The Children of Volung are one of my favorite races to be found in The Known World. My most favorite are the Soulless and Rankethlek because I have a lot of affection for them. As one of my favorite things, I pour a lot of love and affection into the amount of background I have on them. A lot of it languors in my brain, rather than on paper somewhere, but still.
I like the Children of Volung because they are so straightforward. They are by no means the cliched noble savage or unthinking brute. They just know their strengths. They know they are strong and deadly and if bloodletting is a more cost efficient solution to a problem, they go apeshit and get it done. Something about that mentality really appeals to me, it conveys intelligence but a willingness to get one's hands dirty I guess. I dunno. I fucking like these guys.
Back when I was writing the Norse Story, I created this berserk with two axes by the name of Volung. It was a fun little story set after Ragnarok had occurred with all the main characters based on DnD characters from previous campaigns. I had a lot of fun with it. Eric's old shapeshifter druid was reimagined as a son of Fenris and a skinwalker. Jeremy's old philosopher archer character Laramil was reimagined as a Svartalf blind bowman and Dan's old dwarf was reimagined as Maggot, a Dvergar born from the corpse of Ymir. Anyway, I created my own character, Volung and called Shawn's Gherret. Volung was a mad thing of only rage and hate that could barely be controlled by Gherret and they had sort of a death pact thing going. That whole thing was kind of about how Shawn and I are brothers and when I get a little goofy I rely heavily on Shawn to point it out and put a boot to my ass, with varying degrees of effectiveness. Heh. So basically the Norse Story was about me and my buddies, when the Norse Story turned into the North of Hekinoe I only kept a few things, mainly Volung, and Volung is kind of my PC, so his people are one of my favorite races in Hekinoe. So much is tied up into that story that I have a really strong affection for the end product of it.
Part of why I like them so much is because of the hardships they've faced journeying south from their homeland. They sailed from the north pole of the world basically to the southern hemisphere. Long trip. They fled a land that was literally on fire and sailed through a sea of ice till starvation and the elements weakened them unto death. Which was where they decided that they would never be wasteful in life if they survived their trials. It was a rough boat ride till they hit the northern shore of The Known World.
The Children of Volung are unwilling to let anything they possess go to waste. On the journey south across Hekinoe they learned extreme hardships and responded in kind. They learned to eat the dead, they learned nothing could ever be wasted. By the time they reached the northern edge of The Known World, they had ships with whole sails cut from the hides of their dead companions. They had larders full of salted and cured chunks of their brothers and sisters and rigging made of bone and sinew. Some of these practices relaxed when they reached a land that could actually support life, but they are still an unwasteful society to this day. They don't bury their dead, because they need room to expand. They don't waste metals and forge time on ornamentation because they are constantly building weapons and stockpiling resources. Etc, etc, etc.
I dunno, they are a really weird race, but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for them I guess.
No comments:
Post a Comment