The Rubblemanae [from The Codex]

[Introduction to The Codex]

Far in the north beyond the rubble of the Slew, near the Big Bend River's headwaters in the Delmar -- the river the Grey Elves in the south call the Flumenmors -- nestled between the rich bogs of the Wydown and the tall trees of the Forsyth, lies the land of the Barbarians known as the Rublemanae. These, the Rubelmanae, huddled in their long living halls they call their "dorums," are a people of fearsome gods and arcane practices, seekers in a world of constant turmoil, a world regularly ending in judgments, then reborn, a world cycling through opportunities and hardships, battles fought in glory and disgrace, loves found and loves lost, dreams made and dreams unfulfilled.

There, in the north, religion is not just a covenant between people and gods but is filled with magical creatures in a magical world: giants and ogres, trolls and gnomes, mists and miasmas, ice and fire. What the Barbarians lack in personal magic comes supplied by the world and its creatures -- and by the warp and weft of the tales woven by the Rublemanae's bards.

First among the magical creatures abiding amongst the Rublemanae is Wustl, an enormous wolf that hunts and haunts their world, guarding it from strangers yet also preying the Rublemanae's weak and ignorant. The Rublemanae both worship Wustl and fear it. It was at Wustl's teats that the first Barbarian couple, Peri and Merian, suckled before being unleashed unto the world. Thus it is the Rublemanae are all children of Wustl and honor its ways and grades even as they live in the shadow of its terror. Wustl is ferocious and said to be immortal; it survives every destruction and refashioning of the world, and every generation, in turn, has its own Peri and Merian. 

Next, arching overhead, is the giant snake Serpentr, a snake who encircles the world -- that being or thing which most, elsewhere, think of as the world's Ring. Serpentr, coiled about the world, waits for its end, for at its end Serpentr consumes it. Thus the world ceases to be but is then reborn again, a common motif in the lands of the Rublemanae, symbolized by a foreboding arch over an otherwise flat world. Before the world ends there is a massive battle -- one of tests between the gods and man -- then a rainbow forms matching Serpentr's curve, and briefly Serpentr becomes a bridge of both of frost and flame. Those among the Rublemanae who have passed the tests take the bridge to a higher world as the world ends, just to begin again. Serpentr thus does not just consume the world but is the gateway arching to the next. 

First among the gods is Gassi, the god of the sky and of heavenly thoughts, the god of wisdom, the father of the gods, an older man with a huge disheveled mop of white hair whose rants on being blue are oft mistaken for peals of thunder. Gassi it is who rules the upper sphere, and attending him are the Valaries. There are other gods in Gassi's immediate circle, such as The Wheeler, who teaches of the cycles of the world, or Nemerov, who puts it to poetry.

Then there is Lazgi, the god of chaos and useless plans, who rules the underworld, the place of the "arch-rejects," for Lazgi -- a god as elder and bombastic as Gassi, though starkly bald -- has no more need for the upper realms' monsters and logic than he has of hair in a lightless world. Here, in Lazgi's subterranean rooms, the dead come to face their due -- those who by deed and fate are unascendant to the higher realms and those who in life lacked the wisdom or courage to strive for  better destinies.

There is also Skut, a shape changing trickster who plies his games among the Rublemanae, playing with their fates or their characters, rolling the bones. Skut has many frolics and pranks, and perhaps in his slyness and wiles he is not to be trusted, for some among the Rublemanae think him, in his deviousness, duplicitous, though some among the discerning see Skut as kind and lighthearted, a seeker of fun.

Molinari, too, is there, the "god of the hammer," a strong and assiduous yet soft spoken god who is often unseen and shares kinship and sometimes lodging with Skut. Molinari is frequently away in battle, holding the line for Wustl.

The Rublemanae have disparate other gods -- Shull, for instance, the god of earthly phenomena, the material physics, and the arts of the smithy, or Kol, the god of flora and fauna and the biological physic -- but what can be said of these? True, it is perhaps a tribute to Shull that Rublemanae swords are renowned, their steel, perhaps among all steels, ripe for magic, yet to put true magic in the swords beyond a fine edge, one must go elsewhere, for the Rublemanae have no true magic. They are Barbarians. So, too, it may be a tribute to Kol that many among the "children of Wustl" are skilled healers of body and soul, but to obtain a true magical cure beyond well selected herbs and words of comfort, one must go elsewhere. 

So, indeed, even some of the Rublemanae's gods lack the magical tenure to repeatedly survive of the world's periodic renewals. They are more as extraordinary and powerful heroes than the eternal spiritual beings that many people, elsewhere, consider the nature of gods.

There are many tales spun by the Rublemanae's sundry bards, tales often of the Rublemanae's many mortal heroes. Notable, perhaps, among these is that of Stefgurd, a tragic, somewhat clumsy, and often misguided rambler who sought a ring of power from the dwarves Gildi and Flicka, a magical ring, so it is told, that controled the very energy of the world. Along his adventures Stefgurd encounters the troll Walter, a dancing Miller, Scut, who offers his games and gambols, and even Peri and Merian. Stefgurd also battles Wustl, a story famously related in the epic Bay O' Wolf. The full tale of Stefgurd need not be repeated here -- it is long and twisted and perhaps more emblematic of a hero's failings than triumphs -- but suffice to say possession of the ring in the end serves no one, and it is best returned to where it began. Such it is with rings.

There are many names for Stefgurd, as there are for many of the Rublemanae and their gods, for they often have alternate "characters." In some tellings Stefgurd is called "Sergerth," in others "Sigurd." Their queen is their "Linda," but she may be a princess, as she is sometimes called their "Linda-To-Be." Wustl is known to be a giant wolf but Wustl is sometimes depicted as a bear -- called, in the Rublemanae tongue, a "beo" or "beor" or, if shapeshifting, a "beorn," -- and, indeed, as originally spoken, "Bay O' Wolf" itself may have been a kenning meaning "bear-wolf."

The Rublemanae consider themselves to be the first true people, as all Barbarians do. They are, in Pyth, nonetheless, mere pilgrims, visitors and strangers to a different world, gathered in downtrodden districts in Pyth, reinventing themselves as craftsmen and scratch farmers, making pottery and raising chickens. Nonetheless, during the long, cold nights of winter -- nights redolent, perhaps, of their homeland -- their dark ghettoes of sadness may be lit with new bonfires, and, when this happens, they gather about and recount the tales of old. The Rublemanae in Pyth are now a quiet people and no longer considered, unlike other Barbarians, a threat to well-ordered society.  

Prepared by S. Elfkin

Office of Religious and Cultural Affairs