The Rirorni are loosely connected nomadic horse clans which inhabit the plains south and east of Alastari. They are herders and raiders. There are a lot of them, and they are usually quarreling among themselves. The Delarquan Federation was founded mainly by assorted Rirorni tribes which lost in one of these quarrels and got kicked north. Every now and then, one war leader will manage to unite several tribes and then go on to become a serious menace to the surrounding nations. The most recent and successful of these Rirorni "Empires" began some seventy years ago when a war leader by the name of Imarach united several clans to take the city of Rithakhar, the major trade center of the Rirorni Plains. It was originally built by the orcs, four or five hundred years ago. Rithakhar is built along one main avenue leading up to the Khan's palace. White and black stone was used to face many of the main buildings and from a distance the city looks like a game board set against the hill. Its main value is as a watering stop for caravans crossing the Rirorni plains, but it also is a source of fine marble, a trade which fell into decline during the Rirorni occupation. Imarach declared himself Khan and with Rithakhar as an administrative capitol, expanded his empire to include most of the plains. His son Ganax Khan made further conquests, taking over much of the northern parts of Old Ratan and the kingdoms to the east of the plains.

Ganax was a shrewd and ruthless ruler. He not only expanded, but consolidated, and his son Zefrax inherited a sizable and powerful kingdom, and had he been content merely to strengthen his position the Empire might have survived his death. However, Zefrax was an impulsive man with an ungovernable temper and a desire to outstrip the conquests of his ancestors. He was also somewhat paranoid and managed to purge or assassinate most of his close relatives. Since the Empire extended so far to the east that supply lines and communications were becoming untenable, and to the west was the large and powerful Empire of Lirith Kai (not to mention the difficult terrain of the Wall of the World) Zefrax turned his attention northward.

Alastari is, without a doubt, the most concentrated repository of magic on Ghea. Zefrax determined to take it and add magical capability to his formidable military resources. (He may have had some idea of taking on Lirith Kai once this was accomplished.)

Zefrax's armies swept north across the Shagornan desert without significant opposition and attacked Alastari. Although the Alastarian resistance was fierce, the Rirorni would probably have won through by sheer force of numbers eventually--however, Sheila Greywand dispatched a small group of Lord Protectors to Rithakhar, where they managed to assassinate Zefrax Khan. Since Zefrax had managed to eliminate all his immediate heirs, the Empire was thrown into chaos. Zefrax's closest living relative, a cousin, Karameikos, was the general in charge of the Alastarian invasion; upon hearing the news of Zefrax's assassination, he immediately ordered a retreat and returned to Rithakhar to try to take the throne. Several other distant relations and generals decided that their claim was equally good, and the Rirorni Empire fell apart into battling fragments.

At present there is no one Rirorni Empire. There are several ex-generals holding on to small pieces of Old Ratan and the unknown kingdoms to the east. The Shagornan desert and the western Rirorni Plains have reverted to many nomadic tribes of humans, dark elves, and catfolk. The area around Rithakhar, which is still bigger than all of Alastari, is under the control of Karameikos at present, but the situation is still volatile.

Several lesser generals stayed in Alastari to try to keep the territory they had taken there, notably in the area around Trocar, but were eventually driven out by the forces of King Samir, along with Mordanti troops sent by Queen Talissen of Mordant.

In the main, the Rirorni are dark-skinned, dark-haired, and dark-eyed, though because they have conquered and absorbed many other peoples over the centuries other coloring is not unheard of. They look very similar to the Delarquans, who are in fact a splinter of the Rirorni race. Dark hair, eyes, skin; more Asiatic-looking than the average Delarquan who's interbred to some extent with effete northerners. Hair straight to wavy; some few may curl but it's rare enough to get a second glance. On all edges of the former empire you get Rirorni tribes with strong intermixtures of whoever the neighbors on that side are, due to the introduction of the children of captives to the tribes, so you could very well have red-haired, blue-eyed Rirorni in some places.

The Rirorni are semi-nomadic, their wealth is measured in herds. There tend to be two types of bands: "family" bands with women, children, and responsible husband and father types in them; and war bands which are mostly composed of wild young men and the occasional wild young woman. The war bands are the ones who do the raiding and fighting and carrying on. Individual war bands have a short shelf life due to deaths and internal ructions; leaders of war bands who survive more than a few years and accumulate enough material goods usually try to acquire wives and horses and start a family band.

Bands are united into clans. Rival bands and clans often have feuds. Theoretically the heads of the clans get together every five years for a council. Each clan and band has spirits which are under the command of their shaman, and acknowledges the existence of other "free" spirits which may work for good or ill, and which the shaman must propitiate. The shaman's power over a spirit is dependent upon the shaman's knowing the spirit's true name. Rirorni magic is generally done by means of long, elaborate chants which bind the spirits to the shaman's will, which is one reason they hired Nai-Shang wizards to do battle magic for them during the invasion of Alastari; native Rirorni spells can take several hours to complete. Shamans are usually called on for blessings and curses, as well as to spy on rival bands via their tame spirits. During the period of empire, a state religion was created; the spirits of the ruling family's clan were elevated to god status. Many of these gods are clan totem animals.

The only gods known by name to the people of Alastari are Mytori Iron Hand, the war god, and Undgari, the god of the dead. In death, shamans become the personal messengers of Undgari in the underworld. The raven is Undgari's symbol; he often appears as a raven. Shamans have raven familiars at times and are granted the ability to change into ravens to carry out their duties in the underworld.

The Rirorni afterlife is conceived as three concentric circles. The outermost circle is the Circle of the Conquered, where the souls of those who died under Rirorni conquest are kept (presuming their own gods were unable to grab them first). The second circle is the Circle of the Ruled, for those born under Rirorni rule, and the innermost circle, where the gods hold court, is the Circle of the Blood, of those of pure Rirorni descent.

The outer circle is a vast plain, where the dead souls form into bands like Rirorni war bands. They may appear more or less as they were in life. Patrols from the inner two circles generally appear more fearsome, riding skeletal horses with flaming manes and tails. A mortal man, walking through the grass on this plain, will hear voices in the rustling of the grass, ghosts of old lives.

Separating the circles are barriers: a fortress wall, great cliffs, raging rivers--it varies. (At one point the way looks open but any spirit attempting to cross was turned into a tree.) The shades in the outermost circle continually battle to overtake the second circle, and vice versa. The why of this is unclear; some think that the shades are trying to take over the inner circles; others think they are trying to escape and return to the halls of their own gods. When wounded in battle, the spirits bleed fire. If killed, they return to "life" on the following day.

When the Lord Protectors left the Rirorni afterworld, it was in the middle of a power struggle: Mytori, formerly the chief god, was being set upon by unnamed lesser gods, and in the afterlife, a spirit in the second circle had caused a huge flap by voluntarily letting a spirit from the outer circle through the barrier. What came of all this unknown at present. The Lord Protectors and the elkarrish which accompanied them did succeed in liberating some of the Alastarian spirits in the Rirorni afterworld and handing them over to Ahringol.

The ancient Rirorni language, Rathiri, is the ancestor of modern Kannish and modern Rirot. Rathiri has the following phonemes:

Vowels: a as in father
e as in egg
i as in it when in the beginning or middle of a word
i as in macaroni when ending a word
o as in horn
u as in hula

Dipthongs: ei as in weight
ai as in aisle

Consonants: b, ch, d, dh (hard th, as in then), g, h, k, l, m, n, r, v, w, y, z, zh. (A Rirorni accent would sound sort of vaguely Germanic...Germanic with a cold in the nose.)

Syllables tend to be consonant-vowel-consonant, vowel-consonant, or consonant-vowel. Consonant blends are unusual. Accents usually fall on the first syllable of a two-syllable word and on the second syllable of a word of three or more syllables.

Modern Rirorni has borrowed many foreign words so many modern Rirorni names may not follow this pattern. Ironically, the word "Rirorni" itself is foreign, being a name given to them by the Andorians.

Encyclopedia Alastaria

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