“Savage” is the name commonly given by Imperial scholars to the many human peoples of Warlderia who developed beyond the rule or influence of the Higher Races. It is a convenient term rather than an accurate one. These peoples share no single ancestry, religion or way of life, and many possess cultures every bit as old and complex as those of the so-called civilised lands. Some inhabit remote forests, mountains or plains where the Higher Races never established lasting dominion. Others encountered Elven or Dwarven expansion and resisted it. Still others adopted elements of foreign knowledge while stubbornly preserving their own gods, laws and traditions.
To Imperial eyes they are united chiefly by what they lack: Imperial government, Imperial religion and the cultural inheritance of the Higher Races. To the peoples themselves, of course, it is the Empires that are peculiar. Among them are nomadic horse peoples, ancient island kingdoms, dragon-worshipping tribes, isolated city-states and societies whose beliefs reach back into the earliest ages of mankind. Some trade peacefully with the great Empires; others raid their borders; a few regard Imperial civilisation with considerably more contempt than it regards them.
The Blood Islers provide perhaps the clearest warning against taking the Imperial term too literally. Their ancestors possessed ships, laws and sophisticated metalworking before the Higher Races reached their shores, resisted attempts to dominate them, fought alongside Kaegor during the Higher Wars—and then refused to join his Empire when the war was won.
Warlderia's “savages” are therefore not the remnants of civilisation. In many cases, they are the remnants of human cultures that existed before Imperial civilisation began.
They worship dragons, demons and a whole range of men and monsters. In the so called civilised lands the old beliefs are still kept even though not condoned by either Empire. Not is all as it seems.
Beyond the Higher Races
For much of recorded history, civilisation in Warlderia has been described through the achievements of the Elves and Dwarves who arrived during the earliest ages. Their kingdoms, cities, writing, magic and craftsmanship profoundly influenced the human societies that subsequently developed beneath their rule. Much of what is now regarded as Imperial civilisation grew from this inheritance.
Yet the Higher Races never reached everywhere, and where they did arrive they were not always welcomed. Beyond their kingdoms survived human peoples who continued to develop according to their own traditions. Some became accomplished sailors, horsemen or metalworkers; others established kingdoms and trading networks of their own. Their societies could be violent, hierarchical and warlike—but no more inherently so than many of the supposedly civilised states that surrounded them. The Higher Races tended to describe such peoples as primitive. Later human scholars inherited much of that judgement.
Old Beliefs in Civilised Lands
Nor is the boundary between the civilised and savage worlds as clear as Imperial maps suggest. Ancient human traditions survived even within lands ruled for centuries by Elves, Dwarves and later the Empire. Remote villages still observe festivals whose origins have been forgotten. Standing stones receive offerings long after the gods to whom they were raised have vanished from memory. Farmers repeat charms learned from their grandparents, families maintain peculiar burial customs and isolated communities continue to tell stories of spirits and ancient powers that Imperial priests dismiss as superstition. Some of these traditions have been absorbed into the worship of the recognised gods; others simply exist alongside it.
The ancient human world was never entirely swept away. Fragments of it remain everywhere.
Civilisation and the Imperial View
The word savage consequently reveals almost as much about the person using it as the people being described. To an educated Imperial citizen, civilisation generally means settled government, written law, recognised temples, towns, roads and participation in the wider political and commercial world of the Empire. A people without these things—or possessing unfamiliar versions of them—can easily be dismissed as barbarous. The peoples given that label naturally see matters differently. A Blood-Isler sea-king does not consider himself uncivilised because he has no Emperor. A nomad does not consider himself poor because he owns no stone house. Nor does a warrior necessarily regard the Imperial citizen who pays taxes to distant rulers as his superior.
There is no single savage culture in Warlderia. The term encompasses peoples separated by thousands of miles, speaking different languages and following entirely different ways of life.
An Older Humanity
What these peoples do provide is a glimpse of humanity beyond the legacy of the Higher Races. Their languages, legends and customs sometimes preserve memories stretching back into periods for which Imperial historians possess few surviving records. Scholars who can overcome their prejudices have consequently discovered that the so-called savage lands contain traditions of enormous historical importance.
Some may even preserve fragments of the forgotten human civilisations that existed before the coming of the Higher Races. And not everything preserved from those ancient times is necessarily something the modern world would wish to rediscover.
