Inhabitants of Minaria

The Ercii (and the Wandering People)
Who likes tyranny, other than tyrants and the house servants of tyrants. But there were in fact some considerable number of Elves who served in that capacity in varying degrees of contentmen during the century when the Sion Hac ruled in Elfland and treated the native-born people as a subserviant class.

The Sion Hac have become a people without a history, since they had little connection with humans beyond Neuth, and the Elves oblitherated their records as soon as they acquired the power to do so. All that is know today is that some primitive humans lived west of Elfland in the early centuries of the Post-Cataclysm, and still do, for the range is but a natural extension of the Barbarian North. But the presence of the Ogres arrests the southward drift of Minaria's western-most inhabitants, as it did in the early days of the Sion Hac.

After the fall of the invader's regime, the Elves vengefully effaced every trace of their former domination. Elven official history makes it appear that Sion Hac rule in Elfland amounted to nothing but a long list of temples burned, houses looted, daughters ravaged, and Elves patriots hanged. History belongs to the victor and the law in Elfland went even further, making it a criminal offense to deny of any of the traditional calumnies against the Sion Hac. In the Elven accounts, Sion Hac warriors can hardly have had time to organize a kingdom, as they all seemed to be degraded brutes who spent all day in robbery and all night in rape. Pious stories are told of how these invaders customarioy used Elven skin to make fine leather, fed Elven children to swine when other provender was lacking, and worked Elves to death in mines untended and unfed, since their slave-raiders were always on the outlook for more. Yet this strangers who so effectively oppressed the Elves for so long are described in all the patriotic stories as being so dull of wit that they seemingly never avoided one ambush set by the Elven rebels over the whole century of their ascendency, or even detected a single strategem in time to save their bruish lives.

The Sion Hac fell more than eight hundred years ago, but Elves today can still become as emotive as their enemies' contemporaries upon the subject. "To hate like an Elf," is a aphorism of the northland. The offense of the Sion Hac against Elfland was perhaps not in inordinate cruelty, but simple that they were the outsiders to demonstrate to the Elven race that their traditional way of life was not an preordained constant, but something fragile that had to be defended anew in every generation. Alas, the Elves were slow to learn that if one is too obsessed with the foreign enemy, he tends to give free reign to the selfish destroyers who rise up from their own ranks.

As much as the Elves would wish to efface every trace of the Sion Hac, they were never quite ruthless enough to do so, for the invaders left a living legacy behind -- their part-Elf, part-human descendants, the Ercii, from erciir, meaning "half-bloods".

Of the six manlike races of Minaria, (excluding the brutish Ogres who might strain the definition) the only fertile offspring known to be produced are the issue of Lloroi and Elves, Elves and Humans, and humans and Dwarves. This seems to suggest very strongly that Elves stand between humans and Lloroi, and the humans stand between Elves and Dwarves in kinship.

By tradition, the Ercii was the result of the ravishing of Elven women by the conquering barbarians. Granted, there is no one left to gainsay that truism, but we need not accept the Elves' legends uncritically (though to do so in Elfland even today is a serious social and criminal offense). These days, as the strict seclusion of the Elves erodes, new Ercii are still being born every day, of Elven fathers no less often than from Elven mothers.

Regardless of the circumstances of their siring, thousands of half-bloods were sired during the long decades of foreign domination, and many were left behind as the Sion Hac were massacred, or forced to flee Neuth, to vanish in the mists of history. That the half-bloods were not all massacred with their human kind is obvious, as is the fact that many could not, or did not choose to flee the land of their birth. But their existence would remain an ulcer upon Elfland's social peace.

Before the Elves were of high order and low order, but only after the Sion Hac did Elfland become a society laden with a body of outcasts.

If the Ercii had not been isolated, they might have been absorbed back into the general population, but such a solution was abhorrent to the leaders of Elven society. That a few monsters should live amongst them was not reason that all should take the legacy of monsters into themselves. Thus the problem of the Ercii for centuries was not eliminated, but neither was it worsened.

But if the Ercii were denied the protection of society, they were also in a sense free of its restraint. Certain types of work, such as rag-picking, money-lending, fulling, astrological forecasting, were considered demeaning work or an Elf and so were left to the half-bloods. In fact, any trade that Ercii engaged in became stigmatized, a disadvantaged that in the course of time became of weapon to take over more and more of the economy and a large part of what had been Elven industry fell willy-nilly to the Ercii. The loss of so many trades impoverished segments of the Elven population, while Ercii sometimes became prosperous. At first the half-bloods were scrupulous against flaunting their wealth, but as they bought friends in the bureaucracy and the court, some took to living in shocking ostentation.

Contrasting with the social mobility of the Ercii, too many of the Elves tended to be locked into the lowly notch of his natal circumstances. He understandably resented the prosperity of the small elite of the Ercii who were doing well, despite being ostensibly outcasts. Corrupt governance was responsible for the disparity, but office-holding bribe-takers led the drumbeat against the Ercii as a community to cover up their own malfeisance.

From the perspective of the common Elf, the situation worsened by the developing use of Ercii as diplomatic intermediaries with the outer world of the humans, which most Elves instinctively feared, resented, and wished no contac with. Rather than win friends for their public service, the Ercii diplomats set their peope up for more public attack. Popular wisdom said that the half-blood traitors were working in collusion with human enemies against the best interests of Neuth. The truth must fall somewhere between the poles; some Ercii served Elfland in well in a diplomatic capacity; others exploited their opportunities and grew rich. Some did both with admirable adroitness.

All the while, the High Princes' rule became ever more intrusive into the everyday life of the Elves. The resistance of the people nonetheless slight since those who benefited from a overgrown and meddlesome central state (professional courtiers, burecrats, tax-collectors, magistrates, holders of government contracts, and most who collected a wage from the Treasury) called what was little more private self-interest against subversives -- oftentimes simply referred to as "the rich," since courtly rabble-rousers did not want to blaintanly offend their illegal paymasters. What was even more shocking than this universal venality in public service was the easy success such person had in manipulating public sentiments. As Neujahr of Kapuan has said, "Envy is ever the tree from which the despot's bludgeon is cut."

A period of hysteria and persecution against the Ercii followed and a large community of half-blood herbalists, astrologers, and outright hedge wizards was threatened with a pogrom. Wisely enough, it pulled up stakes and fled Elfland, the first large body of Ercii to do so.

They soon found they were subject to suspicion in the outside world, made all the worse for the pilfering habits that they developed in their days of privation. The main body formed what amounted to a tribe which held itself exclusive from the human populations it dwelled among. But having an aloof population of thieves and wizards in their midst sat poorly with most city-dwellers and riots and official mandate often drove the Ercii emigrants away. They might have formed one of Minaria's common rural ethnic groups, but they had little money to buy land, and they came from a citified population which had long been denied the right of owning land in Elfland, and now making a virtue of necessity, looked down on such a life. So, at first by pack train, later by wagon, they took to an iternerant life, and soon enough became known as the "Wandering People."


The Tail People (and Eloia)
In ancient days, odd human physical types were not unusual, as the Lloroi had the means to commingle the traits of different species into one. For a long time this science was used for only the most necessary reasons of state, or as part of religious observance, but in the late empire decadence heavily affected the top. In fact, it began at the top and spread downward to corrupt all the major institutions of the empire. Where this accelerating downward spiral would have led if the Cataclysm had not intervened we living to day cannot say. But come it did, wiping away Lloroi civilization, the high along with the degenerate.

Some say that the Tail People of the Forest of the Lurking are the remnant of an exotic slave population of Lloroi times. Others cite that the fact that the tribe was entirely unknown before the invasion of the Abominations of the Land and the Horrors of the Air, but though theories abounds as to their origin, no one believes that they are a natural species, like the Elves, Dwarves, or Goblins are natural inhabitants of Minaria.

The Tail People are suburb specimens of human beauty for the most part -- tall, strong, straight-featured, and fair, with flesh which sun-tints to godlike golden tan. But their single anomaly, if one discounts physical comeliness too consistent to be natural, is the horse-like tail and the necessary physiological support structure which goes with it.

Yet taken together, the Tail People's beauty is enhanced rather than marred by this singular appendage. Full, thick, and with a healthy luster, if the owner is himself healthy, not coarse like a true horse tail, but supple and soft, it is by no means unsightly, though an outsider may require some little while to come used to the sight of them upon human beings.

Some argue that the Tail People are fairies, possibly an offshoot of the Goligo Favre. To be sure, legend described many fairies with unsightly appendages borrowed from the animal world. The Klaubauf has horns, for instance, and the Rarash appears as a small boy with claws. But Tail People are mortal, eating, sleeping, working and traveling as human do. Half-fairy they might be, but the wise scholar does not evoke the existence of unproven entities to explain the natural world.

Nonetheless, there is more than a little unnatural about the Tail People. If their tail is bobbed, it will grow back in a few days time, and some say just a few hours. This bespeaks magic, true, but it does permit a minor industry among these sylvan people. Their tail hair can be woven into rugs and other textiles for local use and sail to traders. The rapid growth of the supply of fiber permits a large production of such goods, and Tail People rugs and blankets are items of pride to those who own them, feting high prices in the cities. But the regrowth of a tail seems to drain the tail man or woman of considerable energy for two or three days, so they do not bob with all restraint thrown to the wind.

In general, the trade goods of the Tail People themselves. They produce few warriors, possibly because their number are small and to wage war is to invite cruel retaliations which their tribe dare not sustain, but they are, for the most part, skilled woodspeople, and are frequently engaged by northern travelers and soldiers as guides through the forests and marshes of the region. Nonetheless, they are carefully watched when they come into towns and villages, they do not scruple to indulge in casual affairs with humans, and sometimes Elves. "Lock of your daughters, the Tail People are coming," is a common saying. This behavior may be more than indicate some innate voluptuousity. It is commonly believed that the Tail People are troubled by the smallness of their population, which might be eradicated by one serious military campaign against them, and so try to increase their numbers, the doing of which brings status to the sire.

This occupation is much more the practice of the males than the females, for the obvious reasons. Yet a half-human, half-Tail People babe is not immediately known for what he is, as the tail does not become manifest until after puberty. This is, strangely, true of babes with two Tail People parents also. While a pure-breed Tail People child will achieve his tail in teenage or early twenties, a half breed child has approximately half a chance to do so and in very many cases his parentage will go unrecognized. Oftentimes youn people do not know their lineage and the sudden appearance of a horselike tail is generally a cause for ostracism. Some suicides result, unformunately, but many of these disinconsolate young people eventually go to the villages of the Tail People to live, and where they are happily received.

The origin of the Tail People is, as we have written, obscure. They were well-established in their present habitat by the end of the era of the Abominations and that their language is a dialect of old Vidarnan. The Cult of Huisinga is popular among their villages, and legend has it that their earliest ancestors were visited by the founding saints of the sect, Tanaro and Sankari, who evalgelized the gods of Change.

The Tail People's physical strangeness has induced most of their race to remain together in a unique community, though individual adventurers and itinerate craftsmen of their kind are not unknown over most of civilized Minaria. The appearance of either usually induces parents to lock up their daughters. The Tail People's survival must be owed to the remoteness of their home, and, interestingly, to the protection of the Eaters of Wisdom, their neighbors across the Well of Lered. Possibly it is true, as elders say, that the early Tail People had befriended Gowannuraw, the founder of the Invisible School of Thaumaturgy and have ever since been under the protection of the Eaters of Wisdom.

There are different legends among the Tail People as to their origin, but one of them is more or less supported by early documentation. Say the Tail People that a beautiful man and woman, each with a horse-like tail came to the land of the Vidarna tribe when still gynarchy thrived there. Like among the Vidarnans themselves, the male of this couple was the servant and lover to the woman, who, it turned out, was a sorceress of great power. One of the bands of Vidarnan she-warriors, one of those special bands which served directly under the temple of the triple-goddess, Uma, found the tailed man and woman making their way. Unwisely they mocked them and ordered them away from the temple's writ. In peeve the tailed sorceress cast a spell over the women, giving them tails like her lover's and her own, also making subjecting them to her command. They served the woman as bodyguards for a short while, before, or so we're told, the male led them in escape into the Forest of the Lurking, where they chose to dwell as outcasts.

The sorceress, by the way, seemed to care about there escape and seized power among the Vidarnas hierarchy, vanquishing the priestesses whom she found there. The sorceress took the identity of triple-goddess's avatar onto herself and managed to hold sway among the tribesmen until the missionary-reformer Teredon came from the Invisible School to challenge her despotic power. Legend says that the good sorcerer turned her into a black mare who haunts the countryside of Immer to this day.

It is not incredible that the Tail Peoples' progenitors were women-warriors, since women have held a place of esteem all through their history. One of these became the most famous of her tribe allive today, the scout and guide par excellence, Eloia.

The story told of her was that when Assop was chief of the Tail People, Rebek, a wandering hunter, saw a human woman fleeing from the river bank. He deigned not to follow the wayfarer, for that might lead to misunderstanding and certain trouble with the villagers dwelling on the edge of the forest. But yet he did wonder whether something in particular had frightened her. He descended to the stream and saw a child struggling in the water. He sprang into the current and drew the babe out. As he did so, the infant grabbed on to the bow his bow and held fast, as child much older would. The hunter perceived this to be a sigh that this was a special baby and so wrapped it in his cloak and took it back to his wife. She suggested, since he had saved the foundling from a river, which in the Tail People's dialect is eloy, he gave the child the game of Eloia, "River Maid." They raised the girl as his own and no outsider appeared any the wiser, since all Tail People children resemble humans in childhood.

Eloia was not told about her true parentage either and so, nearing the age of twenty, she still found herself without a tail ?- a symbold of status and maturity, more important than a human lad's first beard. Rebek realized that he must tell her the truth about herself, though he feared that she would feel like an outcast and leave the forest after he did so.

Rebek was day by day garnering the courage he required to tell his foster daughter the whole truth, but before he had entirely steeled himself, he was met by Eloia as he returned from a long. Only, to his amazement, she now possessed a flowing blonde tail fluffing ing the wind.

"This is a miracle!" the hunter cried as he crushed her in his arms.

"Why, Father?" she asked, puzzled.

He explained, and only in doing so did he at last comprehend why that woman of long ago had cast her own infant into the water to die.

Eloia learned all she could of woodslore from her forest-wise father, and sougth out other accomplished hunters and trackers for her tutorledge. Her exploratory forays carried her far and wide; once, at river crossing into Ercii territory, the inhabitants disputed her right of her tribe to cross the river hereafter. She challenged any commer for her right to cross, and the Ercii put forward a woman warrior named Enea. It was a hard fight, for the Ercii were as out-door savvy people like the Tail People themselves, but Eloia finally won the match, accepted the rites of peace and brotherhood, and from that day her tribe has enjoyed a liberal right of passage into the land of the Ercii.

Not long after, war came to the Forest of the Lurking as mercenary bands made to join the forces of Immer and Elfland at the siege of the Invisible School, in as much as the wizards there had espoused the cause of Mivior and Hothior, the invaders' enemies of the hour. Eloia was inclinded to pretend to join the Immerites and spy from her peoples' friends, the Eaters of Wisdom. So she presented herself as a military scout to the advancing soldiery. But woe to those who attempt to decieve. These, she found, were mercenary hirlings, the lowest of the breed who served under King Euint's banner. Instead of putting her on the pay list, the rude louts locked her up and told her that she would be turned over to their officers of the sport of their mess.

Eloia thought hard about extraditing herself from her unseemly predicament. With the aid of a camp trull who was only too glad to see so beautiful a rival escape, Eloia gained possession of a rotten chicken. This reeking thing she stuffed into her bodice. Every mercenary who approached her was repelled by the stench and assumed convinced that Tail People smelled that way by nature and so wanted nothing to do with her. She was subsequently put to work as a laundress among the camp followers, but was no longer either highly prized nor closely watched. She darted into the woods and, back in her own element, no village-bred bumpkin soldier would ever have the wits to find her again.

Deciding to help the Eaters by more straight-forward means, Eloia sought out a Hothioran relief column which was progressing up the defile between the Ebbing and the Forest of the Lurking. She offered herself as a scout and was accepted at face value, for the friendship of the Eaters and the Horse People was well known. She explained a plan she had for entry into the School, which was at that time invested and barely approachable. Amocar, King Boarhort's general, was intrigued by the audacity of her strategem, and she led the long Hothioran column through the forest on the side of the lake opposite the School while the horse continued on a landward apprach, over the mountain and rough, intending to serve as a diversion.

Leaving the Horthiorn infantry encamped, Eloia crossed over to the School via canoe, for only the lake route was . She met the Grand Master of the order and explained her strategy.

The Sorcerer's Ship shortly thereafter glided out of the heavy fogs of a lake which is famous for its fogs. The magic ship could hold a thousand men safely and it made several trips that night. At dawn the Eaters had their Reflector weapon readied and attacked, using the illusion of the great host gathered within their walls. The sudden blow worked great slaughter among the besieging soldiery and slew the Immerite general. The sortie made afterwards by the fresh relief army within sent the coalition troops racing for the safety of the hills of the High March.

The battle of Benna Broc made Eloia reputation and her continuing good performance soon made her the most sought-after scouts of the Northwest, a status that is likely to enjoy for as long as youthful vigor and a zest for adventure stir her breast.

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