Skin Shedding
To members of the High Folk, every part of their body remains connected to their soul, even those parts which are shed or cast off. Specifically this means their skin, which naturally sheds once per lunar month, although the precise phase of the moons is dependent on when the individual was originally hatched. Skin shedding is completely painless, but the pro cess takes about a day to complete requiring the shedder to enter a semi-sombulant state. Thus most High Folk sequester themselves within locked chambers during this period of helplessness. When the process completes, the entire milky, translucent skin is eaten and digested so that nothing remains which can used to gain magical power over them.
Mummification and Burial
Disposal of the dead amongst the High Folk is different from that of the Savages. Living at such high altitude grants the air a natural desiccating ability, at least above the edges of the cloud forest. The deceased are transported by funeral palanquin to special mummification sanctums, far above their cities. These mortuary temples are built of colossal obsidian boulders chipped into rough trapezoidal shape, which capture the sun’s heat, speeding the drying process. Soon after arrival the corpse is eviscerated, then packed with dried flower petals, which give off a perfume whilst also drawing moisture from the flesh. This process is repeated seven times over the course of several months, each stage using a different type of increasingly poisonous f lower which kills off any parasites. Once drying is complete, the petals are removed and replaced with bone dry, black volcanic sand, then the body is wrapped with tradi tional linen bandages within which are secreted ritual tal ismans and amulets. The conclusion of the mummification process leaves the corpse impregnated with preservative toxins and highly resistant to damage. It is then transported to its tomb where the dead person is given their proper burial, usually by being sealed into a rock carved mausoleum. Only those of the sorcerer caste are given the privilege and splendour of an individual sepulchre, buried with only their most favoured concubines, servants and guards. Those of lesser s tanding are placed into communal brotherhood necropolises, their level of finery dependent on their rank within the organisation. Since necromancy is well known to the High Folk, tombs are well guarded against grave robbing. Most possess deadly traps, created with a cunning lost to time. Breaking into the tomb of a sorcerer is fraught with great danger, since many of them spend the last years of their life enchanting their final resting places. The sleep of sorcerers is also said to be very light, their souls coming back to protect their bodies from enslavement as undead servitors.
Slavery
With the slow decline of their population numbers and arrogant attitude towards other races, the High Folk have taken to importing slaves to perform the multitudinous tasks of drudgery required to keep their dying cities alive. Since the High Folk lack empathy they show their slaves no particular kindness or consideration. However on the other hand, neither do they deliberately treat slaves cruelly; just with a cold dispassionate logic. To one of the High Folk a slave quite literally is nothing more than a self-aware automaton, its only purpose to labour on their behalf. They are housed, clothed and fed at a good, if basic level, a slave after all must be kept healthy, but beyond that they are treated as beings with absolutely no status. Originally all slaves were Savages, offered as tribute or trade goods, from a tribe’s surplus population and war captives. Some more exotic specimens were unfortunate individuals accidentally drawn through a Smoking Mirror gateway. Of late however, the arrival of humanity to the island, whether from shipwreck or colonisation attempts, has provided a new source of victims who can be sold into slavery. Once given over to the High Folk there is no escaping bondage, the concept of purchasing back slaves or exchanging hostages being unutterably alien to them. The only chance for a human slave is escape, something not easy to achieve as the High Folk warrior brotherhoods treat such events as a great opportunity to go on a hunt and win status by bringing back the slave’s head; especially if the successful tracker penalises themselves by starting the pursuit without armour and weapons.
Religion
The High Folk have long ceased worshipping the gods, treating such ritualised platitudes as the acts of immature children. To one of their race, true power comes from the self, via knowledge of the sciences and the practice of sorcery. The idea of relying upon the capricious nature of an entity from some alternate dimension is an anathema to their egocentric mindsets. Never have the High Folk forgotten, in the centuries since the sinking of the world, that it was the gods who turned upon them. Thus there are no active ceremonies to propitiate deities. However a different form of veneration occurs, a sort of ancestor worship which offers respect to the sorcerer kings and arch-mages of old; those who formed their own schools of magical philosophy, creating the spells the High Folk still use to this day. These were recorded by carving complex ideographic hieroglyphs onto huge panels of solid gold From this reverence has developed a tradition of passing down the knowledge of each school in a supposedly unbroken line from the original founder. They are structured like cults, but only permit membership of the magically capable, i.e. those of the upper caste. At the lowest rank, apprentices learn to tap their inner power via minor cantrips, but as they advance in grade and capability they are taught a gradually expanding repertoire of glyphs which enable them to translate, and more importantly comprehend, sorcery spells. Since many of the glyphs are unique to a particular school and their meanings are closely held secrets, the knowledge of how to cast specific spells, or even what they do, are withheld by the higher ranks. The most potent powers of a school are never revealed save to the sorcerer next in line to be master. This latter custom has been part of the reason why the High Folk have lost so much of their knowledge, since the line of inheritance is vulnerable to misfortune if the master of a school is ‘expired’ prior to the training of their successor. Whilst there is an unspoken truce amongst the heads of each philosophical school of sorcery, no actual restrictions prevent one master removing the head of another, save for an accusation of treason or retaliation from the others. Thus losing the master of a school is a serious matter, reducing the number of spells still available to it. Under such circumstances the substitute master must either attempt to restore the knowledge with long years of research, or seek it somewhere else. A few arch-mages in the past have attempted to locate the well hidden tomb of the school’s founder, and either request the lost meanings of the hieroglyphs from its angered mummy in exchange for a dire service; or try to bind the powerful lich to their will – a foolish act which rarely ever succeeds. An oddity amongst the sorcerers of the High Folk is their belief that sacrificing an animal or mindless monster actually corrupts the Magic drawn from its death, so that spells cast using that power are more likely to turn awry or backfire upon the caster. The only pure form of Magic comes from the ritual sacrifice of sapient victims. Although this has no basis in reality, High Folk society has become so perverse that they now inherently believe it. In the right circumstances, this could be used to trick and overcome an unwitting High Folk caster.
The colonists are intended to be the sole culture on the island with which player characters share a common back ground; whether this be language, species or social traditions. It is a place of supposed freedom towards which they can strive, or a haven to return to after pursuing expeditions into the interior. The colony itself is a tiny foothold on the island. Its inhabitants are restricted to living within the periphery of the ancient ruins of Kapala; a city built long before the cataclysm and a place shunned by the native savages, who treat it with superstitious dread. Once master of a mighty metropolis, the King of Kapala ruled from his bejewelled jaguar throne, built within a palace whose form was that of an immense mandala. Its mystical structure in turn allowed him to see, comprehend and manipulate everything upon the small continent. When the lands sank back beneath the oceans, half of the city and part of Mount Yoormiphazreth, upon which it was built, fell into the waves. All that remains now is a dense jungle-covered jumble of cyclopean stones overlooking a steep precipice leading down to the sea, anchored in place by the roots of enormous trees. The narrow beach at the base of the cliff is one of the few safe harbours for ships, the reefs of the flooded Hina caldera forming a natural breakwater. The craggy slope has since been carved to provide a sinuous, albeit scary, pathway, with the colony forming a walled collection of small buildings built at the summit, where once the city’s central plaza lay.