Wind riders. Tale Spinners. Beast warriors.
“Let the wind be your counsel and your steed. Embrace it, let it lift you. But do not trust things made of wind, for wind is a fickle ally.”
Ruggedly individualistic and driven, the majority of the Bāhira roam the highlands above and around Auxientia, where ancient Bāhira cities built into natural stone columns loom above the valley. In these remote highlands, they carry on the way of life they have known for centuries before the coming of the exiles. As a Bāhira, your people were the first to discover lumenstone and fashion those rare minerals into jewels of beauty and power; you were the first to interact with the native wyverns, which the Bāhira revere as sacred.
An Ancient Empire
For thousands of years, the old Bāhira empire spanned the valley of Mutu from north to south and east to west. Your shining cities adorned the forested crowns of dozens of the colossal pillars of stone that jut from the valley in clusters. On the backs of wyverns, your knights dueled among the clouds, clad in lumen-filigreed armor. For generations the Bāhira empire flourished, ruling over lands far and wide; you were conquerers, poets, magicians, wealthy in literature, culture, and tradition. But every story comes to an end in time, and that ending began with a dark age.
In that time, plague and fire decimated the Bāhira cities, while internal corruption eroded its laws, and an endless series of wars sounded the death knell for the millennia of Bāhira dominance in Mutu. But who can say what truly happened? History is invisible in a centuries-long dark age. Ruins exist, bones and mass graves, but few records.
By the time the Exiles arrived two hundred years ago, your old empire was a faint shadow of its former glory. In the dark age, your territories and colonies faded away; your cities were abandoned; wyvern warriors no longer patrolled yours skies; and though your people retain some knowledge of beast-charm, the cherished secret of the wyvern-charm was long forgotten. The great beasts roosted in the ruins of many high rock column cities, killing any that dared stray into their lairs. When the barbaric Exiles arrived, only a handful of sparsely populated Bāhira cities still stood, among these the capital city, Mutu, built upon a high rock column on the shores of the lake. Against all odds, the barbarians captured it.
In the two centuries since the arrival of the Exiles, the Bāhira remain the masters of the land and air surrounding Auxientia. Rangers, ranchers, and sailors of the sky, your people know every wrinkle and fold of the land just as you know the lore of wind and storm. Bāhira voyage the skies on air skiffs, sloops, and barges, with prows carved in likenesses of wyverns. Luciole Ltd. may have engineered the power to make flight possible again, but the Bāhira were the original warriors, artists, and acrobats of the air.
War and drought have lately taken a toll on the Bāhira highlands. In order to survive, young Bāhira flock to Auxientia where they take jobs as the best skilled couriers, guides, caravan guards, rangers, playwrights, shipwrights, and border patrol that Auxientia has to offer.
Beast Masters and Tale Spinners
For as long as Bāhira tales can tell, the Bāhira have shared an empathy with animals. Because of this understanding, Bāhira are as skilled hunters as they are herdsmen. Sometime in the dark age, Bāhira herdsmen began to double as prophets, reading signs and omens from animals’ reactions to changes in wind and weather. Bāhira hunters adopt “beast mind” to track their quarry, a trance-like state in which the hunter is said to adopt the senses of the animal it tracks.
Of all beasts, the Bāhira most revere the wyvern for its strength, grace, deadliness, and solitude—virtues that Bāhira strive to live up to in their own lifelong journeys.
To most Bāhira, folktales and parables feature animals as stand-ins for humans who share the characteristics of the given animal; fox characters represent clever people, for instance; faithful characters are portrayed as dogs; fools are often cast as chickens, and so on.
Bāhira are the tale spinners of Auxientia. In the interregnum between the dark age and the arrival of the exiles, the Bāhira at large did not write, but pieces of their once-great culture were routinely passed down among their lorekeepers in song, story, and poem. Because of this, Bāhira have a knack and an appreciation for tales, and their education, religion, and entertainment are all based around stories. Bāhira mealtimes, gatherings, and their rituals all incorporate storytelling or narrative performance.
Divided and Untamed
There is an old Bāhira expression: “To begin a movement, ask a question. To suffer revolt, give a command.”
In the dark age, most Bāhira abandoned their cities and spread throughout the valley of Mutu. Some remained, carrying out the customs and traditions of the old empire, just as they do today, keeping a living continuity of thousands of years of tradition.
Those who left the cities elected new leaders from their ranger-guides and omen-readers. The ranger-guides of various Bāhira clans established the codes of the clans, but as wandering nomads the Bāhira people did not formally recognize a single individual leader speaking for the collective community of all Bāhira. In the course of their history, a single leader has occasionally risen to prominence over the Bāhira people, whether in the face of a great threat or catastrophe, by military force, or sheer magnetism and charisma. Some such leaders have been heroes, others despots, but the Bāhira histories almost unanimously cast such leaders in a bad light, and the dramas of their reigns typically caution against the evils of centralized power. The old Bāhira dynasties, or families, are called “kula,” and before the dark age there were many powerful kula. Since that time, the idea of dynastic rule is anathema to Bāhira, who choose their guides by ability and merit, values that helped shape the new city of Auxientia after strife of the Foundation War.
Masters of Lumen
Bāhira have grown more powerful as the controllers of the lumenstone mines. It is the Bāhira who relegate the business of the mines, refine and cut the stones, and put them on the market. Without the mines, the lumnestone resources would dwindle and die, as would those technologies that rely on lumenstone to function. In the past, Bāhira mine strikes have all but halted daily life in Auxientia.
In Recent Times…
The Lumenstone Mines Have Gone Dry. During the term of Mayor Cannongrove, Bāhira leadership revealed that their mines would yield no more pure lumenstones to power Mutu Valley. Corrupted lumenstones are all that remain within the once-rich veins of the Claw, the principal mines of the Bāhira. Now, a regular rotation of guards from the Bāhira and Irregulars factions oversees the dry mines in order to ensure that the corrupt, highly volatile lumenstones don’t fall into the wrong hands. Since the announcement, the Bāhira have sought a new purpose within Auxientia.
A Mind Remembered. The Bāhira people lost their empathetic connection to their sacred wyverns around the fall of the Bāhira empire centuries ago. Encounters with other Bāhira kulas with a strong connection to the beast mind, as well as the efforts of a new generation of Bāhira, have begun to restore the Bāhira connection with their revered beasts of old.
A Council of Twenty. A council of representatives—one from each of the twenty Bāhira kulas—comprises the current leadership structure of the Bāhira and advises the two Bāhira leaders. These representatives carry the voice of the people within their kula.
Co-Leaders: Luce Kalēktara & Janna Akïshá
