# THE EDEMA RUH: COMPLETE LORE DOCUMENT
## I. IDENTITY & ORIGINS
People: The Edema Ruh
Nature: Nomadic performers, storytellers, musicians, actors
Territory: The roads and byways of all Four Corners
The Edema Ruh are a wandering people whose home is the road and whose inheritance is story. They travel in wagon-troupes, performing songs, plays, and tales in towns, cities, and manor houses. They are loved for their art and distrusted for their rootlessness, inhabiting the uneasy space between fame and persecution. Their stories preserve older, rougher versions of history that written chronicles often smooth away.
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## II. SOCIAL STRUCTURE
### A. The Troupe
The basic Ruh unit is the troupe:
- Wagon-Family: A troupe is a traveling family—blood and adopted both.
- Troupe Leader: An elder or most capable adult who chooses routes, negotiates performances, and settles disputes.
- Roles:
- Players (actors)
- Musicians
- Storytellers
- Stagehands and wagon-drivers
- Children learning all trades
Troupes differ greatly in size and specialty: some excel at plays, others at music, others at bawdy farce or refined courtly entertainment.
### B. The One Family
Edema Ruh identify as one great family spread across many troupes:
- Ruh from different troupes treat each other as cousins or siblings.
- An Edema Ruh in trouble can expect help from any other Ruh, even strangers.
- Old rivalries exist between certain troupes, but these rarely override the deeper sense of shared identity.
This concept of the One Family is both emotional truth and practical survival strategy: a lone Ruh is never truly alone if they can find a campfire bearing familiar colors.
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## III. CUSTOMS & DAILY LIFE
### A. The Road & Camps
Ruh live from road to road:
- Seasonal Circuits: Many troupes follow roughly the same seasonal loop (certain towns in spring, certain cities in winter).
- Camps:
- Set outside town walls or in common fields.
- Painted wagons form a rough circle around central fire.
- Laundry lines, makeshift stages, practice spaces fill the middle.
Evenings are for rehearsal, music, and sometimes storytelling just for themselves. Children grow up surrounded by performance and constant change.
### B. Performances
A typical performance might involve:
- Music: Lutes, fiddles, pipes, drums; complex harmonies, choreographed sequences.
- Stories: Old epics, new tales, moral plays, comedies, tragedies.
- Plays: Fully staged performances with costumes and masks—some very old scripts, others newly written to satirize local politics.
- Audience: Farmers, city folk, minor nobles, or even high lords, depending on patronage.
Ruh pride themselves on knowing their crowd: their art is tailored to the mood, culture, and tolerance of the place they perform.
### C. The Fire & Storytelling
Within the troupe, nights around the fire are sacred:
- Elders teach children songs and tales, including those never performed for outsiders.
- Stories of Lanre, the Creation War, the Chandrian, and the Ruach/Aedem Ruach are passed down orally.
- Some tales contradict official histories or church doctrine; these are rarely told where outsiders can hear.
The fire is both school and shrine: it is where the Ruh remember who they are.
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## IV. BELIEFS, ETHICS & TABOOS
### A. Honor & Hospitality
Contrary to common prejudice, Ruh ethics are strict:
- Hospitality:
- Guests at a Ruh fire are treated generously.
- Sharing food and story creates obligations on both sides.
- Protection of Children:
- Children of any people are to be shielded from cruelty or exploitation.
- A troupe that harms its own young is considered cursed.
- Keeping the Story True:
- While plays can be embellished, certain core tales (especially about Lanre and the Chandrian) must not be altered beyond recognition.
A Ruh who betrays children, abandons comrades, or egregiously twists foundational tales can be cast out—an almost unthinkable punishment.
### B. The Wine & Water Custom
A classic Ruh gesture:
- Offering only water marks a stranger as not-family, to be treated politely but warily.
- Offering both wine and water subtly indicates suspicion that the guest might be Ruh; the guest’s choice can signal recognition.
- Among Ruh, this ritual becomes a wordless way to re-establish kinship after long separation.
Used carefully, this custom lets Ruh identify one another in hostile places without revealing themselves to outsiders.
### C. Attitude Toward Law & Property
Ruh exist outside most fixed legal systems:
- They respect hospitality and agreement more than written law.
- Theft within the troupe is deeply shameful; theft from outsiders is not uniform—some troupes forbid it, others allow “small justice” against those who cheat them.
- Property is more fluid: wagons and instruments are communal or family-owned; the road belongs to no one.
This flexible attitude fuels the stereotype of “Ruh as thieves,” even though many troupes are more honorable than the towns that revile them.
## V. REPUTATION & RELATIONSHIPS
### A. How the World Sees Them
Common stereotypes:
- Romantic: Enchanted entertainers, mysterious lovers, bearers of exotic stories.
- Sinful: Corrupters of youth, tempters, heretics.
- Criminal: Thieves, kidnappers, spies for foreign powers.
- Unclean: Bring disease, disorder, bad luck.
Even grateful audiences can quickly turn suspicious if a theft or misfortune occurs while a troupe is in town.
### B. The Church & Authorities
- Tehlin clergy often denounce the Ruh as morally suspect, especially for bawdy plays or heterodox stories.
- Town guards are quick to blame a troupe for unexplained crimes.
- Some lords ban Ruh entirely from their lands; others grant them safe conduct in exchange for exclusive performances.
Ruh have long memories for places that treated them kindly—or betrayed them.
### C. Relations with Other Factions
- University / Arcanum:
- Mutual suspicion: Ruh oral histories vs. University written doctrine.
- Some Ruh quietly trade information or rare texts on the side.
- Maer’s Court / Nobility:
- Troupes covet patronage from rich courts but must navigate court politics carefully.
- A noble’s favor can save a troupe—or destroy it if scandal erupts.
- Tarbean Underground:
- Troupes may hire local urchins for odd jobs; some street kids dream of joining the Ruh.
- Criminal elements might try to infiltrate troupes or frame them.
- Ademre:
- The ancient Ruach/Aedem Ruach connection is a matter of speculation and deep lore; if true, the Adem and Ruh are branches of the same ancient people, transformed by war and exile.
## VI. DEEP LORE & ANCIENT CONNECTIONS
### A. Ruach / Aedem Ruach Theory
Some songs and tales suggest:
- There was once a people called Ruach (or Aedem Ruach), whose art and speech had power.
- They may have used story, song, and name-touched performance as a kind of magic.
- After great wars or catastrophes, this people split:
- One branch hardened into the Adem, turning their discipline toward silent motion and the sword.
- Another became the Edema Ruh, preserving the older path of wandering art and story.
Neither side fully remembers this shared origin; both carry fragments in poems, customs, and taboos.
### B. Ruh & the Chandrian
Ruh songs about Lanre and the Seven often conflict with church-approved versions:
- Their verses hold details about signs, names, and motives that formal histories omit.
- Some troupes believe speaking such tales too plainly calls danger down upon them.
- Others insist that forgetting is what gives the Chandrian their strength.
This makes the Ruh potentially vital allies—or targets—for anyone hunting or evading the Chandrian.
## VII. ECONOMY & SURVIVAL
### A. Income Sources
Ruh survive by:
- Paid performances in towns and cities.
- Private shows for nobles and wealthy merchants.
- Teaching music and acting to local youths.
- Selling crafted items (masks, costumes, instruments).
- Rarely, discreet smuggling or information brokering when desperate.
Their prosperity swings wildly: a generous patron can sustain a troupe for months; a single hostile town can ruin them.
### B. Patronage
Being under the protection of a powerful patron:
- Grants safer passage and better-paying gigs.
- Can entangle the troupe in political schemes (spying, propaganda plays).
- Might force them to avoid playing for rival nobles.
Losing a patron—through scandal, death, or politics—can be catastrophic.
## VIII. INTERNAL CONFLICTS & STORY HOOKS
### A. Tradition vs. Adaptation
Younger Ruh may want to:
- Modernize plays to fit urban tastes.
- Incorporate University-style knowledge or new art forms.
- Soften “dangerous” old stories to avoid church wrath.
Elders push back, fearing that changing the stories too much means losing their identity and their oldest truths.
### B. Honor vs. Survival
Hard choices:
- Accepting a performance for a cruel lord whose coin they need.
- Deciding whether to shelter someone hunted by the Church or local law.
- Choosing between risking the troupe to keep a promise or breaking their code to stay alive.
### C. The Curse of the Road
Some troupes have lost too many members to disease, violence, or winter. They whisper about a curse, a story that went wrong, or an old oath broken. Whether the curse is real or a psychological weight, it shapes their choices and fears.