Mudança 4E – Chondatanis de Faerûn

Pra quem não conhece, a etnia humana chondatani é composta (racial-cultural-etnicamente falando, nem todos são obrigados a serem assim) pelos grandes mercadores e mercenários dos Reinos. Então, para Erianna de Shaundakul, e qualquer outro humano que queira mais “fí de beque” pra sua cultura, aí está:

Human, Chondathan

Chondathans are hardy folk, not afraid to take risks, travel, or settle new lands, and are always looking to better themselves and their families monetarily. As Chondathan culture has taken root in so many distant lands, Chondathans are comfortable in most human societies. Many Chondathans are merchants of one sort or another, selling their skills and the fruits of their labors for coin. Although Chondathans make skilled mercenaries and cunning rogues, Chondathan culture has not encouraged study of the Art or great religious fervor. Notable exceptions exist, particularly in the study of the Art among the Netherese influenced Chondathan cultures that lie north and west of the Inner Sea.

From the cradle of the Vilhon Reach, Chondathan emigrants have settled most of the western and central Inner Sea region as well as much of the Western Heartlands. Outside their homeland, Chondathans form the primary racial stock of Altumbel, Cormyr, the southern Dalelands, the Dragon Coast, the Great Dale, Hlondeth and the north shore of the Vilhon Reach, the Pirate Isles of the Inner Sea, Sembia, and Sespech. Thanks to far wandering Chondathan traders, the Chondathan tongue is spoken even in regions where the number of pureblooded Chondathans is small or nearly nonexistent. Chondathan ancestry, language, and culture form a significant portion of Damaran, Vaasan, and Tethyrian heritage.

Chondathans are slender, tawny-skinned folk with brown hair ranging from almost blond to almost black. Most Chondathans are tall and have green or brown eyes, but all builds and hair and eye hues may be seen. Those Chondathans who dwell north and west of the Sea of Fallen Stars (except in Sembia) are more likely to have blue eyes and have fairer complexions and darker hair than those born in the South, evidence of a significant Netherese heritage. In Chondath itself, particularly in the lands bordering Sespech, a significant Shaaran influx in recent centuries has given many natives of Chondath more of an olive skinned hue.

Chondathans regard themselves as having come to dominate central Faerûn almost by accident; they have “conquered” more land through trade and settlement than with armies. They show little arrogance and only a small amount of pride regarding the predominance of their language and culture. Likewise, Chondathans are more apt to identify themselves by their national origins (such as Cormyrean, Dalesfolk, or Sembian) than by their ethnic group. If Chondathans do have a common vice, it is perhaps their cultural focus on wealth and its acquisition.

Among Chondathans, prestige and influence are often directly tied to wealth, and it is no accident that the merchant nobility plays a strong role in most societies influenced by Chondathan culture. Today, Chondathan culture and language dominates much of central and western Faerûn. Thorass, the alphabet that arose from interactions between Jhaamdath and the Old Kingdoms of Calimshan, is commonly employed as the alphabet of most human tongues. Moreover, Common, the trade language of Faerûn, is simply a modern version of Thorass (“ Old Common”), which in turn was largely based on Jhaamdathan (“Old Chondathan”) and Alzhedo, the language of Calimshan. While the Calishites, the Imaskari, the Mulan, and the Netherese may have each forged the greatest human empires of Faerûn in their day, it is the Chondathans whose culture now predominates, an empire spread by commerce and coin, not by sword or staff.

Outlook

Chondathans measure others by how much wealth and influence a person or family has acquired. To a Chondathan, all things are for sale, assuming one can agree upon a price. Intrigue and covert manipulation are simply means to an end, but unnecessary bloodshed is destructive and wasteful. Chondathans have found that power inevitably swings to whoever controls the purse strings, not whoever carries the biggest sword, and set their aspirations accordingly. Fierce competition in all walks of life is the guiding rule of Chondathan society, and those raised within its confines are used to seeing fortunes won or lost, with commensurate gains or losses in stature. Chondathans expect each individual to look out for himself or herself, and they are often surprised when others act selflessly.

Chondathans are drawn to adventuring for one of two reasons: Some take up arms and spells to defend that which they hold most dear, a tradition harkening back to the early Chondathan settlers. Others are drawn to a life on the road by the same impulses that send Chondathan merchants into unfamiliar lands in search of trading opportunities, a hunger to search for wealth in the unknown. Most Chondathans who adopt adventuring as a career are drawn to the potential of acquiring great wealth by looting some long-forgotten tomb or recovering some fabulous treasure from an ancient ruin.

CHONDATHAN CHARACTERS

Chondathans typically make good fighters, drawing on their culture’s long-standing mercenary tradition. Likewise, many Chondathans find their calling as rogues, a product of their culture’s emphasis on the acquisition of wealth and the wide range of skills. The most common multiclass combination among Chondathans is fighter/rogue. Chondathans are rarely barbarians, sorcerers, or wizards, as no sizable group of Chondathans has ever reverted into barbarism; ancient Jhaamdath had relatively few relations with dragons, social or otherwise; and wizardry has long been associated with the unleashing of plagues in Chondathan folklore. Those Chondathan sorcerers who do exist usually hail from lands north and west of the Inner Sea and have one or more High Netherese ancestors in their heritage.

Chondathan Society

Chondathan culture varies widely across Faerûn. Compared to other cultures, particularly Calishite and Mulan, Chondathan societies have relatively weak class divisions. Hard work and good fortune have been enough to catapult more than one member of the lower classes into the merchant nobility. Commerce plays an important role in all Chondathan-dominated cultures, giving rise to the maxim that everything is for sale at some price. Chondathans honor their word, although not for moral reasons. One’s reputation is like a purse with a fixed number of coins that, once squandered, is costly to repurchase.

As Chondathans place a high value on book learning, many receive some amount of schooling while growing up. Chondathan youths are apprenticed to a master by the age of 12 and are expected to learn a trade during their apprenticeship. Chondathans have little patience for able-bodied indigents, and all adults are expected to earn their own keep in whatever field they were trained. Wealthy persons are afforded great respect in Chondathan societies, and those who squander money foolishly are looked down upon. Chondathans are expected to work until no longer physically capable or until death. Even those too infirm to earn a living often pass their days at their former place of work, offering advice to those who have replaced them.

Outside Chondathan-dominated lands, Chondathans strive to integrate into the local culture, even if that means learning a new tongue or converting to the worship of the local gods. Of course, such integration strategies do not interfere with sharing Chondathan necessities and customs with the local populace, a practice that over time slowly subsumes the local culture. Chondathan minorities usually organize themselves into merchant houses or trading costers for protection and to maximize their opportunities for profit.

Language and Literacy

Chondathans speak Common and Chondathan, two closely related tongues. Chondathan, one  of the root tongues of Common, is the modern form of Jhaamdathan (“Old Chondathan”), which was one of two root tongues of Thorass (“Old Common”). Chondathan employs the Thorass alphabet, a set of characters used to represent the trade tongue that came into use thousands of years ago along the shores of the Lake of Steam. As many Chondathans dwell amid other human cultures (or at least have extensive trade contacts with such societies), many individuals learn the local tongue or the language of their nearest neighbor. Commonly learned second languages include Illuskan if the individual in question lives in the Western Heartlands or the North, Damaran if she lives in northcentral Faerûn, Shaaran if she lives south of the Vilhon Reach, Turami if she lives on the northern shore of the Vilhon Reach, or Alzhedo if she lives along the shores of the Lake of Steam. Spellcasters, particularly those who dwell in Cormyr or the Dalelands, usually learn Netherese and Elven in order to acquire magic from old sources. Few Chondathans outside those areas learn Elven, a legacy of generations of conflict and a likely contributor to future conflicts. All Chondathan characters are literate except for barbarians.

Chondathan Magic and Lore

Chondathans do not have a strong arcane spellcasting tradition, nor do Chondathan bloodlines include the ancestry that gives rise to a great number of sorcerers. However, many Chondathans are drawn to the divine and become clerics or druids. In their great diaspora of a thousand years past, the Chondathans carried the worship of many of their gods to all corners of Faerûn; it’s sometimes said that Chondathans conquered a continent with their gold and their gods.

Relations with Other Races

Chondathan history is replete with clashes with various elven realms, and, as a result, few Chondathans (with the exception of some Cormyreans and most Dalesmen) have good relations with the Fair Folk or their half-elven brethren. Likewise, Chondathans have traditionally regarded the planetouched with a great deal of suspicion, as Chondathan culture has never had a great deal of interaction with outsiders and most planetouched they have encountered were representatives of rival cultures (such as the air and fire genasi of Calimshan, or the aasimar and tieflings of Mulhorand and Unther). Half-orcs are considered little better than their full-blooded brethren by most Chondathans. They are seen as little more than raiding scum intent only on disrupting the flow of trade and pillaging the farms of hardworking settlers.

Chondathans have good relations with dwarves, gnomes, and halflings, for all have proven to be good trading partners and have traditionally dwelled in small enclaves within Chondathan societies. Among human cultures, Chondathans get along best with Calishites, Damarans, Shaarans, Tethyrians, and Turami. Relations with the Mulan have never been warm, Illuskans are regarded as little better than orcs, and other cultures are largely unknown.

Chondathan Equipment

Through centuries of commerce, Chondathan merchants have spread their culture’s trade goods across Faerûn, making their favored weapons, forms of armor, and other equipment the norm throughout the region, not the exception. Similarly, Chondathans have adopted the most useful items of other cultures as their own, making them commonplace across Faerûn. As such, the equipment lists found in the Player’s Handbook can be seen as reflecting the Chondathan norm.

ARMS AND ARMOR

Chondathans do have some distinct equipment preferences. Favored weapons include crossbows (except in the Dalelands where longbows are the norm) and all manner of blades, including the longsword, the short sword, and the dagger. Commonly employed forms of armor include leather armor, studded leather armor, chain shirts, chainmail, breastplates, half-plate, and shields of all kinds. Heavier forms of armor are more commonly employed in the cooler climes to the north of the Sea of Fallen Stars.

Common Items: Chainmail, chain shirts, longswords, and crossbows can all be purchased among the Chondathans for 10% less.

Unique Item: Somewhat broader in the blade than usual for a longsword, Chondathan steelswords (ainda a ser adaptada pelo DM) are favored by mercenaries and merchant guards.