5101-Ivinia, The Viking Lands/culture

Language and Script
The northmen speak one or another dialect of the Ivinian language. Ivinians who go abroad also learn foreign tongues; about half of all Ivinians know a second language. Most Yarili speak Ivinian in addition to their own tongue, which is akin to that of the Hârnic Jarin.

The only script used in Ivinia is Runic. Although they claim Runic as their own invention or sometimes as a gift from Sarajin, it actually is derived from Khruni, a script that has been used by the Khuzdul for centuries.

The literacy rate is above 20 percent, mostly due to the simplicity of the script. Runes are generally composed of straight lines. While other scripts may require a pen or brush, ink, and parchment or vellum, Runic needs only a stick and a knife, commodities that are far more common and much cheaper. Runic is very efficient for short messages. While couriers elsewhere carry boxes of scrolls, Ivinians carry bundles of sticks.

The Ivinians have a high regard for their runes, but the limitations of their alphabet, particularly the shortage of vowels, make mastery of its finer points difficult. Those who possess great skill are widely admired. Runes are deemed symbolic of universal mysteries and are fundamental to some schools of magic. The term “runemaster” is applied both to those who can skillfully read and write and to those who make magic with runes. Ordinary Ivinians have difficulty in drawing a distinction.

Runestones dot the Ivinian countryside, some as grave markers or religious shrines while others are simple signposts. Some are very ancient and may have been made by Khuzdul.

Arts and Crafts
The decorative art of the Ivinians displays the same restless vigor as their other endeavors. The basic forms are natural, although stylized, animals, plants, and geometric shapes whose surfaces are often a seething mass of semi-abstract detail.

Ivinian craftsmen are competent in metal, wood, and stone. They are fond of ornament and the wealthy indulge this fondness. In the last few centuries, foreign influence has crept northwards, generating a multitude of amorphous new styles that traditionalists mostly regard as decadent.

Food and Drink
Traditional dishes of cod, halibut, herring, and salmon are washed down with quantities of ale. Seafood is eaten fresh, smoked, salted, or pickled. Although mead and cider are produced in many varieties, wine is expensive, rare, and seldom sought after or appreciated. Whale, served raw or smoked, is a common winter dish. Birds and their eggs grace tables throughout the region. Hunters venture to the far-flung islands for seal, whale, and walrus during the winter whelping season.

Music and Entertainment
The long nights and damp climate of the northern lands encourage people to socialize around the warmth of their hearth fires. Games of chance are popular and frequently accompanied by wagering.

Skalds preserve the history of a clan through epic poems and story-telling songs. These musicians reciting sagas and ballads, often accompanied by music performed on harp, lyre, tambour, drums, and pipes of bone or wood. The long, narrow structure of the clanhouse has led to an energetic style of social dancing performed in interweaving lines.

Appearance
The Ivinian people are of Pharic stock. They tend to be tall and have fair complexions and blue-gray eyes. Their light, straight hair ranges in color from pale blond to rusty auburn. Their high-protein diet has allowed the Ivinians to breed tall, broad-chested children.

Clothing
Ivinian men dress warmly in wool knee-length shirts, baggy trousers, and low leather boots. The lower legs are usually wrapped with leather straps or wide bands of woven wool. They favor long mustaches and beards and often braid and decorate their hair with rings or beads.

Women typically wear ankle-length woolen dresses gathered at the waist with a belt. Married women cover their hair with a scarf to show their marital status. They also wear linen aprons pinned to their dresses with elaborate brooches. The quality of the apron and brooch are signs of the woman’s status and wealth; such items are often passed down from mother to daughter.

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