Friday, September 10, 2021

The First Folk of the Wilderness


This is a follow-up to this post.

The First Folk were the earliest inhabitants of the Western Lands, that is certain. Their tradition holds that all people emerged from the navel of the Earth, somewhere in the far west, but that they, the Children of the Dawn, were specially loved by the gods who taught them their secrets, which the first Folks used to found the earliest civilizations in the world in the Eastern Lands.

Some human scriptures teach that the First Folk are the hybrid children of rebellious greater spirits, sometimes falsely called gods, and humans. They cite the Great Flood as the True God's punishment for the iniquities of the First Folk and their parents. This religious condemnation did not stop human tribes from studying under the First Folk and learning their craft and science. Of course, these humans, too, committed the same sins in the eyes of God, perhaps, for was not their island home destroyed in a cataclysm for their wickedness?

After the Flood, the surviving First Folk lords and their people returned to the shores of the Western Lands. There they found members of their own race, fallen in their own reckoning, living primitively in the endless forests. They sometimes met these kinsfolk in peace, sometimes in violence. They raised new cities, though perhaps not as glorious as those in the East. The barrows and ruins of these people are still found, though in the end a strange fall overcame them, so that they were only a shadow by the time the first humans came West. 

These human tribes sometimes warred with the surviving First Folk from the East, but over time became beloved of the the First Folk of the woodlands. Later human tribes would not be so receptive to the First Folk ways.

The Folk of Forests have receded ever further as human civilization has encroached upon the dark wood beyond the mountains. It is wise for travelers to abide by their rules and attempt to placate them, however, as they have be known to punish those who do not respect their ways.

The First Folk of the east were taller (perhaps as tall as 8 feet, with some of the ruling class of the great kingdoms of the East even taller) and in general, considered more beautiful than humans. Their lifespans were exceedingly long--before the Deluge they were immortal--and their physical capabilities exceeded those of man. Their eyes and sometimes their faces, were said to have a subtle radiance about them, perhaps a suggestion of their Celestial heritage. The Folk of the Forest are not as tall, and often more angular, but still strangely beautiful, possessed of a glamor, it is said.

4 comments:

The_Myth said...

A mix of Elf, Sidhe, and Nephilim.

Cool.

Zanazaz said...

I'm glad to see people are still blogging! After a ten year hiatus I am back at it and enjoying it
!

Jack Tremain said...

"imagining the equivalent for the american frontier to what tolkien did with medieval europe"

I am working in something that is pretty much this concept (though of course we might have very different visions about it, Im not even american) and I hope you dont mind If I use your words to explain it, it seemed to me a very clever way to describe it.

Do you think that colonization is intrinsecal to the setting? Without it, it is difficult to explain how one part of the world is highly civilized while other is more connected to nature, without them having merged naturally.

I think that a good answer is using very harsh lands that are hard to "civilize", but that trained or native peoples can adapt to, if they spend enough time understanding it and devoting their lives to it, or, as in the case of your post entry, making them superior physically to the common humans.

Trey said...

I think something that could be reasonably called "colonization" or at least "conquest" is a part of the setting, but I think it's more of a pre-modern version of those. There is either no (or much less) of an attempt to assimilate or obliterate the native cultures of the less technologically advanced folks involved.