Excerpt from parchment: Lives of the Akunkei-hito: The Toads of the Frigid Opara Tane Shrubland
by the Human Mata Ryokiyage
I have participated now in two Oceanic Festivals among the Akunkei-hito, which, as I understand, is only a recent cultural invention in the worship of Gousai the Moist, having been conceived only fifteen years ago on this young plane-realm. Both iterations of the event spanned the birth of Limestone to the death of Timber, and were raucous beyond any reasonable human threshold of merriment. My adoration of the Toadstool-folk for their joyous nature however outweighs my chauvinism which, though mild (I want to believe), is a limitation of civilized minds which I have not exceeded despite my travels (to say nothing of the casually and often enthusiastically cruel chauvinism of the Akunkei-hito themselves).
When I arrived initially in mid-Hematite of 122, I saw a noble and crafts-minded people, and my impression of the Akunkei-hito changed only gradually and almost beneath my notice. They are still the same folk who, while I was still occupied shaking off my culture shock, brought me to The Boyish Aunt to drink with the Good King Kou and Sumi the Champion. Their neighborliness, artistry, ingenious musicality, and their advanced culinary tradition are obvious to any trader--and they are no front--but in my immersion I have gleaned a measured perspective on their vices and quirks (some concerning, some merely intriguing).
The Akunkei-hito are always fighting for their lives. I idly speculate based on their myths that this is always true for Toadstool-folk on any plane-realm, and their highly adapted way of living seems to confirm this to me. How firmly they slur the names of other peoples smacks of an animal perpetually near-cornered. They possess an expansive vocabulary of antagonistic terms for both the Children of Sorcery and the other Free Peoples (the skulking masked thieves they only describe like enlarged vermin). Sumi the Champion, who I have on many occasions had the pleasure of carousing with, freely and in jest addressed me as aya-bikou (the Toad language for "tome-buzzard") a term meant to evoke the alleged evil of the mythological Koopa Mages.
The story of their corneredness is told through their blinding ferocity in spear combat, but also through their strong tradition of Gousai worship. Her symbols evoke the Cheep-Cheep's vigilant self-defense and underdog status as well as the supposed motherly embrace of the ocean. In myth, the coast (her demesne) is imagined as a lateral springboard behind the Akunkei-hito which rallies their speartoads (this heroic recovery is said to startle and circumvent the hammers of their enemies).
This parchment is the (barely) refined contents of my journaling and pondering during my immersion. It represents the first stepping stone in what I hope will be my life's work. There are topics I plan to avoid, and pieces of knowledge which are best not written down. Importantly, I will not raise discussion about the magical and alchemical taboos of the Toadstool-folk, both because I have no worthwhile basis to speculate and because I respect that particular body of tradition and its secrecy.
Since living here, I have been deemed peer to these storied people (and I am not the only sapient non-Toadstool). My surname by birth is Thadmusda but I was given one with equivalent meaning in their language, under which I am penning this parchment.
