The Tree Folk: (3 Bonus Points): Pox: Elemental Ad- aptation: Wood; Unique Affliction: The tree folk are fully ambidextrous, and all have fully prehensile toes. They never suffer an offhand penalty for any task and can hold weapons and tools with their feet as readily as their hands. Very few fully human barbarians live in or near the Eastern tainted lands. The tree folk filled that niche centuries before any normal humans ever had a chance. The tribes that moved into the region after the Great Contagion all turned Wyld long ago. Most tribes just don’t face the same pressure to live on Creation’s rim encountered in other quarters of Creation: more likely, they approach the Wyld unknowingly, and are taken unawares when a Wyld storm or a shift in the Bordermarches taints the land around them. They are descended from refugees who fled deep into the forest 122 in hopes of escaping the Great Contagion, or from the ancient native peoples of the East, who found the Wyld sweeping up and around them. LANDS OF THE TREE FOLK The tree folk live throughout the East, from the most remote portions of Creation, through the tainted lands and well into the Bordermarches. They have adapted so perfectly to life in the treetops that assimilation to the Wyld doesn’t change them very much. The tree folk live a story that isn’t about them: they are just part of the eternal forest, serenely accepting its bounty and its peril. Their songs go in cycles, with no beginning or end, and they see their lives the same way. Most tribes avoid contact with outsiders. The tree folk prefer to avoid opponents when possible and vanish into the forests, leaving behind a variety of deadly traps. When the tree folk cannot avoid battle, they fight to the death with ironwood boomerangs and blowguns; their darts carry exceptionally deadly toxins. Non-Exalted outsiders can gain the trust of the tree folk. Doing so usually requires both an introduction by another outsider who already knows the tribe well, and spending months among the tree folk learning their ways and allowing them to become comfortable. After some years of friendship, outsiders may even be invited to become honorary members of their tribe. OTHER TRIBES The Wyld has changed many barbarian tribes so they look very much like the tree folk, while some tree folk have mutated in ways that make them look more Wyld. In the East, the pox Elemental Adaptation: Wood is quite common, as are mutants with green skin, vines in place of hair, or green fur or leaves covering their body. These so-called forest people are the most common sorts of Wyld mutant found in the far East. Other Eastern Wyld barbarians have simian bodies, with unnaturally long arms and legs, and feet similar to an ape’s, with prehensile toes. Some also have tails like a monkey’s. Although most of these beings are as bright as other humans, a few tribes have sunk somewhere between apes and men… and these barbarians have a taste for raw meat and human blood wholly unlike any wholesome, natural primate. Little is known about any of these creatures outside Creation’s rim, except they are highly aggressive and quite proficient with blowguns, javelins or small bows. These barbarians typically use darts and arrows tipped with deadly herbal poisons, and frequently kill and rob travelers who stray too near their territories. The most notorious half-ape tribe, however, serves the mad Lunar called Raksi, Queen of Fangs: these are actu- ally beastmen, however, rather than mutants.
