Welcome to this column, which no doubt will have gotten some sort of spiffy and interesting name by the time that you're reading this entry. What you'll be getting each month is information for a culture which can be dropped into your setting with usually little to no adaptation necessary. Most of these cultures will either be human or else not be species-specific, and while the majority will be aimed toward a setting which is not as fully industrialized as our world, these won't be the case every time. Other cultures which you'll see in this column at some point, for example, will include the Feytown neighborhood of Chicago and a species whose culture has been shaped by their predatory ancestry. The former is quite obviously more suited to an urban fantasy setting, though it can be adapted to any setting which can bear the inclusion of a physically and psychologically shifty minority of Good Folk, while the latter obviously requires the existence of a nonhuman intelligent species.

Some of the cultures developed will have a follow-up entry in the month after, to flesh them out more fully, and if there's a particular desire to see more focus on a particular culture, more may be brought up later.

The Traveler Clans

This month, I give you the traveler clans, so-named because of the means by which status is acquired in their society, and the use to which it is put: what sort of transportation you own, and how much of it you own. They're a pre-industrial civilization depending primarily on beasts of burden, although a few of the traveler clans have also expanded into water-based travel to one degree or another. Work animals are not the only factor, however, and drawn vehicles such as carts and wagons are also important.

In the end, status is determined by how much you can transport from one place to another, how fast and how well you can do it, because this in turn all affects your ability to move goods from one place to another, and make something off of it.

While one can refer to the entire society as being of the traveler clans, and there is no other name for their society as a whole, this quite obviously breaks down if the attempt is made to apply it literally to the lower class, the milishi, which stays rooted in one location in most cases. Only the camrelidji and the suritchi move from place to place, and it is not exactly uncommon for them to consider the landed people to not even be truly part of their society or, sometimes, even entirely human.

The "i" does not exactly signify plurality, but instead the idea of association or union and with this, "fighter" becomes "fighter people," or more properly "fighting people," and "buyer-and-seller" becomes, similarly, "buying-and-selling people." Meanwhile, "landed" works perfectly well even alone, and requires no change when translated. However, the idea of association or union, in the language of the traveler clans, is applied in cases where a plural form is necessary.

The Milishi

At the bottom of the heap are the milishi or "landed people," who exist in the villages and towns in the traveler clans' lands. They are often prevented, by dint of having landed blood, from owning the animals most closely associated with transportation, and in most cases they do not even have the resources to get them even if permitted to do so.

Milishi live either in villages or towns, which are categorized according to the nature of their home economy. Villages are far more common, and produce the goods necessary to provide for most of their needs and then an amount of raw materials for the central town. Each town, meanwhile, is devoted to usually a single industry, taking raw materials for the purpose of producing manufactured goods, and also surplus necessities produced by the surrounding villages.

Due to the manner in which the relationship between villages, towns, and merchants exists, art as something in and of itself is generally unknown. Paintings, as the mere application of colored inks to a piece of paper, are not produced consistently by any means, but a town may make use of artisans who apply paintings to the goods which the town produces, in order to raise the value. Musical instruments are produced, however, and there is at least one town whose chief industry is the production of such.

While the actual fact which divides the landed people from the true traveler clans is that they do not move from place to place, there is the general feeling that there is something else which divides them: the milishi produce goods. This can occasionally cause strain between clans, and within clans, for reasons elaborated on elsewhere.

The Camrelidji

Somewhere in the mix are the camrelidji or "fighting people," whose place in society is not quite so rooted. While technically they occupy a place between the landed people and the merchants, it's an accepted fact that any given camrelidj clan ranks just below the clan of their employer, due to their military might (besides their training, it is the obligation of the employer to provide armsó their nature determined in the contractó for his fighting people) and to the fact that the camrelidji are often used as extensions of the clan to which they are attached. Every merchant prince has matters which he considers himself too high to deal with personally, and this attitude can travel all the way down the hierarchy through his entire clan. Furthermore, it is also simply prudent in some situations to send not a merchant, but someone well-versed in various methods of killing people while similarly avoiding death. Unless it requires the specialized knowledge of a particular suritch, most envoys are camrelidji empowered to act in the name of and in the stead of their employer.

The camrelidji are the descendants of men originally hired to protect the bodies and the goods of the earliest merchant princes, and where they went they brought their families along, for the suritchi and their caravans were always on the move. As each generation grew, it became apparent that they had a richer future by continuing the trade of the last generation, than by joining the villages and the towns, and it was simply natural to offer one's services to the same clan which had employed one's parents unless something truly offensive had occurred.

It has not been forgotten that the fighting people are hirelings even now, which works to their advantage on occasion. It is the recognized right of a camrelidj clan to not renew its contract and seek new employers if offended or abused, and the use of this right of withdrawal is frequently brandished as a threat when the clan feels that it is necessary. Most merchant princes have several fighting clans in their employ, but the total loss of even a single clan is devastating, especially since this leaves open the possibility of their one-time servants running straight to whichever suritchi the prince is currently having the worst relations with, and giving up vital information.

This is also a right of the fighting people, officially recognized by the suritchi two centuries ago when they realized that they had no room for negotiation, as the camrelidji had united on this matter, and if one single merchant prince agreed, the fighting people would be perfectly capable of declaring, en masse, for that one man, which would leave everyone else in a most undesirable position. The clans typically made twenty-year contracts, and the contracts of several important camrelidj clans were coming up for renewal (or lack thereof) within only a few short years.

The services of the fighting people, despite their name, are not limited only to the protection of the suritchi, their caravans, and the landed people (who are all under the auspices of one merchant prince or another, and who may reasonably expect protection in the face of danger, due to being responsible for the production of virtually every good). As mentioned earlier they serve also as couriers and representatives, and most merchants have a favored camrelidj who they turn to for counsel, trusting that their adviser will be unbiased, being outside of the ranks of the suritchi. Indeed, when a young merchant begins to come into his house, and prepares for his first venture, it is very common for either the most well-established suritch in the clan or the new merchant's father to ask one of his older and most trustworthy camrelidji to offer a contract of service to the new merchant. Sometimes these last for only a single term of service, and other times the camrelidj will continue to present a new contract as each one in turn approaches its expiration date.

Finally, the fighting people also take part in the basic functions necessary for a caravan to move from place to place and generally function at all, and while the bulk of the labor goes on the shoulders of those suritchi who have not acquired even a cart, nearly everyone pitches in, whether by physically lending a land or by offering up the payment necessary to decline to participate in such things. However, not only do non-participatory travelers not get paid for any day that they do not pitch in, but they also must pay, in penalty, a little bit more than their labor was worth.

The Suritchi

At the very top of society are the suritchi, which roughly translates into "the buying-and-selling people," although the traveler clans themselves, both camrelidj and suritch, generally use the term "buy-and-sell people" when providing a translation. Like the fighting people, they are organized into clans, each led by a merchant prince who is able to pass on his title to any other member of the clan after his death (there have, in fact, been several female merchant princes in the history of the traveler clans, and some of the clans are quite matriarchal as a matter of tradition). The merchant prince is responsible for keeping the clan intact, and it's expected that he will be the most profitable of any suritch in his clan. There can often beÖ difficulties if he fails to keep to this expectation.

Clans are further divided into smaller caravans. Each caravan contains a number of families, each with a single vote with which to make community decisions such as the naming of the captain of the caravan, who is responsible for delegating responsibility, carrying out punishments, and ensuring that the caravan is profitable. There is a particular incentive for fulfilling the last responsibility and generally keeping the caravan running well, as the captain is owed a percentage of the profits which each family makes. In most caravans the captain receives five percent of the profits of each family, and holds the position for anywhere between two and five years before the contract expires and the families vote again.

The captain also pays a tithe of his own up to the merchant prince, usually equal to between two and ten percent of what he makes (both on his own and from the tithes he receives). This amount is agreed upon during the negotiations for the contract which must be signed by the merchant prince in order for the caravan to form, and unlike most other contracts is permanent, and ends only if the caravan violates its terms (the merchant prince, on the other hand, is liable to lose his position if he breaks the contract, but most such contracts require nothing from his end except recognition of the caravanó this has on occasion resulted in an ailing merchant prince setting up a contract which would be most undesirable, and then appointing someone he dislikes as his successor).

The head of the family is the official holder of any profits which that family receives, and pays the other members of the family as their work warrants, and is also the holder of the family's vote. Families must own their own means of transportation, and someone who wishes to start a new family must acquire something large enough to hold their belongings and whatever it is they will be selling, and usually also an animal (only the lowest of the suritch will pull their own cart, and the memory that they once traveled on their own feet will remain in the minds of other suritchi for years to come). Marriages often involve a pooling of resources so as to halve the time spent saving up for such things.

It is upon becoming a true member of the suritchi that one may be blessed with the service of an elder camrelidj, and it should be pointed out that while the camrelidji make clan-wide contracts with the clans of the suritchi, this serves only the purpose of restricting the fighting clan's potential employers, and hammering out the basics which will apply to every contract of employment. After this, it is up to individual camrelidji and suritchi to seek each other out and these contracts usually last for periods of ten years.

Most suritchi can be divided into binyini suritchi, or "little merchants," and thomithi suritchi, or "big merchants." The primary distinction here is that the binyini suritchi go from village to village, occasionally swinging back to the central town in order to sell the raw materials which the town needs and buy some of the town's manufactured goods for distribution through the villages, while the thomithi suritchi go from town to town, buying the manufactured goods produced there and selling the manufactured goods produced elsewhere, and occasionally stopping by in a village to sell, but primarily for the purpose of buying necessities and food. For the purpose of buying well-crafted goods, the villages get better prices on most things from the thomithi suritchi, but more often encounter, and get better prices on the central town's products from, the binyini suritchi.

While the suritchi have their own landsó these being populated by the milishió they also trade with other peoples, and they adapt their practices accordingly (not everyone else adopts the system of villages and towns as practiced by the suritchi, for example).

The Nupi

Of particular interest are the nupi, or "pack people," who are considered no higher than the milishi (indeed, there is generally considered to be no difference at all between the two groups), but who comport themselves as if they were suritchi. They generally cycle through villages and towns in the same manner as the suritchi, and often attach themselves to caravans, providing themselves as laborers of a non-specific fashion, doing whatever tasks happen to be necessary at the moment. In return, they receive a minor wage and often the right to stow some of their material on the transportation of their employer.

Both of these are important, as the nupi carry the rest of everything they own on their backs (hence their name); they are not generally permitted to have carts if they accompany a suritchi caravan. However, remaining with the caravans provides a measure of protection (the camrelidji do not make contracts with nupi or milishi) and also the opportunity for upward mobility. Many suritchi are able to trace their line back to a nup who managed to become successful enough to find a caravan who would host him. Next Month: Samples of camrelidji and suritchi clans. Also, music, food, and the grissol bulldogs.