Ringmen

Description
Ringmen is an extinct race of half-humans whose traces can only be found in the swamp biomes and their surroundings in Paloro and Uldarash. Currently, there's no ringmen left but some people of Paloro might have partial Ringmen DNA from interbreeding between ringmen and the local people of Paloro and Aurora.

Practices and traditions
A lot of their practices and traditions still remain unknown. Only little is known thanks to the many books written by Palorans about Ringmen and their mythology.

Religion
According to a few books, Ringmen followed a religion called "Vutsraliko" (Paloran for Man Blood). Followers of this religion believe in their own body and it's ability to turn a Ringmen into a super human with enhanced skills, senses and strength. They don't believe in a god but in a natural system that destroys life and creates new ones.

Traditions
It's believed that everyone, of all genders, take part in brutal military training at a very young age and those who fail become cheap labourers.

During times of war, half of the population would be enlisted in the military as either reserves or frontline troops and the other half does mass production and extraction for the war effort. Ringmen soldiers are very brutal and brave in combat, charging straight into the enemy and hacking away at their fallen rivals. This would however eventually contribute to the downfall of their population as constant wars with neighbouring tribes would end up reducing the Ringmen's population to as low as 4.

Super Ringmen
A minority of ringmen who excels at military training are segregated from society to do much more intense mental training. This intense training only has a 10% success rate but when they do succeed, the trainee has super human strength and senses. These super humans are then used in either sieges or defending the Lord of Castle Ring but very rarely do they see combat in other forms. People with 100% pure ringmen blood can obtain this power, anything below that is impossible.

In Ringmen society, people enjoy a comfortable life of equality and community amongst their people. Non-ringmen people however are enslaved and used as political tools.

Language
Most ringmen spoke an ancient language called "The Ringed tongue" and is unintelligible by anyone else. This language can't be traced back to any other languages and is unique for being the only one of it's kind. It was believed that for any non ringmen people who wants to learn this language will die before being able to be fully fluent in it, not because of it's complexity but because of how different it is to every other language of Rathnir.

Physical Features
Ringmen have the unique ability to age two times faster than the global average until they reach 12 years old, from then they age at a much slower rate than the average human. Lasting a couple years longer than the average human at the time.

Ringmen have heterochromic eyes and hair, with most having a mix of brown and black but the rarest combination recorded is red and orange.

They also tend to be much more muscular and taller than the average human. This is because of selective breeding by the ancient empire of Castle Ring. Humans who have partial ringmen DNA also tend to be more muscular and taller than humans however this depends on the percentage of their dna being ringmen.

Origin
According to folklore, Ringmen first pop up on Rathnir long before the fall of Jagdas. Where they originate is unknown but the oldest known records of ringmen are found in the swamplands north of Palovina and in Ottilate. At one point, all the sudden, the population of ringmen boomed from a dozen to approx. 40 and their influence can be found all over Haven.

The Ancient empire of Castle Ring
Before the fall of Jagdas, a lord of one Ringmen tribe was able to unite all the tribes under one banner and declared The Lord's Empire of Castle Ring.

This Empire would go on to battle neighbouring towns and nations - and would eventually expand to all of Paloro and Aurora. Using their vast knowledge of the swamplands to their advantage, they captured so many towns and enslaved dozens of people. This industrialised conquering made the empire one of the richest in resources, both human and natural. However, the large amount of slaves in the Castle's stockpile and the huge amounts of land they controlled will eventually contribute to it's downfall.

A great magnitude 10 earthquake razed the empire's capital to the ground, causing most of the empire's stability and ability to govern to disappear overnight. Slaves took notice and created a massive slave revolt which reduced the empire's size to only a quarter of what it originally was but it still kept most of it's materialistic wealth after these 2 events. What hammered the nail into it's coffin was a civil war called "The Fractured Ring" where after the lost of their Lord, almost every single town declared independence and attempted to separate itself from the capital. Because of ringmen militaristic culture, this civilwar costed the lives of 80% of ringmen - only leaving 2 villages left with ringmen in them. The remaining ringmen formed the Lordship of Castle Ring

The Ringmen's final days
After Jagdas fell and mass migration insured. Paloran immigrants from South Ummarnu dominated the regions of modern day Paloro, the Lordship attempted to fight off the immigrants but because of very low resources and manpower, the lordship collaped and the remaining 6 ringmen migrated to Paloro and Aurora. They would go on to live their lives out as Palorans and Aurorans, causing the extinct of the Ringmen race.

Editor's note
bruh...