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I hope the yearly tradition of making us retail workers absolutely miserable was worth it, you animals.

Nah I'm just playing (maybe) happy Turkey Day everyone! I figured now is as appropriate a time as any to take a quick detour back into OC land. I'm currently working on chapter 6 of my novel, so I'm almost halfway through! I was sort of aiming to have half of it done by New Years, but that's seeming a little unlikely now Ah well, one step at a time. Anyways, chapter 6 dives heavily into the indigenous corner of my fictional town of Eagle Crest, so I wanted to touch a little on the worldbuilding for the people who call the city “Suwarrow”.

I gush a lot about Islamic history and culture and how that was my focus of study during my brief stint at university. And I mean, don't get me wrong, that's never going to stop, but my real passion is honestly all things Native American. Despite the American education system's completely criminal attempts to convince our population that the Natives are just unnoteworthy savages that have all been swept under the rug, this could not be further from reality. Indiana's history, my own backyard's history, does not begin with the arrival of a bunch of grubby Frenchmen a few hundred years ago. It begins 10,000 years ago at minimum when those most ancient of peoples first left traces in my beloved homeland's soil. These were not savages, they were diverse and proud peoples who traversed great trade routes and fought glorious battles to secure claims to the vast hunting ranges and cornfields along the Wabash, Wapahani, and Sakiwasipi Rivers. Mighty civilizations which were by no stretchable definition inferior to the more famous empires of Rome or China had a leg to stand on here in Indiana. The Mississippians at Angel Mounds constructed in the heart of their enormous urban center an artificial mountain so vast that it approaches the dimensions of some of Egypt's pyramids. While the Angevins and Capetians were tearing one another apart over the long dead remnants of Roman Gaul, the first representatives of Algonquin and Iroquoian peoples had moved into the shells left behind by the mound builders they drove out. Their oral histories preserve a bitter rivalry that lasted hundreds of years until these pasty assholes showed up with these awesome sticks that spit fire out of their holes. It's an absolutely incredible epic that deserves to be told in place of just “there were people here first, they made arrowheads, and then white people showed up.” I've always said that if I ever decide to go back to college, this is what I'd shift my studies to. I'm sick of Indiana being some Midwestern state that just sort of popped up in the 1800s. I'm sick of cartoons set in the States where they just somehow find an authentic medieval European castle to host an episode in when the same time period could've given them Angel Mounds or Cahokia homegrown. I want Indiana to be not just ancient, but storied, because it is, and sadly there's not a lot of scholarship out there touching on these ancient stories. So yeah, I eat up as much Native shit as I can find (special thanks to my Anishanaabe friend for keeping what I can find fact-checked too). If you ever get the chance to visit the Eiteljorg Museum, take it. It's one of my favorite places in Indianapolis, full to bursting with Native art, history, and voices, and dedicated to presenting it in an extremely dignified and respectful way.

So okay, gushing out of the way, let me formally introduce you to the Suwarrow people. The Suwarrow are a fictional tribe I created to carve out an indigenous corner of Eagle Crest. They are an Algonquin people, both because that's the majority culture in Indiana history and because that's my Anishanaabe friend's point of reference. The stereotype often depicted in media has reservations being dirty, poverty-stricken hobbles just waiting to be bulldozed over. While this sadly has some basis in reality, it is not the fault of the Natives, but instead of their colonizers whose policy it is to make life as difficult as possible for people who just want to be allowed to live. I'll touch more on this when I design another character for the book, but whenever I talk about worldbuilding with my friend, they talk about how they want to see a thriving reservation represented for once, one where its people are allowed to be strong and independent, and I agree with that sentiment. In my book, the Suwarrow are a fierce people who don't take kindly to outsiders bringing their outside problems onto the rez. They have a proud history, and in fact a sacred duty, but that's spoiler territory I'll go ahead and touch a little bit on that history now.

In-universe archeologists date the original settlement as being much older than the current inhabitants. The deepest layer of stratigraphy has long since been overhauled by younger renovations, but it's evident that there's been a permanent settlement in Eagle Crest since at least the 6th century BCE. The foundations of the modern mounds were originally constructed by a subsect of the Adena Culture, but these peoples had been largely displaced by the expansion of the Mississippian Culture into the region circa 1000 CE. It's these new peoples who were responsible for the central urban center that defines Suwarrow today, including the Great Mounds and Necropolis which became the religious center for the minor Allegheny priest-king whose dynasty ruled over the city-state for the next couple centuries. Marvelous imperialism was not the destiny of this largely forgotten corner of Indiana, however. By the 13th century, the ancestors of the modern Suwarrow tribe first migrated into the area. Like many Algonquin immigrants, they found an amicable yet tense relationship with the Allegheny lords, but it was short lived. Oral history recalls a great revolution which saw the priest-king overthrown and his people sent into exile, leaving the city abandoned and ripe for new settlement. The city therefore was renamed after the people who looked after the mounds ever since, and the locals refuse to call it anything else.

Author's note here, the word “Suwarrow” is a bit of an easter egg for the rare individual who's actually interested in Indiana history. I got the word from the list of proposed names for the city that would eventually become Indianapolis. My hometown was first established in 1821 exclusively for the purpose of being the new state capital, as having it all the way south in Corydon meant pro-slavery William Henry Harrison could rig everything in his vicinity in favor of him and his pals. It was a bit of a rush job, and the council hadn't even decided on a proper name yet. Legislator Marston G. Clark was a strong advocate for naming the city “Tecumseh”, after the legendary badass who confederated many Native American peoples against United States imperialism during the War of 1812. That's… probably the reason the name wasn't selected, come to think of it. “Concord” was another popular suggestion, and then “Suwarrow” was put forward by a member whose only excuse when pushed to define this word was “Well I heard there's a cactus way out west called that and I just think it sounds cool.” Clark himself looked at this man incredulously, and told him that was dumb and that he was dumb. He was almost certainly referring to the saguaro cactus, which yes only grows all the way out in the Sonoran Desert, on the opposite side of the continent. It would've made zero sense, but for what it's worth, I do like the ring of “Suwarrow” and adopted this nonsense word for my worldbuilding purposes.

For those curious, it was judge Jeremiah Sullivan who ultimately came up with the completely uninspired “Indianapolis”, opting to just slap the Greek suffix meaning “city” on the end of the name of the territory. Even at the time, they thought this decision was kind of lazy.

Back to the in-universe history, it was shortly after the overthrow of the Allegheny that the first Europeans arrived in the area. Modern archeological efforts are still struggling to fill in the gaps in this period. The remains of a 13th century viking settlement were unearthed near the city itself by French explorers in the 18th century, and it eventually came to light that the Suwarrow people retained an Old Norse runestone and manuscript evidently gifted to them by these mysterious vikings. The runestone dates closer to the founding of the site, but offers little information, while the manuscript is fragmentary and was written in the late 14th century. The saga proposes that the first Norsemen arrived in the area fleeing some sort of persecution from back home. The Suwarrow granted them sanctuary, and the tribe's oral history recalls an invasion of some horrific demonic force which seems to be equivalent to the Norsemen's pursuers. The two peoples banded together to destroy these invaders once and for all, and a prosperous allegiance was established. The viking settlement fell out of use sometime after the manuscript was written, with all its inhabitants vanishing from the record, and archeologists are still uncertain as to why. The Suwarrow themselves are particularly cagey about their oral history regarding this period, so little progress has been made in that direction. Still, an interesting consequence of this episode in Suwarrow's history is that the modern Heathen community are one of the few folks from Eagle Crest that the tribe has open and friendly relations with. The Heathens, based in a temple built near the old viking site, interpret the saga manuscript as a formal, legally binding treaty of allegiance between their people and the Suwarrow, and the two communities are known to be fiercely protective of one another. It therefore is not uncommon today to see Eagle Crest Heathens volunteering as bodyguards to protect Suwarrow individuals at protests and rallies from those who have less than favorable attitudes towards racial solidarity.

Speaking of which, the first European colonizers arrived in 1738. These were French fur traders who were permitted to set up a semi-permanent trading post on the frontier. While relations weren't always friendly, as long as the French kept the Iroquois off the Suwarrow's backs, and the Suwarrow kept the English off the French's backs, they mostly stayed out of each other's business. The most impactful development of this colonization effort was the arrival of the Gévaudan Club in 1780. In the earliest days of the Club's history, they were a hunting guild, specializing in rare and exotic creatures like the rumored mammoths Thomas Jefferson hired them to hunt. While (officially) they never found the extinct behemoth, the Gévaudan Club maintained a permanent presence on Suwarrow lands, and their shanty town would become the bedrock of the modern city of Eagle Crest.

Of course, by this point the French had long lost their claim to the territory, and the United States was on its way to make life a living hell for the Natives. The 1818 Treaty of St. Mary's forced nearly all of the indigenous population of Central Indiana to pack up and move west. Provisions allowed a handful of clans to remain on their ancestral land grants, the Suwarrow included, but they had lost all legal claims to the territory. The first American settlers, David Wilson and James Delong, established themselves on the newly opened land grant, naming the city “Eagle Crest” after the creek that ran through the region. The Suwarrow were forced to watch as American expansion encroached on their urban center and tore down everything their ancestors stood for. In 1898, the Mounds themselves were lost when the city converted them into a lodge for the local Freemasons. This outrage sparked a decades long struggle to regain their rights through protest and blood.

These efforts came to a head in 1966, when it was announced that Eagle Crest intended to dam up the creek to build a reservoir. As the Mounds were located smack in the middle of the floodplain, Suwarrow protesters took action by occupying the site. Their voices were ignored, and construction continued for the next six years. Still, the protesters refused to leave even as the waters began to rise. In 1969, the mayor of Eagle Crest quipped that if they were still there by the time the reservoir was complete, they could have their Mounds back. The protesters took this to heart, and stayed on their artificial mountain until 1971, when construction was complete and a new mayor had been elected who was much more sympathetic. Taking the word of his predecessor literally, this new mayor officially recognized the lands surrounding the floodplain as the Suwarrow Reservation, a very bittersweet independence. Since then, the Suwarrow have focused on rebuilding their home and making the best of the ruins. They remain a fiercely independent people, currently led by sachem Matowt-kiwshekwi, a firebrand dedicated to protecting his people and their ancient culture without a single concession to the white man ever again. Of course, with the Gévaudan Club quickly climbing into its new life as a terrorist organization, and the upcoming mayoral election being anyone's game, the Suwarrow may well have to prepare for another fight with their future in the balance…

But that's a story for another day

Design notes, this was definitely an experiment in mild indigenous futurism, a genre I've become quite fond of. It's an experiment I feel is half successful. The further to the right you look the more art block really started to kick in. It definitely had nothing to do with the massive hangover I was nursing from drinking two tall Shirley Templars the night before I finalized the draft. No sir. I can see how you might assume that from how incongruous the agile is from the rest of the roster. Okay fine, maybe it was the Shirley Templars, but also ghillie suits are really hard to put to paper. I really liked the idea of cornfield camouflage, because despite what our tourist board will try to persuade you of, I can confirm that Indiana is in fact just one giant cornfield. Corn grenades just sound really funny to me. Idk, maybe I'm just being too hard on myself. I am really happy with how the regular and heavy look at least. I gave the regular more of a sheriff vibe because dark-skinned girls in uniform are just one smexy trifecta. The heavy meanwhile was inspired more from historical Tlingit armor. The Tlingit aren't Algonquin, for the record, but the shape lent itself well to a modern ballistic vest, so I cheated a little and tried to base the rest of the elements primarily off of Miami, Lenape, and Potawatomi garments since those are the major groups that have historically lived here in Indiana. The Miami are actually the only tribe that have a reservation in Indiana, so they were a heavy inspiration for Suwarrow as a whole. Sadly, they had their federal recognition stolen from them in 1898, because the government didn't want them to be exempt from taxes. Decades of lobbying has unfortunately been unsuccessful, but their spirit remains strong and that's something I hope to convey in the Suwarrow as well.

Description
I hope the yearly tradition of making us retail workers absolutely miserable was worth it, you animals.

Nah I'm just playing (maybe) happy Turkey Day everyone! I figured now is as appropriate a time as any to take a quick detour back into OC land. I'm currently working on chapter 6 of my novel, so I'm almost halfway through! I was sort of aiming to have half of it done by New Years, but that's seeming a little unlikely now Ah well, one step at a time. Anyways, chapter 6 dives heavily into the indigenous corner of my fictional town of Eagle Crest, so I wanted to touch a little on the worldbuilding for the people who call the city “Suwarrow”.

I gush a lot about Islamic history and culture and how that was my focus of study during my brief stint at university. And I mean, don't get me wrong, that's never going to stop, but my real passion is honestly all things Native American. Despite the American education system's completely criminal attempts to convince our population that the Natives are just unnoteworthy savages that have all been swept under the rug, this could not be further from reality. Indiana's history, my own backyard's history, does not begin with the arrival of a bunch of grubby Frenchmen a few hundred years ago. It begins 10,000 years ago at minimum when those most ancient of peoples first left traces in my beloved homeland's soil. These were not savages, they were diverse and proud peoples who traversed great trade routes and fought glorious battles to secure claims to the vast hunting ranges and cornfields along the Wabash, Wapahani, and Sakiwasipi Rivers. Mighty civilizations which were by no stretchable definition inferior to the more famous empires of Rome or China had a leg to stand on here in Indiana. The Mississippians at Angel Mounds constructed in the heart of their enormous urban center an artificial mountain so vast that it approaches the dimensions of some of Egypt's pyramids. While the Angevins and Capetians were tearing one another apart over the long dead remnants of Roman Gaul, the first representatives of Algonquin and Iroquoian peoples had moved into the shells left behind by the mound builders they drove out. Their oral histories preserve a bitter rivalry that lasted hundreds of years until these pasty assholes showed up with these awesome sticks that spit fire out of their holes. It's an absolutely incredible epic that deserves to be told in place of just “there were people here first, they made arrowheads, and then white people showed up.” I've always said that if I ever decide to go back to college, this is what I'd shift my studies to. I'm sick of Indiana being some Midwestern state that just sort of popped up in the 1800s. I'm sick of cartoons set in the States where they just somehow find an authentic medieval European castle to host an episode in when the same time period could've given them Angel Mounds or Cahokia homegrown. I want Indiana to be not just ancient, but storied, because it is, and sadly there's not a lot of scholarship out there touching on these ancient stories. So yeah, I eat up as much Native shit as I can find (special thanks to my Anishanaabe friend for keeping what I can find fact-checked too). If you ever get the chance to visit the Eiteljorg Museum, take it. It's one of my favorite places in Indianapolis, full to bursting with Native art, history, and voices, and dedicated to presenting it in an extremely dignified and respectful way.

So okay, gushing out of the way, let me formally introduce you to the Suwarrow people. The Suwarrow are a fictional tribe I created to carve out an indigenous corner of Eagle Crest. They are an Algonquin people, both because that's the majority culture in Indiana history and because that's my Anishanaabe friend's point of reference. The stereotype often depicted in media has reservations being dirty, poverty-stricken hobbles just waiting to be bulldozed over. While this sadly has some basis in reality, it is not the fault of the Natives, but instead of their colonizers whose policy it is to make life as difficult as possible for people who just want to be allowed to live. I'll touch more on this when I design another character for the book, but whenever I talk about worldbuilding with my friend, they talk about how they want to see a thriving reservation represented for once, one where its people are allowed to be strong and independent, and I agree with that sentiment. In my book, the Suwarrow are a fierce people who don't take kindly to outsiders bringing their outside problems onto the rez. They have a proud history, and in fact a sacred duty, but that's spoiler territory I'll go ahead and touch a little bit on that history now.

In-universe archeologists date the original settlement as being much older than the current inhabitants. The deepest layer of stratigraphy has long since been overhauled by younger renovations, but it's evident that there's been a permanent settlement in Eagle Crest since at least the 6th century BCE. The foundations of the modern mounds were originally constructed by a subsect of the Adena Culture, but these peoples had been largely displaced by the expansion of the Mississippian Culture into the region circa 1000 CE. It's these new peoples who were responsible for the central urban center that defines Suwarrow today, including the Great Mounds and Necropolis which became the religious center for the minor Allegheny priest-king whose dynasty ruled over the city-state for the next couple centuries. Marvelous imperialism was not the destiny of this largely forgotten corner of Indiana, however. By the 13th century, the ancestors of the modern Suwarrow tribe first migrated into the area. Like many Algonquin immigrants, they found an amicable yet tense relationship with the Allegheny lords, but it was short lived. Oral history recalls a great revolution which saw the priest-king overthrown and his people sent into exile, leaving the city abandoned and ripe for new settlement. The city therefore was renamed after the people who looked after the mounds ever since, and the locals refuse to call it anything else.

Author's note here, the word “Suwarrow” is a bit of an easter egg for the rare individual who's actually interested in Indiana history. I got the word from the list of proposed names for the city that would eventually become Indianapolis. My hometown was first established in 1821 exclusively for the purpose of being the new state capital, as having it all the way south in Corydon meant pro-slavery William Henry Harrison could rig everything in his vicinity in favor of him and his pals. It was a bit of a rush job, and the council hadn't even decided on a proper name yet. Legislator Marston G. Clark was a strong advocate for naming the city “Tecumseh”, after the legendary badass who confederated many Native American peoples against United States imperialism during the War of 1812. That's… probably the reason the name wasn't selected, come to think of it. “Concord” was another popular suggestion, and then “Suwarrow” was put forward by a member whose only excuse when pushed to define this word was “Well I heard there's a cactus way out west called that and I just think it sounds cool.” Clark himself looked at this man incredulously, and told him that was dumb and that he was dumb. He was almost certainly referring to the saguaro cactus, which yes only grows all the way out in the Sonoran Desert, on the opposite side of the continent. It would've made zero sense, but for what it's worth, I do like the ring of “Suwarrow” and adopted this nonsense word for my worldbuilding purposes.

For those curious, it was judge Jeremiah Sullivan who ultimately came up with the completely uninspired “Indianapolis”, opting to just slap the Greek suffix meaning “city” on the end of the name of the territory. Even at the time, they thought this decision was kind of lazy.

Back to the in-universe history, it was shortly after the overthrow of the Allegheny that the first Europeans arrived in the area. Modern archeological efforts are still struggling to fill in the gaps in this period. The remains of a 13th century viking settlement were unearthed near the city itself by French explorers in the 18th century, and it eventually came to light that the Suwarrow people retained an Old Norse runestone and manuscript evidently gifted to them by these mysterious vikings. The runestone dates closer to the founding of the site, but offers little information, while the manuscript is fragmentary and was written in the late 14th century. The saga proposes that the first Norsemen arrived in the area fleeing some sort of persecution from back home. The Suwarrow granted them sanctuary, and the tribe's oral history recalls an invasion of some horrific demonic force which seems to be equivalent to the Norsemen's pursuers. The two peoples banded together to destroy these invaders once and for all, and a prosperous allegiance was established. The viking settlement fell out of use sometime after the manuscript was written, with all its inhabitants vanishing from the record, and archeologists are still uncertain as to why. The Suwarrow themselves are particularly cagey about their oral history regarding this period, so little progress has been made in that direction. Still, an interesting consequence of this episode in Suwarrow's history is that the modern Heathen community are one of the few folks from Eagle Crest that the tribe has open and friendly relations with. The Heathens, based in a temple built near the old viking site, interpret the saga manuscript as a formal, legally binding treaty of allegiance between their people and the Suwarrow, and the two communities are known to be fiercely protective of one another. It therefore is not uncommon today to see Eagle Crest Heathens volunteering as bodyguards to protect Suwarrow individuals at protests and rallies from those who have less than favorable attitudes towards racial solidarity.

Speaking of which, the first European colonizers arrived in 1738. These were French fur traders who were permitted to set up a semi-permanent trading post on the frontier. While relations weren't always friendly, as long as the French kept the Iroquois off the Suwarrow's backs, and the Suwarrow kept the English off the French's backs, they mostly stayed out of each other's business. The most impactful development of this colonization effort was the arrival of the Gévaudan Club in 1780. In the earliest days of the Club's history, they were a hunting guild, specializing in rare and exotic creatures like the rumored mammoths Thomas Jefferson hired them to hunt. While (officially) they never found the extinct behemoth, the Gévaudan Club maintained a permanent presence on Suwarrow lands, and their shanty town would become the bedrock of the modern city of Eagle Crest.

Of course, by this point the French had long lost their claim to the territory, and the United States was on its way to make life a living hell for the Natives. The 1818 Treaty of St. Mary's forced nearly all of the indigenous population of Central Indiana to pack up and move west. Provisions allowed a handful of clans to remain on their ancestral land grants, the Suwarrow included, but they had lost all legal claims to the territory. The first American settlers, David Wilson and James Delong, established themselves on the newly opened land grant, naming the city “Eagle Crest” after the creek that ran through the region. The Suwarrow were forced to watch as American expansion encroached on their urban center and tore down everything their ancestors stood for. In 1898, the Mounds themselves were lost when the city converted them into a lodge for the local Freemasons. This outrage sparked a decades long struggle to regain their rights through protest and blood.

These efforts came to a head in 1966, when it was announced that Eagle Crest intended to dam up the creek to build a reservoir. As the Mounds were located smack in the middle of the floodplain, Suwarrow protesters took action by occupying the site. Their voices were ignored, and construction continued for the next six years. Still, the protesters refused to leave even as the waters began to rise. In 1969, the mayor of Eagle Crest quipped that if they were still there by the time the reservoir was complete, they could have their Mounds back. The protesters took this to heart, and stayed on their artificial mountain until 1971, when construction was complete and a new mayor had been elected who was much more sympathetic. Taking the word of his predecessor literally, this new mayor officially recognized the lands surrounding the floodplain as the Suwarrow Reservation, a very bittersweet independence. Since then, the Suwarrow have focused on rebuilding their home and making the best of the ruins. They remain a fiercely independent people, currently led by sachem Matowt-kiwshekwi, a firebrand dedicated to protecting his people and their ancient culture without a single concession to the white man ever again. Of course, with the Gévaudan Club quickly climbing into its new life as a terrorist organization, and the upcoming mayoral election being anyone's game, the Suwarrow may well have to prepare for another fight with their future in the balance…

But that's a story for another day

Design notes, this was definitely an experiment in mild indigenous futurism, a genre I've become quite fond of. It's an experiment I feel is half successful. The further to the right you look the more art block really started to kick in. It definitely had nothing to do with the massive hangover I was nursing from drinking two tall Shirley Templars the night before I finalized the draft. No sir. I can see how you might assume that from how incongruous the agile is from the rest of the roster. Okay fine, maybe it was the Shirley Templars, but also ghillie suits are really hard to put to paper. I really liked the idea of cornfield camouflage, because despite what our tourist board will try to persuade you of, I can confirm that Indiana is in fact just one giant cornfield. Corn grenades just sound really funny to me. Idk, maybe I'm just being too hard on myself. I am really happy with how the regular and heavy look at least. I gave the regular more of a sheriff vibe because dark-skinned girls in uniform are just one smexy trifecta. The heavy meanwhile was inspired more from historical Tlingit armor. The Tlingit aren't Algonquin, for the record, but the shape lent itself well to a modern ballistic vest, so I cheated a little and tried to base the rest of the elements primarily off of Miami, Lenape, and Potawatomi garments since those are the major groups that have historically lived here in Indiana. The Miami are actually the only tribe that have a reservation in Indiana, so they were a heavy inspiration for Suwarrow as a whole. Sadly, they had their federal recognition stolen from them in 1898, because the government didn't want them to be exempt from taxes. Decades of lobbying has unfortunately been unsuccessful, but their spirit remains strong and that's something I hope to convey in the Suwarrow as well.