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Despite their relative poverty, the Mar have a complex culture of storytelling. Theirs are tales of gods and heroes, monsters and villains, and comic archetypes. Find out more by reading the book.

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Mapmaker

The mapmaker is a stock character in Mar literature and an icon of Mar culture. Any mundane who travels alone in the wilderness for any reason is usually considered a mapmaker — in particular, trappers, messengers, scouts, and guides. Even in larger numbers, mundane explorers and drake hunters are always considered mapmakers. When a mapmaker visits a town, Mar communities regard him with curiosity and distrust, for mapmakers have a reputation as troublemakers. If the community has a problem they have been unable to solve for themselves, however, it is likely they will ask the mapmaker for help, because mapmakers also have a reputation for accomplishing the impossible.

The Mar perception of mapmakers is paradoxical. He is a fool but can also survive the impossible. He is uneducated but clever and resourceful. He is direct in his speech, making complexity seem plain, but his lateral thinking and insatiable curiosity also tend to bring him to a swift end. He attracts bizarre twists of fortune, both beneficial and baneful.

Likely, this is because those who become mapmakers most often do not choose their occupation. Disasters ranging from drake attacks to wars to plagues create these mapmakers. Of those who do not become mapmakers by simply failing to die when their neighbors did, the majority are outcasts — criminals or suspected criminals. The rest are as likely to be runaways as adventurers. As such, most mapmakers are no better equipped to survive new adventures than any other mundane.

An inexperienced mapmaker survives trials through a combination of cleverness, stubborness and dumb luck. Young mapmakers are considered the most prone to misadventure, because they are almost certainly new to the occupation. A number of Mar sayings use the phrase "fresh-faced mapmaker" in metaphors to describe those who are especially foolish or prone to accident. The life expectancy of a new mapmaker is extremely short — weeks nearer settled areas and days along the borders of civilization. Traditionally, they often fall prey to obvious dangers even a sedantary mundane would recognize.

A veteran mapmaker is a different animal. The Mar regard any mundane who survives travel in the wilderness for several years with a sincere respect and a small amount of fear, assuming they have developed useful qualities in the course of their adventures. First, mapmakers are curious, always looking for danger so they can warn others of it. Second, once they identify the flaws in a person or plan, they speak up about them so that the flaws can be corrected. Third, they fear nothing, such that any retreat is a tactical decision, not a failure of nerve. Fourth, if others fail to follow through with a task, a mapmaker will step in to finish the project. Fifth, they completely lack political ambition, such that once their work is done, they leave those they have helped to their lives rather than trying to re-order the community to their own visions.

Veteran mapmakers do not have a reputation for fighting fairly when dealing with foreigners. Mar society encourages fair play, cooperation, forgiveness, honesty and other order-affirming values that help maintain a stable community in a hostile environment. Nevertheless, the Mar admire mapmakers for their merciless treatment of enemies. Mapmakers will use tactics to kill or drive away Drakes and foreigners that no Mar would dare employ against another Mar.

While veteran mapmakers serve many purposes in Mar society, no community wants one living with them longer than necessary. Mapmakers never ask permission to do anything. They work hard, but any work they do is makeshift at best and downright ramshackle most of the time. They sometimes prove too clever for their own good, inventing solutions that create an even worse problem. Even when a vetern mapmaker's unique talents solve an otherwise insoluble problem, there is almost always some collateral damage, and these new problems often take far longer to solve than the problem the mapmaker is called upon to solve. Their lack of tact can leave communities divided in their wakes as they pass on everything they hear from everyone to everybody else in the community. Because they spend so much time looking for trouble, Mar see mapmakers as creatures of ill omen who bring trouble wherever they go, and this assessment has merit to it.

(Contributed by Weard Girdag Langat)