Heat sucks... also, that Zebra tribe I can never remember how to spell right! (Patreon)

Hey folks.  You may have read the north west hot hit with a heat wave?  Well I got run over by it for three days.  The worst of it has past but it was an ugly three days.  If I was an absolute jerk to anyone I want to apologize.  Apparently I was a bit touchy...

But in the spirit of baking alive in blistering heat, I think it fair to discuss a zebra tribe that is rarely addressed: the Eschasik.  They haven't shown up in Homelands yet, so the following may be considered spoiler, but it's nothing that Scotch won't learn relatively quickly herself.

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As the great migration dwindled, more and more zebras were living in communities and fewer making the pilgrimage along the Old Road.  Villages offered safety, security, and food while the smaller numbers roaming around the continent were more fractured and vulnerable.  Still, of all the tribes that emerged towards the end of the great migration, the Eschasik were always... particular.  All zebras venerated the spirits in a variety of ways, from shrines and offerings to ceremony.

The Eschasik wanted to BE spirits.  Or rather become as close to spirits as possible.  And so as tribes were setting up villages and getting civilization going, some zebras would wander off into desolate regions and seek enlightenment.  The word 'Esha' meant 'Lost', and many zebras saw proto-Eschasiks as zebras that had lost their people, their family, or occasionally their minds.

The North eastern stretch of Zebrinica in particular was notorious for drawing zebras into the unknown.  The dead end arroyos, sandstone slot canyons, and desiccated highlands were not conductive to settlement.  Most migrants followed the Ghost river, a temporary river running parallel to the old road that carried water only a few months a year, and hurried along to greener lands to the south.  But there were always zebras that wandered off the road and into the canyons where strange winds howled and secrets lay in the cracks of the earth.

When the great migration ended, the zebras that inhabited these wastes were simply dubbed the Eschasiks, or Eshu.  The very easily might have become a desert based branch of the Orah if it wasn't for a significant difference: the Eschasiks had gone seeking enlightenment of the spirits... and in many ways they had achieved it.  Unlike the Orah, the Eschasik shamans were powerful, and knew it.

While the population of the Eschasiks has always been low, sometimes even dipping below the Starkatteri, the Eschasiks have always possessed the power of the cursed tribe with a different sort of stigma.  If Starkatteri flirt with evil, the Eschasiks flirt with madness.  They deliberately invited spirits to possess them, even crossed the line to become part spirit.  Spirit possessed zebra bred a strange offshoot of the tribe that is notable for their swirly stripe patterns that resemble curls of smoke.  Eschasiks often exhibit other oddities, such as cloven hooves, single or double horns, and even fangs and carnivorism.

For this reason alone, most tribes tend to leave Eschasiks alone, but every tribe has contributed new members over time.  Like the Orah, all one must do to become an Eschasik is to go to a community and live there.  Because the tribe is so varied and erratic, generalities are difficult when describing Eschasiks, but they can be divided into villages, spiritualist communes, and Sages.

Most Eschasik communities are centered around farming.  Grass in the winter and spring, beans and lentils in summer, corn and squash in the fall.  The Eschasiks have an almost holy reverence for water, calling it the blood of the world.  Wells are sacrosanct, and spoiling a well is a death sentence.    Most villages are loosely interrelated, and for this reason, outsiders are heartily welcomed and might be shocked when females offer themselves to visitors in an effort to diversify the bloodline.  Gifts of turquoise or gold may even be offered for 'desired' individuals to stay with the community.

Villages are usually sworn to a spirit or group of spirits, and reflect such.  A village dedicated to stone spirits might have megaliths or carvings.  One dedicated to the wind may have a ritual during windstorms.  Another to the sky might rise at dawn and greet the sun.  These are very important to the villages, who receive protection by the spirits.  Most villages try their hardest to present a 'sane' face to outsiders...

Because deep in the desert are the communes of spiritualists who live more like spirits than people.  Shamans seeking 'greater' or 'deeper' truths create unhealthy pacts that warp and distort their being and minds.  Groups of their followers can become fanatical in their pursuit of truth.  Some communes fixate on orgies that would turn a Carnillian's stomach.  Others deliberately seek to warp themselves into the image of spirits.  Some become death cults, trying to cross over into the spirit world.  Woe to the visitor that wanders into a commune expecting the hospitality of a village, only to find themselves sacrificed to a hungry, mad spirit.

Finally, there are Sages.  These are Eschasiks who live as individuals meditating atop mountains or deep in caves.  Some regard them as shaman's shaman.  A sage often seem more spirit than flesh themselves, and often have more difficulty understanding the material world than the spiritual.

Eschasiks are also some of the most oral and musically inclined of the tribe.  Eschasiks shun most material writing, instead trusting to chants and pictograms.  Every Eschasik learns the songs of their village and how to play drums to keep the rhythm.  Eschasik dancing is said to also be some of the most provocative and appealing of all the tribes, and often employ silver cymbals or bells to accompany their movements.  Some of the dances were said to be so enticing that they were banned elsewhere in the empire.  While likely myth, there is no doubt many visitors found such dances as a reason to lose one's self in the desert for  time.

Their architecture reflects their environment.  Many dismiss the tribe as 'cave dwellers' but the Eschasiks carve entire towns and cities underneath mesa capstones and in some of the most impossible locations, like atop stone spires or cliff faces.  When on the surface, the Eschasiks tend to live in villages centered on a well, which can often be dug hundreds of feet into the ground.  Eschasik silk is also exceptionally prized; formed from the fibers of a cave moth's larva, the strands are woven and dyed into a variety of cloths that hold pigment exceptionally well.  The Eschasiks were the originator of the zebra stealth cloaks that were so feared in the war.  

In the first and second Empire, Eschasiks were virtually ignored.  Small in population and inhabiting territory even Orah didn't want to live in, it was easier just to ignore the region entirely.  However, when Eschasiks did assert themselves, the Empire tended to listen.  Once was during the Long Night, when Nightmare Moon blocked the sun.  The panic nearly tore the First Empire apart, and the Eschasiks suggested the creation of the Caesar with spiritual power to order the moon to progress.  Thus was the tribe instrumental in establishing the Caesar as a spiritual vessel as well as worldly power.

In the election of the Last Caesar, however, the tribe made the strange act of endorsing the Atoli candidate and denouncing the Romani candidate.  The Atoli, Achu, and Eschasiks block vigorously attacked the modernist and progressive Romani, Carnillian, and Propoli block.  The Eschasiks even went to far as to predict that if the Romani prevailed, it would usher in destruction of the world and the death of the spirits.  Many hoped this would lead the other tribes to swap their votes to the Atoli.  However, the division held, and the Starkatteri decided the vote.

To say the Eschasiks suffered under the Last Caesar would be an understatement.  The tribe was the only one that utterly refused to recognize the legitimacy of the war.  As a result, the Eschasiks suffered brutal pogroms.  Entire Eschasik villages would be 'drafted' at gunpoint, scattered across the empire, forced into de facto slavery, humiliated horribly, and forced to denounce their spiritual allegiances.  Only the explosive protection of the spiritual communes prevented the tribe from being wiped out completely.  Zebras ridden by spirits would destroy Imperial patrols coming to take their people away.

This strife in the East of the Empire actually proved exceptionally effective at draining the Empire of resources needed to fight the war against Equestria.  While never outright treasonous (Tribe once captured Rainbow Dash and almost handed her over to the Empire when she 'escaped' at the last minute) it would never support the war.  It also encouraged other tribes to question and second guess the actions of the Caesar, hindering the Empire bringing the full might against the Equestrians.  Even the rise of Luna did not shake the Eschasiks refusal to fight in the war, and the dispersal of the Eschasiks merely spread their protest of the violation of holy sites in the name of war material.

The most vocal of these was Yazda, the Emperor's Eschasik wife.  Serving as part of the imperial harem, she had a protected status, and was renowned for her beauty, articulation, and passion in vocally opposing the war at every opportunity.  She worked closely with the Mendi to try to negotiate an end at Shattered Hoof Ridge, and was part of the negotiation team present when Big Macintosh was slain.  However, she was increasingly marginalized, mocked, and dismissed as the war escalated towards the Day of Doom.

When the war finally ended, the Tribe was almost as decimated as the Starkatteri, but their traditions of living in a hostile world served them well.  The vast majority of Eschasiks were absorbed into other settlements trying to survive, and thus occasionally a swirl striped Eschasik mare or stallion may be born to the celebration or condemnation.  However, the tribe entered into a symbiotic relationship with the Sand Legion.  The Imperial reconnaissance force were some of the most skilled survivalists and markszebra in the army, and provided a level of protection that spirits could not.  Of all the tribes, only the Eschasiks could claim an improvement following the end of the Third Empire.

However, not all is quiet.  The communes have grown more disturbed and warped, offering ever more extreme offerings or becoming spirit ridden.  Anxiety grips the villages who wonder if the Sand Legion or their own madness will consume them first.  And the Sages can not say why the world itself seems to do nothing to right these growing imbalances.