Picts

Overview
The Picts are a short, broad swarthy-skinned folk. They are a white-skinned race. However, the civilized folk never refer to them as such. Their homes are decorated with the grisly skulls of slain enemies. They live in caves and tree shelters, as well as villages of mud-and-wattle huts. The villages are surrounded by a stockade. Every aspect of a Pict's life is dominated by an awareness towards their lush environment. Every rite, ceremony, and superstition emphasises a respect for the environment. Their art expresses this connection with nature and portrays the plants, animals, or people in their region. Art usually focuses on their tribe’s chosen totem animal. The Picts paint distinctive designs on their faces or bodies which identify their tribe and their purpose – hunting or war.

Tribal Culture
The Picts have a Stone Age culture, one of the most primitive of the Hyborian Age. They live in small tribes and hunt in their game-rich wilderness, tracking with exceptional skill. These tribes are built around clans named for their totem animals. Identity is deep-seated and complete. These clans often believe they are descendants of these animal spirits or that their totem animals assisted a common ancestor in some way.

Each tribe lives in its own distinct region with its own traditions and rituals. These clans don't generally cooperate and usually war with one another. A clan is simply a group of related families. To the Pict, family and kinship is key in the stability of a tribe and defines each individual Pict’s rights or obligations toward others. Familial relationships define how Picts act toward one another. Those few foreigners who come into Pictish villages for a length of time find themselves ‘adopted’ and given the name of ‘brother’ or even ‘cousin’ so the Picts know their social positions and how to act toward them.

The sense of vengeance among the Picts is intense. Blood feuds are also common and result in generation-spanning wars between enemy tribes.

Slaves (Or lack of them).
Picts never force people, foreigners, or rival tribesmen into slavery. They use their women in performing their drudgery and chores. So, in their minds, they have no need for slaves. Instead, their captives are sacrificed to the spirits and their gruesome gods or traded to other tribes in return for their captives. Some Pictish tribes burn their captives alive. Others put the knife to them. Still, others feed them to animals or carnivorous plants. Torture is commonplace, as this pleases the spirits, who are vengeful.

Clothing
Picts wear buckskin, which is usually dyed black. Men wear a breech cloth and leggings, donning a long-sleeved shirt in cooler weather. Seamless moccasins serve as shoes. Pictish women wear buckskin dresses, skirts, or loin-clouts, as well as soft moccasins. Some women wear nothing more than a buckskin apron and body paint. The Picts use different styles of body paint, depending on what they are up to. Hunting paint is common. If a Pict who is not in war paint is killed, that action is subject to retribution by the slain member’s tribe.

Trade and Economy
The Picts consider trade to be a test of friendship and alliance. They don't view trade as the Hyborians or other civilized peoples do. To the Picts, trade is a way of honouring other people. Essentially, the Picts view trade as an exchange of gifts, not as some sort of barter. This attitude allows Zingaran and Hyborian traders to take advantage of Picts who do not understand bartering.

The coastal Picts and other tribes in the far south trade with the Zingarans. The Zingarans sail their ships across the Pictish coast, bargaining with the painted men of the wild. They trade hides, copper ore, gold dust, whale teeth, and walrus tusks for weapons, ornaments, or wine. Among the ornaments the Picts admire are ostrich plumes. They don't trade slaves; the Picts never sell themselves or each other into slavery. They are too individualistic and prideful to do anything of the sort. However, they do trade captives. Pirates also prey upon Pictish shores to steal Pictish women and children to sell as slaves in other parts of the world. Picts also raid into Zingara to steal tin from the mountains and grain from the fields.

The Picts also trade among themselves, not to attain goods they do not have but to secure alliances and learn news. Trading is a diplomatic affair of mutual gift giving. Skins, tobacco, dried meat, captives, and other goods are traded. If the gifts are accepted, a shaky alliance and a temporary peace results between the tribes of the giver and the receiver. If the gifts are not accepted, the tribes become enemies and go to war.

Military
The Picts have secret societies devoted to war. This is what being a Pictish soldier is all about. He is part of a military society devoted to combat-at-arms. Soldiers still need to be productive members of society.

The Picts have several weapons of choice and these vary little among the various tribes. Some Pict tribes have specialists to produce various tribal weapons but most Pict warriors take pride in creating their own. These weapons include the bow and arrow, the club and the primitive hatchet.

They tend to decorate their weapons, as well, adding beads for kills, or furs, or bones.

Religion
Thousands of years of prowling darkly fantastic forests and reeking black swamps create a rather sinister outlook on the gods and the spirit world. The Picts believe that their bodies in the after-life resemble their bodies at death if they are not killed in war, so if a body is left for the vultures or mutilated, the Picts believe the dead will suffer greatly in the afterlife. There is no worse insult to a Pict or his tribe than allowing a fallen Pict to be mutilated – it is akin to telling him he will suffer eternal torment, and that he deserves it.

Shamanism is the primary Pictish religion, although it is hard to speak of Pictish ‘religion,’ as being similar to the Western religions that exist alongside secular, daily life. The Picts’ ideas of spirituality, superstition and rites are inextricably intertwined with their day-to-day lives in such a manner that separation is impossible. Religious life and secular life are one and the same; both are utterly dominated by the menacing environment in which the Pict thrive. The most minor and trivial of daily activities involve a deep spirituality. Mystical power resides in every thing and in every action. Every Pict must pay heed to the baleful spirits that infuse all things. To ensure a proper understanding of the threatening environment around them, a class of Pict evolved to speak to the dreadful spirits and harness the mystical powers of all things. These are the shamans.

Government
The tribes are led by the chiefs, speakers, and councils. A Pictish chief is not a dictator. There are many kinds of chiefs among the Picts and each village likely has several chiefs. There are civil chiefs, achievement chiefs, hereditary chiefs, and speakers. The civil chiefs, chosen for their age and wisdom, govern the villages by administering justice, organizing celebrations, receiving guests, allocating hunting or fishing lands, and serving diplomatic functions. These chiefs could not afford to be tyrannical or incompetent, for they would lose their followers to other villages. In addition to the chosen civil chiefs, there are ranks of achieved chiefs. Almost all Picts are born as commoners in low-ranking families, but by performing great deeds some Picts attain the status of chief. Great warriors of renown may become war chiefs. Speakers of incredible oratory skill may be granted chief status. Hunters who have distinguished themselves may be named hunting chiefs.

Picts may earn more than one chief title. Hereditary chiefs, whose titles are passed down to them from maternal lines, have no voting power, though they are given a small measure of additional respect due to their heritage. Hereditary chiefs control community property and are expected to provide dogs and canoes to hunting or war parties. They are also responsible for village reserves during times of bad weather.

Speakers are chosen for their intelligence and diplomatic gifts to announce decisions for councils and chiefs. Speakers have impressive memories and are walking archives of decisions and history. The women of a village, as a collective, have a speaker as do the warriors. The speakers, along with the chiefs and the village Pictland elders of both sexes, who also have a voice in government by virtue of their age, meet in council to make decisions. This council is responsible for local policies and decisions.

The pattern of village government extends outward toward the tribe as a whole and great civil chiefs may be elected to govern more than one village in multi-village gatherings. Powerful war-chiefs may gather warriors from several villages to go on large expeditions. Extremely powerful chiefs, such as the upper Wolf chiefs, who band multiple tribes into a semblance of coherent unity, often take the paramount chief prestige class presented in Across the Thunder River. These paramount chiefs rule over the other chiefs as sort of elected emperors, although they must still satisfy the people with their savage rule. Each of these more powerful, more influential paramount chiefs has equally powerful and influential councils and speakers to advise him and keep the people satisfied.