Nakulutiun

The Nakulutiuns were a reclusive people residing in the Nakvaligach region of the Great Glacier, the most inhospitable area of that frozen wilderness. They were the smallest (only 5% ) of the tribes collectively called the Ulutiuns.

Description
Nakulutiuns were short like all Ulutiuns, having round and flat facial features, but they were thinner. They rarely were taller than five feet (150 cm). Males usually weighed between 130 and 260 pounds (60–120 kg), and females were about 35 pounds (16 kg) lighter. They had short and thick legs with stubby fingers and toes. Their ears and nose were tiny, and they had especially wide teeth.

They had light yellow or brown skin, dark brown eyes, and black hair, but they tended to have hollow eyes.

Nakulutiuns had more fat under their skin than other humans and extra blood vessels in their extremities. Males could not grow facial hair. These adaptations gave them a special resistance to living in the frigid cold weather of their native lands.

These people tended to have greater strength and fortitude than other human races but, with their stubby fingers and shorter legs, lacked the speed and dexterity of other humans.

Nakulutiuns wore clothing made from fox, wolf, and bear skins, and their parkas had rounded hoods.

Personality
The Nakulutiuns were the most paranoid and least trusting of the three Ulutiun tribes. Members of one village rarely trusted those of another Nakulutiun village, much less a non-Ulutiun stranger. When they spotted a stranger, they tended to flee. If flight was not an option, they would attack to kill.

A Nakulutiun individual was often sullen and withdrawn. They tended to be soft-spoken.

Society
Nakulutiuns were not a populous people; their largest village, Kresttet, had only about 300 persons living in it, and it was by far the largest. Only a few thousand Nakulutiuns existed on the Great Glacier at all.

Nakulutiuns constructed snowhouses like other tribes of the Glacier, but in moutainous regions where the permafrost was thin, they constructed stone houses called ceenach, which were constructed just like snowhouses, except that they had flat roofs instead of domed ones, covered with branches and snow. Other stone structures included stone quaggi (feasting houses), ukujik (butcher houses), biknach (elevated storage houses), and ugunach (stairs for praying).

A village was not generally a happy or pleasant place. Life in the harsh Nakvaligach was miserable and hard. Houses usually lacked building material and clothes tended to be shabby. Besides the constant threat of starvation or death to exposure, white dragons and frost giants frequently raided Nakulutiun villages.

Men and women held the same status in Nakulutiun society. They did not practice arranged marriage (tupa).

Nakulutiuns were skilled at astrology and herbalism.

Language
Nakulutiuns spoke their own dialect of the Ulutiun language, but they had no trouble communicating with the other Ulutiun tribes. Most could also communicate with the human groups living outside the Glacier as well.

Religion
In stark contrast to their cousins in the south and south east, Nakulutiuns were strongly relgious, being devoted to the god Ulutiu. Nakulutiuns were convinced that Ulutiu would return someday to rule the Great Glacier and punish heathens. Beyond this, however, two Nakulutiun tribes rarely agreed on the dogma of Ulutiu.

Nakulutiuns did not try to spread their religion, but they expected to be respected for their faith. They were not opposed to killing one they believed to be an nonredeemable blasphemer.

Much of the teachings of their religion were line with the philosophical tenets of qukoko followed by other tribes of the Great Glacier. However, the Nakulutiuns believed that animals had the same emotions, thoughts, and even morals as people and thus could not be disrespected as fellow "children of Ulutiu". Both humans and animals contained a life essence called pokulu, which was said to merge with Ulutiu upon death. When death occurred, remains were properly treated&mdash;in ceremonies called yupokulu (for humans) or wypokulu (for animals)&mdash;to ensure that the pokulu reached Ulutiu.

Each citizen of a Nakulutiun village was expected to pray to Ulutiu three times daily. Praying was always done with the eyes covered by the hands during a time of silence facing the sky.

Two to five percent of a typical Nakulutiun village were priests of Ulutiu. Clerics of any other faith were simply not tolerated.

Arcane spellcasters were considered blasphemous to Nakulutiuns. Thus, they had no anagakok.

Government
Each village was controlled by a religious leader called a urit, who ruled with absolute authority. Below the urit in rank were his or her two or three yaaurit. A urit was always a priest of Ulutiu. When he or she reached the age of 50 years, the urit chose a successor, usually from among the yaaurit. If a urit died prematurely, the eldest yaaurit would become the next urit. Urit had additional powers as a blessing from Ulutiu, which included total immunity to cold-based spells and effects and the ability to inflict damage by touch.

The Nakulutiuns believed that the edicts of an urit were the expressed desires of Ulutiu for their village, no matter how harsh. Usually, these edicts tended to match the ways and customs of the other tribes on the Glacier.

In addition, each village had its own set of two or three special edicts, called kaiurit, which changed every year. On the first day of spring, the urit would call the whole village together to announce that year's kaiurit during a ceremony called the iurit. The urit would spend every evening for a month prior to the iurit seeking Ulutiu's will in prayer and meditation for what the next year's kaiurit were to be. While these rules often seemed arbitrary, they were considered holy and unchangeable to the Nakulutiuns.

Like the Angulutiuns, the Nakulutiuns maintained a strict social hierarchy, as follows:
 * 1) The urit
 * 2) The yaaurit
 * 3) Married or widowed adults
 * 4) Unmarried adults
 * 5) Children
 * 6) ukeu

All who committed any crime, big or small, within a Nakulutiun village were subjected to ykulutik, a type of ceremony in which Ulutiu was supposed to determine guilt or innocence. Like kaiurit, ykulutik varied from village to village, but they often involved situations in which the accused had to survive some dangerous ordeal to be considered innocent.

Economy
A Nakulutiun usually only traded within his or her own village. Nakulutiuns did not follow the practices of koatulit nor did they visit sukkiruchit trade fairs.

Diet
Nakulutiuns survived by hunting. Food was in short supply, because neither caribou nor seals lived in the region. They hunted birds, fish, deer, and polar bears. Their primary hunting weapons were bows and garnok slings. For their bows, they used a mix of barbed and blunt-tipped arrows.

Transportation
Because the terrain was rough and rocky in Nakvaligach, caribou sleds were not useful, but smaller dog sleds and kupuk sleds were used. Villages near the Uppuk River had kayaks. However, generally only a larger village would have any of these vehicles. Most Nakulutiuns&mdash;if they wanted to go anywhere at all&mdash;simply walked.

Combat
Because of the harsh conditions of where they lived, even war was considered a luxury; thus, if violence ever erupted between Nakulutiun villages at all, it was kept brief.

The Nakulutiuns greatest enemies were perhaps the yeti.

History
All Ulutiuns were descended from migrants from Kara-Tur who came west over the polar ice caps. Their ancestors first settled in Faerûn in Sossal. From there, they explored further west. In &minus;1648 DR, a group of them became severely lost after having narrowly escaped death from an attack by a tirichik, one of the monsters native to the Great Glacier. These lost hunters eventually came to the shores of the Lugalpgotak Sea and settled there.

By &minus;1362 DR, these early Ulutiuns had abandoned their gods and multiplied. The people spread out over the the Alpuk region and eventually discovered the Glacier of Ulutiu and its sacred writings. Some of the Ulutiuns dedicated themselves to the worship of this new god Ulutiu and moved further north into the Nakvaligach region and became the Nakulutiuns. Those who did not accept Ulutiu and remained in Alpuk became the Iulutiuns.

Notable Nakulutiuns

 * Mistukqu, a former priest of Ulutiu who served as a sort of veterinarian for Angulutiun villages
 * Tukurshuk, an exceptionally tall and violent urit who believed himself to be the son of Ulutiu