Fall, 1326

The Sabines were the second inhabitants of Nalbin, also known as the Woodfolk. They were similar in appearance to humans, though they tended to be slightly shorter, about 4-5 feet in height, and had more elongated features, including a sharp chin, ears like servals and thin noses. Also of note was their skin, brown and striated like the trees that they lived among. Their style of dress was made from the forest and suited to blend into their surroundings, including light, loose tunics and short trousers with leggings and cloaks made of mats and moss. Sabines went about barefoot, using their feet to help nimbly climb and balance among the trees.

The Sabines were an advanced race, but one with unique traits. They had no wheels, and instead moved everything with sleds, packs or pulleys. The Sabines lived in treehouses among the woods, and individuals could spend their lives among the giant trees that towered hundreds of feet into the air and branches larger than any castle wall, gathering fruits or hunting game that flocked upon and scampered around branches or scrambled under the canopy below.

The Sabines held the forest and its life-giving trees as sacred. Future Romanticists would claim that the Sabines were gentle, peace-loving folk, almost child-like in their pastoral innocence. These ideas provide more information about the Romanticists than about the Sabines. In truth, though the Sabines mostly were vegetarians, they did eat meat, and more importantly they were a cold, wary people, as wooden and mysterious and unwelcoming as the trees. The Sabines were deeply suspicious of outsiders. Among the ways that they worshiped the forests was sacrifice, returning individuals to provide for the trees in the same way that the forest nourished them. These victims tended to be criminals and prisoners, including trespassing humans.

Like many of the early peoples of Nalbin, the history of the Sabines was one of migration. Though the First Peoples had disappeared- and what role the Sabines played in their disappearance remaining open- the Sabines bore the brunt of every subsequent invasion to Nalbin. They were pushed to the Wilds by the Other Men, then pushed from the mountains by the Duregaren. The four human invasions sweeping Nalbin finally drove the Sabines across the mountains and into the Back Valley. Since then, the Sabines have managed to hold their last stronghold, despite multiple human attempts to break in to the fertile lands.

The weaponry of the Sabines was advanced-a side effect of their long wars with each other and with other invaders. However, like many of the fey folk, the Sabines have a great weakness to iron. This was compensated by widespread use of resources from the forest, flint, wood, obsidian from the deposits in Compton’s Cove. Sabines were master fighters of the forest, using blowguns, composite bows and atlatls for ranged fighting, and moving in with obsidian knives, macuahuitls for close-quarter combat.

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Sufjan was the Sabine leader of the Sentinels of the Southern Foothills, a contingent of about 500 scouts and guards defending the Great Ironwood Forest and the Sabine City-States against any human incursion. This was a constant and never-ending threat. The Southern Foothills was a relatively prestigious position, guarding the Giant’s Pass and Gryphon’s Pass, some of the major access routes from the South. Though two large scale invasions had occurred through this position within the last 100 years, in recent years the front had remained quiet, minus some fool settlers or woodsmen that were quickly dealt with. Sufjan however kept her people on high alert for any potential threats, sweeping constantly and patrolling up the Southern Ranges. They were the first line of defense, ready to fight to hold back minor threats- and to die to get the message back to the cities for major threats.

The position matched that of the commander. Sufjan was a careful if cold and righteous individual. She believed firmly in the Old Ways, though she also knew that the Old Ways needed to be malleable, lest it destroy the people who followed it, as had nearly happened in the Sacred War three centuries before when internal bickering allowed the humans to shatter the Sabine defenses one by one and drive them into the Back Valley. The Sabine City-States had learned their lesson, creating the coalitions for mutual defense against outsiders, but Sufjan was always worried that the traumatic memory would dull with time, leading to future destruction.

The legends spoke of the change of times heralded by a mysterious figure riding atop a monster. There were already signs of a great change in the world-the human War of the Wilds, the famines, the Men of the Snows massing in the North, the blood snow and the mock suns. The new order of the world would come in her lifetime- Sufjan felt it in her bones. Whenever the herald showed up, she was ready for him.

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Thanks to  twilek.prince !

Original: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31165145/

True Grit (2010) Intro