I play a Hellsguard who has to deal with the severe lack of info we have on them.
What I've gathered:
Since they send children out into the world to keep the home numbers low, it means the Mountain is populated by firstborn, sometimes second born. Â Everyone else has to have an exit strategy.
This means the Hellsguard Mountain homeland has to have connections, either to Mercenary camps, guilds, trading organizations, the works. Â It means the Hellsguard actively export their children to various processions and armies. Â Weather or not they fit in is another matter entirely but it seems likely that Daughter/Son three and four get their "abilities" noted at a young age and arragements are made to apprentice/contract them out to parties later in their life once they're self sustaining.
Which means you probably see young hellsguard in the employ of a lot of services and guilds and organizations. Â It's very unlikley they just throw all these kids out into the world blind. It'd make more sense if the children are apprenticed out. Â Taught, and then let actually loose on the world. Not all of them are going to make it, so you can get criminals as well as mendicants and ne'er do wells.
So you have a population that starts young and nomadic in that they have to travel with their new 'families' (Be it guild or mercenary, bandit, or otherwise), settles into a life path of their choosing, and then pursues it to whatever degree they want.
As such it makes sense that if the Hellsguard are a lower-population then the ex-pat children of the Spine tend to be very motivated to survive, succeed, and prosper as much under their own terms and strength as they are circumstance. Some make it in society, some make it on the fringes. Each hellsguard kid who gets thrown out of the homeland ends up defining their place under their own strength and abilities.
Which also explains somewhat why the Hellsguard don't keep family names. Â They're not defined by family. Â If anything they're brutally defined by how they've made themselves so "Choosing" their own name, one that works and is easily used/understand/gifted to them by the places they end up (Curious Gorge, for example, implies there's a story behind how he got his current name). Â You could easily have families and clans and the like who have other motivations for shedding names and the reasons why they treat them as changeable, mutable, fleeting things. Â Probably varies from char to char and upbringing to upbringing in terms of how hard a line they take on that.
This kind of "remnant" superstition and religion is probably doubly important. A kid from the Hellsguard homeland ends up deciding how much of that they want to carry with them and how much they want to replace with whatever new life they end up constructing with their own two hands.
Hammer, my hellsguard, carries a LOT of the 'old' superstitions he was fed as a kid, for a lot of various reasons, while harboring a long and hard grudge against various other parts of religion as it stands a practicality as it requires kids to get kicked out of the hearth.
Edit: And this doesn't even start to touch on ex-pat communities and 1'st, 2'nd, and further onward removed children of hellsguard parents who have never been to the homeland but have similar expectations foisted on them, or that they embrace of their own accord, OR IGNORE COMPLETELY.
What I've gathered:
Since they send children out into the world to keep the home numbers low, it means the Mountain is populated by firstborn, sometimes second born. Â Everyone else has to have an exit strategy.
This means the Hellsguard Mountain homeland has to have connections, either to Mercenary camps, guilds, trading organizations, the works. Â It means the Hellsguard actively export their children to various processions and armies. Â Weather or not they fit in is another matter entirely but it seems likely that Daughter/Son three and four get their "abilities" noted at a young age and arragements are made to apprentice/contract them out to parties later in their life once they're self sustaining.
Which means you probably see young hellsguard in the employ of a lot of services and guilds and organizations. Â It's very unlikley they just throw all these kids out into the world blind. It'd make more sense if the children are apprenticed out. Â Taught, and then let actually loose on the world. Not all of them are going to make it, so you can get criminals as well as mendicants and ne'er do wells.
So you have a population that starts young and nomadic in that they have to travel with their new 'families' (Be it guild or mercenary, bandit, or otherwise), settles into a life path of their choosing, and then pursues it to whatever degree they want.
As such it makes sense that if the Hellsguard are a lower-population then the ex-pat children of the Spine tend to be very motivated to survive, succeed, and prosper as much under their own terms and strength as they are circumstance. Some make it in society, some make it on the fringes. Each hellsguard kid who gets thrown out of the homeland ends up defining their place under their own strength and abilities.
Which also explains somewhat why the Hellsguard don't keep family names. Â They're not defined by family. Â If anything they're brutally defined by how they've made themselves so "Choosing" their own name, one that works and is easily used/understand/gifted to them by the places they end up (Curious Gorge, for example, implies there's a story behind how he got his current name). Â You could easily have families and clans and the like who have other motivations for shedding names and the reasons why they treat them as changeable, mutable, fleeting things. Â Probably varies from char to char and upbringing to upbringing in terms of how hard a line they take on that.
This kind of "remnant" superstition and religion is probably doubly important. A kid from the Hellsguard homeland ends up deciding how much of that they want to carry with them and how much they want to replace with whatever new life they end up constructing with their own two hands.
Hammer, my hellsguard, carries a LOT of the 'old' superstitions he was fed as a kid, for a lot of various reasons, while harboring a long and hard grudge against various other parts of religion as it stands a practicality as it requires kids to get kicked out of the hearth.
Edit: And this doesn't even start to touch on ex-pat communities and 1'st, 2'nd, and further onward removed children of hellsguard parents who have never been to the homeland but have similar expectations foisted on them, or that they embrace of their own accord, OR IGNORE COMPLETELY.
![[Image: tumblr_mjwxnlcz6Q1rl52wjo2_500.gif]](https://33.media.tumblr.com/224cfbd6e79103f0520a30eabfc5085d/tumblr_mjwxnlcz6Q1rl52wjo2_500.gif)
