Tendaji, the black men of the Inland Sea
Feb 28, 2014 4:24:16 GMT
Post by horas on Feb 28, 2014 4:24:16 GMT
Numbers: Few
Overview: In the old language, "Ten" meant "Will" and "Daji" meant "Body," and placed together they meant being alive. An important distinction for the ancient Tendaji, whose civilization was built on the back of the Daji -- a body without will, or as most other cultures call them, the undead.
Once the Tendaji were nothing, a small tribe driven by fiercer and more numerous clans away from their homeland to a small island in the Inland Sea. But it was there that Okelwi the Wheel discovered the secret of the Art: a sorcery of great power which affected the will and the body. The dreadlocked Tendaji Artists could alter the will of a warrior so he would charge into battle without fear or pain, or shatter a man's mind so that he went completely mad.
But the Kingdom of the Inland Sea was built when it was discovered that an Artist could use his own will to animate the deceased. These corpses were driven by magic, not the mundanities of tendons, muscles, and beating hearts. An Artist could wield hundreds or even thousands of these empty vessels at once -- clumsy things in such numbers, but the dead could not die, so the only way to stop their advance was to kill the Artist controlling them.
The Tendaji did not use the dead just for war, but for peace as well; great plantations sowed and deep mines mined by the dead made the Tendaji into an economic powerhouse, allowing the relatively small living population to live lives of contemplation or leisure.
Perhaps that was what ultimately brought their downfall. Satisfied with their Art and their comfortable lives, the Kingdom of the Inland Sea began to stagnate. They would not be roused from their stupor until a greater empire attacked, and by that time it was too late. The Tendaji gave the Empire a fierce fight, but in the end the imperial War Wizards proved superior to the Tendaji Artists. The Old Kingdom vanished, the lower classes mostly assimilated into the Empire, with the leaders held in captivity with their powers used to the Empire's own ends.