Battanian Race – The Deepwood Folk

Original People of the Green Highlands

The Deepwood Folk are the original people of Battania, descended from the forest tribes who inhabited the green highlands, river valleys, and caldera-lakes long before imperial roads cut the land into corridors of control. They are fully human, but shaped over generations by life in dense forest, steep hills, and mist-heavy lowlands. Their culture formed around movement through cover, seasonal migration between upland and lowland camps, and survival in terrain hostile to cavalry and heavy formations.

Physically, the Deepwood Folk tend toward wiry builds built for endurance rather than mass. Their skin tones range from pale to weather-darkened bronze depending on region and exposure, and their hair is often worn long or braided to keep it clear of brush. Scarification, carved wooden tokens, and woven cords marking clan ties are common among traditional families. Clothing favors layered wool, leather, and cloaks dyed in muted greens and browns, practical for concealment and warmth in wet terrain.

Culturally, the Deepwood Folk value kinship, oath to clan rather than crown, and memory carried through oral tradition. Their elders are keepers of lineage, border stories, and old grievances. Land is not owned in the feudal sense but held in trust by kin groups who know the paths, fords, and sheltering groves by heart. The forest is treated as both larder and sanctuary. Cutting too deeply into it without ritual acknowledgment is considered reckless, even dangerous, not out of mysticism alone but because it invites scarcity and exposure.

The Deepwood Folk’s traditional warfare evolved in opposition to imperial and later Vlandic formations. They favor ambush, archery from cover, sudden strikes at supply lines, and withdrawal into terrain where armor and horses are liabilities. Formation fighting on open ground is alien to their instincts. Even when conscripted into larger armies, Deepwood fighters perform best as skirmishers, scouts, and raiders. This is not innate superiority. It is learned adaptation to a landscape that punishes those who move loudly and slowly.

Socially, the Deepwood Folk are not uniformly hostile to outsiders, but they are slow to trust institutions imposed from beyond the forest. Imperial rule, followed by feudal claims, disrupted clan routes, sacred groves, and seasonal pastures. Many Deepwood families were pushed inland or forced to settle near roads they did not choose. The memory of displacement lingers, shaping modern Battanian distrust of toll law and foreign banners. Some clans have integrated into town life and feudal structures. Others maintain semi-autonomous woodland communities that exist in uneasy truce with nearby lords.

In mixed regions, Deepwood Folk often face cultural prejudice. They are stereotyped as unruly, unreliable, or backward by lowland administrators who mistake noncompliance with feudal routine for lawlessness. In truth, their loyalty structures simply do not align with feudal hierarchy. Oaths sworn to clan and kin are treated as binding. Oaths sworn to distant lords are treated as conditional on protection actually being provided.

In play, a Deepwood Folk character begins with cultural familiarity with forest navigation, concealment in natural terrain, and clan-based social networks. They do not start with superior combat ability, but they possess habits of movement and survival shaped by land that resists conquest. Their identity is not about being exotic. It is about being indigenous to a landscape that remembers them, even when banners do not.