Barabara (Barbari)
The Barabara are a tough stock of barbaric apelike men. They have low brows and heavy cheekbones. They are hulked with massive arms and small but bulky legs. They are very hairy on their backs and on the backs of their arms. They have small beady black eyes with thick and heavy eyebrows, their noses are stunted and squished into their face, and they have powerful jaws. They typically grow their hair out into long braided locks, and they have a mane that runs down their backbone to the small of their back. The Barabari have long been considered by the Races of Etheria as a crude and barbaric race. It is true that their culture is simple and their ways are primitive. But they are not nessissarily barbaric. Although, even the Orcs hold them as crude. As one can imagine the word ‘barbarian’ has a relation to a name Barabara. It originally refered to a outlaw that lived with a tribe of Barabari for protection against bountyhunters. The Barabari have no apparent connection with the Children of Illuvatar, the Fathered Races, or Morgoth’s Mockeries. They appear to have distant ties to both the Drug as well as to the Dohcar. They are not a hybrid of both, nor are they a link between the two. They are probably an strange offshoot that happened in days much darker than now. The Barabari hold little legend, and none of which explains their roots. The Barabari seem to have just been around, for there are even Barabari vaguely refered to in the Legend of the Summoning of the Elves to the Blessed Realm. In this respect they are very similar to the Trolls (all though the Trolls do have legends of their origin). The culuture of the Barabari has changed little in that time. The Barabari have a very bellicose culture that glorifies the war hero. They divide thems selves up into tribes. Each tribe is closely related and has its own name identity and language. At the top of the society is the tribal chief. This is the biggest and best male warrior of the tribe. Below him is a war council of the best tribal warriors, these are usually older and more seasoned veterans. These of the council serve the same function as generals in war and lords in everyday life. For each is the head of a clan within the tribe. The wisest male Barabara, (usually the oldest) is the Shaman, he provides counsel, guidance, and also magic. His wife is the Healer, who provides, remedies, treatements, poisons, and cures. This pair is highly respected in the tribe, and the Council does not make an important decision without consulting this pair, refered to as the Elders. A tribe usually lives in a community built of earth and wood. It is usually surrounded by a wooden palisade for protection and has a wooden fort that doubles as a town hall in the center. The fort is where the Council meets and where the Chief lives. Each of the clans within the tribe live in their own area of the settlement. The Lord of the clan lives in a Longhouse in his clan’s area of town. A longhouse is a long and narrow wooden hall with a high wooden ceiling. All of the clan would then build their huts of packed earth in a semi circle around the longhouse. In front of the longhouse a great open area was left. The open area always was the area of the clans neighborhood that faced the fort. In this way there was a great open common in which the Barabara could meet for festivals and to barter and sell goods. These settlements where usually began in remote locations in the far backwoods next to mountain streams. Given time the settlement would normally grow, some even as much as till every clan had their own settlement. The Barabari gain their wealth and food throught hunting, gathering, farming, and fishing in their territory. Territory is a very big deal in the Barabari culture, because the more territory a tribe had the wealthier it was. A tribe could only hold its claim on a territory if it had the people to do it. Many Tribes built small forts near the borders of their territory to protect it. Also a tribe must be ready to fight a war to expand their territory if it is overused, or to defend it from another tribe. Fighting is highly stressed in the Barabari society. Children are encouraged to wrestle one another, and are taught how to fight from and early age, female and male alike. The males fight the distant wars, but the females where encouraged to fight in the wars that took place in tribal territory, and were expected to defend the settlement if it fell under siege. The coming of age ceremony for a young male Barabara sent him out into wild foreign territory to wrestle and kill barehanded a creature of great furiosity. According to Barabari legend the great warrior Rolthar the Thunderer wrestled and killed a mountain ogre for his coming of age. Then the youth was presented with a warclub and a suit of armor. The warclubs of the Barabari are considered sacred relics. Each time a warrior killed an opponent they would put a notch in their club and then the Shaman would bless them, giving them more strength. The warclub was made out of hard ash, it was hardened over a fire and coated with beewax to harden and preserve it. Then the stock of club was totally covered with sharpened obsidian glass that was embedded into the hardened wood and ceiled in with the beewax. The armor consisted of furs, hides, and plants. They wore a skull cap of thick leather hide, and capes of soft fur sewn onto thick hide. They wore brestplates of bone and tunics of woven fiberous reeds. The typical Barabari warrior was seasoned in every weapon used by the Barabari culture, the warclub, the tomahawk, the bow and arrow, blow gun, sling, stone dagger, spear, and javalin. They also carried circular shields made from crossed planks of wood and hard dried hide. In the society of warriors there were various ranks as well. The Berserkers, Warriors, and Braves. The Berserkers where the highest class of warrior. They were the fittest, strongest, and best of each Lord’s Warriors. They were like and elite guard, and where outfitted with hard leather armor and simple copper helm, brestplace, and shield. They also wore a great fur cloak around their shoulders that had many wards painted on it by the Shaman to empower them. The Berserkers would smoke a special concoction brewed by the Shaman before they went into battle that made them devoid of pain, fear, and doubt. The Berserkers where the most fear by the Crusaders during the First Crusade. The most every fit father was a Warrior. This was the backbone of the Barabari army. Instead of like the Berserkers, whom were excellent frontline fighters and superior at hand to hand. The Warriors were greatly rounded in what purpose they could serve and carried all of their weapons into battle. The Braves where males that had had no children. These were typically young boys that had recently come of age. They rarely commited to the great frays, for fear that the youngest generation be wiped out and threaten the future of the tribe. The Braves acted as support units backing charges of Warriors and providing coverfire during battle with slings, bows, javelins, and blow guns. They were also used to sack settlements, because of their spryness and eagerness for battle. But the Berserkers and Warriors where used to breech the settlement. The most important part of the Barabari’s suit of armor was the mask that hid his identy from his foe. This was very important so that they could not curse you in death, or haunt you in the night if you killed them. Also it was symbol of the animal within the individual that was brought out in battle. These masks that were made of baked clay, not only protected against arrows and darts, but they were painted up with warpaint to strike fear into their foes and to help indentify ones allies in battle. The Barabari reproduce at a fairly rapid rate, but due to war, it slowly over time increases. The Barabari’s warlike nature, and their willingness to war among themselves attracted the attention of Morgoth in the days when the Elves warred against him to regain the Silmarils. Morgoth saught to subject them under his dominion. The Barabari are very superstitious and many tribes where easily subjugated. Morgoth then used his Barabari to make war on other tribes, one by one defeating them and bring them under his dominion. Morgoth used the Barabari as frontline fighters against the Elves, and though affective they were, costly it was. Countless Barabari died in the service of Morgoth, and made a name for themselves in the tales of the Elves. A great Barabari army was amassed in the south ready to crushs the remaining Elves in Etheria at the time of the unexpected intercession of the Valar and the breaking of Angband. Even though their master was gone the great host of Barbari through themselves against the Elves and Men. Even though through time they were forced back into the Southland, the Barabari where now able to assemble themselves.
Most of the Barabari went back to the secluded tribal way of life. But in some densely populated areas they were too war-scourged and needed some measure of peace. The tribal chiefs installed high chiefs to keep the order throught the land. These high chiefs became known as the Pendragons, named after Huor Pendragon of the Great Houses of Men. The tribal chiefs became known as Dragons. These loose nations of Barabari where perhaps the most significant development in the culture of the Barabari, allowing them to resist foreign threats. There where many Pendragons at any given time and many Dragons beneath them. Also, the Chiefs still existed in the more remote areas and below them many Lords. And even below the Dragons where many Chiefs, and below them many Lords. This loose organization was shown to them by the agents of Morgoth, forever after their service to him, even after is expulsion beyond th AE, his shadow hung heavy upon them. They were dispised by the other Races of the earth, and thought of as inferior, they also where continually taken advantage of by lustful servants of darkness that used the Barabari’s superstition to their advantage. It is well known that Set and Sauron both actively used Barabari as their grunts and minions, it is also known that many liches and vampires at any given time walk among the Barabari Tribes of the the remote regions, seducing and deceiving them. Also, the Orku and the Haradrim have had a regular history of enslaving massive numbers of them. Paladins and Crusaders have slaughtered them wantonly. Is there any wonder as to why the Barabari are so savage to outsiders? The biggest enemy of the Barbari is by far the Orc. The Orc has never ceased to stop harassing and warring with the Barabari. For in the time of Morgoth’s Dominion, he move many Orcs into the land of the Barabari, desicrating and defiling much of it. Multitudes of free tribes of Orcs still run rampant in the lands of the Barabari to this day. The Barabari also have a distasted for the Dohcar, (mostlikely a conception of Set). The Dohcar, have rapid reproduction rate and great physical ability. They multiply swiftly in remote and inhospitable regions and then unexpectedly swarm down into populated regions sacking, burning, and killing. This is a grief that the Children of every race are forced to face. The Barbari itch for war and they get it by provoking neighboring enemies that cause them much strife. The Haradrim and the Barabari have a long history that has been carefully recorded by the Haradrim in oral legend of war and unrest. Before Sauron had fashioned out Mordor as his abode, and after his Master had been broken and his expulsion from the Ilse of Fears, and from Mormino Umano, Sauran walked about the earth silently, raising trouble here and there, but lying low for the most part. He no longer dared linger in the Northland, which was carefully watched by the Valar, so he came to the Southland to the edge of where the influence of Morgoth had reached. He began to move through the Races of the Southland and rekindle what his Master had begun. It was in his dealing in the Southland with the Barabari, Haradrim, and Orcs where he developed one of his most potent strategies. Going to the more boorish cultures that dwelt in the far extremes of the world and moving among them. He quickly summoned all of the Orcs to him and he set up shop in the , or the . This was a region that, no doubt would later be the basis for the layout of Mordor. It was rugged rocky desert cleaved by great gorges and canyons, and blocked by great mountains of stone and razor rocks. Sauron brought to it the Volcanic activity that Mordor was so famous for, but the land was barren and could not be defiled as the land of Mordor, so his foul creatures could still live off of the land, and he was far beyond the eye of the Elves and Men. In silence he regained his strength and began swaying the Haradrim to his side. He also took the Barabari under his wing, turing them into his gangs which would roam abroad doing his will. The great companies of Barabari set out far and wide raiding the lands to the North of Elves and Men, making open war upon them. The Great Houses of Men had already departed to the promised Isle of Numenor at this time, and the Elves had regathered in some of their Kingdoms, but had flocked to great Elven Sanctuaries farther in the north for the most part. The Barbari found themselves doing war with heathen barbarian Humans that had moved into the southern Sweeping Plains from the East. These Easterlings where not from the Three Kingdoms of Men in the Far East, but had come out of the wilderness just beyond the . For the Middle Kingdoms had not immerged as of yet. There were other houses of lesser men that were Elf-Friends that had not yet grown in prestiege or number. The Heathen Wars as they later were called by the Middle Kingdoms did succeed in deterring Elves and Elf-Friends from venturing far into south, and no rumor or suspition existed that Sauron had reestablished himself once again. During this dark period in the history of the Barabari Sauron instructed them in the was of black magic. Their Shaman became very powerful warlocks. The magicial powers still exist in the Barabari culture, only it is not necessarily black magic that they use. As the Elf-Friends grew in strength and number they separated from the Elves and established their own kingdoms in the remaining regions where the former Elven Kingdoms of old had been. The Elves, which multiplied far slower than the race of Man, smiled as the Humans reclaimed regions long lost to them. This allowed the Elves to reclaim the lands that their families had lost. The Elves spread throughout the Kingdoms of Men forever after had great ties to men and where ever after bound to the fate of mortal men. But the Elves that had gathered in the Strongholds of Old or in the New Strongholds of Luin, Imlardris, Pelegir, and Lothlorien strengthed once more and but never again founded nations, nor did they become great in power. They all united under on King, this King was granted by the Valar the gift of Higher Immortality. He was not only timeless like the Elves, but he would advance in power and wisdom as he gained years. He was even immuned to physical damage and powerful dark magic, only a being of truly terrible physical, magical, and spiritual might would be able to destroy him. This Higher Immortality was granted to all of his descendants as well. He took the name Orofer, he was the Father of Gil-Galad the Immortal Elf King of Lindon. The Great Kingdoms of Men that arose in this period where called the Middle Kingdoms of Men and sprang up in the regions of the Elven Kingdoms of Old. The great cities of the Noldar, which had been leveled by Morgoth were restored by the Kings of Men in hopes of returning them to their former glory. Doriath, Vyanmar, Nargathrond, Alaericroft, and eventually Gondolin where reconstructed and a established as the Capitols of the Middle Kingdoms. All of the surrounding land was taken under the dominion of the city. For the most part the Middle Kingdoms occupied much of the former expanse of the Elven Realms in their glory days. Even the Ledger Lands of the Noldarin Princes were divided up into many small principalities and duchies. There where other independent states and cities, as well other smaller kingdoms in that day, all which where built on the ruins or foundations of Elven fotifications and cities. Amon-en-Uriuk, the bastion of the north was taken as the castle for a small Kinglet that through shrew negotiations and careful alliances, preserved the castle from war for over 800 years. As the Elf-Friends of Middle Lands began gaining strength, they thought to reestablish the former expanse of the Realms of the Elves during their Golden Age. The Kings of Naragathrond, Alericroft, and Doriath forged an alliance to liberate the Elven Realms of Lume and Falas, and to reclaim the southern territories of the former Elven Realms of Nargathrond and Alericroft. The Kings also planned to expand further South and down into the Wilds of Bow and Hand all the way to Amon Ruk and east to the region of the Seven Rivers known as Osseriand. This was the land of the Avari, they were considered sub-Elven by the Elves that lived among the Elf-friends, and the remaining Eldar encouraged the Kings to subdue them. The King agreed that the Southern Territories should be cleared out first. The :Lower Sweeping Plains and the Wilds of Bow and Hand were inhabited by wildmen and Easterlings, both hated and reviled by the Elf-Friends. The Heathens would be beaten down and pushed southward past Amon Ruk, then the Kings would liberated the Elven lands of Falas and Lume and restore them to Cirdan the Shipwright, whom currently resided in Luin. As the momentum of the Middle Legions herded the bands of wildmen and Easterlings southward, viscious engagements happened between wildmen and the Easterlings and the Barabari. The wildmen where virtually destroyed by the Barabari, but the Easterlings had more organized armies and stiffly resisted the Middle Legions in the Wilds of Bow and Hand, using the bogs, swamps, and dense forests to their advantage. The Middle Legions through much time and commitment weeded out the main threat of the Easterlings and continued west to the coast. They were constantly harassed by guerilla raids from the remaining Easterlings. At length and with much slaughter on both sides the Middle Legions sieged and sacked Lume and devasted the lands of Falas and Lume, driving the Heathens to the Echoing Cliffs and into the sea. So overwhelming was the Legion’s victory in Falas and Lume, that the Elves forgot of the bitter numbers of lives lost in the Wilds of Bow and Hand. With great pomp and circumstance Cirdan and the Blue Elves where restored to the Lands of Lume and Falas. The Middle Legions stayed for many years resting and reveling in the great haven of Lume. When the Middle Legions caught word that Heathens had been coming past Amon Ruk and settling in the Wilds of Bow and Hand, they marched forth from Lume with a host of Blue Elves at their side. As they entered the Wilds that did not encounter the Wildmen or the Easterlings. The found settlements of Barabari scattered across the Wilds and began to make war upon them. The Barabari Nation of that region rose up against them, and the Pendragon sought to expel the Legions of Men. The overwhelming might of the Barabari Berserkers, Lords, Chiefs, and Dragons broke the ranks of the tall and proud Elf-Friends, the Warriors scalped them and painted their masks with their blood, and the Braves cut them down with poisonous arrows. Not even the Dragons could stand against the might of the Blue Knights of Lume. These were the Knights that had held the city as Cirdan fled by sea to Luin as the Easterlings flooded through the city gates. The Blue Knights did not concern themselves with any other task during a battle besides slaying all of the Dragons. This worked to unravel the infastructure of the great Barabari Hosts that met them in the Misting Glades just to the North of Amon Ruk. With all of their major leaders destroyed, the Barbari began fighting as small factions and not as a whole army, this loss of unity made them loose their ground. They where broken and routed by the Middle Legions and pushed back across the border. The Middle Legions continued to persue them into the Southland and into the foothills of the . In the , the Barabari turned to make their last stand. Their Dragon was slayed and their Braves slaughtered. With no more dignity left, the Barabari commited mass ritual suicide. The Elf-Friends frowned on this as a sign of the Barbari’s Heathenism, but the Blue Elves recognized it as the influence of their ancient enemy, Tauron, or Thu. This was the first rumor of the evil that was building in the in the Southland. It also made the Men of the Middle Kingdoms fear and hate the Barabari, for they had won, but at a great cost. This cost was to great to make successful war on the Avari of Ossiriand. After the Expulsion of the Heathens, most of the Middle Legions returned home, but many remained garrisoned in Lume, to protect the lands of Cirdan and those north of Amon Ruk from the reimergance of the Heathens. It was during this time that Sauron began gathering all of his forces to him. He planned to have the backbone of his army be the Barabari, for they had proved their worth during the Expulsion. Never before had Sauron amassed an army in which Orcs or Uruks where not the backbone. Sauron believed his new assortment, assured him of victory. His diabolical machinery was far from complete and the foundation of his stronghold was only just laid. Yet, Sauron wished to flex his military might, for he believed that he was ready to conquer the Southland, and his wished to do it with no assistance from morgul means. He wanted to demonstrate his martial capabilities. So he unleashed his swarms of Orcs, Barabari, and Ogres against the Haradrim that had not bowed to his service.