The Dog-marrow Friends of Bykaal are the groups, settlements, and nomads living around the Shyishian Underworld of Lake Bykaal who are unaffiliated with any of the so-called “Grand Alliances” of the great warring peoples of the realms. Unaffiliated but not unassociated, most non-kneeling natives of the realms, or Mortals Unbound as they sometimes call themselves, are willing if not eager to partake in the martial conflicts of the Realms if they can further the betterment of their peoples. First encounters with them at the onset of The Burning Winter noted them as:
“A nomadic, cannibalistic warband who ride dogsleds and scour the forests around Bykaal in search of the finest marrow, which resides primarily in the skull of… mostly intelligent beings. The larger ‘cuts’ are offered to their sled “dogs”, which are in fact any of a wide and truly bewildering assortment of carnivorous or omnivorous quadrupedal beasts. That said, they are really a very social tribe, if unnervingly unpredictable. They are lead by a sort of chieftain called “Dog-mutt” who punctuates nearly every sentence with “friend”, gaining himself the moniker “The Friend”.
After the Bykaal wars and the burning winter, during which Dogmutt was slain, it was noted that “The Friend” was an honorific for a fair, level headed, and sociable leader who was able to work out trade and protection agreements between various nomad and settlement groups because he was everyone’s friend. Since his passing, most of the Friends have become much more reclusive, despite the swelling in their number from deserters and the defeated of the Burning Winter.
Most Packs of Friends either set up small settlements for hunting, trade, and farming or they will run in sort of shifting circuits between places with some overlap between rounds. This lets them migrate across wide territories over the course of time and expand their trade and social markets. These semi-nomadic packs keep track of the time as it passes rather than follow any set schedule, but it is still tracked carefully. This allows them to offer passing of information, goods, letters, and packages across the tundras of shyish.
