Legend of Ransera

Author Credit to Eya

The string and bone people.
Founded sometime in the decline of the clockwork empire, thought to have originated in the area of Kalzasi.

Born of vagabond bards of times past the string and bone people are a nomadic and effervescent people. Not characterized by any one particular look the string and bone people are defined by their many mixed breed members and general lack of uniformity within their family units.

The founders of the string and bone people were three, all masters of their perspective arts, which were different styles of puppetry they each employed in their performances.

The first of which was Zevax the Ashborn Lysanrin. His puppets were made from the bones of his ancestors. Guilted in runes that spoke their history, it was said that the puppets of Zevax truly called back the spirits they once housed to tell epic tales in stories.

The second Of the three was Achnaria the Silken Muse. A Fae’Ethalan who’d descended from a clan of decidedly arachnid formed Fae. It was said that the silk she spun and used to control her puppets was invisible to the naked eye and the puppets that she crafted were so well articulated they moved with more grace than most mortals could manage.

The third and final member of the troupe was Morayel the Arificed. It is said that when Zevax and Achnaria honed their craft together and collaborated to make a puppet of the like neither could craft alone Morayel was born. A masterwork body of bone and string brought forth by artists devoted to the entertainment of their fellow mortals. It was said Morayel had an intrinsic knowledge of how to entertain and desire to do so, his jigs and pratfalls able to make even the most stony of nobles crack a smile.

As the three traveled other puppeteers and those aspiring to be such began to join them, and soon enough wherever the three went a tent city followed. To the point that rather than go into the cities, they would simply set up camp beside the cities and the people would come to see them.

There are however those who were reviled by the use of the bones of dead people for art. It is said that on their first visit to Zaichaer the people were so offended by the puppeteers art that in the night a mob showed up and poured the blood of livestock on all of their tents.
After their flight from the locale the string and bone people found they liked the now unintentionally uniform colors of their tent city and began dying all their tents varying shades of red, without blood tho they will inform their guests. Often every performance is began with the same opening act a dramatized and abridged version of the string and bone peoples history still delivered by none other than Morayel, who is accompanied by the now puppet versions of Zevax and Achnaria whose bones still tell their story with as much relish as when they once breathed.

The string and bone people are made up of all sorts of people from all walks of life, many of whom were once orphans or urchins or the like, whenever the String and bone people encounter a desperate soul in need of family they invite them in. It is said that there is no blood, but a silken chord that binds the hearts of the string and bone people.

As for the core tenants that are shared by all string and bone people there are again three.

1. The acquisition and adoption of stories, and the preservation of those stories and histories so that time and ego do not warp them and lead astray the people who would benefit from truth. To that end most string and bone people will tell you they are trying to write the story of the world and how it works, or simply as they put it, The Words Truth.
2. The adoption of the lost and willing, in their goal to spread the worlds truth and entertain their fellow man the String and bone people must ever expand their numbers. To this end the adoption of those who have lost everything serves a twofold purpose, both expanding their numbers and and doing so in a way that often assures loyalty. Often those adopted into the String and bone people are given family and care making them often a firm believer in the ideals of their adopted family., but to the outsider they would claim indoctrination.
3. The spreading of truth where it is least wanted. Where lies are king the String and Bone people will tell the truth of tyrants and charlatans for denying truth to anyone is the greatest offense to those of string and bone.

Within the people of the of string and bone, most fall into one of the three major forms of string and bone. None of which stand above or below the others in importance.
1. The puppeteers, it goes without saying but the art of puppetry is of course a fundamental part of the string and bone culture, however the face is naught much without the body. Puppeteers tend to focus on the three major puppeteering practices that make up their unique style. The physical art of manipulating a manikin on string. The artificers practice in bringing the puppets to life. Lastly the necromancers arts, binding soul to once dead bone to revive truths that could be lost.
2. The Strings, the performances would be dull without the bards who play the epic sonnets and sad dirges that accompany the acts of the puppets. Many specialize in an instrument and oration, and are tasked with the ever difficult task of making music to accompany each piece of truth the string and bone people acquire.
3. The artisans who make the puppets. Perhaps the most esoteric of the groups the artisans are called to be masters of both the aesthetic art of form, but also the aetheric forms of world magic. Any slips of brush or chisel, any error in rune or incantation was a risk that could damage The Worlds Truth and was thus the height of folly. Almost any puppet used by the string and bone people has weeks of effort and planning poured over it. The history of the individual not only runed onto their bones, but done in a font and aesthetic that was personal to the person it once was. Nobody who isn’t intimately knowledgeable about the soul the body once housed is allowed to prepare it for this reason.

It should be noted that String and bone people consider it taboo to animate a corpse not offered up freely for their intended purpose.

The string and Bone people Ecith Chapter. Age of Sundering year 250

At its peak the string and bone people had wondering chapters in every corner of the clockwork empire and most of the civilized continent finding themselves at an uneasy peace with the dawn martyrs at the other powers of the time they were able to expand relatively unchecked. However as the population grew their nomadic lifestyles began to cause further roaming and sharing of profitable cities to entertain. Until various chapters of the string and bone people began to compete against each other for territory.
Fearing the worst their was a summit called and it was decided that they needed to establish themselves in more distant lands or change their way of life to one that was more sedentary. Refusing the latter it was decided by the most belligerent chapters that spreading out was the only solution. With this accepted however the more peaceful chapters would only agree to this if impartial lots were drawn to decide how the territories were handed out. However it was a plot created by the string and bone peoples longest standing elders to rid themselves of the troublesome and greedy chapter they found themselves being hassled by.

Thus a map of the continent and the lands of the clockwork empire were drawn up and sectioned off so that each territory had at least one profitable city to claim as theirs to entertain. Eleven chapters had shown to this summit, and yet the map only showed ten territories. When this was pointed out by Barus Duval, the then elder of the belligerents he was answered with something he’d never considered. The eleventh territory, was not in fact, on the continent. The short straw in this game of lots was to be banished from the continent. Barus Duval was also the elder of the youngest chapter meaning that when the lots were drawn in the order of the chapters established he was the last to draw.

So it was that Barus Duval’s chapter was banished for its greed and ambition from the lands of the empire to cross the sea and lay claim to the largest nomadic territory. In truth Barus Duval had been given the largest territory, but not but dread filled his heart as he bore the news to his people.
With the Dawnmartyr’s already traveling to the continent of Ecith it was not too difficult for the chapter of fifty seven gain passage to the savage lands of Ecith giving them a false reassurance that perhaps the lands they were traveling to would be even better than those they were leaving behind. After all for all the pompous pride of the dawn martyrs order did follow in their wake it seemed.

When they arrived they found a tough but fertile land. For the capable hunter and gatherer the food was plentiful, but the knowledge of how to survive in this land was not theirs. Refusing to swallow his pride Barus Duval lead his puppeteer troupe into the plains assuming them to be safer than the jungles.

In the third week Barus Duval disappeared, he was the sixth do die or go missing by this point. His son unwilling to meet the fate of his father travelled to the safest and most inhabited city of Dratir that would one day be Drathera where they humbly began to learn from the Inhabitants how to survive the rigors of the jungles.

The Ecithians had enough in common with the string and bone people that they were able to bond over their shared appreciation of oral history and their focus on the preservation of historicle truths
Thus the eleventh chapter changed, becoming more tribal, and harder. Many of them adopted the Ecithian styles of tattooing both onto themselves and onto the bones that would tell their puppets stories. By the time the graveplague broke out the String and Bone people of Ecith were a successful if culturally distinct chapter of their culture numbering somewhere around three hundred souls. Many of them dedicated themselves and their now far more combat capable puppets to the fight against the abominable undead that they considered an affront to their own revered and treasured living dead.

After the plague was over their people were diminished as was most of the world. However something had changed. The String and Bone people of Ecith started living shorter and more sickly lives it was then and old man made himself known to them. Knowing intimate details of the illness that plagued them. He convinced them that their illness lie with a curse lain upon them for their war puppets that the other chapters considered a heretical practice. With treppaning and bloodletting however he was able to reduce their symptoms and extend their lives somewhat. With time the seemingly altruistic shaman became the religious authority within the chapter. With his authority came the first of the truly heretical changes. Generally the flesh of a corpse was burned as the skeleton was prepared for runes and engraving. However the Shaman pressed them to consume the flesh of their honored dead and in doing this during a season of famine he birthed the bastard cannibal chapter of the String and bone people. The disease seemed to be further lessened after this practice began, an assurance from the shaman that the strength of their own was preserving them cementing the idea that their cannibalism was actually making them stronger. Their population has slowly dwindled or barely sustained itself in times since and yet the shaman has not seemed to age a day and so continues to Shepard the Ecithian String and bone people.