By the standards of most peoples, Varu-Tavur is not an especially impressive place. It is a village of roughly one thousand people dependent upon a flood-prone lake that renders their homes accessible only by boat in the spring and over ice in the winter. The homes and storehouses are built on stilts and therefore unable to escape being modest in size, tightly confined, and smoky. Though the lake is fecund and supplies abundant fish and shellfish to fill the stewpots of the people, this is still a poor place. Wealth is measured in feathers, flowers, and the occasional bit of finery. The residents here are not significantly wealthier than Rutar living elsewhere. Perhaps less so even, in some ways, as this village lies deep in the marsh and has very limited access to external trade.
Despite this, the people of the grand village carry themselves with noticeable pride, for they believe they are blessed by the Divines to dwell by the sacred lake and that they stand at the heart of a cycle joined by their ancestors as they are fed to the lake fish who nurture them in turn. It is an informal, oral learning, but still encompasses a great deal of knowledge of water, flora, fauna, and the strange properties of certain swamp materials. All their shamans are trained here, at least for a time, and this exchange of lore provides great benefits to their abilities. Consequently, Rutar shamans have much greater commonality of practice than those of the Bahab or Kharal, and their mystic abilities are slightly more capable as a result.
As to the lake itself, it is a holy place. Fed by the waters of the Shdulus River at the final point before it divides into the innumerable streams of the delta, it is a repository of divine essence flowing all the way from the glaciers of the north. That which begins in a dragon’s lair follows a journey of extraordinary length that ends here. A well of essence accumulates accordingly. The people of the village appear remarkably healthy and the countless swamp fevers that otherwise plague Rutar villages are little known in this place. The arts of frost sorcery are also strengthened here, and Lady Indili stated that the lake represented a point of power to match any other she had encountered in Shdustu. She considered it a move of great wisdom by the Rutar to locate their temple and train their shamans here, on an island in the center of the lake.
That island is, itself, a notable curiosity. It is a massive block of exceedingly hard stone the size of a fortress formed in a single, gigantic unbroken piece sunk into the mud. This stone is a form of granite that I recognized as identical to that of the high peaks of the Dumum Mountains. To find such a thing here, across a distance that even the fastest rider would take months to cross, is astonishing. Perhaps it might have been carried in a flood, such as can transport small stones the length of mighty rivers. Raging waters are known to move even boulders the size of small homes, but much to move such a massive object, and over such distance, would require a flood beyond anything I can properly imagine. A deluge brought by the Divines would be needed to cause such a thing. An idea occurs, that if Shdustu was once covered by an ocean, as the stone bones suggest, perhaps this was carried south when the sea retreated? I have no proper answer, nor did the shamans. In a generous act of sharing in the spirit of inquiry, they gave a tiny shard of this island’s stone to Lady Indili to return to the chapter house in Crisremon.
In Varu-Tavur, travel during the warm months is mostly conducted by boat. As we were present in winter the lake had iced over, though the early winter was sufficiently mild that the ice was treacherous until year’s end, after which it could be walked upon easily. The Rutar wear wide boots covered in beaver fur to dampen their footfalls and keep their feet dry when water flows over the melting ice in the spring. They will also put down planks to secure passage from one section of the village to the next in order to minimize the impact of mud. Floating platforms constructed using pontoons see wide use in the warmer months and provide additional space for various crafts and religious displays. This notably includes the production of elaborate flower wreaths, which are used in seasonal ceremonies and complex feather headbands that are worn during major festivities and exchanged during marriages. The bright orange shades of certain swamp-dwelling birds were the most prized of these, though I was never able to ascertain why this color preference existed.
Control of the village is officially the purview of a council of nine elders, but in practice much of this is ceded to the master artisans of various craft workshops, the shamans, and the annually appointed Warchief of the Rivers who calls the Rutar to battle should they be threatened. This position is decided upon by a vote of all village elders, at least in theory. In practice the shamans have a great deal of influence, and they advance their favored candidate and ensure he receives approval from enough elders. Ceremonial appointment is conducted during the summer solstice, as it is the most peaceful time of year, not during the new year, when the Rutar might plausibly be engaged in armed conflict. The Rutar do not possess anything like an army. Each summer the Warchief sends out word to form a militia come autumn to fight for him, gathering in a large group of mostly young men who seek glory, and riches, in combat, but who mostly patrol the edges of the marshlands. Elite warriors who join this party year after year are drawn from the residents of Varu-Tavur. This represents essentially all properly equipped soldiers the Rutar possess, including their only fighters with metal weapons other than arrows. Surprisingly, the warchief is never from the grand village and serves a term of a single year, with no repeat service allowed. It seems this method is designed to supply the outlying village youths with a means of acquiring military experience so that they can later conduct local defense against small-scale raids as this represents the primary military threat the Rutar are likely to face.
The warchief in that year was named Ludun-Mulum. He was a tall and powerfully built man in later middle age. He wore a short black beard trimmed to a point, something only Rutar warriors who are confirmed to have killed both a Kharal and a Nikkad are permitted to grow, and walked about armed at all times. He had a tendency to stride about the village, even in the dead of winter, with his shirt open and his chest exposed to the elements. I believe this was done in an effort to impress his guests. A man of simple wants, he had a boisterous manner, enjoyed meals with as much meat in the stew pot as would fit, and drank the berry wine the Rutar make like it was water. This copious alcohol consumption was, apparently, one of the major perks of the post, for such wine was only occasionally made by the Rutar and normally drunk only at major feasts. He was always willing to consume any quantity of this substance, which I found a foul semi-sweet mixture, served to me, something that made his presence as a dinner guest significantly more tolerable. He believed that I could teach him the secrets of the crossbow, a weapon the Rutar do not possess in any form. However, while I do have a general understanding of the design of such devices, I lack the knowledge of metallurgy needed to produce the critical trigger mechanism at the heart of such weapons.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Though I found the warchief rather crude and decidedly boorish in conversation, he was a brave and valorous man well-suited to his duties and well-liked by other Rutar warriors. Shortly after the solstice he left the village and led patrols across the edges of the marshlands in order to suppress a growing problem of serious banditry. Few others of the Rutar living in the village were much interested in serious discussion with me. They were instead busy with various tasks, especially mending, repairing, and crafting. Hunting and fishing continued throughout the winter. The Rutar would carve holes in the ice to fish in frozen lakes and rivers, though this was less efficient than warm water fishing. As ever in Shdustu, the arrival of winter brings a measure of stillness broken primarily by violence. Among the Rutar, who are mostly poor and rely on the bounty of their surroundings for their livelihood, many spent much of the winter sheltering in their homes to evade the cold, shaping tools of stone and bone, producing reed baskets, and conducting wall repair. They avoid excess motion through the marshes, as becoming soaked through demands extra effort to get warm again, potentially wasting the whole day.
The exception to this was religious activity. Varu-Tavur, as a holy site, continually received visits by Rutar on pilgrimage. Every one of their people seeks to visit the great stone island at least once in their life. They receive a blessing there from the shamans who conduct the services and are served a bowl of soup made from the mussels that grow clinging to the submerged portions of the immense rock. The final portion of the pilgrimage requires the seekers to cross the lake under their own power. In summer this is done by swimming, a feat that demands considerable strength and stamina and is believed to convey a blessing of long life. In the winter they are able to simply walk across the ice. This is much less strenuous and is favored by older pilgrims. No shame is attached to making the journey later in life as many Rutar live sufficiently distant that the round trip takes nearly a year given the slow pace of walking through the marshes. Poor families are rarely able to spare a member in their prime years for so long. Weekly services, held by the shamans at several points throughout the village on triangular platforms built for this purpose, were very well attended, and though the rituals were simplified, the faith of these people seems to be very strong. They certainly vocalized accordingly, for the Rutar service replaces a number of normally quiet and somber prayers will loud hymns. When I later spoke to Sairn priests about this, they said that such practices are fully acceptable theologically. It is not as if the Divines will mind the noise. Other humans, however, may, and I suspect the volume has led to the shift to softer prayer in the great cities of the Sanid Empire. Even a few hundred Rutar, singing in unison with the lake to magnify their voices, are very audible. The tens of thousands who can fill the greatest temple yards crying out at once would be deafening.
The choice to hold services in the open was initially curious but easily explained by the simplicity of Rutar architecture. They did not build complex buildings, or use any other materials beyond wood, reeds, and thatch. Even the sacred temple on the island, lacked stone foundations, though it used larger logs than most homes. It was not as if they could not have built otherwise if they wished, even without the knowledge themselves. It was possible to hire masons, they simply chose not to take such a step. This was a demonstration of their acknowledgment of impermanence. In the swamplands, nothing lasts forever. Rivers shift, lakes silt in and become reed beds, and even the shoreline of the salt sea changes dramatically according to long-term cycles of rainfall and drought. Even the island temple, it seems, originated elsewhere and may, in some distant future, find its way to the bottom of the sea. The Divines operate across a length of time such as can barely be imagined.
To the Rutar, all structures are temporary, doomed to be outlived by their builders. Therefore, attempting to produce permanence is simply a waste of effort and a mark of hubris. Very much the opposite of the attitude found in the rest of Shdustu where a structure as simple as the piled stones assembling an ovoo may endure for millennia.
Though the village of Varu-Tavur is not rich, its larger number of inhabitants and proximity to the large lake do present it with certain roles in trade. Among the Rutar themselves this is a notable production center for weapons and armor, as their best artisans and their apprentices usually reside here. The village also treats the hides of serpents and turtles, which require specialized tanning methods, to produce both armor and decorative clothing. Externally, the substantial trade in beaver, otter, and a curious little animal called the water vole that is bred in pens by some Rutar is centered here. The captive-bred water voles are much larger than the wild versions, growing from the size of rats to that of marmots, with thicker fur. These animals breed and grow with great speed and survive easily on water reeds and the occasional tadpole, allowing for multiple harvests per year. Though the fur is inferior to beaver or otter, the Rutar can treat it to appear much the same and sell them as ‘lake otter’ fur to foreign traders. This is an important source of income and a secondary source of meat. I suspect that many of the merchants who trade with the Rutar are wise to this deception, since little effort is made to hide it, with breeders openly demonstrating the differences in furs to me, but that buyers in distant regions pay the price.