Amoqu-i

The Amoqu-i (Tree People in the Shugha Ghami Tongue) are an ethnic group, that originates from the mountainous jungle region of Ghaqo. They were known widely known as adept hunter-gatherers, later domesticating several species of fruit trees and reaching an iron-age level of development. While once quite numerous, the majority of tribes were wiped out by a mud-flood, leaving the creation of the Oruqai religion as their only lasting impact on the world.

Appearance
Amoqu-i have brown skin, with a tint of orange and bear round faces.

Both men and women are generally slim and tall, the average size being 1,90 m for men and 1,88 m for women. However, this does not apply to their children, who will usually not grow to be more than 1,50 m tall until they hit puberty. While giving the Amoqu-i a certain advantage with calorie consumption and allowing children to easier break into bird nests, this sudden growth-spurt during and after puberty leads to a period of extreme lethargy lasting several months. This has led some to believe that the Amoqu-i are descended from a butterfly that dreamt it was a man.

Despite these factors, Amoqu-i are still a fairly sexually dimorphic people, with men starting to experience extreme beard-growth, amounting to 1 mm per day as they enter their mid-20s, with the eye-brows also being heavily affected. Men also possess longer and more muscular arms.

Culture
While the Amoqu-i culture is hard to define, as it evolved over many thousands of years, many recognizable motifs stretch throughout its long history.

Family
The Amoqu-i have always been a patriarchal, family-oriented people, putting much emphasis on one's clan identity. To dishonor your family was the worst sin one could commit, something even rival clans would shame you for. Their mythology always incorporated some degree of ancestor worship, where all clans would trace back their ancestral line to a local deity.

Gender Roles
Gender roles were very strict in Amoqu-i society, while men would mainly hunt and later, also manage and harvest fruits from the plantations, women dedicated their time to domestic labor, such as cooking, cleaning, weaving, making repairs around the house and breeding cats to make them better at killing rodents.

Fashion
Clothing for both sexes consisted of a pair of sandals, along with a skirt made from one consistent piece of cloth, held by a rope at the waist, with the female variant being slightly longer than that of the men. Women additionally wore a piece of cloth on their shoulders, weighed down by rocks or small pieces of metal, to cover their chest.

Men who ventured far away from their clan would cover their face with a series of utensils, such as a clay mask, a lot of paint, or a scarf. This was done primarily, to ward off predatory, as the back of the head was covered in eyes, but also to maintain clan unity, hampering all forms of social interaction with outsiders.

Nomadic Period
Not much is known about the origin of the Amoqu-i people, besides that they likely migrated into the region with the first wave of Homo sapiens, creating a large cultural continuum between them and the people surrounding them.

By analyzing artifacts from this era, it is clear that the Amoqu-i did not know how to work metals, only gaining access to it through neighboring settled tribes, where merchants would mainly pay them for providing escorts through the jungle. The high prevalence of bone needles in grave mounds is seen as evidence that the Amoqu-i were highly capable weavers. With the mountainous people in the north, they traded excess pelts for coal. While this material originally served as a firestarter in the wettest parts of the jungle, the material soon saw use as a fertilizer, kick-starting the agricultural revolution with the domestication of the Moqubile tree.

Tribal Period
In the beginning, agriculture would linger in the northern region for two centuries, until the discovery of charcoal made it viable throughout the entire jungle. Over the course of an additional three centuries, the agricultural revolution spread over the entire region. It was here, that the democratic and clan ethos that defined the Tribal, and much of the Kingdom Period, began. Since the population density was still low during this time and harvesting from these plantations was quite labor-intensive, those who had already established plantations had to entice laborers to work for them, as they could just steal a few pieces of fruit and start their own plantations miles away. This problem was solved by marrying laborers into their families and giving them a say over how the estate was run. The emerging societal structure was one of large, landed, patriarchal clans, led by a council of elders, whose positions were elected by all male members upon death.

Family Structure
These patriarchs would come together and form small, regional councils, known as Kghaikghai (Union of Clans) to fight invaders and pursue common ventures. But since writing was not yet discovered, treaties between clans were remembered and recounted by the Sa-asaghe (Ear People), a class of foreigners, orphans, and refugees with no ties to the local tribes, marked with a sigil on their body, that made it impossible for them to marry or have children.

Technological Developments
The basics of metalworking were discovered, first lead, quickly followed by copper, although this only became prevalent in the coastal regions, since the northern clans found it more efficient to trade copper with the mountain people. Other innovations during this time include: Alcohol for medicinal purposes; slingshots; advanced wood-carving tools, allowing for the creation of more robust furniture; clay pottery, and many more.

Arrival of the String-Boat Culture
In the latter half of the Tribal Period, the String-Boat Culture migrated to the continent, taking over flat coastal areas and large river systems, and thus, isolating the Amoqu-i from a web of related cultures. While leaving the coastal regions alone, they did establish a trading outpost in the middle of the Morumolo River, which was not a problem for the Amoqu-i, since they did not use boats and only used the river for fishing. The Outpost increased the wealth of the region, giving them access to glassworks, which were worth their weight in gold, and knowledge of the boat, allowing Kghaikghai to send out their own trade missions, with limited success. As the outpost expanded, so did its needs, buying up lands from surrounding clans to deforest their lands and establish new outposts.

Conflict and the Founding of the first Kingdom
As a counterreaction, a military council, consisting of many tribes in the west and north-east and led by the small, but bellicose Kghaikama Clan was set up, slowly starving the new outposts and slaughtering the city through subterfuge. During the war, many coastal tribes provided food to the outpost, leading the council to conquer them and distribute their land among their members. After the city was captured, it was given to the Kghaikama Clan, who had not taken any land. While many left the council after their victory, those who profited most from the war, reforged the council as a permanent coalition, which slowly centralized over the next century into the Kingdom of Kara Moqu.

Family Structure
During the kingdom period, the ruling Kghaikama Clan would, in an attempt to consolidate power from the traditional clan structures, levy high taxes based on the number of leaders a clan had, encouraging them to choose agnatic Primogeniture as their succession law. This resulted in most of the clan members being disenfranchised, splintering off, and founding their own clans in other settlements. This had the side effect of homogenizing the culture inside the kingdom, as different clans from opposite ends of the kingdom would now mingle with one another.

Technological Development
The Kingdom Period was marked by incredible technological progress, concentrated in very few hands. After taking the city, the elders of the Kghaikama Clan raided its archives, unlocking the keys to making arsenic bronze, strong stone walls, and supporting structures for large bridges, but kept them for themselves. They would only hand out the tools to their subjects, not the recipe, and not even the workers who built their infrastructure were allowed to know how to make mortar.

Policy
After consolidating the entirety of the Ghaqo region, the elders sent out military expeditions to project the influence of the kingdom outwards, demanding tribute from their island neighbors, or recognition from more powerful kingdoms. They had mixed success, as their diplomats were often nothing but too ambitious war-chiefs, that were to be kept as far away from the crown land as possible.

To decrease the reliance on foreign copper, the elders set up a system of refineries throughout the kingdom.

An extensive network of bridges, roads, and waystations was set up, connecting settlements with the capital.

Northern Crisis and the Rise of the Oruqai
The cities in the northern mountains had long grown dependent on trade with the Amoqu-i people. After their complete embargo on copper, a great economic crisis was now looming over them. In the past, the mountain kings had made plans to conquer the lowlands, but they knew that they were at a massive disadvantage, that was, until they were taught about an ancient form of agriculture, that was taboo among the Amoqu-i, Slash-and-Burn. With nothing to lose, the nobles mobilized ~40% of the population and ravaged the northern parts of Ghuqo, burning down vast stretches of land to sow wheat in the fertilized flatlands.

The response of the Elders was slow, neither wanting to open diplomatic relations with the Northerners nor sharing their knowledge with the population and allowing them to take up the fight. They treated this crisis as a war, like the conflict with the String-Boat Culture, with an army they could tire out and a city they could besiege with their elite soldiers. But whenever their war parties faced off against advancing Northmen, the Northmen would simply retreat into their open fields where their longbows were at a huge advantage. Independent parties of tribesmen often led their own raids on Northmen settlements, but due to the technological gap, they could never do any real damage.

The Oruqai were a secretive religious movement, uniting people across classes and clans toward a united goal of universal human progress. Abhorred by the acts of brutality against man and nature committed by the Northmen and the self-destroying technology-hoarding mentality of the Elders, they made it their mission to spread advanced technology to the common folk.

Their actions during the war started by targeting the library keepers in the capital for recruitment, resulting the formula of mortar being leaked to the public, allowing frontier citizens to build their own fortifications around strategic choke points. After this early success, a large-scale infiltrating of Northmen slave mines was planned. The volunteers, often family members of those who were already enslaved, were to find the secret ingredient to their tougher bronze alloy. Then they were to stockpile away as much of the substance as they possibly could until a prophecized eclipse gave them the starting signal to riot and bring their spoils back to their homeland. And while this plan did not succeed in procuring much of the substance itself, the fact that the kingdom would soon import a great quantity of tin, suggests that at least the recipe could be shared around. In the frontier, the Oruqai fulfilled the role of a second government, hidden behind a series of passwords and secret handshakes. They would levy food and refined metals to build an underground system of trails, allowing for an unmonitored flow of trade and a good base to organize massive raids.

Even some of the Northmen had converted, many of whom had gained sympathy for the Amoqu-i whose lands they were invading. And while their protests for a ceasefire were largely ignored, they still provided the insurgents with much intel.

For some years, the frontline had largely stabilized around a series of fortified chokepoints, and rivers, with the Northmen occupying ~1/4th of Ghaqo. Instead of a truce, both sides decided to build up their forces. This brief period of peace is seen as a golden age for the Oruqai, as their faith had become respected by both frontiersmen and the urban intelligentsia, surrounding the Elders. Their influence became so great that, according to some sources, the library keepers, who broke their code of conduct, only lost their position and not their heads. In the northern mountains, the believers who had set out to sabotage the Northmen mining efforts now had no opportunity to return home and so founded a series of hermitages. Here, monks applied Oruqai philosophy to the stars, which were now closer than ever, and the geology of the region. Many wide-spread Oruqai tales, such as the Ikusa-ale-e, were written during this period.

Dawning Apocalypse
Motivated by failing crop yields in the low-land area and a refusal to negotiate with the Elders of Kara Moqu, the Mountain Kings prepared for another invasion, striking their capital with an amphibious invasion, while using the chaos to overrun the frontier. Completely disconnected from world affairs, the mountain monks had, by studying the patterns inside of sediment, discovered, that a great flood of mud would go off at the foot of the mountain, large enough to sweep over all of Ghaqo. Upon holding a conference, the monks split up, a smaller party informing the nearest Mountain King, while the rest would return back to Kara Moqu, telling the Amoqu-i of the coming doom.

The smaller party made it to the king's court, who was, at first, receptive to their words. However, his war council, staffed with a different sect of Oruqai Monks, objected to these claims, arguing that this was nothing but an amateurish attempt to hamper the Kings' war effort and that this attempt at subterfuge was only a reason to deploy even more troops in the lowlands. The king believed his council and, subsequently, imprisoned the doomsayers, not knowing that the Monks in his council were fully aware of the crisis, their true intention being, to take revenge on the Northmen who had ravaged their homeland.

The larger party suffered heavy losses and only barely made it back into Kara Moqu, as the border had already become militarized. The message, that all must leave the region of Ghaqo, spread like wildfire among the frontier people, many packing their belongings immediately, while some remained skeptical. When the message had spread to the Elders, who had just survived the first wave of attacks on their city, they issued a declaration of treason against the Oruqai, accusing them of being in league with the Northmen.

Aftermath
The Amoqu-i who fled the flood as part of an Oruqai caravan, migrated to the nation of Kaisenuvir. After a generation was raised entirely outside of Ghaqo, with no hope of ever returning, many have stopped considering themselves Amoqu-i.

The few thousand who survived the disaster did not have the required population density to revive their culture. Many followed the trail left behind by the Oruqai caravan, the rest settled in one of the surrounding kingdoms.

The Amoqu-i slaves that were brought to the mountains to mine ore, became a permanent lower class in Northmen society.

Influence on Oruqai and Kara Ghami
While the Oruqai religion was founded, in a large part, as a counter to the technologically stagnant, authoritarian society of the Amoqu-i, many cultural traditions have still fundamentally shaped the religion. The architectural style used in Oruqai holy buildings is based on that of the Amoqu-i. Their style of clothing is also reminiscent of traditional face veils worn by those, far away from their tribe.

When it comes to philosophy, the founding principles of democracy, having a class of scholars that are not allowed to marry and a strong desire for liberty and voluntary action can be seen throughout the Amoqu-i Tribal Period.

Language
The Amoqu-i language survives until this day as Sagha Ghami, the clerical language of the Oruqai religion. Although changes have been made, these mostly concern the shortening of lengthy words and an explosion in grammatical rules. This means, that while a speaker of Sagha Ghami could easily understand a speaker of the Amoqu-i language, the other way around would be a lot harder.