Category:Zingaran



ZINGARAN Chivalry, Conspiracy and Treason Once the proud possessor of a major shipping industry, Zingara is an exotic land that exists between the Pictish Wilderness, the Bossonian Marches, Aquilonia and Argos. Although often thought of merely as Argos’ maritime rival, Zingara has in the past been a land of agriculture and elegance.

Zingara is now a land torn apart and ruined by civil war. Historically a king ruled the land out of Kordava but the elegant, bejewelled and hosed princelings and nobles, who usually fought petty battles among themselves and the Poitanians, rose up and destroyed themselves and their noble kingdom in flame and blood. The refined swordsmanship of the Zingarans had unfortunately turned against itself. Now the kingdom is faltering, unable to support itself due to burnt and salted fields, destroyed armies and crushed castles.

Description
Zingara is a non-Hyborian nation — it's a mixture of Zingg Valley folk (possibly of Shemite origin) and Picts, with some Hyborian blood. They have a highly developed courtly culture and medieval feudal society with strong element of slavery and low opporunities of social mobility. Despite their mixed heritage, Zingarans are very racist and are unwelcoming towards other cultures and outlanders. They are perfect marines and pirates.

Manners and pleasures in Zingara are elements of its elegance and sophistication. Ballet troupes learned the finest dances in the schools and the fine art of fencing was taught to all noblemen. Waving scented handkerchiefs, the nobility of Zingara plotted and conspired against fellow nobles even as they spoke eloquently of philosophy and civility.

Clothing
Zingarans try to dress well. Trunk-hose and doublets of silk with puffed and slit sleeves are common for the men. Cloaks hang from their shoulders. Boots of the finest Kordavan leather adorn their feet. Soldiers dress in steel and satin. Armour and garments are always ornate and made of the best material that can be afforded, stolen or made.

Thin black moustaches are also common. Royal soldiers dress in burgundy and gold. Red and yellow are considered lucky colours. The wealthy tend to dress brightly while the commoners wear more subdued tones. Unmarried women wear their hair long; married women bundle their hair into coifs or hair bands.

The Zingaran Freebooters dress in a typically pirate fashion. They wear sashes, bare chests, silken pantaloons, great loops of gold in their ears, sabres, cutlasses and so on. These pirates often sail in carracks; large, sea-worthy ships.

Behavior and Notable Oddities
Honor - For the Zingarans honor is a very real concept, built of a character’s reputation, moral identity and self-perception. This sense of honor is the guiding principle of Zingaran society and is never a matter of mere lip-service. Zingarans of honor are always alert for insults. Actual or suspected, insults will impugn an Zingaran’s honor. An Zingaran’s honor also extends to his wife, his family and his beloved. Impugned honor will usually result in a duel or other form of violent redress.

Elegant and Sophisticated - Manners and pleasures in Zingara were elements of its elegance and sophistication. Ballet troupes learned the finest dances in the schools and the fine art of fencing was taught to all noblemen. Waving scented handkerchiefs, the nobility of Zingara plotted and conspired against fellow nobles even as they spoke eloquently of philosophy and civility.

Swordsmanship - In Zingara’s prime, Zingaran swordsmanship was taught in both formal fencing-schools and the deadly backstreets of every city, though many Zingarans learned to use only the civilian arming sword, rather than the more military oriented broadsword. The Zingarans developed one of the most sophisticated forms of elite fencing ever created, a sheer art form to behold. Many of these fencing schools may still survive and those that have burned are slowly being rebuilt. Many feel that these schools, which also taught principles of chivalry, are essential to the rebuilding of Zingara, to keep it from sliding backwards into barbarism.

A Zingaran usually only leaves Zingara by force, be it force of arms or force of circumstance.

Zingaran Freebooters - The Freebooters were once loyal Zingaran subjects that were given legal charters as privateers to prey upon Argossean shipping and stop the Barachans. Fierce Zingaran independence soon reared its savage head and the Freebooters went renegade, preying on their own country’s ships. This backstab did not endear them to the Zingarans. The Freebooters are not welcome in Zingaran ports. Like as not, the renegade pirates will find themselves hanged if they show themselves. Likewise they are not welcome at Tortage in the Barachans. Their bases are outside of Zingara, although no one knows exactly where.

There is a time honored tradition of baiting strangers among the Freebooters, where strangers are tested with violence. This establishes a stranger’s status among a Freebooter crew. The testing is both brutal and bloody. The brawl begins with taunts and insults, then the fight starts. It is a one-on-one fight and how the stranger comports himself establishes his ‘rank’ among the crewmembers. The stranger does not need to win but he must not prove himself a coward or a weakling.

The Freebooters are rapacious and cruel and are feared as much as the Barachans, especially by the Argosseans. They maraud ships and raid coastal towns. Fortunately for coastal nations and sea-faring trade, the Freebooters are not numerous, which makes the handful still out there all the more famous and well-known.

Religion

 * Zingaran Pantheon of Mitra

Zingarans have their own version of Mitra — not one true god, but head of a local pantheon with Ishtar as consort. This is interesting because in all other Hyborian nations, Mitra is the One True God. The melting pot of Zingara has also produced a melting pot of religions. Mitra, as the god of the last conquerors, now rules supreme over the other gods in a Zeus-like role. The saints have vanished but the legions of heaven and hell remain.

A variant of Ishtar probably serves as Mitra’s consort in a court that contains Shemitish and Pictish deities, all with portfolios of power in a complex fashion duplicating the complicated Zingaran court. More about Zingaran religion can be found in Faith and Fervor.

Government
Before the civil war Zingara was an atypical feudal land, a monarchy in Hyborian fashion, though not a true Hyborian kingdom. Under a dazzlingly complex political system, dukes and counts rule fiefs in the name of the King in Kordava, although in most cases that fealty was, at best, nominal and somewhat confusing.

The nobles of Zingara were a proud, individualistic race, not given to subservience. They rebelled both openly and secretly. This continual backstabbing, political maneuvering and social ladder-climbing under weak kings who were more concerned about the state of Argos’ shipping brought about the final dissolution of Zingara as a bastion of civilization and good breeding. Today, Zingara is a faltering anarchy. There is a movement in Zingara to move away from the old feudal system, which clearly has failed, to a republic. Most Zingaran temptresses support the movement to turn Zingara into a republic. Zingaran manipulators and infiltrators can be found on almost every level of politics in their attempts to make this governmental concept a reality.

In the past, most court officials did not hold hereditary positions, so in many ways Zingara was never as traditionally feudal as Aquilonia or Nemedia. Court positions were instead paid positions. Zingara was atypical in its feudal system in other ways as well. Land grants were not always linked to vassalage or Allegiance. Sometimes land was granted simply as a reward or, when granted to the temples or clergy, to earn a place with Mitra in the heavens. Also, vassalage and Allegiance did not automatically come with land rights, as in Aquilonia or Nemedia. Land that was given could also be retaken by the giving lord or his heirs. Immunities to royal justice were also never handed out as noble privileges and even so-called ‘free’ cities occasionally felt the heavy hand of royal intervention.

Economy and Common Professions
Zingara’s primary export is probably tin, which is essential for the making of bronze. The mountains of this proud land are mined for tin, a rare commodity in any land but readily found here. Their once great plantations yielded crops of grapes, sugar, tobacco and grain. Black serfs were brought in to work these vast plantations of southern Zingara, laboring under the whips of cruel slave-masters hungry for wealth and prestige. No more. Most of those fields are gone, burnt by the civil wars that raged from one end of Zingara to the other. From the grapes, highly regarded Zingaran wines were once distilled. Even this industry has come to a crashing halt in recent years. In addition to the agricultural products produced in the fertile southlands, leather was another staple product from the Zingarans. This industry proceeds even today.

Historically, Zingara tried hard to outdo Argos in the seas. The Zingarans managed to trade along the Pictish Wilderness, despite the intense ferocity of the Sea-Tribes that exceeded even the savagery of those Picts that ravaged Velitrium. Zingarans traded tin, ostrich plumes from Kush via Stygia, wine, weapons and other goods for copper ore, hides, gold dust, whale teeth, walrus tusks and other goods made by the Picts. The Picts tend to fiercely resist contact with the Hyborian nations but reluctantly traded with the Zingarans, probably because they were not entirely Hyborian and had a distant kinship with the Picts.

Common professions:
 * Fisherman
 * Freebooter
 * Knight
 * Merchant
 * Peasant
 * Priest
 * Sailor
 * Soldier

Sex Roles and Marriage
The woman’s position in Zingara is one of being an idol, put up on a pedestal. It is improper of men to openly speak ill of a particular woman, or even women in general. Those Zingarans who consider themselves particularly refined kneel in front of women to speak to them. Men do not court women in Zingara, they pay homage to women. However, Zingarans do tend to keep their women in seclusion, believing that non-business conversation between the sexes is impure and prone to lead a couple into sexual activities.

Zingaran girls are taught how to make themselves precious. They have to appear chaste if they are to be properly married; to appear chaste means never looking up or looking someone straight in the eye. Zingaran women must appear reserved, an idolized quality in women. The eye is important to Zingarans. An unknown woman who glances at a Zingaran man excites that man, for she has dared to look at him at the risk of seeming unchaste and sinful. Women are not supposed to be warriors or adventurers unless they go against tradition.

Zingaran women who go against tradition are frowned upon and risk severe punishment.

It is unlawful in Zingara for a woman to be forced to marry against her or her parents’ wishes. A maiden daughter is required to have parental or guardian consent to marry, lest a hefty fine be levied against her. A widow is independent, however and requires no one’s consent but she can be fined if she is deemed to marry too quickly after the death of her former husband.

Aristocratic and noble marriages in Zingara are arranged by the fathers. The betrothal is a formal arrangement lasting only a few months. Affection in a marriage is considered irrelevant by the parents. Against popular custom, the Mitraic religion fights for the rights of a couple to choose their own spouses.

Slavery
Developed and persistent slavery culture. However, slave dealers are often considered to be just slightly better than prostitutes and are accorded little protection through the law.

It is illegal for a Zingaran to sell another Zingaran into slavery to a Shemite or other foreigner, including selling him- or herself into slavery to such persons. Those condemned for this crime are usually burned at the stake. These laws are in place mostly to prevent Zingaran families from selling unwanted children into slavery.

Slave is a prestige symbol and also symbol of domination and superiority by the slave-taker, more of an issue of honor than issue of property.

Slaves can become family, either through adoption or marriage (only between male owner and female slave). Zingaran man is allowed to have relations with a non-Zingaran woman and even marry a foreign-born slave. Their mixed-blood son can even inherit father's lands and goods if he is part of Mitran's faith. Male slaves are forbidden to marry their female Zingaran mistresses. A Zingaran widow who tries to marry one of her former spouse's slaves will find herself burned at the stake right alongside that same slave.

Slaves are considered property, however mutilation of slaves is unlawful but any other cruelty is permitted.

Influences
Architectural influences: Medieval Spain.

''Tip: If you like you can always go with a ship base for a Zingaran character/clan. Especially if the backstory involve that the character have traveled to the exiled lands by free will.''

More Information
RPGS:
 * Return to the Road of Kings (Zingara, p 248-257)
 * Faith and Fervor (Mitra & Zingara, p 90-92)
 * Argos and Zingara