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Runic Origins of Human Skin Color


kaydet

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Arngals’ Treatise
 A remarkable fact of prehistory is the variety of skin color among humans. Six are apparent, as the following references show.
 


With Yamsur marched the Yellow Army of the east. These were puny humans, incapable of resurrecting themselves naturally. They occupied all the eastern lands, and were mostly destroyed by the floods.
Troll document
 
The Luatha are purple skinned, ranging from pale orchid to livid indigo. These giants live in the far west, about the Palace of Sunset, which they call Iridescent, or Cloak of Aloor, as it was called before Death. In the western tongue it is called Oradoi.
Footnote to Herjan's Saga
 
The followers of the storm gods had never been seen before. They were smaller than most men in stature, but strong and powerfully charismatic. They were the color of pumpkins, or the magic fruit guarded by Hosdrilos on the Isle of Youth, or of terra cotta like Enlosingtar the Brickmaker used; but also each was dirty, the way the air is dirty when the wind blows unceasingly in dusty places, and so every-one looked brown. Those men conquered everyplace which was im-portant, and sent their foes into exile at the edges of the world. Now most people, their descendants, are of this hue, so everyone is a shade of brown, with notable exceptions.
Excerpt from the Brolian creation myth
 
I think the phrase xvartulienaque vorteneik found on the Map of Elkor Zyno, or, more properly, Zartwlenac votenc, means Red. It has been untranslatable until now because it was such a mystery to the folk of prehistory. We have always, until now, translated the phrase as "Invisible Powers" or "Mystery Forces." However, I believe they were incapable of discerning the color red, and were also ignorant of red's mag-ical associations of passion, energy, and cyclical variations.
        Thus the people who lived in Dygoni Land were prob-ably red. The Red Vadeli of a much later time are probably a descendant race. Most of the Red People were eventually absorbed into the hybrid humanity of Fronela and Ralios.
Bonkarls Daw, "The Map of Elkor Zyno"
 
The Artmali were a great empire of the south in the Gods Age who withstood the storm gods. They were all blue of hide, as were their gods. They were a good and proud people. They fell down from their sky with their gods. They were broken underfoot by their foe, H'narsh, and dissipated in the waters. Their nation's heart was the Blue Castle, a mag-nificant city which lies upon the King's Walk to the west of the place where it intersects the Southgrowing Road.
A common story among the slaves of Fonrit
 
The ancient army of the Southeast were all elves and other green men. They had an endless war with the Agimori, which continue today.
        The green men still live but when Cold came many lost their leaves, which turned yellow and fell off. Now only some leaves do that at a time, but the Green Men are mostly called the Yellow Elves now, though some are called Brown and a few are still Green.
The History of Valdaroor (a city in Laskal)

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Holy people may adopt their deities' colorations, whether via cosmetics or via heroquesting. As such, greenish females and bluish (light indigo, actually, i.e. woad) males are to be expected.

According to Kalin Kadiev's depictions in Prince of Sartar, male and female tattoos vary in color.

Originally, the participants in the Downland migration would have been a mix of various skin colors associated with Storm at the time, including red, but mainly orange and brown. Blue may have been in the mix (e.g. in participants with ancestors in the Celestial Palace), or it may have been a later addition. When they encountered the Earth Tribe, those folk would have been dark brown or olive (in all shades you associate with those fruits, including green), except where their husbands would have been from the fire tribe with golden (light brown) skin tones.

Over a few generations, those color mixes would have evened out somewhat - compare the Malkioni of Seshnela with their Brithini neighbors of Arolanit. The Brithini with their selective breeding have maintained their ancestral coloration, the Malkioni (whose ancestresses included blue-skinned Menena) have slowly paled out compared to their neighbors.

Things got more messed up when the blue-skinned Helerings joined the Orlanthi and sort-of disappeared among the clans and admixed either side. But then, the males of the Downland Migration had already started out as elemental mongrels (aka Burtae).

There will be holy lineages with rather pure elemental ancestry in Esrolia, likely including the six great houses of Nochet, but even there outright green skin is more likely to be a product of a birth in the Otherworld than just ancestry. Pure elemental ancestry for Storm doesn't exist. Orlanth himself may have inherited a bluish tone of skin from his maternal grandfather Larnste, as his paternal grandfather Aether may not yet have had a blue association back then (unless the well-aired blue flame - the hottest you can get in the real world with atmospherically vented flames - was his color).

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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