Tsol'aa
| The Tsol'aa people. | |
|---|---|
 A tsol'aa monk. | |
| Population | approx. 500 |
| Distribution | All across Sapience, particularly the forests; largest community in Duiran. |
| Strengths | Affinity for the forests, able survivalists, graceful. |
| Weaknesses | Tendency toward isolation, lower fertility rates. |
| Nimble, nature-attuned caretakers of the wild. | |
Graceful and willowy, the forest-dwelling Tsol'aa are a patient, quiet people, generally inclined to avoid the hustle and conflict which often permeates the world of Aetolia. In recent history, however, the peaceful, reclusive race has found itself playing a more direct role, forced to abandon their racial home in the Aalen forest to flee a deadly, toxic sludge dropped by the brutal Dreikathi invaders. Evacuated by a band of Duiran citizens, many refugees have become integrated into a new forest, calling it home, while others have taken the chance to venture into the world at large, joining the handful already living in the various cities of the realm. Physically, the race is lithe and slender, with angular, delicate features; indeed, the Tsol'aa are famed for their grace and beauty almost as much as they are known for their affinity for nature.
Though the majority of Tsol'aa live a peaceful, isolationist existence in the remote forests, a handful have emerged to interact with the other races. In general, the Tsol'aa are bewildered by the hastiness of humans, but seek to understand why humanity has managed to attain such dominance. Physically, they are lithe beings of approximately human height.
Racial Skills
Upon reaching certain levels, this race gains the following skills.
| Level | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Forage |
|
| 25 | Improved Harvesting |
|
| 50 | Hide |
|
| 75 | Forest Regeneration |
|
| 100 | Forestwalk |
|
The Origins of the Tsol'aa
As sung by Ta'hena, the sage:
There was a time when all the world was mysterious to the eyes of ignorant mortals, and trees were companions in their silence. The Celestine had gifted us with sentience, yet still did we live like beasts from the kindnesses of the forests. They brought food when our bellies ached, shelter when the demons of thunder roiled, and water when our throats were parched.
In this time of safety and contentment, there was one mortal more ambitious than the rest. She was named Losi'al, meaning gaze of the moon. She spoke to the forest thusly: "I am wracked with guilt, my friends! Kindly have you provided for me all my life, yet I can give nothing in return! I take from you, and take again, with nothing but my gratitude to offer. I am a wretch, O Great Provider, unfit to walk your ground. What can I do?"
The Canopy listened and thought. Losi'al waited, but then as now, mortal patience was not as long as that of the forest. While she waited, she married and bore a son. Eventually her life came to a clumsy end. Losi'al died believing the forests had not heard her plea at all. But when her son (called Sironn, meaning wide smile) came of age, the forest spoke to him, saying: "What is a song? We do not know what it is to sing."
And Sironn, little more than a boy, hastily explained the mortal concept of music and composition. "Though not as beautiful as dawn through your leaves," he said earnestly, "we yet make sounds pleasing to our ears. Can you not hear us?"
Again, the Canopy pondered. The young man grew, took a wife, and raised five children. All the while he sang and played upon a thousand crude instruments. For fifty years, it seemed the leaves crowded closer in audience and the ferns trembled in anticipation. Sironn's bones grew brittle and mind crisp with age, his fingers shaking upon his pipes, yet never did he lose hope. Finally the Canopy answered: "If you wish it, you may become our song."
Sironn did not know the meaning of this offer, and was loathe to ask for a clarification he would not live to hear. After a brief discussion, he and his family agreed. Together, they asked that the Great Provider make them its song, as well as the departed Losi'al. The Canopy, in rare excitement, accepted their offer only five years later.
"The green tongue we give to you," said the wood. "You are the Tsol'aa, the Song of the Canopy. Sing to us of your life that is so fleeting, and we will care for you as we ever have."
And so it remains.
The History of the Tsol'aa
Always mysterious and other in the eyes of the larger populations that surrounded them, the Tsol'aa won their survival in the early Epochs through a mixture of guerrilla warfare, trapmaking, harvesting, and stealth. Though in the younger times of the world they may have inhabited the nearby Vashnars, Dun Valley, and the Itzatl, the wars that hotly contested these regions forced them to retreat and make their home in the Aalen instead. It is believed that their clever means of hunting, trapping, and survival influenced the formation of the Sentinels.
Due to their self-imposed isolation from other cultures, races, and dominions, the Tsol'aa language has, until very recently, remained relatively pure in comparison to the other languages of the southeast, with elements of its vocabulary suggesting a strong influence from Fae. Following the destruction of the Aalen by the Aalen Bloom, the great majority of the Tsol'aa - thousands, by a conservative estimate - took sick and were destroyed along with their ancestral homeland.
The Tsol'aa diaspora that remains is scattered across Sapience, mainly concentrated in Duiran or throughout the world's surviving forests. Although some preserve their heritage and culture, assimilation has inevitably begun to occur for the generations born after the near-extinction of their race.