Over the last year, between the Mythic Monday blogs, Death Rites Jigsaw piece, and elements from The Floating City; Emberek Tribes ¹⁾coming soon on Kickstarter and more, we’ve sketched out details from dozens of cultures. What use are they? How do they fit into your stories?

Somewhere to visit – most adventurers are wanderers. Each week a new planet – ahem, location. Where are we today? What strange customs do the locals follow, and what kind of trouble will the heroes get into by not observing them? Is today the feast of the God of Silence, and the travellers get no replies to their queries for bed and board? Are men forbidden from speaking to anyone outside their family? Are all the undead in the fields not a plague but a workforce?

Origin stories – every hero needs one. Why become an adventurer – no home, probably no family, no community, no job security. Robbing tombs and killing vermin isn’t high up the desirable career choices of anyone. Is your hero an outcast? Seeking revenge? Desperate?

Is the reason Our Hero left home to do with the customs common at home – assuming home still exists at all. Think of Atalanta, who in at least some versions is left on a mountainside to die as an infant, because her father wanted a boy. We gave you the passengers on the Elkeru river – dead to their homeland, even if they survive the voyage.

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