alignments and way of life

Characters have to come from peoples, and those peoples have ways of life. Where is home for your people, and how do they see themselves?

• The boats or carts you travel from place to place, plying your trades and peddling your wares. Alignment: civil.
• Grand cities rising from the plain or shore. Alignment: civil.
• Ancient holds cut into the deep earth. Alignment: goodwright.
• Rough warrens in the clefts of hillsides. Alignment: goodwright.
• Sound houses of timber or stone. Alignment: civil.
• Beneath the open sky. Alignment: free.
• Under canopy of thick woods. Alignment: moonfolk.

Alignment describes how a people sees themselves and how they divide up the rest of the world. Some see themselves as worldly and do not share the alignment of their folk. Even those who share an alignment do not necessarily like each other or agree about where one another fit into the order of things.

Civil

A civilized fellow knows that without the nameless gods of heaven to teach mortals the arts of civilization, we would be naked heathens all. Elders who still name the gods of the earth may know no better, but the barbarian who call on demons from behind the sky and beneath the sea. A heaven-fearing fellow knows a 'worldly' one for what they really are: a scoffer not to be trusted.

Civil folk all see the peoples of cities and houses as civil (though they may war with one another just the same), woods-dwellers as elders and nomads under the open sky as barbarians. However, they differ on a few points:

• Boat and cart-folk have a dread of the barbarians of the deep earth but call the herders and traders of the hillsides elders.
• City people consider the half-settled lives of boats and carts or hillsides to be fit only for scoffers, but consider deep earth-delvers old-fashioned elders.
• Dwellers in stout houses see travelers by boat and cart and miners in deep earth both as elders, and raiders from the hillsides as barbarians.

Free

Freedom is especially treasured by those who live under the open sky, viewing the labors of settled peoples as a kind of thralldom. They honor their beloved dead and all the spirits of the air and earth that touch their lives, chanting their names and deeds for later generations. The 'worldly' fellow who scorns these gods is a lonesome one, a tiny fellow adrift without ancestor to guide their feet or shelter them from the cruel winds.

Those of cities, the deep earth and houses are seen as thralls, while those who range in boats and carts, from the hillsides, or in the deep woods are seen as half-thralls. A free neck does not bend to the yoke of a thrall, and a warrior certainly does not fear one.

Goodwright

Goodwrights have learned the secrets of craft from the earth itself. They celebrate the good earth with the work of skilled hands. Though a goodwright will take spoil from war, they detest nothing as much as a thief. And what is a 'worldly' creature who pays no mind to their mother earth but a thief of her gifts?

All outsiders are seen with a measure of suspicion, but wrights of the deep earth and of the hillsides revile one another as thieves nearly without exception. Hillside wrights will treat with most other outsiders, but those of the deep earth consider the folk of boats and carts or the woods as thieves as bad as hated hill-wrights.

Moonfolk

The day is for the sun, the night for the stars, but the moon wanders through day and night in its turnings. Moonfolk chase the balance of the moon, honoring the earth in all its seasons. Moonfolk cultivate the woods around them with a gardener's care and live from the game and fruits thereof.

The enemies of the moonfolk are the nightfolk who harry them from the deep earth and open sky, while city and house dwellers are dayfolk and useful allies against the nightfolk when they can be roused to it. Those of boats and carts or hillsides or 'worldly' folks who think themselves wiser than everyone are smallfolk and not worth serious consideration.

Worldly

The worldly are not many, and they are called lonesome, scoffer, smallfolk, thief or worse where they go. Nevertheless, a worldly fellow hates to suffer fools and sees no reason to give up the better parts of life to distant gods. They can't abide the small-mindedness of boat and cart travelers, the cruelty and hypocrisy of the cities, the incurious provincialism of the deep earth, the baseless boasting of hillside folk, the credulous superstition of house holders and open sky nomads both or the sanctimonious mysticism of the woods.