Wind children culture

[Ironwall]

How do the wind children live there lives what's there culture and religion?

[Sir_Godspeed]

I'm going off memory here, so some of it might be faulty:

Wind Children live on mountaintops or along cliffsides around sacred storm peaks, so there's a good deal of them around dragon pass as well as in the Shan Shan. Probably some other places, but those are the biggies.

Religiously they are Storm Worshippers. Probably moreso than the human Orlanthi, who in comparison have a very syncretized religion. My impression is that they're a lot closer to the primordial storm/air identity than human storm worshippers are. 

I'm not entire certain about the general cultural aspects, but I'm fairly certain they are hunter-gatherers, although they might trade for certain items. 

I'm gonna make an educated guess and say that they are likely magically very powerful, even if they don't build empires or anything like that.

[Leingod]

Perusing their entry in the Glorantha Bestiary, Wind Children live in groups called aeries, clustered around the tops of steep mountain peaks and cliff faces, with individual nuclear families each having their own nest and unmarried adolescents living together in a larger group nest, called the "flight nest." Marriage is monogamous and for life, and children are always born in early spring. Respected members of the aerie, usually above the age of 50, are elected to the conclave, essentially an informal council that takes on a leadership role for the aerie. Members typically serve for life. Of course, Wind Children are described as generally flighty, independent, freedom-loving folk, who often are content to glide for long hours among the clouds by themselves, so I'd guess the conclave has its hands full if it actually tries to run anything.

They primarily live by hunting, taking game animals from the ground, birds from the air, and livestock from farms. They're omnivorous, but they don't like spending time on the ground to gather vegetables and the like, so they mostly stick to meat, which they often eat raw. Clothing is minimal, and they might wear nothing but a harness to carry their tools and weapons. They aren't very materialistic and don't see much value in any object that isn't either of practical use to them or pretty to look at and easily carried around, like shiny baubles and the like. They trade furs, hawk or eagle fledglings, and herbs from the high mountains in exchange for metal weapons or tools, jewelry, and trinkets.

In terms of religion, the Wind Children worship Orlanth as the storm god but ignore his aspects of warfare, agriculture, etc., as that's all irrelevant to them. They also worship local wind spirits, mountain spirits, and others as needed, and they delight in conversing with the winds and have a natural affinity with air elementals.

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, Leingod said:

In terms of religion, the Wind Children worship Orlanth as the storm god but ignore his aspects of warfare, agriculture, etc., as that's all irrelevant to them. They also worship local wind spirits, mountain spirits, and others as needed, and they delight in conversing with the winds and have a natural affinity with air elementals.

I believe Kolating shamans are also common and engage with the spirits of the winds and mountains. 

7 hours ago, Leingod said:

They trade furs, hawk or eagle fledglings, and herbs from the high mountains in exchange for metal weapons or tools, jewelry, and trinkets.

They will also likely hire humans to assist in various tasks that they would shun.  This could include retrieving things/magical objects from woodlands, cities, or underground (which would make them claustrophobic); dealing with trolls, dwarfs, wasp riders, and the like; rescuing captured wind children (from the Lunar menagerie, unscrupulous traders, scorpionmen, etc.); etc.

[Joerg]

While not explicitly Gloranthan, there is a scenario involving wind children in the RQ3 Vikings box which offers a view how Greg Stafford would use them in play.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

While not explicitly Gloranthan, there is a scenario involving wind children in the RQ3 Vikings box which offers a view how Greg Stafford would use them in play.

😳

Is there ... anything Viking/Norse about the Wind Children??!?

 

[Sir_Godspeed]

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Is there ... anything Viking/Norse about the Wind Children??!?

 

The only thing that comes to mind is that several Norse gods could and did shapeshift into birds.

[Ladygolem]

One thing that always bugged me about Wind Children: aren't birds Fire/Sky aligned? Why are so many Storm creatures / people winged and feathered?

[g33k]

39 minutes ago, Ladygolem said:

One thing that always bugged me about Wind Children: aren't birds Fire/Sky aligned? Why are so many Storm creatures / people winged and feathered?

Birds -- by default, barring other influences/effects/claims --  are Fire/Sky.  But there's a fair number of non-default wings-and-feathers sorts, actually...

There are the Earth-sacred geese, down in Esrolia.  There are a species of "storm cattle" with feathered wings (like "pegasi").  Out in Prax, the Three Feathered Rivals include only one (Sun Hawk) that's clearly Solar; one is clearly Storm (Thunderbird) and one isn't really elemental at all (Raven).

And (of course) there are Ducks.

I'm sure there are others!

 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by g33k

[Sir_Godspeed]

(Not so) wild theory: just like humans kinda got absorbed into the different elemental pantheons and are more or less changed for it over the course of the God Time, it's very possible that birds also experienced something similar. 

For Storm in particular, it seems to have a practice of basically adopting or absorbing anything and everything it can get its gusts on. Maybe it's a side effect of being the late-coming element. 2 late 2 create, in time to... uh, convert.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Sir_Godspeed

[Leingod]

14 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

(Not so) wild theory: just like humans kinda got absorbed into the different elemental pantheons and are more or less changed for it over the course of the God Time, it's very possible that birds also experienced something similar. 

For Storm in particular, it seems to have a practice of basically adopting or absorbing anything and everything it can get its gusts on. Maybe it's a side effect of being the late-coming element. 2 late 2 create, in time to... uh, convert.

I would posit that it's at least partly a product of Air's unique position in the progression of the elements; the other elements (except Darkness) each arose out of the element prior, and separated themselves by moving higher. But Air was born of two elements rather than one, and its domain is between them, rather than being above the Sky. Umath was, after all, a being that had no defined place in the cosmos that existed at the time of his birth, and so had to forcefully make his own place in it. Air is the element that breaks the rules, so it makes sense that it would also break rules like "has feathers and flies = Sky Rune."

Also, it's kind of a moot point in the case of the Wind Children anyway since they're the descendants of Air godlings and humans who mated during the Gods Age, when such pairings were both more common and more fruitful. So don't let the feathered wings fool you, they aren't actually any relation to birds.

[EricW]

18 hours ago, Ladygolem said:

One thing that always bugged me about Wind Children: aren't birds Fire/Sky aligned? Why are so many Storm creatures / people winged and feathered?

If they mostly hang out on Orlanthi sacred mountains maybe fire gods are difficult to contact. Seeking help from air spirits was maybe how their ancestors survived the Greater Darkness.

Having said that it’s a bit boring none of them have tried anything new.

[soltakss]

56 minutes ago, EricW said:

Having said that it’s a bit boring none of them have tried anything new.

They are one of the Elder Races. Trying new things isn't what they do, unless a Hero emerges to teach them a different way.

[Jeff]

On 12/5/2021 at 1:05 PM, g33k said:

😳

Is there ... anything Viking/Norse about the Wind Children??!?

 

Not really. They were used in RQ3 Vikings basically because the stats already existed and it seemed a cool idea for Thule. Given that Gloranthan wind children are the descendants of God Time pairing of humans and Air spirits, there is absolutely no reason that they should resemble what was in the Vikings Book except for characteristics.

The Wind Children are far more closely linked to a single element (Air) than any human culture and they retain kinship with various winds and air spirits. Because of their storm connection, they likely have a lot of similarities to mortal Orlanthi culture but in the same way that a Luxite might have similarities to mortal Dara Happan culture. But they live much closer to the Spirit World than any human culture can - which also means that their culture is quite simple at many regards.

[g33k]

4 hours ago, EricW said:

...

Having said that it’s a bit boring none of them have tried anything new.

Recall their very-profound links to Air / Storm.  For all the similar LOOKS, they are not human, and don't have the human propensity to spread into every niche, adapt themselves to every rune...  Fire/Sky - aligned Uz, or Triolini, or Mostali?

Say rather, none of the Wind Children have "tried anything new" that has taken hold, in their culture.

Argan Argar, for example, seems like a Troll who "tried something new" (trade) as does Zorak Zoran (fire); but those are MUCH more numerous races; so if fewer than one in a thousand of the (already rare) wild-eyed dreamers actually bring their dreams to fruition, there will still be a hundred-fold more Uz who do so than Wind Children (and you can count the Uz on one hand).

Edited December 7, 2021 by g33k
rarity

[EricW]

15 minutes ago, g33k said:

Recall their very-profound links to Air / Storm.  For all the similar LOOKS, they are not human, and don't have the human propensity to spread into every niche, adapt themselves to every rune...  Fire/Sky - aligned Uz, or Triolini, or Mostali?

Say rather, none of the Wind Children have "tried anything new" that has taken hold, in their culture.

Argan Argar, for example, seems like a Troll who "tried something new" (trade) as does Zorak Zoran (fire); but those are MUCH more numerous races; so if fewer than one in a thousand of the (already rare) wild-eyed dreamers actually bring their dreams to fruition, there will still be a hundred-fold more Uz who do so than Wind Children (and you can count the Uz on one hand).

I wondered how Wind Children were treated by the EWF? If they stuck to old ways they might have been seen by EWF leaders as rebel sympathisers. If they embraced Draconic Orlanth they might have had contact with Fire / Sky powers - Draconic Orlanth comes close in a sense to being a reconciliation between air and sky, which might have been very appealing to winged Orlanthi. 

I doubt even the EWF would have hunted Wind Children down, but the relationship may have been uneasy in some respects.

[Sir_Godspeed]

37 minutes ago, EricW said:

I wondered how Wind Children were treated by the EWF? If they stuck to old ways they might have been seen by EWF leaders as rebel sympathisers. If they embraced Draconic Orlanth they might have had contact with Fire / Sky powers - Draconic Orlanth comes close in a sense to being a reconciliation between air and sky, which might have been very appealing to winged Orlanthi. 

 

Well, the plausible, albeit somewhat underwhelming answer might just be that the EWF didn't care, and did not have any cause to care. 

[Jeff]

12 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Well, the plausible, albeit somewhat underwhelming answer might just be that the EWF didn't care, and did not have any cause to care. 

And as far as the Wind Children were concerned the EWF was not that much different from previous Dragon Pass human civilisations.

[soltakss]

On 12/7/2021 at 1:32 AM, EricW said:

I wondered how Wind Children were treated by the EWF? If they stuck to old ways they might have been seen by EWF leaders as rebel sympathisers. If they embraced Draconic Orlanth they might have had contact with Fire / Sky powers - Draconic Orlanth comes close in a sense to being a reconciliation between air and sky, which might have been very appealing to winged Orlanthi. 

I think they were treated as Old Way Traditionalists, or rebels.

On 12/7/2021 at 1:32 AM, EricW said:

I doubt even the EWF would have hunted Wind Children down, but the relationship may have been uneasy in some respects.

I seem to remember somewhere saying that they were enemies of things like Wyverns, so maybe that is a memory of the EWF flying creatures hunting them.

Anyway, when you have easy control of Air Elementals and Storm magic, you can disrupt other flying creatures fairly easily.

 

[Joerg]

On 12/7/2021 at 2:32 AM, EricW said:

I wondered how Wind Children were treated by the EWF?

The ones surviving the Greater Darkness lived on the border of the EWF area of influence, and may actually have been fairly friendly to draconic mystics. The ones in the Shan Shan are Korgatsu worshippers.

One thing that the short histories of the EWF gloss over is that for the first eighty years, it was the draconic mystics who were persecuted and killed on sight by the mainstream Orlanthi, maybe not everywhere but in many places. And some may have been sheltered from that persecution by wind children.

[Darius West]

While Wind Children worship Orlanth, they are also listed as worshiping Kolat (the father of winds), and the shamans of Kolat and their fetches are called Seza.  I would be surprised if they don't also worship a hunter deity, but that is likely Yinkin, not Odayla.

Edited October 27, 2022 by Darius West

[Ironwall]

So i had another question regarding wind children that doesn't warrant a separate thread. the Wind children worship Orlanth so do they in any way worship his wife Ernalda. it says in the Bestiary they ignore Orlanth's warrior and leadership aspects, do the wind children ignore Ernalda's earth goddess aspect and worship her as a goddess of childbearing since her goddess of the earth doesn't play into their lifestyle as much as a walking only race would. do they even worship her?

[metcalph]

7 minutes ago, Ironwall said:

So i had another question regarding wind children that doesn't warrant a separate thread. the Wind children worship Orlanth so do they in any way worship his wife Ernalda. 

I doubt it.  They are more likely to worship KeroFin for childbearing.

[jajagappa]

9 hours ago, Ironwall said:

So i had another question regarding wind children that doesn't warrant a separate thread. the Wind children worship Orlanth so do they in any way worship his wife Ernalda. it says in the Bestiary they ignore Orlanth's warrior and leadership aspects, do the wind children ignore Ernalda's earth goddess aspect and worship her as a goddess of childbearing since her goddess of the earth doesn't play into their lifestyle as much as a walking only race would. do they even worship her?

I doubt it too.  They aren't agricultural, and aren't tied to the earth in any meaningful way.  

As the Bestiary notes: "They are primarily shamanic, worshipping their local wind spirits, mountain spirits, and others as needed."

Likely they look to Kero Fin as the primary mountain mother (and particularly as Orlanth's mother) to fill this childbearing role.

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I doubt it too.  They aren't agricultural, and aren't tied to the earth in any meaningful way.  

As the Bestiary notes: "They are primarily shamanic, worshipping their local wind spirits, mountain spirits, and others as needed."

Likely they look to Kero Fin as the primary mountain mother (and particularly as Orlanth's mother) to fill this childbearing role.

The Wind Children are the descendants of Air spirits and mortals who mated in the Gods Age. They are able to deal with Air spirits as kin and are far more attuned to the Air Rune than humans. They might even understand and label the Air Gods differently than earth-bound humans do, as their proximity to them gives them a more Air-oriented perspective - like looking at clouds and weather systems primarily from the point of view of a pilot rather than a farmer.