Kharagoshi Village

Kharagoshi Village

Superficially Kharagoshi is a subsistence-level settlement with minimal tool use, and a very strong vegetarian tradition. Most of the homes and buildings are simply made burrows in the earth, with slat board reinforced walls, heavy curtains instead of doors, and an obvious dearth of stonework or metal. The most commonly used materials are antler, bone, and wood. This is a basic reflection of the fact that the Gulerodia are a primitive people, and do not have advanced toolmaking skills, and their agriculture consists more of natural horticulture and advanced foraging techniques.

There are three buildings in the village that are recognizable as being made by outsiders, and they are the main temple, a central hall, and a tower. The hall and tower date back to ancient times when a now forgotten empire stretched far across the land, and they left these buildings at Kharagoshi for the same reason the village was there, access to Limberlost. The tower remains in its usual role, and the hall has gone from being a government office to being the community center of the village, and where they hold most of their festivals. The temple is newer and represents a distant effort to civilize the Gulerodia and convert them from their esoteric animism to a more traditional book and cleric-based faith.

This failed.

The Temple is now used as a place for trials, punishment, and incarceration, as needed.

The Gulerodia Clan

Also known as the Rabbitkin, the Gulerodia Clan venerates the Great Rabbit Spirit, a wise and cunning trickster who outwits her foes, confounds her allies, and bewitches monsters. The Clan is also almost entirely female, with the males representing less than 1% of all Gulerodians. As such, the clan of rabbit-worshipping barbarian women are typically scantily clad in grass skirts, rabbit fur, and trinkets bought, traded, and stolen. They value jewelry, metal tools, light armor, and weapons like bows, arrows, spears, and javelins.

Agriculture - horticulture with an emphasis on tubers, carrots, onions, and brassicas like cauliflower and leafy greens. They supplement their diet with small amounts of meat, typically small game, and venerate the rabbit as a sacred animal, which they do raise for a variety of purposes including as a meat animal. They do not have a baking and complex carbohydrate dietary staple, and this tends to keep them thin, hungry, and a tad food-aggressive.

Alignment - chaotic good, with a matriarchical tradition.

Magic - Druidic and nature clerical, strong elements of animism and naturism

Religion - veneration of the Great Rabbit Spirit

Beasts - The Gulerodia clan has been selectively breeding rabbits for generations, including trading animals to the dungeon for breeding purposes. To this end, they have bred rabbits that can be as much as a hundred pounds in weight, and can be trained to carry out roles like a guard dog, or a dungeon mob. These jumbo rabbits attack with a weak bite and scratch, but a powerful flying spear attack that can stun a horse. They have also inherited the Kjanin from the dungeon. A Kjanin is large humanoid creature with smooth skin, short fur all over its body, and the innocent and vague face of a rabbit. Despite being large and powerful creatures, they are content to act as the beasts of burden for the Gulerodia Clan, in what limited menial labor they carry out. The Kjanin use the same stats as a bugbear, but look like rabbits, and have no language or ability to speak, but are intelligent enough to follow commands, and recognize who they see as their family.

Adventurers are unsettled by the Kjanin because they are obviously dungeon monsters, that for some reason, are willing to farm and carry things for a clan of rabbit girls. If pressed, they are effective at fighting, and use powerful kicks, and make use of improvised clubs and thrown objects like large rocks.

The Rub

The largest issue with entering Kharagoshi Village falls back on its all female population of rabbit worshipping barbarians. Any attractive men might find themselves facing a trial in the temple for ... anything. Stepping on a flower, disrespecting a tree, being rude to a breeze. The punishment for this infraction is furious mating. While this might seem ... entertaining, the danger is real. The Gulerodia know how to keep a man primed and going, typically until their heart gives out, or some other body part fails and they perish.

Female adventurers tend to get somewhere between friendly to rude treatment, and might only run into issues if they have a mate in their party as the clan honors marriage, even if they themselves do not practice the strange tradition.

History

Limberlost is an ancient dungeon, and it is nowhere near any major settlements, trade routes, or other areas of any sort of importance. Thus, the region has remained a low priority backwater. The Great Tribes have long since inhabited the region, swirling and moving around like storm cells, with smaller clans spinning off, being absorbed by others, and on occasion gathering into a superstorm of human energy that threatens to go Mongol Hordes across the land. They have long been held in check by long-standing feuds with the Orc Khanate, the Goblin Caliphates, the stone-walled borders of the civilized Kingdoms, and the constant churn of demi-human nations that rise and flourish for a century or three and then decline. The Gnollish Horde, the Minotaur Supremacy, and the horrific Hafling Empire tend to act as obstacles to the Great Tribes.

The Gulerodia found what they called a 'Claiche' or 'Clichen' which is a special or holy place where they can settle, venerate a local Little God, without giving up their tribal traditions. This Claiche had a curse laid on it, and that while it is a sacred and magically protected place, no male offspring can be born within its bounds. Leaving the boundary of the claiche would counter this, but this would require the mother to leave within a few days of becoming pregnant and staying away until her child is born. This doesn't guarantee a son, just a chance that she might have a son.

Given this difficulty, the clan alleviates travelers of their male energy, breed more Gulerodians, and make more offerings to the Great Rabbit.

Limberlost and Kharagosti Village

After a century or so, the villagers started making use of the forest dungeon. They did this as a forager-gatherer culture, not a weapon-swinging adventurer. This has rapidly lead to a synergistic relationship between the dungeon and the village, where the villagers can freely enter and leave the dungeon, and treat it like a garden or secret place. They make a point of not letting bad people into the dungeon, which is important because this New Limberlost is not a strong dungeon, it doesn't have devastating monsters, or lethal traps. It creates magical flora, unusual 'plantimals' or plant-animal hybrids.

The rabbit women care for the dungeon monsters and gardens, and the dungeon provides them with food, shelter, and entertainment. The clan doesn't have a technological level to support making alcohol. The dungeon creates wine-fruit for them. It also creates a variety of other fruits for different purposes. Murkfruit makes the consumer deeply sleepy, useful for incapacitating angry or dangerous adventurers. There are stormseeds, that when dried in the sun, powdered, and then snorted, instill a great deal of hyperactive energy. There are also tree fruit that when cracked open have a rich chocolatey flesh.

Limberlost is quite fond of its bunnies.