Thule

Official Name	The Matriarxa of Thule					Motto	To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women
People	Thulian					Goods	Thulian
Flag & Symbol						Crafts	Thulian
						Honorifics	Ma, Mam
						Greeting	I kneel, or Tuf!
						Parting	I serve, or Getem!
Respect Shown	Kneel before those above, forehead on ground, hands to sides, palm up
Virtues			Vices					Towns
Obedience		Courage	Mercy		Cowardice			Unknown
Fecundity		Strength	Weakness		Defiance
Armor			Weapons					Skills
Coin Mail			Thulian Longsword
			Thulian Javelin

Introduction

The Battle of Bilderberg was considered the last great act of the God’s War, fought in the frigid and desolate north among the most fearsome and devastating of all the grievous and vile Foes of the Five, the Thyrs. They held that land, held fast despite the courage and heart of the Bright, and though the Five lost the War, it was us who lost that ultimate battle, a sacrifice play.

Thule is their land, no longer desolate, but rich and powerful. Their immense, single hulled, multi banked and oared ships make frequent raids for slaves, goods, and they are effective pirates, raiders, and represent a persistent threat within the Wild.

Thulians are the second closest allies of Lemuria and lack any significant industry or developed economic system. Indeed, reports are that they use Imperial coinage when they use any at all for purposes other than lining their vests with them.

Thulians are not afraid to tackle an entire village with only twenty of them. They are that fearsome and dangerous, and they are well aware of it. It seems to offend them when people are not afraid of them. Using slave labor, they have carved hundreds of small villages throughout the large island, each one led by a Matriarx. That alone separates them from their allies in Lemuria, but it is notable that they seem forgiven it in the treaties that are expected to have been formed.

Thule is notable for being the location of several legends of creatures found nowhere else on the planet that infest the Barrier Peaks, whose teeth like white caps soar above the land. Those same Peaks are infested, of course, the great spiders and dragons and Wildbeasts are said to live there. Those mountains are ore rich, but not in iron or silver. They hold the largest copper reserves the Ancients had ever seen and are said to be full of gems – so full that Thulian children play with them for marbles. They are also the only known mountains anywhere around Avilon where people can climb to the snow covered tops of them.

Attitude

Thulians are separated by culture, kind, and more from their traditional allies to the southwest in Lemuria but share a common goal in that they seek to rule the world.

They actively raid. While they may avoid a large town and the cities, it isn’t anything more than strictly tactical and strategic on their part. They can capture an entire Village in a single evening, and then sell those they don’t want in Lemuria after storing them on their vast ships. They take slaves and treat them abominably (as Grand Master Bard Caledon later learned), using them as every form of manual labor and eschewing any sort of mechanics more complicated than one can achieve with wood, stone, and clay.

Thyrs ships are a mariner’s nightmare. Three decks of slave oarsmen, quarters for as many as sixty raiders, and holds capable of holding up to two hundred prisoners plus a fair load of loot and goods. All of this, and they fly three masts with sails, and coat a ram in bronze. They will sink a ship fast after boarding it, and don’t use ballistae or scorpions – just simple, basic ram and board techniques. But they are so tough that only adventurers really stand a chance in most cases.

The reputation of Thule is pretty basic: they are trying to conquer the world, and they are not letting anything stop them. They do not appear to have the sheer forces to do so in a single grand attack, but they are decidedly harrying and preparing and in the last two decades or so have ramped up their attacks greatly.

Thyrs do not mess around – discipline is like a thing for them, and they have assigned roles and ranks and take them very seriously. Nothing lives in a Hamlet that has been wiped out by a Thyrs raid. That said, Thulian society is apparently quite relaxed and ordered around entertaining themselves, training, and pursuing endeavors of passion.

Lifestyle

When not out at sea, racing or raiding or practicing for racing or raiding, Thulians enjoy equestrian sports, livestock raising, and archery and holding a reverence for warriors whose existence is defined by their ability to move, to travel, to be swift – on land, by air, or by sea. The cuisine of these fell people consists mostly of milks, meats, and breads. For meats, while they have no problem with the people in a pinch, they generally prefer goat, elk deer, zedeer, and so forth, but will not go near Aruks or cows. They seem to have an intense dislike for swine of all sorts, however – they don’t eat it, but they will destroy it. Thyrs love yogurt, as well, and are absolutely fanatical about cheese.

Thule has a broadsheet that is produced daily. It is something that Sibola copied, but not nearly as colorful. The Thulian Broadsheet is several pages long, printed on what is certainly a press, and includes news on the dalliances and intrigues of the day, as well stories of raids and the expected information about new laws, rulings, and related items. Most Thulians are able to read and write, taught basic skills and such by their Matrons and mothers early on. Grand Master Bard Caledon tells a tale of coming upon a lone Thyrs who had made a camp and was relaxing and reading such a broadsheet. They were well met and shared a meal and swapped stories late into the night, parting in the morning without killing each other.

There is a story about a ship’s captain who saved his crew by sacrificing the weight of a Matriarx in cheese from the holds. They eat a lot of deer, which are what are most often found in the forested lands they call home.

Values

Thyrs value Obedience to those higher, order, rank, courage, strength of will and heart, and capability to produce heirs. In Thulian society, everything is run down through the women of their people, from property rights to inheritance to heads of families. The role of those who are not women is to ensure that they are given what they need, and to prove oneself worthy of their attention and time.

Thyrs are not overly cruel or malicious, as Goblins can be. They avoid killing children and keep their needs to themselves. They do not show Mercy, but they can show kindness and even be pleasant company when not having to deal with the brutalist Matriarx.

Government

Thule is ruled by the Grand Matriarx. She is, for all intents and purposes, the absolute ruler.

Beneath her are several Great Matriarx, all of whom have oversight over a region of Thule. There are, to our best knowledge, thirty-four regions. Collectively, they form the Council, which is the great deliberative body, which uses a fairly simple voting system, the representation by Great Matriarx with the Grand Matriarx representing both the realm as a whole and the region in which Thule exists.

Beneath the Great Matriarx are the High Matriarx. Beneath them, in turn, lies the Matriarx, and finally there are the Matrons. Matrons are both the heads of households and the leaders of a given unit. Units are almost always comprised of family. To become a Matriarx, one has to be the toughest, strongest, most cunning, most ruthless, least merciful member in the area and beat the others. This happens every five years in a Limpic Festival, which goes on for two weeks and has several different events where the people prove their mettle against others (it is not merely a fight – those happen last). Where one places in this festival determines rank against those who one competed against. The current Grand Matriarx has defeated all comers for twenty-five years. The record is sixty-five.

Thule is aligned with Lemuria and often coordinates activities with them. It is not as often as would be effective, however – the typical Matron can easily defeat a Hob commander who is most certainly going to be argumentative and problematic. Since Thyrs will kill you without even thinking much about it, it usually means the two realms cooperate, but rarely operate together.

Thule is extremely offended by Akadia’s existence. They routinely raid the area, and their mages are easily the equal of and possibly more creative than those in Akadia. A sobering thought.

Education

Like Sibola, they do not provide much education to anyone other than women.

It is said that fewer than 50 in 100 men can read, though about half of all Enby can. Women are raised to lead, men are raised to die, and all others are raised serve. This is the way that it was phrased once, but the truth is far more complex, as the men of Thule are still what we would call filled with machismo and have driving needs to prove themselves and their virility and their capability and skill.

It is the Enby Thyrs that can prove to be the readiest to be peaceable, though only when it benefits them, and this is a throughline in much of the engagements – they do not care about other peoples – even the Goblins are of little concern to them. They are the largest, fiercest, strongest of all the people, and they not only know it, but accept it as holy writ that they will one day rule the whole of the world.

Family

Women keep groups of men around to keep them happy, and Matriarx will have women of lesser station available to serve them and care for their children. The role of the men is entirely based around the service to the head of household, the Matron. Thulian culture generally allows children to be free and to learn and grow from experience more than rote education, but all women are still schooled formally by the Matriarx of their units.

Cultural weaponry

Thulians use double hafted, double cross braced swords four to five feet in length and as wide as the hand of a man for all but the last half foot, where it tapers to a point. These massive weapons are generally around 40 pounds each, and while well balanced, are too large for most other peoples. They use grapple lines at sea with proficiency, and are quite adept at crossbows, usually captured from those they have raided. Otherwise, they use heavy poles with axe blades on one side and spikes on the other, throwing them or using them at range.

Thulian warriors are almost indistinguishable to most people on sight, save for the color of their eyes. Part of this is that they often wear long laced vests of leather for armor, to which they have sewn hundreds of Imperial coins.

Seven feet tall, resembling a walking fur rug, the boogeymen of Wyrlde are the Thyrs, a seeming hybrid of Jackal, Hyena, Dingo, Gorilla, and who knows what else. Thyrs are very tall, long lived, well organized, well-armed, and possibly one of the greatest threats to peace ever. Thyrs are perhaps the most vicious of the Foes, though rarely seen, and even Grendels hesitate when faced by one.

Thyrs are decidedly gifted with masculine and feminine versions. The female Thyrs are far, far worse, and tend to be the ones in charge. You can always spot a female Thyrs by the rows of small teats and their red eyes. Thyrs give birth to litters of six to eight pups, who wean off in about six months and take about 6 years to grow to adulthood. A Thyrs warlord is usually surrounded by generations of her own family, and they compete for the same things that people do, but they tend to have an outlook that matches Goblins, which makes them impossible to reason with.

Immensely strong, it is said that a full-grown Thyrs can rip a man in half and she will do so just to get to the vital organs she so loves. Thyrs hate Therians, and the feeling is decidedly mutual.

Thyrs live for around 364 years or so, making them the longest-lived peoples, and giving them a longer overall cultural memory.