Ancestral mound

ORIGINS

When Uthgar conquered the beast Gods and ascended on his sky pony to join his father Beorunna he left his people with a path and totem animals to lead them on the path outlined by Tempus.

By assigning the totem spirits to the tribes the shamans were gifted with the power to invoke the strength and characteristics of the deity, either upon themselves or others of the tribe.

The ancestor mound was a pivitol socio/religious focus point of the tribes, with each tribe generally regarding at least one mound as their traditional veneration site, of which the history of the people would be remembered in oral tradition.

DESIGN

Traditionally the mounds were constructed in a series of concentric raised earthern banks with lower regions in between, known as Cairn rings and Vales. In the centre would be the altar mound and the altar stone. Menhirs were common marking the points is the compass on the outer Cairn rings.

Some mounds stood out for being of unusal design. The Great Worm caves were situated underground, but claimed the oldest connection to Uther via Elrem the wise, while the Grandfather tree and four surrounding smaller trees took the place of the menhirs.

USAGE

They were the embodiment of the people in Uthgardt tradition. At least once a year the major festival known as the runemeet would occur.

This was usually at autumn, the month of Eleint (which coincides with the festival of Harvestide)

although smaller meets will occur at the other high points in the seasonal changes, as befits a people tied to nature.

At these meets young warriors of the tribe desiring to be considered adults engage in the ritual called the runehunt. Similar in nature to the Malarite hunt, this is usually, however, against the tribes ritual enemies which alter from tribe to tribe. For a young barbarian to be considered a warrior he must best the tribes ritual enemy at the time of the runemeet, this is very often Orcs but not always.

Due to the lose of tribes and mounds or in the case that the tribe is not near its mound at the Meet sometimes tribes will share mounds. An example of this is the Treeghost tribe, long lost from Grandfather tree tend to share whatever mound is closet to their wanderings.

There have been tales of magical lights connecting all of the mounds at runemeets and stories of visitations by the totem beast Gods.

source is FR5 the Savage Frontier