The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

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Yačay256
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Yačay256 »

Serena wrote:What's the next question?
Oh; sorry [:$] !
Next: What major contemporary real-world city would someone from your conculture feel most comfortable in?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Serena »

Yačay256 wrote:Next: What major contemporary real-world city would someone from your conculture feel most comfortable in?
Well, since Hanilians are a fictional people largely based on Ancient Greek People and the fictional Athene saves most of the real-life Athene, they would certainly be comfortable there :)

However, when it comes to outlying provinces, the answer may range a lot. In Astrelia houses and buildings tend to be pretty rudimental as their primary commercial activity is fishing and hunting and they may feel comfortable in modern Japanese houses, that save a lot of space. In Flavenia, on the other hand, people like splendor and magnificience and most of the houses are decorated with silvery and golden objects, like Mayans and Aztecs.

Next: Tell a fairy tale / short story that is typical of your conpeople.
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by DesEsseintes »

Serena wrote:Next: Tell a fairy tale / short story that is typical of your conpeople.
I've never posted in this part of the forum before.

The Tale of Dangaččšono and Sāsůrůttno

Here's a simple outline of a story from Sōkoa:

- The young warrior Dangaččšono of the house of Assronan rises to prominence in the wars against rival clan Cūomo.
- After a disastrous battle in which Cūomo gains a narrow victory, Dangaččšono is saved by his childhood friend Sāsůrůttno, son of the matriarch of Cūomo. They travel through the marshes in heavy rain. Dangaččšono falls ill and nearly dies, but survives thanks to Sāsůrůttno's efforts. Soon after, they encounter travellers who inform them that a peace agreement has been reached between their clans.
- Dangaččšono's wedding to his cousin Appoa is arranged, but on the night before the wedding, Dangaččšono is accused of plotting against the matriarch of his own clan and subsequently sentenced to death.
- According to Sōkoan custom, Sāsůrůttno invokes his right to be executed instead of his childhood friend. The sentence is carried out.
- Upon learning of his friend's sacrifice, Dangaččšono commits suicide.
- Quite unrelatedly, war breaks out again soon afterwards, and the Assronan clan is annihilated.

The warlike Sōkoans are obsessed with conflicting loyalties... Most of their stories end in the deaths of most of the main characters.


Next: Do your conpeople like or dislike cats? Is there any symbolism or superstition surrounding cats in your conculture?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Ànradh »

DesEsseintes wrote:Next: Do your conpeople like or dislike cats? Is there any symbolism or superstition surrounding cats in your conculture?
The Mej people revere lions, but otherwise have little interaction with cats in their present setting, only coming into contact with smaller wildcats or lynxes when travelling in Maxna territories, where they're well regarded for their ferocity (I am debating adding a kind of animism/totemism to the Maxna culture, but for now, there's nothing spiritual going on here).
The Mej creation myth holds that their primary goddess (I really should get around to naming her) was travelling in the form of a great lioness when she was bitten by a snake; the Mej sprang into being when her blood touched the sand. As such, Mej heroes are depicted with leonine traits in their artwork.
Few Dvoen have ever even heard of a cat, let alone seen one. Their experiences are limited to Mej demons that take forms after, what they regard as, a mythical animal in Mej culture. Even this observation can only be made by those Dvoen with a moderate understanding of said culture.

Next: What are some of the common superstitions held by typical members of your concultures?
Sin ar Pàrras agus nì sinne mar a thogras sinn. Choisinn sinn e agus ’s urrainn dhuinn ga loisgeadh.
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by CatDoom »

Ànradh wrote:Next: What are some of the common superstitions held by typical members of your concultures?
The primary deity of the Tè Jĕhnò is the sky goddess , and it is believed that malign spirits can't long endure her gaze under the open sky. They are believed, therefore, to lurk in caves, disused shelters, and other out-of-the-way covered places, and that to enter such a place runs the risk of incurring a curse or illness. Those who willingly enter or explore such places are considered suspect, as they may be witches seeking the power to curse their enemies.

Snakes, particularly venomous snakes like vipers, hold a special place on the mythology and religion of the Tè Jĕhnò. is often depicted in mythology and artwork as a snake encircling the world, whose body is visible in the night sky as the milky way, and is sometimes addressed in prayer as rrĕkà, “great serpent.” Having a viper cross ones path is considered to be good luck (though being bitten by one is certainly not), and snakes of all types are traditionally treated with deference and offered a respectful greeting when encountered in the wild.

Next: How is the accumulation of wealth regarded in your conculture? Are the wealthy and those who pursue material success particularly respected or resented?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Serena »

CatDoom wrote:Next: How is the accumulation of wealth regarded in your conculture? Are the wealthy and those who pursue material success particularly respected or resented?
Keyali society doesn't revolve much around money, it rather revolves around classes. For example the knights, who are one of the higher rank classes, are propertyless and yet are worthier of respect than merchant, who are barely one step above farmers and yet are fairly richer, even richer than politicians and guardians.

Next: How does your conpeople trade?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by eldin raigmore »

Serena wrote:... the knights, who are one of the higher rank classes, are propertyless and yet are worthier of respect than merchant, who are barely one step above farmers and yet are fairly richer, even richer than politicians and guardians...
This is a recipe for a revolution. Power and prestige and wealth typically all correlate (whether or not they should correlate, I leave aside for now); when they don't, trouble is likely to ensue, and usually does if the disconnect is big enough and lasts long enough.
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Felbah »

Serena wrote:
CatDoom wrote:Next: How is the accumulation of wealth regarded in your conculture? Are the wealthy and those who pursue material success particularly respected or resented?
Keyali society doesn't revolve much around money, it rather revolves around classes. For example the knights, who are one of the higher rank classes, are propertyless and yet are worthier of respect than merchant, who are barely one step above farmers and yet are fairly richer, even richer than politicians and guardians.

Next: How does your conpeople trade?
Generally, in the place where the Proto-Amutetikam people live, the people is divided into tribes, mainly nomadic, with many horses. Effectively, a delegation made up of traders and merchants ride out to the rendezvous point (usually a sacred place, such as a religious temple or a place where a vexillum has been planted) and both delegations would set up camp. All trading would go on for a week, when each group would depart with the leaders performing a special 'handshake', called an akεlas.
All bartering would be made by deciding what is of equivalent value, and very often, weapons and alcoholic beverages are on the table, which quite often leads to violent clashes between them. The Amutetikam people see this as testing that the weapons work and that the beverage is suitably alcoholic.
Local settlements are invited to a carnival on the last day, which usually trades many of the less valuable things to the populace, such as some foodstuffs or other trinkets for more valuable items. Thus, the trading ends.
Next: How do your conpeople travel?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by cntrational »

Felbah wrote:Next: How do your conpeople travel?
The people of the Alliance mainly live on Orbitals. The most common way to travel is through the "Overside", a series of tubes found under the surface of an Orbital (and thus on the outer side of the Orbital). They transport trains and private pods in a vacuum at high speeds to various parts of the Orbital.

Due to the sheer size of the Orbital, even the fastest Overside tube would take a week to take you to the other side. Thus rapid transport between distant sections of Orbitals is done by small spaceships, launched from the rimwalls.

Orbitals contain more standard forms of transport for pleasure and sightseeing, of course, like trains, planes, or volants (flying cars).

Interstellar and interplanetary travel can be done on small spaceships, but most Alliance travellers use Ships, kilometers long spaceships. Travel between the sections of the Ship is done through an elaborate tube system which takes you to different sections of the Ship.

Since Ships can't dock to planets, being too big, they send smaller shuttles to handle matters.

Next question: what is the favored drink of your conculture, other than water?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Felbah »

cntrational wrote:
Felbah wrote:Next: How do your conpeople travel?
The people of the Alliance mainly live on Orbitals. The most common way to travel is through the "Overside", a series of tubes found under the surface of an Orbital (and thus on the outer side of the Orbital). They transport trains and private pods in a vacuum at high speeds to various parts of the Orbital.

Due to the sheer size of the Orbital, even the fastest Overside tube would take a week to take you to the other side. Thus rapid transport between distant sections of Orbitals is done by small spaceships, launched from the rimwalls.

Orbitals contain more standard forms of transport for pleasure and sightseeing, of course, like trains, planes, or volants (flying cars).

Interstellar and interplanetary travel can be done on small spaceships, but most Alliance travellers use Ships, kilometers long spaceships. Travel between the sections of the Ship is done through an elaborate tube system which takes you to different sections of the Ship.

Since Ships can't dock to planets, being too big, they send smaller shuttles to handle matters.

Next question: what is the favored drink of your conculture, other than water?
Sometimes, in the forests of the Proto-Amutetikam, people pick every type of fruit they can find. Once that happens, they bring the fruits to a shrine where they pray over them. Then they wrap them in leaves and put them back into the shrine.

Days later, the fruits will be fermented and warmed in the sun, and so they take the fruits out and crush them together. Once they do this, it will form a pulp, and that will be cooled on top of a mountain for twelve days inside a walled area. Once this is done, it is brought down the mountain and drunk. It creates a vaguely alcoholic beverage called aputen, and is widely enjoyed by Proto-Amutetikam people in every tribe.

Next: Your conpeople's favourite activity.
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Serena »

Felbah wrote:Next: Your conpeople's favourite activity.
  • Having sex
  • Slaughtering enemies
  • Eating
Jokes aside, the Keyali people is known for having the funniest folk dances and the best food, including a lot of recipes for desserts. They like partying hard in large groups during festivities, drinking litres of alchol and eating tons of food.

Νεχτ: How is freedom of speech handled in your conpeople?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by FeralJay »

Serena wrote: Νεχτ: How is freedom of speech handled in your conpeople?
There is no legal concept of the freedom of speech among the Madenak, so one must carefully weigh how important what one has to say is against how likely it is to anger those with power. Mostly the concern would be local, and whether the matriarch of your House would decide to punish you, and her decision may be effected by the other heads of houses in your town or village, so unless you're from a powerful family, it's best not to speak too boldly.


Next: What is the typical family structure for your conpeople?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Hālian »

FeralJay wrote:Next: What is the typical family structure for your conpeople?
Quite large. Given that safir reach adulthood at 16 and live for 450 years, it's not uncommon for multiple generations of descendants to live together.

Next: What's the largest/most visible racial conflict in your conculture?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Serena »

Carl Miller wrote:Next: What's the largest/most visible racial conflict in your conculture?
The most visible ethnical conflict across the Hanilian Empire is not racial but rather religious/philosophical. Rejecting Vis metaphysics and promoting blasfemous concepts such as creationism and monotheism is largely regarded as a good reason to burn down your village and have sex with your sister.

Next: You fall in love / have sex with someone related to your friend (sister/brother/cousin/domestic animal/etc.). Is this considered offensive in your conculture?
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Lambuzhao »

1) Racial Conflict(s) in conworld: There were three main 'racial' conflicts in Tirga. The oldest one was between the Chesha and the humans. Chesha are an ancient sentient reptiloid race that mostly adhere to a philosophy of 'live and let live from very far away'. But once every 2,000-3,000 years or so, they get really itchy for increasing their Lebensraum into human territory. I guess this does not exactly count as 'racial'; interspecies conflict fits better.

The next big 'racial' conflict on Tirga would be the Muscan Wars, which in more modern times are known as the Muscan Genocide or Muscan Decimation. The Muscans were various tribes of 'near-humans', not much different from Homo floresensis on the one hand, or Sasquatch on the other. The annihilation of nearly all Muscans from Tirga paved the way for the great hero Kristu hu Makru (Christos the Long) to unite the city states of the Ellini and Cedara. It is rumored that tiny remnants of these peoples inhabit the deep forests between the Wall of Stone and the Yabvadiki to the North, and in the deepest Temperate Cloud Jungles of the Ingerstaedt sub-continent. But again, maybe this is an interspecies conflict more than a 'racial' conflict.

The final 'racial' conflict on Tirga were the Long Wars between Yawbeth Mohur and Rozwiland with its allies. Both kingdoms lived in an uneasy peace for centuries leading up to this conflict. This was probably the bloodiest conflict in more recent Tirgan history, lasting 23 years from the Rozwi invasion and annexation of the Yawbethan shore stronghold of Meva, until the epic Naval Battle of the Bight of Keliken Doroa, among the Aights of Kerne. Yawbeth Mohur was a confederacy of the city states of the Ellini, the Cedara, the Trayans, the Rroñolez, the Post-Pan-Slavs, the Lithuanians and the Dakru/Sadrasaalers. Rozwiland counted on help from the Vkernians (Western Cedara), The Hwa-An, The Angkian Islanders, and the far eastern Collective of Vdau ed Zahaas. Despite geographically surrounding and containing Yawbeth Mohur, and counting on naval superiority, Rozwiland & allies nonetheless blew it and lost the Long Wars. This was as much a cultural and religious conflict as a geopolitical one. Much more, later.

The Ceathrians to the far north, and the Isles of Aewan Ansō to the Farthest East, wisely stayed out of this conflict, exacting truculent territorial gains in the aftermath. The Southern archipelago of the Banxi-Sudeir tried playing one side against the other, at times allying themselves with Traya and the Yawbethans, at other times seeking aide from the Warrior-Monks of Daqa Zi in Rozwiland. Nonetheless, the double-dealings of the Osuderai cost their kingdom the heaviest losses.

Ironically, Serena's question is a big plot device in my stories based on Olde Tirga. In fact, they more or less take place during the end of the Long Wars. The son of the king of Traya is trying to rally the allies against a primordial threat that has entered the war. He aligns himself with the princess of Banxi-Sudeir, who turns out to be a spy for the enemy. He then marries himself with a Cedaran princess, who is seduced by a wealthy Okernai Doge, and former close friend of the prince's father in the years before the war. The prince's wife becomes a spy at court, and then, when the prince is at a low, she leaves him to live with the Doge, with whom she claims it is safer to wait out the war in the Iron Tower of Keliken Doroa in Kerne than in Traya. From its steely ramparts, she announces to the world that she is carrying the Doge's baby. Broken, the prince still must go on one last journey to try to find/dispose of the Macguffin.
Meanwhile, the princess learns that the Doge intends to sacrifice not only her and her baby, but a great number of his own people to the primordial threat. The princess, not to be outdone by anyone, duels the Doge, besting him on the iron stairwell of the Tower, stabbing him in the back. His body explodes into a cloud of shushing dry sands and tinkling tarnished old coins.

...so the more basic answer to Serena's question is, no, on Tirga it's not a good idea to bugger a friend's spouse/consort/sheep/jackalope/hassayampa/bunyip. Unless you want to explode into a cloud of shushing dry sands and tinkling tarnished old coins.
next: How closely related do you have to be to someone in your conworld for it to be incest?
I bet this was already covered earlier. If so: resurrectio nekuia! If not - just have at it, then.
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Serena »

Is that in the quote the next question? :/
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Ahzoh »

Serena wrote:Is that in the quote the next question? :/
Clearly; Lam mentions something about ressurection.
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Serena »

Ahzoh wrote:
Serena wrote:Is that in the quote the next question? :/
Clearly; Lam mentions something about ressurection.
Ok, then.
Next: How closely related do you have to be to someone in your conworld for it to be incest?
Incest is forbidden only between a female and a male and if the female is a generatrix. Otherwise it's perfectly safe and practised, because non-generatrix females (eg warriors and merchants) are not allowed to reproduce and usually don't have sex with males at all. In Keyali small villages, most of the population comes from a short number of generatrices and a large number of different fathers, it's not extremely rare to have a sibling / first cousin lover. Siblings don't grow up with the awareness of being siblings, anyway: having the same generatrix is like having the same hair color to them (sometimes they don't even know which woman of the village is their actual generatrix), and this is why romance between biological siblings is not seen as weird or perverted.

While sibling-sibling and cousin-cousin incest is widely regarded as normal, generatrix-daughter and generatrix-son incest is punishable by death for both, and same goes for every non-same-generation direct descendants.
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Re: The Conculture/Conpeople Opinions Thread

Post by Ànradh »

In the absence of a new question, I'll answer the last one again, but I'll give a little more information than is probably needed.
next: How closely related do you have to be to someone in your conworld for it to be incest?
Maxna clans are headed by a chief, who is elected from the clan’s elite class, formed from the politically powerful or rich, those with military achievement or those with a strong magical bloodline. The position is held until death or until the chief chooses to step down, and it may only be held by men. The chief is styled as ‘The <clan name>’ so the chief of ‘Clan Black’ would be entitled to be addressed as ‘The Black’.
Maxna clans are exogamous, with membership being determined via bilateral descent, or by marriage for women. However, one may only be part of a single clan, so women marrying into another clan are no longer considered members of their old clan.
In the past, small clans have merged, meaning that, from the point the merger takes place, members from the two founding clans are no longer allowed to marry.
Infractions in this regrard are punishable by a number of means, from a loss of status or property to disownment and exile.
Some of the largest clans make pragmatic exceptions on the basis of magical potential or political expedience, provided the individuals aren’t of the same sept.
Septs are matrilineal extended families of up to five degrees of relation that cross clan boundaries; marrying within the sept is always considered incest and is punished by death.
Group marriages are permitted; these family structures can potentially become very complicated as the members must all be of the same clan, but no two members may be of the same sept. This means that a woman may marry any number of men from the same clan, provided they are of different septs, while a man may marry any number of women, regardless of their clans (as they are adopted into his upon marriages), provided they are from different septs. The septs of the children are determined as normal.
However, non-monogamous marriages tend not to extend further than bigyny or biandry, and monogamy vastly (90%+) predominates.
Within this framework, Maxna families can be considered nuclear, such that a household usually only contains the members of a marriage and their dependant children, including adopted children, if any; the Maxna family is thus neolocal, and will build a new house for themselves or move into a vacant one.
Maxna may marry from 17 years of age, or from 15 with the consent of their parents.
Divorce is permitted, provided the relevant parties agree; should one contest the divorce, the matter will be taken to the chieftain where each party presents his or her case and the chieftain decides the outcome, often aided by other members of the elite class. In practice, it’s not common for a chieftain to deny a request to divorce.
Maxna names are shaped by these intertwining relationships and follow the form of <clan name> <given name> <sept names>.
Next: At what point does your conculture consider children to have become adults? Is there a coming of age ceremony? Does some task need be completed? Or is it merely based upon age? (I suspect this has been asked before too.)
Sin ar Pàrras agus nì sinne mar a thogras sinn. Choisinn sinn e agus ’s urrainn dhuinn ga loisgeadh.
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