Mhun

The Mhun people.

Details
Population centres	Approx. 1500
Distribution	Moghedu, and sparsely across the rest of Sapience.
Strengths	Crafty, resourceful, good at craftsmanship.
Weaknesses	Fragile, perpetually oppressed, loyalty to those outside their race often questioned.
Slender, underground humanoids who hail from the underground city of Moghedu.

The Mhun are a race of underground dwellers who are distant cousins of humanity. Roughly of human size, they are a bit weaker, but more agile. Moghedu, their ancestral home, is southwest of the great Mhojave desert. Their harsh living environment has forced them to be survivors and though they command perhaps less respect than the other races, they are wily, clever opponents. Mhun rarely hold leadership positions, as their first loyalty is generally to their race, rather than to their guild or city.

Base statistics for this race's starting Statpack:

  Strength:     13    Dexterity:    12
  Constitution: 13    Intelligence: 12

Starting Statpack: Typical

The Origins of the Mhun

As told by Bhahren:

Ever have we suffered, and grown strong from our survival.

It was the time of the great unknowing. All was ignorance and instinct, and some practiced cruelty without knowing what they did. Some of those with cruelty practiced upon them died in protest. Some protested, with neither language nor understanding, and found freedom. Some sensed the safety in submission, and these were our forefathers.

Imagine a young fox with a newly-caught rabbit, devouring leisurely. When the wolf comes, hungry and lazy, it has merely to snap at the fox and soon it has a rabbit of its own. The fox leaves, half-fed and frightened. In time, the wolf may follow the fox when it is hungry, for this is an easier way to feed. All the while, the fox grows strong from the hunt, and labors because it sees naught else it can do.

So it was with us, in all things. The other mortals kept us fed and safe as it pleased them, and for them we worked and bled. For uncounted years did this continue, and we grew faster, and learned more quickly than the others, not through Divine will but through our own toil. We labored on, later constructing great temples and mines for the benefit of others. There was no God to speak for us, no Goddess to rescue and soothe. We were unloved, and depended only on one another.

As we lifted the heavy stones, we grunted, "Mun." As we cried at night from our wounds, we whimpered, "Mun." And later, as we railed against our captors, as we were different and a stronger people, we cried "Mun!" in tortured pride. We are the Mhun, and those who would drive us as animals again will come to learn regret.

Mhun Culture and History

This page is a sneak peek or a teaser! The contents of this article are not yet known in-game and should not be taken as IC knowledge!

Mhun culture particularly emphasizes group loyalty; in the face of the inhospitable desert, with oppressors and attackers on all sides, the concept of Mhun identity very quickly transcended mere racial affiliation. Mhun who broke with their brethren, or went to serve the enemy, were shunned by the Great Mhunna, and intermarriage was forbidden by one of the first edicts in the early Epochs. This stance, more commonly violated by escapees and adventurers than common Mhun, has gone a long way toward preserving a distinct Mhun culture.

The history of the Mhun is a long, sad tale - oppressed by Dwarves, Rajamala, Goblins, and Humans, freedom has at once been the highest ideal in their minds, and yet the most unattainable. Mysteriously bereft of Divine patronage, they have invented their own form of polytheistic worship, one that seems to derive meaning from the desert heat and the deep stone and only grows stronger in suffering. Their spirits number seven in all:

Laasan, the spirit of stone and earth; Promentesh, the spirit of labor and crafts; Mheribus, the spirit of hardship, often referred to as 'the endless darkness of underground and death'; Lokhanni, the spirit of ingenuity; Haddeneh, the spirit of wealth and bounty; Cheshehe, the spirit of the cold and the damp; Mhuinnah, the nurturer spirit.

These spirits were, until a few centuries ago, represented materially by the Great Mhunna, a high priest and a leader of the people, who held sole religious and political authority over all Mhun. The death of the last Great Mhunna had no replacement come forward, to the end result that the Mhun mostly manage themselves according to centuries of long, unbroken tradition; there are some actions, like banishment or certain functions of worship, that cannot be performed without a Great Mhunna. Many Mhun await the coming of a new Great Mhunna who will lead the Mhun out of slavery for good.

Curiously, as a result of this close intermingling of religious practice with racial identity, any being who converts to the Mhun faith is considered a member of the race by most other Mhun, and accordingly forsaken by the Gods from then on. One individual who undertook such conversion was Dorin Silverbeard, who lived out the last of his days as a practicing Dwarven Mhun. Mhun who remain loyal to their race, even if they reject the polytheistic faith common in Moghedu, are still considered Mhun; ones who turn against their own kind are considered banished, although there is no Great Mhunna to officially pronounce it so.