Dust Sea Headriders

Dust Sea Headriders live in the dust sea, to the north of the sunspire wastes. They are a nomadic group which have domesticated many species of floating heads and use them to traverse the dust sea.

Belief System
Headriders believe the dust sea rests on a giant head which uses its telekinetic pyromancy to conjure the sunspire. They revere the dust sea and its ever-changing nature, but do not believe in any deities, only the spiritual nature of the world.

Headriders revere nameless sacrifice, and as such, believe souls are only truly at rest when forgotten. This results in a culture that demands adherants to never dwell on things which had happened, be they achievements or tragedies. Among younger headriders who have not mastered stoicism, this causes emotional baggage.

The dead are burnt in giant urns by trained pyrokinetic heads. These urns are heated until they turn to glass and fully encase the remains of whoever was buried in them. Sealing the ashes of the dead within glass to a degree where it is impossible to tell the remains apart symbolises reuniting their souls with the dust sea, their visages never to be seen - and disturbed - again.



Headriders fear and revere giant stormriders, 50 meter long heads which roam the dust sea and stir sandstorms where they go. They are regarded as descendants of the giant dust sea head deep underground and avoided at all costs.

Architechture
Headriders build houses out of clay and glass, molded and melted by trained telekinetic and pyrokinetic heads.

Telekinesis
Headriders can practice telekinesis by entering symbiosis with an ingested telekinetic animal which takes over organs. The most powerful sorcerers graft additional organs to themselves, a detested ritual.

Telekinesis is stigmatized because it 'violates the natural order'. The headriders live in an ecosystem where every animal apart from themselves are telekinetic - or in their language, 'movers'. Headriders see what distinguish themselves from the rest is their lack of telekinesis and thus their dextrous physical abilities and organ systems. To ingest a telekinetic being to become telekinetic is to them like renouncing one's humanity to gain bestial strength.

War
Headriders ride giant heads into war donned the masks of their enemies with the intent of disturbing their souls unto eternity. These masks are usually fashioned after high profile warlords who became konwn, feared, and hated. Headriders will always conceal their faces with multiple layers of cloth when in combat to prevent their likeness from being seen and replicated by their enemies.

Beasts of war are commonly used by headriders. These are always heads. Some can use classical telekinesis to rip enemies apart, while others use pyromancy to light their enemies on fire.

An common but frowned-upon practice is the employment of limpet knight mercenaries, an order hated for becoming telekinetic.

Delugial Cycle
Sometimes, giant stormriders will congregate in groups more than 100 and use their shared telekinetic ability to bring down water suspended in the sky sea in a colossal cyclone. This floods the dust sea and coats the glass desert with scalding steam. When such a downpour happens, headriders congregate to their capital, located on a mountain and surrounded by moats, and wait out the flood while using their domesticated heads to set a barrier around the city.

After a flood, the dust sea is transformed into a shallow lake, before slowly evaporating back to its regular arid state. A flood cycle is the cultural equivalent of a year for headriders. Documents from the capital show that they are currently on the 388th cycle.

Agriculture and Cuisine
Headriders farm drought resilient lycopsids in arid times but switch to ephemeral, lilypad-like ferns after a downpour. In addition, many practice ammoculture, the rearing of sandfish, to add protein to their diet.

Headriders treat the brains of heads to be a taboo delicacy because of associations it has with those who try to become telekinetic. Ritualistic brain consumption is performed while wearing veils to obscure one's identity, and serves to remind the consumer that anyone may be tempted by the sin of telekinesis.

Headriders do not use fire to cook, but use pyreheads to directly heat their food. Stews and other foods cooked in fluid are thus the most popular. They acquire water by using heads to bring clouds to ground level where it becomes fog. Headrider settlements are usually overgrown by succulent plants which use their corkscrew leaves to harvest fogdew.

Limpet Knights
Limpet knights are a roaming order of headriders who practice telekinesis. They take up ever-changing pseudonyms, sometimes using the birth names of their enemies, and wear limpet-helms and veils so their likeness will not be remembered and recorded. They frequently wear heavy set armor to protect their bloated viscera and prevent themselves from being identified as telekinetic sorcerers.

The conservative sect of limpet knights have a creed to only give up non-vital organs, such as a single kidney, to appear normal. Radical sects embrace grafting, with the most grotesque requiring telekinesis to even move.

Limpet knights are recruited by some headriders and nations that lives north of the dust sea as powerful mercenaries, but shunned by most headriders.