Szurgi

The Szurgi are a seafaring group, descended from Imperials who sought to make a home more suited to their lifestyle.

Political Domain
Szurgiki, 'home of the Szurgi', is a rugged group of islands and rocky coastline ranging from 43&deg; to 48&deg; north latitude, between 15&deg; and 20&deg; east longitude. This area is primarily inspired by Greece and and Minoan Crete on Earth.

Appearance
The Szurgi have almod to dark-brown skin, curly black hair, and dark red eyes. Their build tends to be shorter and slightly stockier than the average Imperial citizen, but this is commonly given to wiry musculature due to an active lifestyles. A lifetime of hauling ropes and mending sails coupled with enthusiastic partaking of shore leave gives many older Szurgi a composition resembling bacon; layers of solid muscle alternating with fat make them as sturdy as any, able to endure much hardship.

Personality
As a people, the Szurgi are mostly cheerful and possess a cultural sense of resigned acceptance of the capricious whims of nature and the sea, struggling as they may to forge ahead to their goals. This tolerant attitude wears thin, however, when an individual is pressed to change their path too often, or further than they deem acceptable. To others, Szurgi are stereotyped as moody and stubborn, prone to fiery displays of anger when enraged. Less known to outsiders is the group's distaste for magic–particularly fortune-telling–claiming it frivolous nonsense or more danger than help.

Clothing
Boleroo jackets are considered national dress of the Szurgi; bare breasts of both genders is the norm, while bare shoulders are to them titillating and risqu&egrave;. Designs of these jackets range from simple, unadorned linen to jewel-encrusted velvet ornately-embroidered with gold thread. For workers, loose-fitting sailcloth pants are common, the garment held by a belt made by a long piece of stout rope (both of which provide a convenient source of material to perform temporary repairs to a ship when needed). A sailor's left nipple is pierced at their first sea-crossing of the tropic, and many other piercings carry some or another significance among the Szurgi (though which piercings mean what varies among subcultures and cliques, made only slightly-less confusing for outsiders by the fact that different designs and metal and stone combinations are favoured by which group).

Occupations
Sailors, merchants, navigators, cartographers, astronomers, scholars, dancers, adventurers, con artists, brigands, pirates, magistrates. Magic-users are not unheard-of, but are mocked and very rare.

Favoured weapons:  spear, javelin, harpoon

Racial Package

 * Acting


 * Climbing


 * Conversation


 * Deduction


 * Idiomatic Trade-tongue (a merchant's Lingua Franca, mostly Imperial but with smattering of words from other languages, explicitly NOT enough to tell a foreigner in their native tongue where the bathroom is when asked in that language–at best the Szurgi would shrug and point vaguely in the direction of a bathroom)


 * Persuasion


 * Professional Skill: One of choice


 * TF: Common ocean vessels


 * Area Knoweldge: Szurgiki region
 * +1 bonus to swimming


 * Disadantages: Distinctive Features: Szurgi, Concealable, Noticed and Recognized (15 pts).

Total package Cost: 1