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The Brendari
Physical Characteristics
Men: Males are usually tall (over six feet in height), broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted. They are heavily-muscled and usually wear their black hair loose and to their shoulders. They often have grey or blue eyes. They never wear shirts as a sign of their strength and virility and are usually impervious to the weather.
Women: Females are medium to tall in height though few ever grow to six feet in height. They are slender, but muscular creatures and wear their long black hair in braids. They also usually have grey or blue eyes. The women wear skirts and blouses, usually of a colorful nature as a contrast to the green-ness of the high mountain valleys they live in.
The race as a whole is non-magical human, though they are an unusually long-lived people who often live for several hundred years. Their magic men are gifted with the greatest longevity, usually seeing at least one millennium of life. These magic men are studiers and catalogers of magic. Conor is the first who, thanks to his Elen blood, is able to actually apply that magic. Magic men are usually born only to the ruling chieftain’s famly and occur once in each generation.
The race as a whole is extremely fertile.
Unusual Traits
Brendari are a monogamous people for the most part, preferring to wait until marriage before mating. The purely human members of the various tribes will actually bond to their mates the first time they are intimate. The sons and daughters of the Urdrul family are a little more of a question mark due to their mixed Elen heritage. Some of the children will bond immediately, others won’t. For all intents and purposes the following should hold true for the family:
Lantry (non-bonding)
Devan(bonding)
Lancel (bonding)
Conor (non-bonding)
Bryen (bonding)
Brandon (bonding)
Mirë (bonding)
Brienne (non-bonding)
Silmë (non-bonding)
Wilwarin (bonding)
Stevros (non-bonding)
That is not to say that the non-bonding siblings cannot be bonded to a person of a race with bonding abilities however. They simply retain the Elen gene that prevents them from initiating a bonding.
Brendari, being mostly non-magical, cannot portal from one location to another with impunity. They usually travel in the conventional manner although the Urdrul family has access to a portal gate located halfway up a mountainside just beyond the Urdrul family longhouse.
Location
The Brendari live on the western continent of Berelath in the high mountains that dominate that particular part of the world. They live in deep valleys high within the mountains, sheltered by tall, craggy peaks covered in eternal snow. The first valley, Brendar’s Valley, was settled by Brendar Urdrul. At least four more valleys beyond the first have been settled as the original family has grown and divided into various tribes and clans.
Other Information
The Brendari are essentially a stone-age people though the introduction of metal thanks to outside influence has been made. Hunter also introduced the concept of a mill that utilizes water power. They live in long houses and lodges and their villages are fairly small, radiating outward from a village “square”. They do not maintain standing shops or taverns, instead relying upon those clans that instead travel nomadically selling wares they have traded for beyond the mountains and down on the grassland plains that stretch east toward the eastern seacoast.
Festivals and celebrations are common, especially during planting and harvest seasons. Weddings are often rowdy affairs and during these times it is not uncommon for new couples to announce their own intentions. Exaggerated storytelling and brawls often occur as well.
The Brendari worship a Creator though they have no name for the deity. It is likely they worship a small pantheon of nature gods and goddesses as well, each lodge maintaining a small shrine to the particular deity they seek blessing from.
The Brendari are, for all intents and purposes, a farming people. But they have deep warrior roots and take pride in their prowess with the sword. They are usually a peacable people, but are fierce in the defense of their homelands. Alliances are few, but those they have made are tightly held to. When they do go to war they eschew all protective elements, preferring to don the blue paint of war over their bare bodies. Often their sheer size, fierce appearance and wild berserker nature is enough to give their adversaries second thoughts before battle ensues.
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