Korthai

Korthai
Racial Characteristics
Hair Color:	Dark
Eye Color:	Metallic
Other Information
Country of Origin:	Unknown
Significant Populations:	Home port cities
Related Races:	Assi tribes

Known as the "Wolves of the Sea," the Korthai are nomadic raiders and merchants that live off the ships that they sail. Their reputation as sailors is unsurpassed and most sailors have a horror story to tell of the Korthai. Many rumors float about that the Korthai are in league with demons and that they consume the flesh of their enemies.

Race Origins

Racially, the Korthai are descended from same stock as Assi, a mixture of the seafaring Tavaoi with the Uresti tribes. The tribes that became the Assi decided to move further inland up the Nie Valley, while the Korthai returned to their maritime roots. They are multi-racial now, a state of affairs that due to intermarraige between captured people and original Korthai as by fictive kinship and the prevalent custom of the adoption of captives.

History

The seafaring Tavaoi people arrived on the southern coast of Veth some time around 1500 BT, not long after the Uresti tribes migrated into lower Nie Valley from Aslar. The Tavaoi established several communities between the Nie and Darian rivers, and intermarried with the Uresti. This ultimately led to the downfall of the Rondissian empire. The Korthai were a particular enemy of the Tollorian navy during their era of naval dominance.

More recently, the Aslarians hired the Korthai to harass Ellurian shipping during the Southland War. When the Aslarians reneged on the deal, the Korthai turned on the Aslarians instead. Korthai Lord Harlst-Mhern Lathvek had a seat on Drache's Regency Council, and made use of his Korthai allies to supplement Arangoth's fledgling navy and to bring grain to the city during the famine that prompted the Council's rise to power.

Very recent history shows that there has been an outbreak of sickness among the Korthai, a rather broad sweeping illness that was thought to be brought on by a particular type of coral that was brought up by one of the vessels. The sickness swept through the Korthai people and was met with no resistance through normal means of treating an illness. Though the Korthai are not normally social people among each other after enough vessels were stricken and ultimately left ultimately unmanned when all but the adopted members of the crew on them died away, as a people there was a cease called on all social interaction among them. This illness did not seem to effect any of those people that were fostered into the Korthai culture and only those that were Korthai by blood including children.

The illness moved in stages and effected first the respiratory system causing violent coughing from which black sputum was expelled and eventually left the sufferer weak to the point of exhaustion. The secondary symptom of the illness effected the circulatory system, namely causing blood vessels to explode in the eyes making them weep blood and causing violent seizures that grew more and more severe to the point of death. This illness, moving rapidly through the people, had no obvious cure and had begun to devour the number of Korthai that remained. Quite suddenly however, without obvious cause, the illness stopped its ravage and those that were recently sickened grew stable and then recovered.

Culture

The only unifying philosophy prevalent amongst the Korthai: Being Korthai transcends mortality. A spirit is always Korthai, no matter what shell it is born into. Death merely means being reborn Korthai anew. To make others Korthai (again) is a higher good.

According to the Korthai, children and prisoners of war are all viewed as "adults" in training. Prisoners of war is assigned a "parent" in the same way as the natural parent of a child in adhering to a concept of fictive kinship. Adoptions are common, even between Korthai families. Some adoptions replace the old family name with the new or merely keep the old family name. This is done in cases where parents have died. First generation Korthai naming is that of the original family and adoptive family, so first generation Korthai have two names - original family and adoptive family in that order. Second Generation children use the adoptive family name as the family name. Adopted children of adopted Korthai take the Korthai name as well. Korthai females adopt the mother's last name, while males use the father's last name.

The cultural mentality of the Korthai can be summed up as one of pragmatism. If an action can cause them to lose more than they gain, the Korthai will tend to find an alternative. This also applies into their soaking up foreign concepts, technologies, and their utilization of the talents of the various races in their fold to their fullest potential. They utilize magic and technology equally. Their mentality applies to gender as well. Women and men tend to dress utilitarian. Modest styles, but can be brightly colored. Korthai have a tendency towards bluntness and crudeness and also tend towards more coarse entertainments. "May the wind break upon your prow, and not from your behind," is a Korthai parting call that tends to irritate and horrify more genteel folk. In Korthai culture, women handle finances and trading issues while men function in a military role. Both genders sail the ships and raise the young children. Older children learn on the job from "Mentors" in apprentice roles suitable for their gender. Diplomacy is handled by both genders and what passes for Korthai government controls Korthai trading.

The Korthai have two particular sorts of communities. The first of these are groups of ships called khonn-ya, and are treated much like villages. Group of elders, the captains of the ships, all male, make decisions for the armadas along with the head merchants, all female. The seasonal activities of the khonn-ya are raiding and warfare in the summer and spring, and trading and other commercial enterprises in the winter and autumn.

Home Ports

There are several "Home Ports", often near trade centers, but also isolated and ethnically distinct as Korthai. Often they are composed of land-bound elders and children as well as some wounded in battle. Some ships also base themselves around certain home ports on certain Korthai trade routes. At least a pair of Korthai ships is in the region, if not in the port, to scare off other traders, aggressors. Except for a number of good natured drunken brawls, these towns tend to be well run and very quiet politically. Criminals tend to end up out to sea in 'vigilante' actions. In reality, the Korthai towns are run by Korthai law, but keep up the appearances of well ordered towns following the native laws. Korthai diplomatic policy, when they have such relations, tend to be a representative based at the home port.

The best known Korthai home port to Arangothians is Mhernettla, located on the Southern coast to the east of Drache. The town is on the lands of Halrlst Mhern-Lathvek, an Arangothian noble adopted into the Korthai. The rapid re-growth of the Elgar Forest during the Interregnum period makes the peninsula Mhernettla is located upon virtually cut off from the rest of Arangoth by land.

Types of Korthai Vessels

Korthai are not above converted captured ships for their use, but prefer their own designs. The ships themselves draw from several cultural design aspects to combine the best. Size varies, but all are generally fast and well made, suitable for war and trade alike. Many are magically treated for such things as movement against winds, against catching fire, and to help prevent water from entering upon a breech.

Nesho Koyann

The Black Shark class is the mainstay ship of the Korthai fleets and is the most common ship employed in a battle situation by the Korthai. The hulls of ships in this class tend to be around a hundred and fifty feet long, but only twenty five feet wide, making it a slimmer ship than many sailing. It tends to have three masts, with square rigging on the mainmast and the mizzenmast, but lanteen-rigged on the foremast. The sails tend to be made of silk and are always colored red. The ropes also tend to be silk. Armament on this class of ship tends to be around twenty cannon. The ship itself is generally made from what the Korthai call "Jala wood," apparently a foreign sort of lumber, and is always darkly varnished. Crew on these ships rounds out at between a hundred and fifty and two hundred Korthai altogether.

Vako Gurann

The Red Storm class is a smaller, faster vessel. It is in less common use than the Black Shark class due to its limited cargo capacity.

Guranno Nak

The largest, most powerful class of vessel that the Korthai field is known as the Angry Whale in their tongue. It is not in common use due to crew requirements and expense in running, and is mostly used to defend Korthai home ports.

Religion

The Korthai religion is just as complicated as their ethnic makeup due to their practice of adopting captives. Menxism is common among the Korthai, as is worship of the Ellurian sea god Seviro. Almost all Korthai believe in an entity they call the Sea Serpent, a spirit of the wild and unpredictable nature of the seas. While the Korthai believe that the Sea Serpent cannot be placated or bargained with, it is their understanding of its nature that allows them to navigate the oceans in rough weather that few non-Korthai could survive. "By the Sea Serpent" is a common Korthai exclamation of surprise or irritation, and the Korthai often swear oaths upon the Sea Serpent.

Language

Main Article: Korthai Language

The common Korthai language. combines phrases and concepts from several languages, also attributed to the high degree of cultural intermixing.