The Ayanics of Caskaris [World of Aurius]

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===== The Ayanics of Caskaris =====
The Ayanics were a race of humanity that were of an extraction from the western lands of [[planes:aurius:caskaris:start|Caskaris]], and who had migrated to eastern Caskaris as a result of their having abandoned the [[:garden_of_runaral|Garden of Runaral]] in ancient times. As a result of their fixity in regards to their perspective on the darkness which had come to invade all parts of life in the eastern lands, they were further made distinct from the [[races:humans:caskaric:neraics:start|Neraics]] through their reverence for powerful idols and aspects of the gods of the mortal plane, referred to by various exonyms throughout. It is thought, then, that they worshipped the semblances of the life given by the light, though also holding in high regard through placation the vast and ineffable darkness which had been inherited by these deific aspects.
==== Origins ====
These proto-humans were thought to have originated from the same incarnation in physicality as the Neraics, though instead being tainted with a blindness for the spirit and venturing out of the consecration of the Garden of Runaral in order to found a sustenance that bore some relation to themselves. In doing so, they had grown to inhabit those lands which existed from without the protection of the ruling Daevas, and they instead found other beings that could come to be identified as idols and totems to be revered. In these wilds, there were other divinities that could be observed, and though it was also plagued by the corruption and flux of the darkness and its subordinates, they would eventually come to worship the [[pantheons:class:vaniel|Vaniel]] as a race of deceased gods that had found their essences within the natural world, and could thereby manipulate it through a sacrificial worship by their people.
==== Culture ====
The Ayanics, as a race of humans that naturally preceded those of the [[races:humans:caskaric:iluayans:start|Iluayans]] and the [[races:humans:caskaric:varayans:start|Varayans]], could not perceive the world of spirits as the Neraics did, and so, as they ventured out from the Garden of Runaral, they instead founded a worship of totems that were comprised of both the bestial and the elemental. In revering these totems, they observed that the natural and the earthly were to be acknowledged, and turned away from those higher beings which could be called spirits and envoys of the divine. Thus, the Ayanics venerated aspects and idols of the Vaniel, comatose beings that had rather found themselves in either bestial or elemental form, and it was believed that these beasts and elements were derived or descended from the Vaniel. The Vaniel, then, were thought to have been illuminated by the light of the goddess Harmena in times of before, thereby revealing the vertices and edges that lay hidden within the chaos and allowing them to come into existence with the chaos as their father and antecedent.\\
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Though the Ayanics all worshipped those beings which were known among their people as the Vaniel, they lacked a centralized power and body of government that could better regulate and monitor the practices of their people, and so there existed much variation between which gods of the Vaniel they would come to acknowledge. For example, many clans of the Ayanics venerated the totem of the fox, and would come to acknowledge the fox as an aspect of a god of wisdom known colloquially among some as [[pantheons:deities:calidon|Calidon]]. Yet, there existed some of the Ayanics who venerated the eagle, and instead, they celebrated a worship of a god of winds called [[pantheons:deities:vindaric|Vindaric]]. These totems and consequent idols of these deceased gods were thought to have been imbued with their essence through some ritualistic and magical act performed by their people, and so they often called upon their gods when engaging in combat with another in order to win their favor.\\
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Owing to this lack of civility and unity of thought among their people, there were many who would feud with others of their kind, and such feuds would often eventually manifest in the form of some war that would see both sides lose people. Upon the winning of this war, usually observed when another clan and their according actions of profanity were exterminated and discontinued, there would be a feast that marks the emerging victory, only made possible by the availability of resources that had been procured. Notably, this feast would bring into the forefront the actions of the chieftain of the clan, referred to as the jarl, who is credited with leading their people to victory as the jarl’s duties are both to strategize as an imperator and perform combat as a warrior-chief. Together, the clan drinks and becomes imbibed at their enemy’s expense, and from this activity comes the reputation as barbarians that would later define them as distinct from the Neraics.\\
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As this divergence from the Neraics had been made prevalent and obvious in its presentation, the Ayanics worshipped beings that were of the chaos and the earthly, there not being a unifying order that could translate itself into a governmental body. The Ayanics held and observed no such title as a distinct sovereign, and this was to the preference of their own people as they refused to submit to a more centralized form of governance and being, thereby weakening themselves through a lack of unification. Though this may have been the case, this practice allowed them to develop into a hardy, strong people that were toughened by the troubles which this circumstance had brought, and the chaos furthermore claiming their people such that they knew it as a force rather than that of the light or stasis. Thus, they began to acknowledge the primordial force of the underworld, referred to as [[pantheons:deities:umbra|Umbra]], as the underworld was veiled by the shadows and could only be penetrated through death. Umbra was named in their interring of the dead, and it was thought that one would pass through the tribulations of the underworld so that they might eventually rejoin the world of the living.\\
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The people of eastern Caskaris that were the Ayanics oftentimes relied on the cultural phenomena of hunting for food throughout the [[planes:aurius:ethrekas:regions:ayosic forest|Ayosic Forest]] in addition to foraging, and as they had a reverence for the gods that were thought to have descended into these forms, it was believed to be an act of providence that their people would be allowed to hunt their gods’ offspring. Many of the Ayanics consumed meat in the time of winter as the foliage could not bear fruit, and from this practice came the preservation of meat by freezing it within the snow and icy earth of the mortal world. As such, there were often hunting parties that were celebrated at various times throughout the winter, but as they could preserve the meat through ice, they could guarantee catches intermittently throughout the season rather than hunting for food only when they so desperately needed sustenance.\\
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As this hunting occurred throughout the seasons of both summer and winter, they often would provide a flesh sacrifice to their given god or goddess so that the being might be replenished and made anew by their own blood and flesh, as it was so often an animal believed to descend from that deity that they sacrificed to. It was thought, then, that the deific spirit could act through the sacrificial offering, emerging from the carapace of the sacrifice so that a communion might occur between the clan and their worshipped one. Thus was born the practice of ritual sacrifice, one which would in time become inherited by the members of the Ayoskovic Potentate.\\
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The tribal system that the Ayanics did, however, share in an order and stability were composed of clans ruled by jarls that shared a descent from two or three generations prior, and it was common practice that first and second cousins would be married and bear offspring that would yet belong to the same clan. However, there was, in the case of war, sometimes perpetrated the act of taking the women of the losing clan so that there might be access to new genes, and these women were often held as captives, the women having no clan to flee to and no other place of belonging. These women would be integrated into the clan as prizes of war, in addition to the captivity which was predicated on their being given board and sustenance in the event of their participation in the victorious clan.
==== Biology ====
This group of humanity was known to originally possess in majority a cold, pallid skin tone, varying from shades of a pale ivory to a porcelain color, along with eyes of either a deep gray or a cold blue. Hair colors also ranged from many cooler shades, these being from an ash brown to an icy blond. As a result of these adaptations, they were prone to acknowledging and conceptualizing their anthropomorphic deities as possessing congenial traits of color, thus instigating many pieces of mythopoeia where deities had found themselves in human form somehow, and being unable to return to the light which had become sparse. Thus, they themselves thought that they were a fallen form of some being, though not being able to remember their true, previous identities.\\
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The Ayanics were also known to stand at a smaller stature than that of the nourished and proliferating Neraics, as a result of the destruction and famine instigated by the chaos of the darkness. Thus, their height allowed them to be better adapted to the relative lack of nutrition among the land, enabling other features to take place in their culture than being tall and enveloping.