitution score or a +1 to your Strength score~

~A -1 to your Intelligence score~

~As a known language, either Sowsokain, Merspeech, or Terran~

~A Sub-Discipline in every knowledge skill on checks relating to Sowsokain Culture~

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