Winter Solstice Sacrifice | Commission

llustration for The Lands of Warlderia, the club hobby site of the Warrington Roleplaying Gamers www.warlderia.yolasite.com/ .

“The Hugond are patchwork of differing tribal groups with similar cultural and religious backgrounds. As nomads their society has been based around the horse and their flocks which vary from tribe to tribe. Some Hugond will herd goats while others sheep or cattle, while in the south even reindeer are herded. Each tribe is ruled by a ‘Kayakam’ chief along with a ‘Yasip’ druid-shaman who is the wisest member of the tribe and leads it in matters spiritual including the important rituals of birth and death. The sun rises and the sun sets, the two moons dance across the heavens, and the seasons pass. Since the earliest days, the Hugond Shamans have watched the Eternal Circle of Nature. They know the ways of nature and the mysteries of the land, but they are not its master. Instead, they are servants of nature and tend to the needs of the land and its creatures. They call on her power to lessen the cold of winter and to bring warm winds and weather.
There is a holy cycle which the shamans all follow. Each spring the power of nature is reborn and grows into an eager and daring boy. At the threshold of summer the maiden comes to him and guides him to manhood. In the summer he becomes the Horse Khan and leads the Steppe Hunters till his strength withers in the autumn. At the last breath of the year, death comes and slays him with a single stroke and hangs the corpse from the World Obelisk for seven days, at the end of which he is cut him down and buried so that he is in the embrace of the earth. The mourners come to the grave and water it with their tears till a new boy is born in the spring. The spring Equinox represents the beginning of the cycle and children born on it are blessed. At the Summer Solstice a Hugond virgin surrenders her maidenhood to the youngest of the shamans who acts as the Khan; it is considered a great honour and any child born of the tryst is greatly favoured. At the autumn equinox the young priest surrenders his position and it goes to the ‘oldest’ shaman who is finally sacrificed at the Winter Solstice and buried till the cycle starts a new. ”