Content authored by: Ariane (Character: TBD)

• Strong storytelling / history-keeping culture. Family and personal history are very important. By extension, personal and family reputation are also important, because they become part of your history. How you are perceived = how you are remembered. How you are perceived should be as close to how you actually are. Straightforwardness, authenticity, and honesty are seen as admirable traits.
• The most aggressive animal husbandry / farmer / arts and crafts people you’ve ever met. Generations of inter-clan conflicts + occasionally fighting off invaders + fighting off dangerous wildlife = warrior farmer / crafter culture.
• People are farmers, traders, and craftsmen before they are warriors. Everyone knows basic self defense in addition to at least one trade. Martial arts are taught either within a family or in community groups. Sparring and martial competitions are often part of social events / celebrations.
• Crafts and trades are also super important because you can’t just be a fighter, you must be able to build new things, rebuild what was broken, and have something worth fighting for. Varangians are renowned for their textiles and metalworking.
• Their homeworld was lost eons ago, whether it was literally destroyed, became uninhabitable, or forgotten from living memory is unclear. The diaspora of Varangians has spread across space ever since.
• The first Varangians were originally Elves and Yetton, but over time, people of other lineages were adopted into the culture. In the present day, any lineage can be a Varangian.
• They live by integrating into local communities, starting homesteads in uninhabited places, and living as space nomads. “Home” is wherever they go. Hospitality is super important because as a formerly displaced culture, they believe that everyone should be given the courtesy of a safe place to rest and a meal.
• In every planetary system, they hold a regular meeting of all clans in that planetary system every 5 years. You meet, you eat, you party, and you settle affairs for the next 5 years.
• They have a whole legal / honor code, they’re a very legalistic people. There are rules on community leadership structure, conflict resolution (duels, feuds, blood money, etc.), rules for starting homesteads, rules for adoption into the culture, inheritance, etc.

The worst thing you can be as a Varangian is an “Outlaw” or an Exile. These are very culturally-contextual terms!

To be an Outlaw is to be literally outside the laws and customs of the culture. No hospitality, baseline level of respect or decency, no support network, etc. If someone kills you, there is no blood money owed.

An Exile is still bound by the laws and customs of the culture, but they are forced to live away / are cut off from the people who exiled them. Exile is a sliding scale of community unit to the entire culture and everything in-between. Blood money may still be owed if they are killed, it depends.

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