Sin'die: Difference between revisions

::''"JUGGER!!! JUGGER!!! JUGGER!!! JUGGER!!!."''

The rest of the population live in small communities and work long hard hours on farms, growing crops and raising livestock. Opportunities for recreation are few and far between being reserved for harvests, weddings and the frequent sporting matches between villages and the occasional wandering jugger team.  

The majority of their population has no written language, yet the select few, about 5% of their population who live in walled cities do. However the rural population do have a fairly complex and accurate mathematical system for calculating odds, performance abilities and a pictography system by which to organize them. As a result they have records of jugger matches that reach back over 2,000 years to just after the dark times of the collapse that followed the last war.

Each and every rural community is totally independent except for the fact that they have been roughly divided into 20 groups. Communities in each group are expected to provide a certain amount of food production to the city that is technically in charge of them. In return that walled city organizes and schedules all of their jugger matches. Keeps track of team and players stats and determines who has earned the right to play in any playoff and trophy matches.  

The native Sin'die are typical humanoids with pale white skin and black hair that normally grows in a single strip down the center of their heads from the forehead back to the nape of the neck. They tend to have dark brown or black eyes with a single long black line that goes up and down from the eye onto the forehead and onto the cheek and they come in a variety if sizes and shapes. Their clothes are a mix of manufactured clothes and furs. For the most part they tend to be natural or earth tone colors. Bright colors are reserved for Jugger players.

On the whole they are a very calm, relaxed and hardworking people. That is until a jugger game starts. Then they become loud, vocal, violent and prone to numerous abnormal behaviours. These can and often include sudden random acts of violence, over indulgence in alcohol, lewd conduct and promiscuity.  

The ruling councils of the 20 walled cities who created jugger claim that it was done as a means of to allow the people to vent their less savoury tendencies in a more controlled and less destructive manner than armed conflict.   

They have no formal religion and no documentation survives from before the collapse to indicate that they might once have had one. The only thing that they do have that even comes close to an organized spiritual belief system is their complete and total fixation on the sport of jugger. This sport is an all-consuming passion with the majority of the rural population and even a large number of the city population as well. So much so that the entire population of the planet idolizes star players, for whom fan worship can border on the fanatical.  

The only myths that they have center around legendary jugger players and as a result it is not unusual for individuals to spend their free time comparing and arguing over the qualities, abilities and stats of these players, even those who have been dead and gone for hundreds of years.  

The two only communicate with each other in order for the rural communities to supply food to the walled cities and for the cities to arrange, supervise and schedule the league jugger matches, playoffs and finals.   

All large rural communities have a jugger team and usually a number of backup players eager for their chance in the spot light. Even most of the smaller rural community’s usually have a team. There are also traveling jugger teams, sanctioned by the walled cities that travel from place to place who play the game in exchange for food, women and ale.

They have no form of dance, music or art. What they do have is jugger, a very physical sport that they all love. In many ways it seems to be a hybrid version of Terran soccer, rugby and football.  

===Jugger===

These 11 players are broken down like this. Only 7 are allowed to be on the field at any time and 3 are protectors, 3 are defenders and one is the jugger. The rest of the team are back up players used to replace any injured or killed during play.  

The defenders try and protect a wooden stake set in the ground at their end of the field. They cannot use their hands but do have long wooden poles with a hook on one end and a tough leather pad on the other. They use this staff to strike and stop the jugger. They are not allowed to enter the other teams half of the field.

The protectors also have wooden staff's and are not allowed to use their hands. They can enter the opponents half of the field. All players except the jugger have protective gear. Protectors try and block the other team’s defenders and their protectors in order to give the jugger a chance to slip through and score a point.

The jugger is the only player who may handle the leather and wood mesh ball. They are also usually the smallest player on the team but this is not mandatory and a few legendary juggers have been fairly large players. The object of the game is for the jugger to get control of the ball then take it into the opponents half of the field and jam it onto the wooden stake in order to score a point.  

It is not unknown for players to be killed during a game and in very rare cases spectators as well. Injuries are common, some resulting in permanent medical conditions that prevent the individual from ever playing the game again. However most jugger players are treated with great love and affection and they get the best food, ale, medical treatment and just about any man or woman who they want.

Also used was the Rutger Hauer 1989 movie called "The Blood of Heroes" for the word Jugger and the idea of a sport dominating a societies culture. For some reason Cindy really likes the movie, especially the female lead character.