The Dusterinos: Cultural Profile

Introduction:
    The Dusterinos are a hardy, independent folk who are renowned for their mastery of survival in the Sea of Dust, one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet of Tero. Every year, the Dusterinos endure a brutal dry season without rainfall, and then an equally as brutal wet season with afternoon thunderstorms that bring flash floods, high winds, and even hail and tornadoes. Dusterino culture celebrates logic, observation, and knowledge of the natural world, seeing these as the three most important things one can take into the desert for the annual season of wandering. The dry season is spent in small, independent towns and villages built around springs and oases that can provide fresh water through the sedentary season. This traditional lifestyle is a part of an ascetic religious philosophy within the religion of the Dusterinos, Dusterism, which overtook and unified the Dusterinos around 1,000 years ago. Today, the Dusterinos seem mostly content to live without the conveniences of advanced magic and technology, although there is a small, growing movement of Dusterinos who wish to live a settled life and trade with the merchants from the First Empire for various comforts. This new movement is still small, but it has the support of the merchants, themselves all too excited to start exploiting the Dusterinos for cactus water which is sold as a health drink in the First Empire heartland.

Magic and Technology:
    Much like their Convergent Wanderer forebears, the Dusterinos seem to have little use for advanced magic or technology when they spend about half the year wandering and they need to pack light. Unlike the Convergent Wanderers, though, the Dusterinos spend half the year in small towns built around the few reliable sources of water in the Sea of Dust. This allows the Dusterinos to build some permanent infrastructure and produce things like steel tools and weapons to make the season of wandering easier. By the same token, some Dusterinos use the settled season to study and practice magic, with enchanted items and spellcasting having a minor presence in most villages. Despite these material and magical practices all going back thousands of years, the small population of Dusterinos and cultural tendency to wander, even before it became a religious mandate, has given these developments a certain focus.
    Technological progress has always been hyper-focused on developing technologies which can help people survive in the Sea of Dust. Portable shelters which can be set up and taken down in minutes and which are large enough to shelter up to 8 adults while being light enough for a single person to carry have been around for a long time. The weapon of choice for the majority of Dusterinos is something that was brought over more recently with some of the Ashmount Herder exiles, the rifle. By utilizing mines close to some of the villages, the raw materials for new rifles, bullets, and gunpowder can be easily obtained during the dry season. The rifles produced and used by the Dusterinos for both hunting and warfare are known as dusterifles. Dusterifles are breech-loading, bolt action rifles which can hold and fire a single bullet, equivalent to a real-world 9mm round, before needing to be reloaded. Some Dusterino gunsmiths have experimented with higher capacity dusterifles, but these have not caught on. Outside of these well-developed tents and weapons, Dusterinos are happy to use more basic knives and tools, in line with the ascetic lifestyle their religion demands.
    Like their technology, Dusterino magic tends to be focused on what is useful for desert survival. Spells and enchanted items which help people find and purify water are the most common, followed by magic to heal people and mend objects. These magics are usually passed down to the next generation from older members of the Dusterino community. Most never bother to learn, but there are always a few students learning from their elders during the dry season. More powerful magics are generally seen as a waste of time by the Dusterinos, but there are a few lone individuals who have chosen to leave dusterino culture entirely to study magic deep in the desert. These wizards usually act strange and eccentric due to their lack of social contact, but each of them seems to have found a different obsession, researching and developing magic solely related to that. This has resulted in a rather negative view of wizards in Dusterino culture, the stereotype being that of a mad hermit living in the deep desert, so detached from reality that they believe their mastery of obscure and specific magic will let them take over the world. This is not wholly accurate, but Dusterino wizards do tend to be a bit strange.

Society:
    Dusterino society has spent the last couple centuries in a self-imposed state of theocratic anarchy. About 500 years ago, the leaders of the Dusterist Union agreed to dissolve their government due to irrelevance. Religious belief and practice had resulted in much of the population wandering the desert in small family groups for half the year, with the expectation that they would be self-sufficient for this time. Towns and villages, usually populated by a few extended families during the settled season, were self-governing at this point as well. As part-time nomads themselves, the last leaders of the Dusterist Union saw no reason to fight a losing battle and chose to let towns and villages be fully self-reliant and independent when they were populated, while getting out of the way of the nomads during the wet season so that individual families could deal with issues as they came up.
    This state of affairs has apparently worked fine for centuries, with the vast majority of Dusterinos choosing to follow the religious mandates to live humbly and wander for half the year. Within the last few years, however, a woman named Serena has started calling herself the third reincarnation of the prophet, claiming to speak on behalf of the god of the Dusterinos, Ol’ Dusty. Serena preaches a fully settled lifestyle which takes advantage of the comforts of magic and technology. In her words, Ol’ Dusty wants the Dusterinos to be comfortable and happy, allowing them to better pursue the studies of logic and the natural world. Serena sees wandering the Sea of Dust as an important rite of passage for each Dusterino, but she says it does not need to be done every year. More conservative segments of society hold their noses up at this radical philosophy, claiming that it is foolishness that will only deplete the limited resources of the dry season settlements. Serena argues that the Dusterinos have mastered the techniques needed to supplement their water supplies with other sources such as ground and rainwater. Other supplies can be bought from First Empire merchants with the cactus water they want to sell back in their homeland. To keep supplies flowing, Serena even claims that cactuses can be farmed and harvested from without taking precious water away from the towns.
    For the most part, more traditional Dusterinos tolerate Serena and her followers, seeing them as a small group of weirdos who won’t ever be able to gain influence. Although Serena is a radical and an outcast by Dusterino standards, she still preaches the importance of logic, observation, and knowledge, maintaining a lot of common ground with those who are committed to their annual wanderings. No one, except for the very young and old, stays in the towns during the wet season, allowing Serena’s followers to stay behind unchallenged and pursue their new way of life. Since each town maintains its own rules during the dry season, formal recognition of this growing movement varies greatly between settlements. Some towns have set up brand new systems of government to accommodate year-round residency, while others have no recognition of their permanent residents and they are left on their own when most of the town leaves for the wet season. Some groups have seen the recent growth of Serena’s group of radicals and feel like their traditional way of life is being threatened. While this is not necessarily the case, tensions have been rising and there are people on both sides who feel that it is only a matter of time before violence erupts. Until then, tolerance continues and peace is upheld.

Religion:
    The religion of the Dusterinos, known as Dusterism, is practiced by almost all Dusterinos and centers on the worship of a god known as Ol’ Dusty, the collective consciousness of all of the grains of sand in the Sea of Dust. There is no organized system of worship or religious order associated with Dusterism, but rather the teachings of Ol’ Dusty have been passed on to the other Dusterinos by prophets who speak on behalf of their god. Stella, the first prophet, was the originator of Dusterism 4,000 years ago. She was the first person Ol’ Dusty ever revealed himself to, and her teachings are recorded and passed on in a document known as “The Book of Stella”. There was a second prophet, Starla, 2,000 years ago who claimed it was Ol’ Dusty’s will for all Dusterinos to be united under a single banner, and so she started the second unifying war to expand the Dusterist Union and follow the will of Ol’ Dusty. Starla’s teachings are recorded in a book known as “The Book of Starla” so that future generations of Dusterinos may always be able to access her wisdom. Today, Serena is claiming to be the third coming of the prophet, calling for a return to the settled lifestyles that the Dusterinos lived thousands of years ago. While her prophethood is still in question, many believe Serena to truly be the third coming of the Dusterino Prophet.
    Without any kind of formal rituals or priests, Dusterism is a religion that is mostly practiced by reading the books of the prophets and living a life that cultivates the skills needed to survive in the desert for extended periods. Most Dusterinos see the teachings of the prophets as desert survival guides couched in philosophy and morality. Regardless, the followers of Dusterism have always seemed to have an easier time in the desert than others, so anyone who doesn’t believe in Ol’ Dusty and his prophets tends to follow Dusterism out of pragmatic self-preservation. That said, there is a more mystical side to Dusterism as well. The prophets all teach that all Dusterinos are inherently tied to the desert and that when they die, their souls become one with Ol’ Dusty and the sands of the Sea of Dust until the appropriate time for their souls to be reincarnated back into the Dusterino population.
    The most devoted followers of the more mystic teachings of the prophets believe that there is a way to achieve enlightenment, becoming one with Ol’ Dusty while alive and gaining absolute control over the Sea of Dust. Through deep meditation and solitude in the deepest parts of the deserts, these Dusterino mystics hope to achieve this state, although no one has ever managed to do it. What seems to happen more often than not is that one who is on the cusp of enlightenment is subsumed by Ol’ Dusty, dissolving their body into sand as they fail to wrest conscious control of the desert away from their god. Ultimately, each mystic has their own goals for achieving enlightenment and gaining absolute power over the desert. Most simply wish to gain a complete understanding of it, while others have more sinister goals. One day, one of them may attain full enlightenment, but until then, they meditate in the deep desert, hoping to succeed where so many have failed.

Towns:
    Each Dusterino town or village is built around a permanent oasis or freshwater spring which is able to produce enough fresh water to sustain a group of several extended families for the duration of the dry season each year. When they are inhabited, the towns are independent and self-sufficient, rarely communicating or trading with each other. By tradition, each extended family in a given settlement is able to elect one representative to a town council for the duration of the settled season. This council exists to hear and pass judgment on conflicts, petitions, and policy proposals that their people bring to them. Their decisions are binding, but only for the duration of the settled period of the year, and those who dislike the decision are free to start their annual wanderings early if they no longer wish to be bound by the ruling. Year to year, the councils tend to have the same members and goals, resulting in a great deal of stability for a nominally anarchist society. Each town is under no obligation to have any particular laws or policies so the laws and practices in each town can be wildly divergent and diverse. Because of this, some towns are much more open to the growth of Prophet Serena’s followers than others, with policies spanning the spectrum from complete persecution to full acceptance and adoption of Serena’s teachings.
    As far as taking in outsiders goes, some villages are more welcoming than others. All Dusterino settlements are concerned with maintaining the sustainable use of their water sources, and this has led some to be less welcoming to outsiders under the concern that they will be too much of a burden on their food and water. While this has presented an obstacle to travelers and merchants in the past, the attitude is becoming less common over time. The Dusterinos are generally curious about outsiders, sharing their culture and stories in exchange for the same from the outsiders. Merchants seem to have a hard time making money in Dusterino villages due to a focus on traveling light during the wet season, but thanks to Serena and her followers, this is slowly changing. As more people start to follow her teachings, more cactus farms spring up, providing more cactus water for the merchants to buy up. This is creating a quickly growing technology and culture gap between those who follow the new prophet and those who follow the traditional Dusterino lifestyle, a technology gap which is causing increased concern among the avowed traditionalists. More traditional towns feel like their independence and way of life is being threatened, and it is possible that this conflict will result in violence in the near future.

The Sea of Dust: Setting Details

Introduction:
    The sea of dust is a massive desert which lies between the Tortoise Herd and Coda Mountains. This region is hilly and sits at a higher elevation than the surrounding areas, with no major rivers, or really any rivers at all, which go through it. Additionally, its location between two large mountain ranges on its east and west puts the Sea of Dust inside of both rain shadows, resulting in very little and very rare rainfall. When it does rain, it comes in massive thunderstorms from the north and south during the wet season, which can quickly overwhelm the capacity for the soil to absorb moisture, resulting in flash floods. Very few permanent settlements exist among the shifting sands and cactuses, but a single group of humans, the Dusterinos, have managed to build a thriving society of semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who spend the hottest, driest parts of the year in settlements built around extremely rare oases and springs and the rest of the year wandering the sands and gathering food and water from the few wild sources they can find. There are, understandably, rather few Dusterinos considering the size of the territory they claim. No one else, however, wants to live where they do, so their way of life has been mostly undisturbed by outsiders for thousands of years.

Geographic History:
      The Sea of Dust has been a dry, hostile desert for millions of years, ever since the end of the last ice age. When Tero was much colder and had permanent ice caps, the Sea of Dust was quite green and pleasant. Since then, the area has become much hotter due to the now-warmer climate of Tero and annual rainfall has gone down as the Ashmount Range has slowly grown. These forces worked together to eventually bake the land into the massive expanse of scrub and dunes that people see today. The region contains a wealth of fossils from groups of animals that have since left to colonize more hospitable places. Today, the Sea of Dust represents a major boundary to the spread of plants and animals, an apparent reversal of its role in the deep past. What plants and animals that remain today are hardy and tough, being able to survive for years, in many cases, without any liquid water. The most notable of these are the cactuses of the region which have evolved to store vast amounts of water within their stems, along with single-humped camels which seem to be the descendents of llamas who adapted to the desert as it dried out rather than leave for the mountains. As one of the few animals able to eat cactuses, spines and all, camels are the most common herbivore in the Sea of Dust.
    A few species from the northern reaches of the Great Convergence have adapted to the desert and now live throughout it. These include raccoon-wolves, which tend to have a thinner coat with sandy colors to match the desert, and ducks, of all things. Exactly one group of ducks from the Great Convergence has moved to the desert, getting used to the lack of water, losing the webbing between their toes, and becoming what are now known as lost ducks. Tiny flocks of lost ducks roam the Sea of Dust looking for insects and edible plant matter to eat with their relatively sharp and narrow bills. Additionally, several species which are common in the Ashmount Range to the west have found that their adaptations for the dry, volcanic mountains also work quite well in the Sea of Dust. The most notable of these creatures is the burrowing bear. These creatures which originated in the loose, ashy soils of the Ashmount Range, have found their massive claws and thick skulls well-suited to the loose sands that cover most of the Sea of Dust. The end result of all this migration is that the desert is home to a surprisingly diverse array of animals on its margins, although diversity begins to drop off sharply the deeper one gets into the dunes. Dusterino myth states that the very center of the desert is so dry that even the hardiest of plants and animals will dry out within a matter of days, the thirsty air sucking the water right out of them.

The Dusterinos:
    Dusterino culture was originally born from a mix of Convergent Wanderers from the Great Convergence and Ashmount Herders from the Ashmount Range. Outcasts from the two groups were forced to survive on the edges of the Sea of Dust for hundreds of years without support, eventually learning the ways of desert survival and developing their own, unique set of beliefs and traditions. Today, the Dusterinos are semi-nomadic, spending the dry season in towns built around oases and springs. The rest of the year, the Dusterinos roam the Sea of Dust, foraging and hunting for their food in small family groups. Although there is rarely any kind of surface water in the desert, the relatively wet and cool season of wandering is when large cactuses can be tapped for water. This time of year is also when game species are most active in the area, allowing families to stock up on food for the dry season in the towns. Being in tune with the cycles of nature like this is very important to the Dusterinos. Dusterino culture values factual knowledge about the natural world, the application of logic to practical issues, and the ability to observe the world around oneself accurately. They believe that these qualities are imperative to surviving in the desert and that their god, the collective consciousness of all of the grains of sand in the Sea of Dust, rewards those who display such qualities with good health and bountiful harvests. Dusterinos do not have much interaction with the outside world, since merchants have very little that interests the Dusterinos and the Dusterinos do not seem to produce anything of interest to the merchants. The sea of dust is fairly easy for merchants to go around without going through the desert, so there aren’t very many opportunities for trade anyway. This seems to suit the Dusterinos just fine, however, and they seem to be happy with their way of life. They are generally distrustful of magic and technology, preferring to live life simply in the desert. All of this may be changing, however, as the merchants recently realized they can sell the water tapped from cactuses during the wet season to people back home as a health drink.

Rough Timeline

• 6,000 years ago- The Convergent Wanderers move into the Great Convergence to the south of the Sea of Dust and begin exiling outcasts and criminals to the vast desert
• 5,000 years ago- The goat and sheep herders of the Ashmount Range to the west of the Sea of Dust first arrive in their mountainous home and begin exiling outcasts and criminals to the vast desert
• 4,800 years ago- The first generation to call themselves Dusterinos is born, taking on the label as they recognize that they have developed a distinct culture and way of life from their two source groups
• 4,300 years ago- Clive the Great begins the first unifying war after generations of violent conflict between the various Dusterino towns and villages, which were permanently inhabited at the time
• 4,250 years ago- After Clive the Great dies with only a single oasis outside of his unified Dusterino Kingdom, his son, Giles the Finisher, takes command and captures the town, unifying all Dusterinos under the rulership of a single king
• 4,000 years ago- Dusterism, the belief in and worship of the collective consciousness of all of the grains of sand in the Sea of Dust, referred to as Ol’ Dusty, begins as the result of the efforts of a woman named Stella, who claims to be the first and only prophet of Ol’ Dusty
• 3,670 years ago- After centuries of persecution and hardship, the towns and villages which have adopted Dusterism are allowed to secede from the Dusterino Kingdom by King Billy the Tolerant
• 3,500 years ago- Dusterino settlements which have adopted Dusterism join together into the Dusterist Union
• 2,400 years ago- After nearly a millennium of decline, the Dusterino Kingdom fractures into many smaller kingdoms as Jesse the Protuberant dies without an heir and no one seems interested in taking over more than a small chunk of the desert for them and their extended family
• 2,000 years ago- A woman named Starla, claiming to be the reincarnation of Stella, the prophet of Ol’ Dusty, calls for the expansion of the Dusterist Union, beginning the second unifying war
• 1,900 years ago- All Dusterino settlements have been conquered or coerced into joining the Dusterist Union and all Dusterinos have been converted to Dusterism
• 1,430 years ago- A radical sect of Dusterinos who follow an anti-magic, anti-technology interpretation of the two prophets’ teachings starts to gain popularity all across the Sea of Dust, although they remain a minority in most communities
• 1,000 years ago- The radical sect of Dusterists has become the dominant form of Dusterism in half of Dusterino settlements, with a significant minority following them in other towns and villages, leading to a civil war over which sect should be dominant in the Dusterist Union government
• 980 years ago- The civil war ends with the radicals in control of the Sea of Dust and almost all Dusterinos start to follow their version of Dusterism
• 500 years ago- After centuries of decreasing reliance on magic and technology, as well as a general rise in nomadism among the general population, the Dusterist Union votes to dissolve itself, leaving behind no successor state, in favor of letting each family of Dusterinos fend for themselves as they believe Ol’ Dusty desires
• 330 years ago- Very few Dusterinos now live in the settlements year-round, most of them having taken up the practice of wandering the desert during the wet season as per the teachings of radical Dusterism, and those who stay behind are the very old and the very young
• 100 years ago- First Empire merchants start to visit Dusterino settlements during the dry season, accepting payments in cactus water, sold as a health drink in the First Empire, in exchange for exotic foods and supplies
• 30 years ago- Several Dusterino settlements ban all outsiders, believing that merchants and outsiders have brought a decadent lifestyle to the Sea of Dust which is making Dusterinos soft and unsuited to the desert
• 5 years ago- A woman named Serena, claiming to be the reincarnation of the prophets Stella and Starla, starts to gain a following by saying that Dusterinos ought to live a more settled, less restrictive life and that Ol’ Dusty has no issue with people taking advantage of the comforts of magic and technology

Major Factions
Dusterinos
    The Dusterinos are the largest group of people in the Sea of Dust, having lived there for thousands of years. While their way of life and culture has changed over time, the Dusterinos have always maintained small settlements around the few oases and natural springs and there has always been some portion of their population which prefer to live a nomadic lifestyle out in the desert. For the last 500 years, each Dusterino town has been self-governing, with small family groups dispersing during the wet season to wander the desert and handle their conflicts however they see fit. The result is a highly dispersed and decentralized society where only the very young and old stay in settlements year-round. Lately, a radical movement has gained popularity in a few small communities which preaches a sedentary, modern lifestyle as the logical way to live when groups like the First Empire Merchants are able to provide a consistent level of comfort for all.

The Prophet’s Followers
    Serena, a woman who claims to be the third reincarnation of the prophet of Ol’ Dusty, Stella, has gathered a small group of followers in some of the most remote towns and villages of the Sea of Dust who believe the annual wanderings of their people are unnecessary and that Ol’ Dusty wishes for his followers to take advantage of the comforts available to them. In particular, Serena’s followers are living in their settlements year-round and trading with the First Empire Merchants for useful technology and magic, both of which are considered taboo in contemporary Dusterism, which almost all other groups of Dusterinos follow. Those who follow Serena’s teachings are barely tolerated by other Dusterinos, but some have been disowned by their families and publicly mocked for their defiance of social norms. While this discrimination has not escalated to violence yet, there are many among Serena’s followers who believe it is only a matter of time until someone decides to change that.

Convergent Wanderer Exiles
    For thousands of years, the Convergent Wanderers have been exiling those whose behavior is so abhorrent that they have no idea how to punish them to the great desert to the north of their homeland. Through ancient custom, no Convergent Wanderer enters these lands unless exiled, although the existence of the Dusterino culture which their exiles helped create is well-known at this point. Knowing this, many of the Wanderers form small communities of other exiles in order to help each other assimilate into Dusterino culture and learn the ways of the desert. With the annual season of wandering, many of these exiles tend to feel right at home in their new communities.

Ashmount Herder Exiles
    For thousands of years, the Ashmount Herders have been exiling those convicted of treachery against their kin to the Sea of Dust. The herders are generally aware of the culture this practice has helped create in the desert, although they are generally dismissive of the culture made of exiles and criminals. Regardless, the exiles, the only Ashmount Herders allowed to enter even the fringes of the desert, frequently find themselves taken in by small groups of other exiles who teach them the ways of the Dusterinos and desert survival. Many of these exiles find difficulty adjusting to their new way of life, used to getting everything they need from livestock which are hard to come by in the desert.

First Empire Merchants
    While not official diplomats of the First Empire, it is common for the First Emperor to grant trade licenses with new frontiers well before sending the Diplomatic Corps. Given the decentralized nature of the Dusterinos, this has been the status quo for First Imperial relations with the area for almost a century. Merchants and explorers have been doing their best, in the meantime, to try to find some good or ware that they can trade for and extract from the region. For now, they have settled on going through the villages during the dry, settled season and buying up as much cactus water, a product harvested from any sufficiently large cactus in the desert, as they can to sell as a health drink back in the First Empire. This has been difficult due to the culture of asceticism which dominates the Dusterinos. Seeing an opportunity in Serena the prophet’s movement, the merchants have been supporting her with good deals on products in exchange for a year-round, steady supply of cactus water. Should it come to it, these merchants would most likely help fund or even manufacture a revolution in religious thought and even a third unifying war, something which would grab the First Emperor’s attention and maybe even result in the diplomats establishing an embassy.