Social Organization

The men are the figureheads of the house, and most of the wiser men realize this though almost all the women are aware of there influence over important decisions. With a few hints, or slyly asked questions to help guide the men to the right decision. The elders are always looked up to and respected, and a clan Elder is looked to for his/her great wealth of knowledge. The children are allowed the freedom to learn by making the mistakes as long as it won’t hurt them too severely. The parents are more likely to shake there heads in disbelief that their offspring could be so foolish, of just totally loose control and laugh whole heartedly at junior landing in a manor pile after trying to ride a sheep.

Lairds and Thanes

There are only nine Ceiki clans, twelve Skoll clans and one Dverge clan.  Consequently there are only ten Lairds and twelve thanes.  Each of these clans can be set up as a player guild under the Order of Clans.  (However, like all player guilds on Comraich there are rules about the creation and upkeep of these clan guilds.  Therefore players may not call themselves a Laird or Thane until the guild has been formalized by the community.)

The High King is one of the 12 thanes.

Sioba

The drekar, or dragon-headed longships, were stealthy troop carriers. They could cross the open oceans under sail and then switch to oars for lightning-fast hit-and-run attacks on undefended towns and monasteries.

Sioba expertise in naval craftsmanship soon led to the evolution of other types of ship. Among these were the knarr, or ocean-going cargo vessel, which facilitated far-flung trade networks. The knarr drew on similar design principles as the longship but was higher and wider in relation to its length and had only limited numbers of oars to assist with maneuvers in narrow channels. Cargo decks were installed fore and aft.

The secret of the Sioba ship lay in its unique construction. Using a broad ax rather than a saw, expert woodworkers would first split oak tree trunks into long, thin planks. They then fastened the boards with iron nails to a single sturdy keel and then to each other, one plank overlapping the next. The Sioba gave shape to the hull using this "clinker" technique rather than the more conventional method of first building an inner skeleton for the hull. Next, the boat builders affixed evenly spaced floor timbers to the keel and not to the hull; this insured resilience and flexibility. They then added crossbeams to provide a deck and rowing benches, and secured a massive beam along the keel to support the mast.

The longships' light, economic construction is a major factor behind their success. The ships' lack of a big, vertical keel meant that they were highly maneuverable and could easily penetrate shallow surf and river estuaries. Seafarers steered using a single side rudder on the right, the 'starboard' or "steering board" side. (The term 'starboard' is thought to have originated in the Viking era.) They could also reef the square sails in strong winds and adjust them to permit rapid tacking.

Navigation:
Some Sioba sailing logs and journals reveal sailing directions from Valgard to Zuben that rely on distant landmarks and the presence of birds and whales to signal the position of land. The Valgarins had no compass but undoubtedly steered by the sun and stars.

Did they have other aids?
The journals contain intriguing references to a solarsteinn or 'sunstone' used for navigation. Scholars believe it possible this stone was feldspar; a mineral found in the mountain mines that polarizes light. Theoretically, a polarizing stone might have helped indicate the direction of the sun when clouds obscured the view. Its practicality is doubtful, however, since it would require some blue sky to work and would thus have proved useless in total overcast.

These journals also mention the use of a so-called "sun compass". The disk has a hole in its center, and the theory suggests that it originally fitted over a central pin or gnomon to cast a shadow. Markings around the edge of the disk could then have helped the navigator determine north south. It is less than three inches across with markings around the perimeter.

Sailing the seas was by no means a safe or, in the view of most, a sane way to make your living. The Sioba have developed a slightly tongue-in-cheek scale of measuring the success of a voyage, but it is based on Valgarin attitudes. (A parallel can be found at the end of the story of "Authun and the Bear"):

Outstanding:
You reach your destination with ship, crew, passengers and cargo intact.

Fully Successful:
Your ship needs some repairs.

Successful:
You make it to shore with crew, passengers and cargo.

Fully Acceptable:
You get ashore with crew, passengers, and some cargo.

Acceptable:
You manage to get your crew and passengers ashore.

Marginal:
You have some survivors.

Unsatisfactory:
You are never heard from again.

On the positive side, the Sioba didn't have to be anywhere at any particular time. Time, and therefore speed, is a relative function. If you are faster than another vessel, that would be noticeable, but for the most part distances are given as "a day's sail." Purportedly, a "day's sail" for a merchant vessel was 24 hours, while that for a warship was just during the daylight hours.

On the negative side, without a fine concept of time, there is no calculation of speed, and without both time and speed, no real accuracy in calculating distance. In other words, you can't do dead reckoning, where by keeping track of your time and speed at each change of direction, you can approximate your location. The journals have no mention of any time-keeping device, even as crude as an hourglass, in a Sioba navigation context. Perhaps one can count strokes when under oars for a rough estimate, but I assure you that as soon as a fair breeze sprang up, you would hoist sail; so there goes that calculation.

What the Sioba do have is decades of carefully won practical knowledge. The positions of the sun and the stars, and the experiences of previous sailors on that route. How the prevailing winds blew at certain places in certain times of the year. What the reflected loom of a glacier looked like under certain conditions, which birds and seaweed indicated a nearby island. Floki Vilgerdarson, and early Valgarin settler, went one better and took three ravens on board with him. A day or so out of the Broxbum docks, bound towards the recently discovered Zuben realm, he released the first bird, which headed back to the Broxbum docks. The second bird was released later and (according to which account you read) either flew up until out of sight, or came back and roosted in the rigging. Some time after that the third raven was released, flew upwards, and then headed straight for Zuben. Floki corrected his course accordingly and made a successful landfall in Zuben.

Along the coast there are many mountains with distinctive appearances and tied to many of these are legends and myths. The older crewmembers recited these myths to the younger members of the crew while rowing or sailing along the coast. The stories helped them remember the course more readily.

Navigation Instruments

Weather Vanes
Weather vanes were found on every ship. They showed the wind direction so the coxswain paid close attention to which direction it pointed after they lost sight of land. But it was easy to be fooled. The wind could change direction and the current could send the ship off course. It was therefore necessary for the skipper to have navigation instruments.

Bearing Circle
The Sioba had knowledge of a primitive bearing circle. It was based on information about the sun's position at sunrise and sunset. You could find the latitude with the help of a shadow from the vertical pin and the course was marked by the pointer on the platform.

Sunstone
The Sioba also used the so-called sunstone in order to find the sun on overcast days. The stone was made of the mineral cordierite, a mineral that could show the direction of the sun on cloudy days. The sunstone could only be used when one could see a hint of blue sky.

Sunboard
In the middle of the day the course was corrected with the help of the sunboard. This was an instrument used to measure the height of the sun. If the angle of the sun had gotten much bigger the ship had kept a too southerly course, less of an angle and it had sailed too far north. In cloudy weather or in a fog it was therefore difficult to navigate. Making a course change on the open sea could be risky. Just a small change could result in not coming to the planned destination.

Semi-Wheel
Seafarers made many observations of the sun all year round and they knew the sun's path through the heavens for all the seasons, using it to make a table. The table gives the height of the sun for the whole year along with a rundown of sunrises and sunsets. Here you can find where on the horizon the sun goes down and comes up the whole year. All the measurements from this table were put on the so-called semi-wheel. It was then not difficult to find the four directions nor calculate the latitude.

Navigation by Nature

The North Star
On clear nights the North Star or guide star was used to navigate by. At the North Pole the North Star is at the zenith, at the equator it is on the horizon. Along the meridian or longitude it can be seen at different angles and therefore can determine latitude. Sioba captains knew the height of this star and took care that it had a certain direction in relation to the ship. At the end of the evening when the sun had risen it was used to navigate by. In the light Nordic summers one had the sun to navigate by for the whole day or at least a very large part of it, this made navigation easier.

Clouds
A Sioba captain who had made many voyages had built up quite a collection of markers and aids to navigate by wherever he was. He noticed that cloud cover over islands and island groups was different than it was over the open sea. This then gave the direction to the closest landfall.

The Gannet
Even though they lost sight of land they were not alone on the sea. During nesting sea birds showed the way to land. This was especially true of the Gannet, which could be found far out to sea. In the evening the birds began flying towards land and the seafarers then knew what direction land was. The Gannet and other sea birds were good navigational aids both when one had gone off-course and when you wanted to know where land was.

Seaweed
One often saw seaweed in the sea and the color could tell you how long it had been there. If it was fresh with a strong odor it hadn't been there long and you weren't far from land.

Fleas
We have to figure that the Sioba went off-course quite often either because of storms or fog. If it was impossible to see the sun during the day or the stars at night one had to resort to other options. Fleas followed people both at sea and on land. If you went off-course you could pluck a flea from your hair or another body part and put it on the tiller. Fleas always hop or crawl north so you would know the direction and could correct your course.

Table of Contents

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Character

Clothing
Common Trades
Food
Occupations
Personality
Physical Description

Kingdom

Animals
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Introduction
Language
Other Kingdoms
Resources
Town

Culture

Art & Literature
Combat & War
Drugs & Gambling
Family
Hospitality
Life to Death
Slavery
Superstitions

Religion

Becoming a Völva
Creation Myth
God
Holidays
Prayers
Relationship
Rituals
Rune Calling
The Talon Circle
Worship

Social

Criminals/Outcasts
Interaction
Laws/Enforcement
Politics
Social Orders
Social Organization

Stories

Battle Anthem
Dorian the Winter Trader
Dyrling Brides
Earning your sea legs
Going Home
Hallaic Wall
The Initiate
The Story of the Two Sacred Eggs

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