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An overview of the Pagans

The Folk o' the Woodsie commonly called Pagans, and a term they've been known to

call themselves (Thief names them this more as a race, not an impersonal or disparagingslr!, represent the hman faction aligned with the forces of natre and chaos in the

Thief world" They are primitive hmans and beasts who promote natre and chaos at thee#pense of technological and environmentally$destrctive progress" The shamans,

warriors and hmanoid beast members of the Pagan peoples pray to the Trickster, whom

they most often call the Woodsie %ord, an ancient god of natre and chaos" The&ierarchy of Pagan society like the &ammerites strctre, sees the god the Trickster at

the top, followed by special powerfl entities sch as iktoria, sbseently followed by

the elite caste of shamans sch as )yan, then lesser shaman and finally warriors andcommoners"

*eliefs

As natre lovers who worship the Woodsie %ord deity, and who prefer to live simple

lives in the deep forests otside The +ity, the Pagans shn technology, living in harmony

with the natral world, as well as the sperhman creatres that are the minions of theWoodsie %ord" They despise the ordinary people of the +ity, and are completely inimical

to the rder of the &ammer and the splinter grop, the -echanists" The Pagans speak a

corrpted version of the common langage, often adding a .sie. to the end of severalwords (i"e" ./ood. becomes ./oodsie."!

They believe in the life$and$death cycle to the degree that they are glad, and sometimeseager, to feed the plants and trees with the dead" At times, they will feed their plants with

the blood of the living" They have been known to take great 0oy in killing their enemies

and letting the flora consme the corpses" They believe in blood sacrifice" At times theyare completely peacefl, sympathetic, and show no signs of blood$lst"

The Pagan deity, the Woodsie %ordcalled .The Trickster. by his enemies$$and the

facts srronding his war against the &ammerites' and their technology, are central to theplot of Thief1 The )ark Pro0ect"

Warrior +lass

When /arrett went 2nto the Pagan 3anctary, /arrett comments of .Pagans preparing

for war." The warrior class within the Pagan society is new to Thief1 )eadly 3hadows,

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since Pagans typically task the Trickster's beasts with their dirty$work" The beast

poplation /arrett enconters in )eadly 3hadows is limited to a considerably small

grop of 4at *easts, seeing that prior, he had killed The Trickster and sealed the portalfrom The -aw of +haos, then later iktoria was killed by -echanist robots" With the

nmber of beasts dwindling, the Pagans had to rely on themselves for combat"

Pagan )ialect

The Pagans in Thief speak in a broken, 5nglish pidgin" Words are often ended in 's' or

'ie'" The vocablary is based on natre6 their songs, poems and sayings revolving arondtrees and leaves"

2ndicatives, in any tense, are replaced with 'bes' (.Are yo there7. ths becomes .*esyo there7.!, e#cept with 'was', 'will', and occasionally when speaking in third person

singlar where 'am' is sed in place of 'is'"89: '&e' is often, bt not always, replaced with'him' and 'them' is typically sed in place of 'the' when applied to a common non, mchlike the /erman 'der' and 'das'" *ecase of the latter, 'thems' is sbstitted for 'them' and

'they'"

Pagans have also developed their own slang" 'Woodsies' is a mild oath, .sapped. is their

term for killed, .cityhead. for civili;ed people, .hammerhead. for the &ammerites,.sneaksie. for thieves, and .manfool. for non$believers" *easts will sometimes refer to

hmans as .manflesh."

Thief1 The )ark Pro0ect and Thief /old have relatively few Pagan orators, these being

limited to iktoria and +onstantine, who often speak flent 5nglish, and the Ape *easts,

which are only present in the last three missions" -ore are encontered in Thief 221 The-etal Age with the sdden infl# of Pagan villagers" f these only %arkspr appears to

speak proper 5nglish, possibly throgh his dealings with otsiders and

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(.ws;y., .?s;y.! and proper neologisms while translating some words (.woodsie.,

.manfool. etc"!

rder of the ine

nly once is this term sed, in an assmptive gess regarding iktoria, by the Warden4amire;, who does not know iktoria's natre, bt only that she deals in herbals"

4amire; ses the term in his dossier"8@: 2n this instance, it is a reference to iktoria only"Fanon has sggested this is the tre name of the Pagans, bt nowhere in all of the canon

Thief %e#icon does the words 'rder of the ine' ever appear again" To se the word

.rder. in the title is to strongly sggest in the Thief idiom that he is not associating herdirectly with the +haos$loving Pagans"