"Daughter, you are the blood of the Strong. Born from 'Those who are' and 'Those who shall be'. You are Amazon, a child of the Steppe and the ancient lines of the honored dead."
-Codex, Book of Ancestors Chapter 1, Line 2
Amazons are lead by the will of the spirits, or they were in times past. In the modern day, the Codex is often seen as a simple gathering of texts and ancient scrolls. Hand written down and copied perciesly as it was originally wrote, the Codex is the core doctrine of the Amazon religion. However, the true interpreters of the Codex are not a singular priesthood nor clergy.
In the Amazon Faith, one can either become a Shamanka, or one of the Priestess of the Lady. The Shamanka give the words of the Totems and in turn devote themselves to one of the Clan Spirits (another term for Totem). They are the voices and interpreters of the will and seek the guidance of them. Shamanka also exist as the guides for the inspiration taken from the honored dead. Often the Shamanistic aspect of Amazon faith requires more oral knowledge than written.
The Amazon priestesses are those who teach from the Codex and guide the Nation as religious clergy. They much like a Mullah or Rabbi teach the rules and laws of the Nation. For if an Amazon is to purely live up to the Lady they must fully understand how she is the Soul of all Amazons. Which in time hopefully helps a young Amazon understand her connection to the greater universe via Arteɲei.
New Possible Clans
Herodotus spoke of the Gorgons. A tribe of women that lived near an island (the full name escaping me). This caught my attention after I read a book detailing several possible origins for the Amazones in history. One thing I found interesting was that these "Gorgons" were also related to Medusa (note I do know that by defintion Medusa as a monster is a Gorgon :) ).
I have for a while thought about how to connect this tribe to the Amazones. And in truth I find them not unlike the other Lost Clans. In this manner I plan on developing them more and adding to the Nation as they grow in my mind.
Current name ideas:
CoiledViper
StrikingSerpent
GhostSerpent
The new totem teaches the ideals of Patience, Decisive Action, and Careful planning.
Arrow Child Excerpt
This is a few paragraphs from my current draft of the Arrow Child story...
Arrow Child - A Tale from the Amazon Diaspora
"The steppe was cold that winter. A winter so cold that even after the coming of spring the area was still silent. The landscape was old, and so was the mound that inhabited it. Erected over a thousand years in the past by roving nomadic tribes, it was a testament to the ingenuity of the mounted warriors that had survived the land millennia ago. A large thing created from earth and piled rock. The mound was very old, a kurgan, a burial place where the honored dead were put to sleep.
The kurgan was mostly over grown and hard to find among the rolling hills of the Ukrainian plains. Many like it had been found in by grave robbers and archaeologists alike in the past. Several were looted, and the lucky few had their treasures found and saved. For some reason, this one had never found. Something about it kept even the most daring looter away. By all accords it was the kurgan of a lost Scythian warlord. A chieftain who had fought in many battles and who had supposedly been slain by the Romans or by other accounts Heracles himself.
Years had the chieftain stood in his cold grave. So many that there was no record of whom he might be. Only the fragment records from excavated kurgan and stolen scrolls gave any hint even to the supposed location. These fragments were what lead Stephen Doukas to the far away place. The burial site was far enough from the road to be somewhat difficult to get to. It also blended it into the surrounding area, almost to the point that it seemed the mound had been purposely camouflaged.
Stephen was a man determined. After extensive study in Oxford and other prestigious schools from Britain and America, he had developed an obsession. It had taken months before he realized it. For some reason one single pot shard to had him to this location. It had all started when he had come across a man claiming to have access to an old Scythian piece of pottery. Just a fragment, it was covered in Ioanian Greek lettering. It was something that caught his eye right away.
Without thinking Stephen had spent the next year searching down and locating more pieces of the pot. The first fragment contained broken lettering and though he didn’t know the actual language Stephen had hired a translator out of Athens specializing in ancient Greek dialects to discern it and the other fragments he found. After many months of piecing it all together he found the mention of a supposed Scythian warlord who had fallen to the wrath of Heracles himself. As a Greek and an archaeologist, the possibility of finding a relic linking the modern day to the mythological past the opportunity was more than he could imagine.
So it was within moments of the day coming to fruition at noon that a jeep follow by several others of its kind made their way along the plains road. Only a few mentions from the locals and notes from other kurgan had given them a vague idea of where the location. After the road gave way to unending steppe they pushed on. It took hours and they would keep going. Finding the mound was what mattered, and then opening it to see what lay within."
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