Connects to: 02.03, 04.00, 15.11, 17.11, 23.08 and 35.06.
Overview
The semi-nomadic mountain sheep herders that live here in the shadow of Mount Scorshia (02.03) are a strange lot. The heirs of a lost race of men, they have thick brows, spiky body hair that grows thick on man and woman alike and long pointed teeth. However, they are not nearly as fearsome as they look and are surprisingly generous and peaceable, having little conception of trade or money they share what they have freely with travelers. Generally the greatest danger these men face is Kagu making off with some of their lambs (04.00). Probably the only reason they haven’t been slaughtered or enslaved is that the thick mountain peaks that surround their home offer them better protection than any army could.
However, this doesn’t stop the mountain shepherds from living their lives in fear of the mountain that looms over their homes. Their shamans teach them that one day great glaciers will pour down its slopes and cover the world (or at least the bits of it that matter) in great sheets of ice. To forestall this day, bands of shepherds gather each night to cook great pots of mutton stew that must always contain one human finger. It is considered a great honor to have one’s finger cleaved off and thrown into the pot so that while no adult has a full complement of fingers their elders and shamans have only bony stumps protruding from their wrists. The shepherds are not a xenophobic lot and eagerly honor any who come to them and tell them tales of their great deeds by graciously allowing them to contribute their own fingers to the pot. It would be very rude to refuse.
Connections
More practices related to fingers and fingernails
- Lady Naideen (17.11) is missing a pinky on her left hand. Could this be why?
- Grimvlech the Smiler (15.11) hailed from this land but he, strangely enough, had a full complement of fingers, at least until the apes ate him.
Hooks
- What does throwing a finger into the soup pot have to do with preventing mountain glaciers from spreading? Is there any logic here at all?
- Does the finger stew have any magical properties?
- Is there any way to get out of contributing a finger? Perhaps one could convince the shepherds that you are very pathetic indeed and are not worthy?
- Are these shepherds the remnants of an ancient kingdom? Perhaps that of the ice mummies (03.02)?
