Slyke

Fey Blood and Primal Lifestyle. Slyke are relatives of the Elves, and to some could be considered as an Elven sub-race. Their Fey Ancestry manifests as a deep love for nature and a deep connection to the natural beasts and animals of Nafine. The Fey-blooded Slyke are green-skinned humanoids with long brown or auburn hair, four eyes, and rather tall and lithe bodies. They are excellent climbers and can jump from tree to tree as easily as any squirrel or monkey might. Slyke also have slightly different skin colors depending on the region they're from.   Slyke primarily live in a nation that they call Varkono. The capital city, also called Varkono, is a settlement that feels a lot like a Bronze Age Megalopolis. From day to day you will see Slyke men tending to the needs of the Matriarch while the females go out and hunt game, chop trees, mine stone, and most other work. Slyke are incredible archers with nearly infallible aim due to having four eyes. Slyke of both sexes never cut their auburn hair and let it grow out all their lives. However many of them, especially hunters and city guards will braid their hair into short but interesting designs in order to keep their hair out of their faces.   Matriarchal Tribes. There are very few actual Slyke cities, Varkono is really mostly a bunch of warring tribes. A Slyke Matron is a powerful and often overweight woman who often wields druid magic. Much like Meerkats, the Matron of a tribe is the only female allowed to breed, and she gets her choice pick of any unrelated males that come to them. Often she will take a particular unrelated male as her husband and make him her voice- she gives orders to him, and he relays the orders to the clan. Other females can have husbands, but these females are spayed on their wedding day to ensure no offspring are had. Even so, the female is the head of the household with her husband being subservient and often docile. Male Slyke have an inborn desire to submit, but some will attempt to escape this fate by becoming adventurers.   Unrelated males are a hot commodity for any Matriarch to the point that when two tribes meet, the matriarchs will often avoid war by trading one or two males each from their tribes just to get more unrelated males in the fold. However, if this deal doesn’t go through or one finds their new males unsatisfactory, a war will break out and their females and a few elite males will fight to the death until one tribe is left with only their matriarch who the winning tribe renders sterile. The Sterilized female is then kept as a personal handmaiden for the winning matriarch who will often instigate lesbian trysts with the handmaiden to assert dominance.   Primitive Masters of Archery. From a young age, all Slyke are taught to use a longbow. The training is extremely lengthy and difficult, and those that fail are often sacrificed to the Slyke Earth Mother, for a Slyke that cannot learn the way of the arrow is considered an ill omen, a sign that the gods are angry with the tribe. In this way, they try to appease their earth mother and gain her favor for good hunting. Slyke are quite primitive and believe that the refinement of iron and other metals is sacrilegious. Metals to them are the very bones of the earth and using metal is an insult to the Earth Mother.   The only place where metals and magic are generally allowed is in Varkono city where the more advanced Slyke refine copper and sometimes make bronze and where a few magic schools have been established. Slyke born here are usually more pale-green in skin tone and are generally smarter and less superstitious than their wilder counterparts. Most Slyke adventurers will either be from Varkono City, wild roving males, or handmaidens that ran away from their tribes.   Fear of the Arcane. Aside from more natural Druid and Ranger magic, The Slyke fear magic and the arcane. They deeply distrust wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, and other users of magic, believing that magic is un-natural and wrong. They feel that the use of arcane magic is a deep insult to the gods, and that those who wield it must be sacrificed immediately. Any sorcerers born to a Slyke tribe are sacrificed as soon as their magic is discovered unless an outsider can save them, or if someone in the tribe cannot bare to see the sacrifice through.   The Slyke distaste for magic is believed to be because of one particular tribe of them that use magic to beguile and bedevil their enemies before a battle, using dirty tactics to make conquest easy. This tribe once ruled most of the region before the other Slyke mastered archery and learned to band together, forcing the wizards into a progressively smaller territory and basically trapping them within a very small area of land that they call "The Baneful Bog".   Mechanical Abilities. Slyke gain proficiency in the Longbow, and proficiency in your choice of Animal Handling or Nature.

Languages. Sylvan, Common