Common Ethnic Traits:

• Suggested Naming Conventions: Basque surnames, Incan forenames names

• Hair Color: Blue, Pink, Green, Purple. White and brown may occur if a Mezzoramian might have some Tamian or Darsian in their lineage.

• Eye Colors: Any

• Complexion: Olive (light brown to medium brown), Rarely burns and tans well.

• Height Average: Mezzoramians vary greatly in height between one adult to another. The average tends to be similar to Tamians though.

• Traveler: Mezzoramians tend to be nomadic. Many travel in close knitted caravan communities, and just as many prefer a solo path. But you'd be hard pressed to see Mezzoramians settle down in one place for very long. Fate always finds a way to pull them back somehow. As such, Mezzoramians tend to be quick at picking up new languages, and adept at fitting into new cultures. With no land to call their own, they simply find content in the next best thing: Feeling at home with anyone, anywhere.

• Mezzoramian Language: Mezzoramians share a unique language with one another, often passed down from parent to child. This language does not seem to stem from any known root language in Estellon, Nomaria, or the eastern lands, and as such is very hard for outsiders to interpret. Although the language can be taught to friends or half bloods, the ability to read quipu knots is a fiercely guarded secret, that only mezzoramian bards and oracles possess.

• Potential Sorcerer Bloodlines: Accursed, Aquatic, Arcane, Destined, Draconic (Any), Ectoplasm, Elemental (Air, Water), Impossible, Marid, Possessed, Psychic, Shadow, Stormborn, Undead.

 

Synopsis:

Adorned in fine woolen garments, traveling along side caravans with dire alpaca and llamas, this dusky skinned human ethnic group with unnaturally colored locks of hair can be seen traveling the western coasts of both Estellon, and Nomeria. The Mezzoramians are a displaced people with no traceable land to claim as their ancestral origins. They stand out as alien as the half elves, the Asmians, and the Shongari, thanks to their strange features. And yet, they can be found just traveling anywhere in both Estellon and Nomaria’s roads. Blending as naturally as the populace, speaking their languages, eating their foods, and performing their customs as locals of the region. Mezzoramians assimilate wherever they go, and have nothing of a racial history or culture to call their own. Save for a strange language spoken only between other Mezzoramians. A language which has baffled linguists and etymologists as it shares no common characteristics with the known languages of either continent… Or even the Ryujin language of the far east. No written form of it exists, thus their language can only be passed down orally, or in a unique system of knots, which the lore keepers call “Quipu”. Although even among Mezzoramians, those who could read Quipu knots are rare. The Mezzoramians themselves have no answer for this. They want to know their lost history as much as any who have long been puzzled or fascinated by their inexplicable presence. But every Mezzoramian and scholar of their migratory history has their own theory. With some believing they came from an unknown continent across the western sea, a sunken continent of questionable integrity known as the Almora, to even theories that they may not even have originated in this plane of existence. One thing is for sure though. Mezzoramians are travelers by nature. And even the most content Mezzoramian, born and raised in a city their entire life, looks for any excuse to travel. Be it pilgrimage, mercenary or adventuring, or a mercantile expedition.

 

It is not uncommon for a Mezzoramian to spend much of his or her early life in the safety of a trade caravan. Children are often guided by the wisdom of caravan elders, who are responsible for identifying their talents at an early age and directing them towards learning a particular trade to help them develop. These practical trade skills are not forced upon them through their entire lives. By the time Mezzoramian caravan children have reached adolescence, they may choose a field of defensive training to apply themselves in, for both self defense, and the defense of the caravan. Martial, magical, or alchemical. Although an alternate path of preservation exists in that of the lore keeper. One who keeps their language, customs, and caravan histories alive. But the childhood training they have received stays with them in life. For example, it is not uncommon for a Mezzoramian adult wizard to know how to change a wagon wheel, tend to the pack animals, and fix a broken axel. Animals are treated as closely as family, with special care given to the horses, oxen, alpacas, and llamas. And as such, animal psychology becomes a second nature to Mezzoramians. People traveling with them have been amazed with their ability to calm a wild animal who only moments ago was threatened and backed into a corner, ready to fight. While not particularly prone to living vegetarian lifestyles, Mezzoramians will only consume meat if it was hunted by themselves, a friend, or a family member. After all, according to belief, if the flesh of a dishonorably killed animal is consumed, they believe the soul is weighted down. And to a Mezzoramian, a heavy soul is more prone to stagnancy. Just look at their city dwelling cousins, for example.

 

Mezzoramians or half Mezzoramians born outside of caravans and in cities and towns still retain the wonderlust, but find it hard to get their feet out the door, so to speek. They, like any humans, may have grown attached to their homes, and find it difficult to leave them. This is what a Mezzoramian would call a heavy soul. All those outside of the caravan are heavy souls. Not just Mezzoramians. Eugencian kings, Tamian farmers, grove-tending Elvin druids. All those who try to make the world in their local vicinity more comfortable to themselves as opposed to walking the roads to find what fate planned for them. Weighted souls bring the forests and rivers closer to them, and try to bend the world around them. The Mezzoramians don't look down on the weighed souls. Except for other Mezzoramians who do this. Even should a city-bound Mezzoramian manage to leave, a part of his/her soul will always remain in that area. And that part of their soul will always beckon for them to return, for a soul desires nothing more than to become one. And as such, a stranger Mezzoramian who seeks to rejoin a caravan is done so cautiously, as weighted souls will weigh down the rest of the caravan. It is people who souls should yearn to see, not places. But there are ways to recollect or regrow a soul that has left pieces behind. In fact, it’s one of several reason why many Mezzoramians consider becoming adventurers. As such, Mezzoramians Adventures tend to look at their careers as both a spiritual journey and a practical occupation. For the best way for a soul to become light again is to achieve a tangible desire. And the more dangerous the road to that desire is, the more of themselves they will get back. So, a treasure in an ancient dungeon protected by dangerous denizens of evil? This to a Mezzoramian is... Convenient.