Culada Bea

The Bone Carvers

History:

Deep within the Sisabo marshes live pale specters that roam the shadows and fetid swamps of their depths. Among the decomposing bodies of those lost in the dangerous terrain wander the Culada Bea, ghostly apparitions that breathe. The Culada Bea are a native race that has existed within the Sisabo marsh for as long as memory serves, preying upon those careless enough to trespass within their territory.

Physical:

The Culada Bea have adapted well to years of living in darkness. They are emaciated, almost skeletal figures with skin as pale as snow. At full maturity, they reach an average of six feet tall with sinewy muscle showing through taut flesh. They are absolutely bald, lacking any hair whatsoever on their bodies or upon their heads. The eyes of the Culada Bea are completely black, pupils and irises all, and reflective, capable of seeing in complete darkness by detecting heat as if it were light. The ears of the Culada Bea are topped in cartilaginous crests, stiffening when the creatures are excited, allowing them to pick up soft sounds on the air. Their noses are upturned and blunt with incredible acuity. Their noses can actually sense heat in the air separately from their eyes, and together they can provide almost stereoscopic heat sensing abilities.

A peculiar factor of the Culada Bea aging process is that they do not seem to noticeably age. Their development in fact freezes at full maturity around the age of twenty years, and while they suffer the ill effects of old age within, their appearances stay as young and strong as ever until, one day, they simply pass on. The ageless Culada Bea rarely live over a century and a half.

Culture:

Culada Bea are sedentary hunters who subsist primarily on the meat of their kills, but are likely to use the entire carcass of a killed enemy or beast. Their weapons are primarily made out of bone and hide, and they wear ornamentation created from the same. Even their tools are carved from the bodies of the dead for use in daily life. A look at a Culada Bea village is a macabre display of mounted and usually stripped skulls and torsos with the occasional one dessicated and keeping much of its dried flesh upon it. The smell of the dead both cooking and rotting is thick in a Culada Bea village.

There is no formal alphabet among the Culada Bea, and most of their script is pictographic, with images referring to what they mean or some metaphorical similarity.

Religion of the Culada Bea

The Culada Bea follow a belief in a very concise pantheon of gods, as their worship revolves around only one god and an ancient form of ancestor worship.

In the beginning, there were many gods with many tasks. There were so many gods that they were like as unto mortals, and they had no higher goals and no higher dreams than what they could create. At that time, what they wished was made as long as they worked together, and shared dreams created the world and created all things.

The first god to betray the other gods was the god of beasts and lesser beings, a spiritually insignificant god referred to as Asibuco. He wanted to create beings who would share the world and help in the smaller tasks of creation and benefit from the caretaking of the gods.

Seeing Asibuco's creativity and forethought, another god wanted to add to the workforce. Known as Turribo, he wanted to create beings that would participate not only in the burdens of working as the gods and lesser beasts did, but also in the burdens of dreaming as the gods and lesser beasts did.

Turribo was the first to great one of the dreaming races, but he was not the last, and many different races were created with different tasks by different gods in different parts of the world. So the dreaming races were, creating great things and dreaming great things, as gods did, but they saw what the gods had done and wanted to be gods, too. So they taught the beasts to dream even though the beasts were not made to dream. Having usurped the power of the gods, they went further toward becoming gods. They began to create themselves and taught the beasts to create themselves. The races and beasts propogated and spread until the lands were filled with dreaming races and beasts and not much else.

The other gods were afraid. There was no room for their dreams or the dreams of those who were not gods. But one god had an answer. Hulimido, the god who had been happy dreaming without creating, said he could make room for new dreams to be created if the other gods gave him providence over such a task. Eagerly, they agreed, and he became Hulimido, the god who returned all to dreams. His first duty was to have all creators find an end.

First the beasts began to die and the gods agreed that it was foolish to make beasts that were so frail. Then the dreaming races began to die and the gods agreed that it was foolish to make the dreaming races so frail. Then the gods began to die. The beasts made new beasts and died, while the dreaming races made new dreaming races and died, but no one could create the gods and they all died to make room for new dreamers. But Hulimido would not die because he had never created.

Hulimido gave dominion to the dreaming races. But now the dreaming races and the beasts do not all stay dead. And the Culada Bea wait for the dead gods to rise again.

The Culada Bea believe that the spirit and strength of a being resides in its living flesh. By drinking the bodily fluids and eating the flesh of a powerful being, or even adorning oneself with the parts of a kill, a Culada Bea can absorb its spirit and strengthen itself. The strongest Culada Bea are believed to be not one spirit but the sum of the strongest parts of a spirit, embodying the power of many under the will of one. Along with this belief comes a complex hierarchy of taboos.

There is only weak flesh, strong flesh, and strong spirit. Weak flesh is the flesh of cowards and children and fools, never to be consumed for fear that it will weaken whoever eats it. Strong flesh is the flesh of powerful beasts, great warriors, and the wise. All things with desirable attributes are composed of strong flesh. Strong spirit is neither wholly flesh nor wholly without flesh. When a being dies in the Sisabo marshes, necromantic energies may cause that creature to rise from the dead. When this happens, that being is said to have a strong spirit, because even when its flesh fails it, the spirit wills the flesh to move or wills itself out of the corpse.

Once it is determined that a being is strong spirit, it cannot be consumed, even if it should no longer move. The Culada Bea see the spirit of the living as a composition of all those things consumed, both strong and weak flesh, and only the living flesh controls it all. But if a strong spirit is consumed, and it is strong enough to control dead flesh, then what is to stop it from controlling living flesh, such as that of the consumer? For fear of being possessed by the strong spirit, the Culada Bea will not eat the flesh of the undead or adorn themselves with parts of the undead.

The Culada Bea hold great reverence for Strong Spirits as long as diplomacy exists between both parties, and in more than one tribe the undead hold positions of wisdom and power. Toward weak flesh, the beliefs of the Culada Bea are equally as docile, though with less respect. They deal in trade with the peddlers of goods openly, making no attempt at killing creatures too weak to be of any use dead, including many of the omago.

The religious hierarchy of the Culada Bea relies upon those who speak with the dead and those who walk with the dead.

Laya Badosa: Those who speak with the dead are diplomats and wisemen, aged Culada Bea who are nearing death and act as emissaries to form close relationships with those who have passed and those who return. They do not have any actual powers, but they lead prayers for the dead and perform ceremonies in the celebration of the return of the dead to a social existence.

Aisa Badosa: Those who walk with the dead also act as emissaries, this time between those who have returned and those who still live. They must have strong memories of their living selves to manage this position, and because of this usually have strong ties to the living and great concern for their homes. While some undead return to their normal lives among the living in Culada Bea tribes, others take positions of leadership as tribal chiefs or advisors. They are widely respected and considered to be Strong Spirits, a title that aids in their political endeavors and ascension in rank.