Jotünera
The Whispering Oak, a druidic holy site which is said to be nourished directly by The 'Worldsoul', a mythic concept shared by many Destrean religions (and interpreted differently by each).
The Boneway, a winding road that runs from Torrhen to the Smoothstone Range. Built by the Jotünera during the Founding Era, it was later expanded upon by settlers, and today is maintained by the towns, villages, and city-states of the Commonwealth.
Demographic Breakdown
Government Type: Theocratic Clan System
Head of State: Druidic Elders
Head of Government: Chiefs
Governing Body: Jotünera Council of Chiefs
Political Factions: Coalition of Clan Chiefdoms
Nation's Capital: Ojaanimizi (The Ever-Still*)
Other Municipalities: Unknown.
Population: Unknown.
Racial Composition: 92% Human, 7% Orcish
Religious & Spiritual Beliefs: The Druidic Circle
Demonym: Jotün is singular for 'person', Jotünera is plural, as in 'people'.
Main Exports: Fish, Venison, Water.
National Sport: Squamish
Official Language: Jotüsche
Motto: N/A
*Editor's note: The city is named in of the more prominent Jotün languages, and in fact translates to 'never sit still'. Its purported name in Common is actually a deliberate antonym. -M.G.
Section Note: Unfortunately, each tribe has forgone writing or other traditional forms of record-keeping, opting instead to recant their histories via oral tradition. As such, the low reliability of Jotunera's history makes profiling them here very difficult. -M.G.
Jotünera Slang, Sayings, and Idioms
"Burning furs" – behaving in a desperate, short-sighted, and/or dangerous manner.
Storytelling
The oral tradition, along with the practise of tapestry-weaving, are their only methods for preserving their tribal histories. Coloured by perspective, distorted by exaggeration, perhaps twisted by omission, much of it is likely unusable in an academic context. Yet, during our research, one of the tribal elders we spoke to noted precisely why the Jotunera maintain such methods. As they see it, history is a living being; time, like matter and arcana, in the Aspecticist sense, are each prone to change. They feel their methodology is meant to illustrate that history is not a fixed, rigid thing, and that no account of it can possibly be wholly factual or void of bias on the part of the author, or the teller. They shun writing because, to them, it feels rhetorical, and inert, as if displacing time & memory into a form unsuited to its true nature.
The Kavisett
The Bleak, the cold northern region along the borders of the Free Destrean Commonwealth that the Jotunera call home, is a brutal place to live. Threats come in all shapes, sizes, and numbers. To combat them, each Jotunera tribe designates a Kavisett, a guardian of incredible power, whose duty is to protect their community with all their might. In times of need, The Kavisett is infused with the collective arcanic power of each member of their tribe via Living Transfer. This same technique was deployed very effectively by the infamous Voltari during their reign as lords of the Irreghan Westerlands. As such, it has been posited that one of the Voltari's mages either learned it from the Jotunera, or was a tribal son, or daughter, themselves.
