Warhammer Cultures: Kwitanghur

"Perhaps the most terrible, and at times, the most hilarious fact about my countrymen is their lack of critical thinking. It is well known that during the Crusades, many auxiliaries from the Southlands were recruited, and that their folk — when the fighting was done — often chose to settle in the Empire to establish trading routes. Why then do so many believe those whose skin is coloured like charcoal would be scarce in our so-called 'Old World'? Where, exactly, do they think such folk went?

Truly, if the folk of the Southlands have a talent for invisibility, I would much desire to hear of it. How often would such come in handy, especially in these bleak times?" 

This article is now available in Polish!

Warhammer Cultures: Southlanders (Kwitanga)

The Warhammer World is full of diverse cultures, and their intermingling and antagonism is a core theme of the setting. Over the next while, I’m hoping to expand on the base cultures presented on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4^th Edition, page 24, to include this diversity for your games. Today, we’re going to look at Humans (Kwitanghur), which is the first of three cultures I am writing about that occupy the Southlands!

Note: This article deals with a lot of new and unofficial lore for Warhammer. The Southlands are a tragically under explored region in the setting, so what very little there is to go on had to be expanded with the author's own creative license. As such, take all of this with a pinch of salt. This is my interpretation of the Warhammer world: it doesn't have to match yours.

(Also, lastly, apologies for how long it took to get to this one. I wrote it a while ago, now, but have been consulting with a sensitivity reader on this and the following two articles. I wanted to get them right.)

An Overview of the Southlanders

The Southlands is a continent far to the south of even distant Araby, comprised mostly of dense jungle, but threaded through with vital trade routes and bustling cities. To the outside 'explorer', the Southlands might be considered uninhabited. Such beliefs are, frankly, ridiculous; more the lies of enterprising fops who failed to achieve their goals than anything resembling truth. The Southlanders are evidence of that. Though far from a unified culture — as disjointed as the various Imperial nations — Southlanders in the Empire have a habit of putting aside their differences in favour of cooperation.

Southlanders are loosely divided into three large cultural groups: Sub-Durbaita Southlanders — who hail from the lands around and immediately south of the Gulf of Durbaita, and border the Caliphate of Agade in Araby; Coastal Southlanders — who live in the smaller settlements that dot the coastline of the Great Ocean; and the Kwitanga Southlanders — who control the massive cities of the Southland's interior jungles. These three groupings are massively simplified, and cannot hope to fully capture the differences in culture within them, though even this distinction is lost on the most learned Old Worlders — most of whom refuse to believe anyone at all lives in the Kwitanga... despite many migrants who were born there living in Imperial cities.

Humans (Kwitanga Southlander) / (Kwitanghur)

The Kwitanga Jungle is a dense, heavily overgrown jungle that spans the majority of the Southlands. The weather is almost always harsh, being lashed by monsoons and storms near-year-round, with high humidity and tropical temperatures. The fauna is often dangerous, with aggressive monkeys, tigers, and other large predators stalking the gigantic trees that cast the jungle floor in nearly perpetual twilight. So inhospitable is the Kwitanga that most explorers from the Old World have declared it uninhabitable, and refuse to believe anyone who says otherwise. This is almost certainly to save face, as the Kwitanga is anything but uninhabited.

The Kwitanghur Empire is a vast coalition of massive city-states that occupies the interior of the Kwitanga Jungle, whose name derives from the Empire itself. With a history stretching almost as far back as the Empire of Sigmar, the Kwitanghur have held sway over the majority of the continent's trade and politics through an equal measure of force and cunning — though they fight near constantly with the Southland Lizardfolk, the only other civilisation in the region to rival their power. Much like the Empire of Sigmar, the Kwitanghur Empire is more of a collection of smaller kingdoms held together through mutual benefit, though it faces far less internal strife than its northern opposite. The Kwitanghur accept, above all else, that stability is good for business, and business is booming.

Kwitanghur Economy

The primary trade of the Kwitanghur is gold, as it has been since the Empire of Khemri controlled its vast jungles. Indeed, over 75% of the entire world's mined gold comes from the Kwitanga, and the merchant princes and kings of the Empire know the best ways to leverage this wealth. Under the guidance of their greatest Empress — Maxla mu Mahandhi — the Kwitanga established a system of trade with the outside world where they would sell gold, for a small profit, to non-Kwitanghur exporters (such as the Musaany to their north), who would then shoulder the costs of transporting it to the Old World, and would then be bound to sell it back to Kwitanghur representitives in northern cities. The merchants who repurchased the gold would do so at a higher rate than they originally purchased it, but would then go on to sell it for an even more inflated price. Choosing to not on-sell it to the Kwitanghur representitives would mean that exporter would be locked out of future purchases. In essence, this allowed the Kwitanghur to ensure profit from their gold initially, forgo any damages and risks in the exporting, and then if the gold arrived in foreign ports, to be assured its trade. It is no surprise, then, that the Kwitanghur Empire became obscenely wealthy.

Kwitanghur Religion

The Kwitanghur religion is quite different to nearly all other systems of belief in the Old World or beyond. Rather than worshipping core figures as Gods, the Kwitanghur instead see divinity in the aspects of various animals — Monkey, Tiger, Fish, Vulture, and the like. Each animal spirit represents a part of the whole that makes up all life, and Humans — and other sentient creatures — share a different combination of these aspects. One person, a thoughful but reactionary leader, might be said to share parts of Elephant and Tiger over any other. Another, a tricky individual who is constantly looking for the next big way to succeed, might be said to espouse Monkey and Crow... On death, it is said that one's soul spreads out back to these animistic spirits, ready to be reborn in the next generation. For this reason, one's ancestors — whether blood or spirit — are deeply important to the Kwitanghur.

However, the Kwitanghur, as a trading Empire, and one that was for so long under the thumb of Ancient Khemri, is a mixing pot of religious practices, alongside the indigenous animism above. Several key aspects of Nehekharan belief persist in the Kwianghur psyche, such as the multi-facetted nature of the soul, creating a truly complex relationship with religion and spirituality. This constantly changing religious landscape is made more curious by the fact 'religion' is seen more as a vector for culture, rather than its source. Unlike almost every other culture they interact with, the Kwitanghur view culture quite openly as a means to an end: religion is less based on faith, and more based on how it helps them structure their society; social customs are less important for their meanings, as they are for their results. A perfect example of this is Maxla mu Mahandhi's other great social change: the introduction of the Arabyan religion into the Kwitanghur consciousness. Maxla mu Mahandhi saw how well the monotheistic religion of the Arabyans could assist in social unity among her people, and encouraged its spread in her Empire to great effect. The result was a deep cultural and dogmatic shift, without so much of the spiritual connotations.

Therefore, the Kwitanghur view the world through many lenses: an animistic undertone that colours how the self fits into the natural world; a complex view of how death and rebirth functions within this system, as well as the sanctity of the soul, based on old Nehekharan beliefs; and the Arabyan religion, focused on the veneration of one 'Sun God' — a combination of Solkan and Ptra — which espouses a model for social unity rather than mere faith...

Kwitanghur Stereotypes

The Kwitanghur are often seen as cold and analytical by outsiders, viewed as calculating and terrifyingly pragmatic. Some consider them more stone-like, comparing them to Dwarfs and Elves, more than other Human cultures. However, this is a wild simplification, and doesn't give credit to the true nature of the Kwitanghur: they are merely well accustomed to being pushed around by the vagaries of foreign rulers, and the whims of their home jungles, and have learned how to view life on their own terms.

Most Kwitanghur come to the Empire as merchant princes, purchasing gold from exporters to onsell to their host cultures, and vice versa purchasing spices, furs, and other materials to send home. However, this practice has been ongoing for many centuries, and most large settlements in the Empire, Estalia, and Tilea contain countless generations of Kwitanghur to the point where they have entirely naturalised and become no different from their host cultures. Indeed, the vast majority of 'Kwitanghur' that are found in the Empire are, culturally, entirely Imperial.

Human (Kwitanghur) Skills & Talents

Skills: Bribery, Charm, Cool, Drive, Evaluate, Gamble, Haggle, Intuition, Language (Mxua), Leadership, Lore (Kwitanga Jungle), Trade (Merchant)

Talents: Dealmaker or Numismatics, Segmented Soul, Sharp or Suave, 2 Random Talents

New Skill: Language (Mxua)

Mxua — pronounced mm-SHOO-uh — is a language common to much of the northern Southlands, and southern regions of Araby. The language lacks its own written script, so often utilises the Neheshkh script, or goes unwritten. Mxua appears to share roots with the languages of Lustria, and the Slaan Empire there, which baffles the few linguists who have studied its structure.

New Talent: Segmented Soul

Max: 1

Due to a surviving piece of doctrine from the religion of their old overlords — the Nehekharans — the folk of the Kwitanga jungle hold a deep set belief that their souls are multi-faceted. To the Kwitanghur, the soul exists in multiple pieces, the two greatest of which are the Body and the Mind. Like many such beliefs, it holds a measure of truth — though the reasoning behind this baffles the few theologians aware of the practice. You have a different pool of Corruption Points for Physical and Mental Mutations, and each is mutually exclusive. However, Advances to the Bless or Invoke Talents, or the Pray Skill, cost twice as much XP as normal for you.

(Quick note: After questions on Rat Catchers' Guild, I have the following two points to clarify:

• Both pools of Corruption are determined the same as normal, so each equals TB+WPB. If you get any Talents that increase this amount — such as Pure Soul — it increases both pools.
• It is up to the GM which pool is added to in the instance of a Dark Deal. Usually this will be based on the type of Test being re-rolled: a physical Test (Athletics, Endurance, Melee, etc.) will influence the Physical Corruption pool, and vice versa for a mental Test (Charm, Cool, Lore, etc.)

I hope these help clarify this Talent!)

More Southlanders to Come!

PHEW! That was a big one... By far the most I've written about any culture, thus far, in this series. But that's just Part #1 of the Southlands, with Musaany and Coastal Southlanders yet to come!