Territory of the Titans

BEWARE! You are entering the Territory of the Titans!

Everyone remembers the Vikings from history class, right? Well, cross those raping, raiding, and pillaging "adventurers" with the Mongols from middle Asia. Ghengis Kahn ring a bell?

Only the most bravest, strongest, and hardiest sailors try to venture into the ocean beyond the sea that is the center of this world. (Actually, any who are said to have traveled that way are considered suicidal) The Titans leave the continent alone. They inhabit the edges of the Northern Glacier (say, the north pole reaching as far south as Great Britain, Ireland, Iceland, etc) and eke their living solely from the sea. Any ships not flying the Titan standard are considered enemies and are immediately destroyed. Utterly and completely. The Titan considers mercy a failing of the weak. They don't even take the cargo. They board, kill everyone, and sink the ship.

The ship is their life. Each ship is a law unto itself. A captain makes the law. Sailors never transfer; that would be considered traitorous. If a captain simply doesn't like a man, he is simply executed, on the spot, or, conveniently, falling in battle. There is always a shortfall of men in this society. Though just as fierce as the men, the women are rarely seen aboard ship. While the men zoom the seas and raid the coastline, the women manage the home system. In the house of his mate, a man holds no status. A woman with many children is highly desirable and she usually musters the women of her settlement in order to repel invaders. Unless she is willing to be taken. It is customary for a woman to have multiple husbands in her lifetime. When a woman is "stolen" she is seen to be "divorced," an unknown occurance in our other cultures.

For the Titans, life is hard and only the strong survive by preying on the weak. They live and die by the sword. As soon as one can no longer defend one's self, he becomes food for the fishes. Life is little different to the women, though their in-house conflicts are ususally a little more subtle, by the use of poisons and alliances. Plagues and famines wipe out about as many settlements as are destroyed by the terrors of the sea, so the population has remained relatively stable, and growing a little every year.

They take what they want, when they want, and how they want. Only the strong survive. And sometimes the lucky or the very, very sneaky.