Shacklebroken
Shacklebreak Isles
A vast archipeligo off the Middle and Lower Jadess Coast comprised several large islands and hundreds of smaller habitable islands. These islands tend to be rocky, vocanic, and rainsoaked. Manageable for subsistance agriculture and pastoralism, the native population of these islands had long been in surplus. Ekking out a living on these islands is hard in the best of times because of vocanic cateclysm, the craggy topography, and the sparse availability of easily arable land. Most farmland is marginal and achieved a great effort through fertilization from the sea and irrigation from sophisitcate rain basins. Competition for land, resources, geographic isolation of the islands, have given rise to a turbulently factional, ruthless, and outward adventuring culture known as the Shackleborne. These islands cover several climate zones, from cold, wet and rainy, to humid, hot, and rainy. The islands are named for the treacherous barrier reef, The Shacklebreak, which runs the length of the archipeligo from north to south on its east coast. This has largely insulated it from the depridations of the Jadess Coastal seapowers, allowing it to independantly thrive.
Shackleborne Origins[]
The exact origin of the Shackleborne is uncertain. Legends among these people state that they share a common ancestor with the mainland Celdsi and were transported or "Borne in Shackles" to the Shacklebreak Islands in some distant, forgotten age. There, they were held in bondage to work the vast plantations of their savage, and supernatural masters known as the Ami. The spirit oppressors, the Ami, lost vigilance and grew lazy, allowing the Shackleborne to rise up against them and permenantly expel them from the Shacklebreak Isles. However, these Ami left behind their spiritual power to curse and inhabit the land. The Shackleborne practice an oddly syncretic religion which blends the animistic shamanism centered around the Ami, with a reverence for the War Council of the Aesir, which they seem to have imported from the Nords and laid over the top of their own cosmology. The Ami, being treated as unsummoned spiritual forces that remained neutral in the battle between the Aesir and the Wild Brood. The Shackleborn believe the Ami, which are cosmologically neutral can be appeased and angered and much of their everyday piety is reserved for securing their favor and invoking their vengence. They are believed to exist nowhere outside the Shacklebreak Isles, so the Shackleborne attempt to charm them into inhabiting ships, weapons, and talismans to bear abroad. Seeing the Aesir as kin of the Ami has also allowed the shoreside Shakleborne of the Pettying Kingdoms of the North and the Principalities of the Tremmelings to seem more a part of Jadess society. However, the Shackleborn only seem to revere Woden and those Aesir that attended the War Council at Witten, for they enjoy their patronage in life and death as a warrior. They believe that upon death, they become Ami, and it is the greatest honor to be accepted into the War Council of the Aesir so that they do not fade out of consciousness and become a numinous presence of a typical Ami, but continue to have purpose and bearing in the world.
Many scholars postulate that the Ami who imported "in shackles" the Shackleborne to the Shacklebreak Isles were, in fact, agents of the Horizon Empire. Theories suggest that these islands were inhabited by large scale landholders, who were able to colonize them from the west (no barrier reef in the way). This can be attested to in some records found in the archives of Rosen, but most of the records which would have existed were lost in the Upheavel that followed the collapse of Horizon power on the Jadess Mainland. However, the barrier reef from which the Ises get their name, seems to derive from a wordplay. It is a massive ocean break, but it is also the bane of every slaveship and galley on the Jadess Coast, one wrong wind will maroon, sink, or founder an entire fleet upon it. Many shackles have been broken by Father Ulmo in such a tempest. There probably was some form of Horizon plantation operation being conducted in these Ises, and they certainly would have imported Celdsi slaves. But these Ilses and their peoples are too independent from the Jadess Scholars to know for certain. What is certain is that there is an ancient and vast seaborne slave trade which as flourished in this region of the Jadess for hundreds of years. Ironically, those who were "borne in shackles" are now the preeminent slave traders of the Middle Jadess, because of their ability to navigate the Shacklebreak Reef and monopolize supply.
Shackleborne Society[]
The Shackleborne are divided into dozens of tribes, chiefdoms, petty kingships, and principalities of varying levels of social, economic, and military organization. Surprisingly, the majority of Shackleborne culture tends to live in small fortified villages and hamlets, usually belonging to a local tribe controlled a local lord or chief. The lord controls the settlement from a holdfast with a band of sworn warriors, who have pledge themselves personally to him (similar to a comitatus or a band of housecarls). These are usually drawn from his tribe (often cousins, brothers, sisters, and kin by marriage). The nobility is fluid and is often determined by the strongest, most charismatic, and generous arm. Settlements are usually centered around one economic activity: farming, trading, crafting, shipbuilding, fishing, weaving, herding, horse breeding, mead making, etc. Lords gain power by running protection rackets over weaker surrounding towns, lords, and populations. Therefore a natural pecking order has emerged in many parts of the Shaklebreaks: Chiefs ruling over tribes villages, Chieftains ruling over multiple tribal communities and local lords, Petty Kings ruling over multiple subdued tribes, and in some cases Princes ruling over conquered Petty Kings. These arrangements, while still fluid, have rigidified over the centuries within the Shacklebreaks. While often at war, these Lordlings and Princelings have developed complex traditions to smooth over many issues which might lead to war. The number of contenders for a fallend Kinglets throne are limited through strict social conventions of succession. An elaborate system of hostage-taking and giving, as well as warding of sons, scions, and squires between vassal and feal lord has arisen. This calms many nerves and ensures loyalty and stability. Also a complex system of justice based on exile has been effective in relieving both population pressure and political tension. Also, a strong tradition of expeditioning has developed between second sons and scions of lesser houses, to the same effect, in which the disinhereted venture out with a comitatus in order to increase their prospects for wealth and standing.
This has lead to the development of a highly mobile and intrepid segment of Shackleborne society that the inhabitants of the Jadess Coast have come to know as the Shackleborne Scourge. Restless young sea warriors, pillaging far and wide along the Jadess Coast, Exiled Chieftains leading incursions into settled lands to setup their own Petty Kingdoms. Waves of traders, raiders, and settlers in already settled lands.
The Shackleborne are known for their savagery, ruthlessness, and toughness. They are culturally very bound to the sea. Ship command is the premiere status symbol in their society. They have developed a brutal cult of the warrior which is based around fearlessness in combat. They are seen to have little reverence for the lives of people outside their society, or what their culture holds dear. Horror stories about of slaves taken, villages ransacked, palaces plundered, and sacred places desecrated in the most heinous ways.
Outside of the Shakelbreak Isles, the Shackleborne tend to operate as mercenaries, war bands, raiders, and slave traders.
Shackleborne on the Jadess Coast[]
The Shackeborne have a permenent presence in the Upper and Lower Jadess. In the Upper Jadess, they have captured a large amount of contested, but sparsely settled land between the rival powers of Witten and Lorica-Waerd. There, they set up a hodgepodge of pettying kingdoms and are actually now the majority population within their territory. They have settled down and continue the economic activities resident to the Shacklebreak Ilses from whince they came. However, they are still constantly at war with each other and their neighbors.
The Shackleborne also have established an independent principality in the Tremmelings of the Lower Jadess. These are a league of strongly settled and organized forified coastal villages built over the wreckage of indigninous settlement. However, this Principality is strong on the coast, but is largely dependant and subserviant to the Lumerian Merchants Guild which largely controls trade and economic development in the Tremmelings.
The Shackleborne also are found in the naval and military service of every major power on the coast. They are employed as mercenary bands to disrupt rival shipping, harrass rival ports, and savage local populations.