Parrot Tribe League Concept Test

New Shoots: the Parrot Tribe League At the Eastern limit of Creation, the trees grow miles high with trunks hundreds of feet wide. Soil forms in crevices in their bark and branches, to support normal-sized trees and plants. Here the Realm, the Scavenger Lands and the other great nations of the Threshold are almost unknown. Only a few explorers and traders ever reach this far. They find peoples who know nothing of the great struggles that wrack Creation’s heartland. The Parrot Tribes of the far East form a small confederation that protects itself against both Wyld and human incursions. These beastmen look like a fusion of human and bird, with clawed hands on their wing-joints (much like the hawk-people of Metagalapa). The color of their plumage defines their tribe: red, blue, yellow, green and white tribes, with the Rainbow Par- rots of multi-colored plumage as a new caste common to the five older tribes. They have a brand-new legend about their ori- gin, that Arilak the Unseen made their ancestors. The current generation is in the process of forgetting that they invented the legend to unify their tribes. These beastmen live hundreds of miles east of Mahalanka. Their entire domain consists of a single giant brazil-nut tree. They live off fruit and the tree’s nuts. Centuries ago, they fig- ured out how to plant fruit-pits, increasing their food supply. Like their parrot ancestors, they live in hollow trees; unlike their avian ancestors, they can hollow out the trees themselves. In former times, the Parrot Tribes fought each other con- stantly. Shamans deeply indebted to spirits sought sacrifices with greater and more imaginative desperation, and there was wholesale slaughter among the parrots. At least three tribes died out completely. Sometime around RY 650—the Parrots themselves have only a vague idea of the passage of years—A Blue Parrot was born to a Red Parrot father and mother. Blue from Red, as the child was called, grew to be a mighty warrior in service to his tribe—the Red Parrots. Perhaps he was not the first, but he was the first allowed to live. Because of his great deeds, and his forcefulness in asserting his lineage, Blue from Red became a model for others. More children of unexpected color followed, and were allowed to live. Around RY 695, the first Rainbow Parrot appeared, the woman called Peace with Heaven. She set out to end her tribal shamans’ obligations to the spirits, largely by assassinating the shamans. She and her successors forged a new relationship with the spirit world for the Parrot Tribes as a whole. The tribes now worship Gaia as supreme deity, Arilak the Unseen as her child and deputy, and the lesser elemental dragons as emissaries to Creation. In practice, they still deal only with small gods and elementals, but they remind these spirits of their deeply subor- dinate status in Creation, and make them work for any offer- ings they receive. About RY 735, the Parrot Tribes met in council and formed an official confederation. Spirits and small gods blessed the union. Under the terms of the confederacy, children belong to the tribe of their feather color, but also to the sept of their mothers. The children thus form bridges between the various septs and tribes, and improve relationships between the vari- ous branches of the confederation. Rainbow Parrots can claim membership in their mother’s sept and every tribe for which they have the proper hue. In fact, they’ve informally become pan-tribal, and so are seen as neutral arbiters. Formally, each sept within each tribe has its own chief and its own shaman. Each tribe has a paramount chief, and each paramount chief has a number of votes equal to the number of chiefs she leads whenever the confederacy’s main council is called. Not all tribes are created equal, though. The Red, Blue and Yellow Parrots each have more than 40 septs, while the Greens and Whites have about 25 and 20, respectively. The complete confederation has a population of 8,000 or so adults. The Rainbow Parrots, while growing in number, still number less than 100 total. Peace with Heaven died many years ago. To give their confederation a center, the parrot-folk cov- ered the highest branches of their tree in transplanted orchids and flowering vines and declared it the Great Rainbow Tree of Arilak, the visible expression of her unseen presence. Perhaps their reverence roused the small god of the tree to wakefulness; perhaps Arilak heard their prayers. The Great Rainbow Tree, however, is now at once god, temple and territory—not a For- est Walker yet, but give it a few centuries. The Parrots have no Exalted, God-Blooded or indeed any Essence-wielders of their own; little thamaturgy and no sorcery, supernatural martial arts, First Age artifacts or other potent magic. When they need a small miracle, they must dicker with a spirit. Their shamans slowly negotiate new pacts, no longer offering complete submission. Gaining the upper hand on their former masters, however, enhances the Parrots’ new sense of confidence, hope and boundless possibility. The Confederacy is not all sweetness and light. They are highly territorial. Outsiders risk death just coming near the borders of Parrot territory, as these beastmen attack with poi-soned darts. If any intruder survives the attack but is incapaci- tated, the parrot-folk sacrifice him to the Great Rainbow Tree. So far, however, the only outsiders they’ve ever met are other tribes at the fringe of Creation.