Teblor

The Teblor [teh-BLOR]^[1] were an isolated sub-group of the Thelomen Toblakai race who inhabited the Laederon Plateau on the continent of Genabackis.

Physiology

The tribes of the Teblor appeared to have several advantages which were wholly contained to their tribe. Teblor were half again taller than a human^[2] and capable of pacing a galloping warhorse for short distances.^[3] They had four lungs^[4] and healed much more quickly than humans did, to the point where bruises could be seen to visibly fade.^[5] They were also invulnerable to infectious diseases^[6][7] and possessed a limited immunity to magic. Lower level magic did not affect them^[8] and even High magic may have failed or not have its intended effect. This may have been a natural protection as a result of physiology, or possibly due to their consumption of blood-oil, a compound which may have contained the magic-deadening otataral. This consumption of blood-oil may have also been the cause of their rapid healing, but this was not explained as of The Crippled God.

Teblor could also see well in low light conditions.^[9] Their four lungs made them exceptionally buoyant.^[10]

Teblor experienced high rates of birth defects, such as extra fingers and toes, missing palates, and missing eyes.^[11]

Society and culture

Teblor aged much slower in comparison to humans and lived for several centuries. A Teblor youth marked the full transition to adulthood at around eighty years of age.^[12] A Teblor pregnancy took somewhere between one to two years to come to term.^[13] While a Teblor was a child, it was the purpose of every adult to protect them, no matter which tribe claimed them. This was their most solemn vow.^[14] The Night of Blood was an important rite of passage into adulthood.^[15] Women were the ones to decide when a male Teblor child was to become a man through sexual congress. They chose the boy's partner, selecting a man or a woman based on the boy's preference.^[16]

Young male Teblor were trained in the Fighting Dances by their fathers in preparations for the raids, contests, and feuds that would prove their worthiness and earn their names. Young warriors achieved status through scarring, thieving horses, and slaying rivals. Entering an enemy camp unseen to shift their hearthstones was an impressive and singularly insulting accomplishment.^[17] The taking of enemy souls was a foremost aspiration of a warrior, and they kept careful count of how many they acquired.^[18] Warriors kept grisly trophies of their kills, such as skulls, ears, and tongues, and used them to decorate their homes or person.^[19] Such trophies were necessary to ensure that accumulated captured souls walked in honour in their killer's shadow.^[20] Teblor did not engage in public displays of group warcries before battle.^[21]

Teblor leaders in times of conflict were known as Warleaders, whether in open war or more commonly in raids. Those who openly declared someone as their Warleader were bound to follow them.^[22] Such vows were not taken lightly.^[23] Someone who withdrew their approval was said to "break the blade" and could go their own way.^[24]

The Teblor were known for their bloodswords - weapons made of bloodwood which were soaked in blood-oil until the wooden swords were hard enough to break Aren steel.^[25] Teblor sometimes wore armour made of plates cut from the same wood.^[26] In preparation for battle, they brought blood-oil into contact with their lips instantly energising their muscles and filling their minds with lust and rage.^[27] The location of bloodwood groves was kept secret.^[28]

Rape was a common activity during raids of enemy villages with the objective of siring children. Rape victims seemed to be surprisingly willing for this result.^[29] A Teblor warrior could claim a night with the wives and daughters of age of any warrior he slew. To refuse meant death.^[30]

Warriors who knowingly rode to their deaths applied battle-mask paint to their faces. Each tribe had its own unique shades. Battle-masks were most often used by aging warriors who chose to die in glory on one final raid rather than become useless and die at home "with straw on their backs". The painted masks announced that their swords would never again be sheathed.^[31]

Young female Teblor only received a family name upon marriage. When choosing a mate, they unsheathed the Knife of Night.^[32] The act of marriage was completed when a suitor placed an object outside the hut of his intended.^[33] Women who slept with men before marriage could be publicly denounced, shorn from their tribe, and claimed as a slave.^[34]

Songs of the Teblor celebrated the legends of heroes and their weapons, some of who possessed wills of their own. Heroes who betrayed their blades suffered tragic ends.^[35]

They built squat circular and conical homes with stone foundations, rough-hewn cedar walls, and humped, thick-matted roofs overgrown with moss.^[36][37] Pastures were cut in the woods for horses, who were brought into kraals for training.^[38] Teblor dogs the size of ponies were kept in their villages for protection.^[39][40]

The harshest punishment inflicted on those who broke the laws of the tribe was banishment. This was reserved for those who had, with deliberate intent, endangered the survival of the village. These actions could range from carelessness to kin-murder. There was no such thing as imprisonment or execution. Instead, an offender was cast out to more than likely perish of starvation of spirit.^[41] Such acts of betrayal led to the cutting of blood-kin ties.^[42]

Teblor did not pass down weapons or other possessions to their heirs. Instead, they accompanied those who had died so that their ghosts would have them in their afterlife.^[35]

Teblor referred to the humans who lived in the lowlands below them as children. This was partially due to their size as even an adult Forkrul Assail was only the size of a Teblor child.^[43] But it was also because the Teblor considered the human character to be no more mature than a Teblor child who had never grown up. Humans cared only for themselves, living lives consumed by greed and without restraint. Right and wrong was someone else's problem.^[44]

The Teblor referred to flaming meteorites in the night sky as fireswords.^[45]

Teblor wore moccasins.^[46]

The Teblor traded hardwoods to the Saemdhi in return for oils gathered from seals and whales. This oil was used as part of the process of creating Blood-oil.^[47]

Teblor horses

Teblor raised enormous horses who were said to be a smaller cousin of the Jhag horses of the Jhag Odhan.^[48] Teblor horses were not a natural animal, but were a gift of a half-blood Jaghut who had long ago come among the tribes. The Jhag had fused together two beasts--the Jhag horse and the common horse--into one, so the Teblor horse was both predator and prey. Even so, breeding Teblor horses required much skill to prevent them from growing too large to support their own weight, or from being too vicious because they possessed too much of the Jaghut strain. Stallions were especially at risk of carrying too much Jaghut blood.^[49] Bones of venerated steeds held in houses among the clans showed that the breed had grown bigger over time in the Teblor's care.^[49]

The Teblor were accomplished riders. While eschewing saddles, they made use of bridles and stirrups. A Teblor warrior rode directly behind his mount's shoulders allowing it to kick freely in combat. The horse's only armour was usually the sword and arm braces of its rider,^[50] although they were also known to strap boiled leather armour to their mount's chest, neck, and legs.^[51]

Religion

They worshipped the Faces in the Rock, which they considered to be gods. Each face represented one of the six clans, except for 'Siballe the Unfound.^[52] Children born with defects were left by their mothers at sunset in the glade of the gods to perish by exposure. In memory of their lost children, the Teblor erected man-high, wooden blood-posts. These were usually elaborately adorned with feathered and gut-knotted headdresses, entwined in braids, and carved with the names of the sacrificed.^[53]

Before the Faces, the Teblor had worshipped the spirits that ruled the land. These were the bones of rock, flesh of earth, hair and fur of forest and glen, and breath of wind. The spirits fought amongst themselves in unending war. Then the Faces had come, defeated the spirits, and demand obeisance from the Teblor.^[54]

After death, Teblor corpses were stripped of their possessions and placed in a foetal position facing east with their weapon placed near their hands and facing north.^[33] Then a cairn of stone was built atop them and mourners sang Nine Tents of the Dead with their throats in the Tartheno-Toblakai language.^[33][55] It was said the Teblor soul passed through Nine Tents of Death before the soul was freed of all worldly substance, but this appeared to be corruption of their Tartheno ancestors' belief in Nine Skins of Death.^[56]

Teblor shamans rarely worked magic, and always within a state of sleep or trance.^[57]

Clans

The Teblor originally consisted of at least ten clans, of which four remained. Over a thousand years of feuding and murdering kept the clans separated by hatreds that were difficult to set aside.^[58][59]

• Buryd (sometimes spelled Baryd) (extinct)
• Kellyd (extinct)
• Lanyd (extinct)
• Menark (extinct)
• Phalyd
• Rathyd
• Sunyd
• Tryz Roke (extinct)
• Uryd
• Vathyn (extinct)

History

The Teblor were a fallen race. At some point long before the rise of humanity, they built cities on Genabackis, but for unknown reasons their blood became "thin and clouded." Icarium, the half-Jaghut/Toblakai, felt pity for them and gave them Laws of Isolation to purify their blood. The Teblor tore down their cities, and fled the highlands and the threat of the T'lan Imass under the leadership of a Teblor elder. In their new home, he enacted Icarium's laws separating husbands, wives, and children into different tribes named after the sons of his father: Buryd (or Baryd), Gelad, Lanyd, Manyd, Phalyd, Rathyd, Sanyd, and Urad. He also gave them laws to revert to an older, more primitive society based on the raising of horses, hunting, raiding, and fishing. Thousands of years later, the Teblor still lived in their remaining separate tribes, some of which had vanished or became enslaved by nearby humans.^[60]

Their elders were known for revising history to glorify and/or legitimize any actions which were later deemed successful.^[61] One such event being the history of Pahlk Orlong.

The Teblor's history was unknown to themselves, such that they no longer remembered the true name of their race.^[62]

At one time in their history, the Teblor may have kept slaves.^[63]

Notable Teblor

Bairoth Gild Dayliss Delas Fana Delum Thord Elade Tharos Karak Thord Karsa Orlong

Pahlk Orlong Pake Gild Salan Ardal Sathal Synyg Orlong Tonith Agra Valoc

In House of Chains

(Information needed)

In The God is Not Willing

(Information needed)

Notes and references

Races
Founding Races	Forkrul Assail (WateredH → ShrivenH) • K'Chain Che'Malle (K'Chain Nah'ruk) • Jaghut (IcebloodsH • JhagN) • Eres → Imass (T'lan Imass) → [ Barghast • Humans • Moranth ]
Thel Races	Thel Akai (Fenn / Tarthenal / Teblor / Thelomen Toblakai / TrellN)
Tiste Races	Tiste → [ Tiste Andii (Bluerose) • Tiste Liosan • Tiste Edur (Rulhun'tal ven'or) • ShakeH ]
Demons	From Aral Gamelon: Galayn • Kenryll'ah / Kenyll'rah • Korvalahrai    From Kurald Emurlahn: Aptorian • Artorallah • Azalan • Dinal    Others: Khalibaral • Sirinth • Venath
Other Races	Azathanai • Deragoth • Eleint • Great Ravens • Jheck • Stormriders • T'rolbarahl
( ) = Sub-set of parent race    → = Evolved into    H = Human hybrid with parent race    N = Non-human hybrid