Helian music is full of drums and string instruments. Helian music tends to be slower and deeper resulting in songs that sound more like ballads, even popular and uplifting music can sound somber to outsiders. One thing to note is few Helian songs have words sung, and those that do are often directly tied to the faith.

Music and Dance is mostly influenced by the common people and find their way upwards into noble and wealthy circles.

There are two distinct styles of dance within Helios (With several variants within each) The Omarian style, which has partners dancing with outstretched arms and slow purposeful turns, this style lends itself to groups of 3 to 4. Omarian dancing is more popular with the older generation although is a fairly new style. Lornan Style is characterized with dancing very close together and features grinding and undulations that are far more intimate even if that is not the intent behind the dancing. Lornan style is also characterized by dancing alone but still maintaining the sensual and serpentine motions. Lornan style dancing is quite old but only recently has it seen a resurgence in popularity.

With the instant transmission of various information among myrmidons via pheromones, there's really no need for a lot of gestures. However, they have a number of hand signals, perhaps even a full sign language, that are done subconsciously while thinking. It's all seemingly vestigial from a time when perhaps myrmidons had more indepence and relied less on the Queen's pheromones and written information. Perhaps it's a link to a more primitive time when myrmidons were just becoming civilized. Nobody has been able to find out what these gestures mean, however. Unfortunately, the complex and mysterious sign language of the myrmidons is being phased out over time, and it's possible it could entirely disappear in our lifetimes.

OnKitabie jewelry is made largely out of gold, bronze, and lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli, or zilabie, serves as the currency of the various OnKitabie clans throughout Tiemakil Shike as well, as there are substantial mines for the mineral throughout the desert. Its deep blue luster and ability to be sculpted makes it more valuable than gold, a metal which the OnKitabie hold little economic value for anyways.

In general, due to the value of lapis lazuli, it is used as inlays on larger metal and fabric pieces of clothing. Most jewelry is embroidered or in some way integrated into larger articles of clothing as well, such as with lapis lazuli beads woven into the rim of turbans and robes. This is also the preferred method by lower classes and in urban areas, as it is harder to steal/pickpocket than a necklace or ring. However with the upper classes, necklaces and especially rings are prevalent, and it is considered to be a classical sign of great wealth to own two rings (one for each hand) carved purely from high-quality lapis lazuli. It should be noted as well that all genders tend to wear jewelry similarly. The only major distinction is that traditionally the nojal of the household who facilitate religious ceremony wear jewelry with turquoise highlights (assuming that the family has the finances to purchase the expensive gemstone) though that practice is slowly growing obsolete.

There are rarely distinct jewelers, as it is usually those who carve and refine lapis lazuli straight from the mines that also work it into jewelry. Occasionally this creates conflicts where the highest-purity lapis lazuli that is meant to go towards minting currency is instead used for carving rings and the like, since the carvers can get a far higher price for that. This has resulted in multiple laws being passed to prevent this by various different clans, and in the Miktaban many currency minters are pushing for permanently establishing separate jewelers to prevent future conflicts of interest.

https://forums.candarion.com/topic/960/a-sentence-a-day/322

Year old prompt, but I finally picked a food I liked the look of to be a local delicacy.

https://forums.candarion.com/topic/960/a-sentence-a-day/327

Made a new gift giving holiday and tied it in with an ancient celebration for the arrival of the light. Thanks for the prompt!

It is easy to arrive in Aiolia and gaze upon the Diolkos, a monstrous wagonway that carries the lifeblood of trade throughout the realm. It is harder to think of the time before its construction, before golems pounded upon the stones.

The city-states of Aiolia had once been fairly divided, raiding each other, capturing the few bits of fertile land they could along the peninsula. Thick, dangerous woods prevented any growth of major overland trade. Rivers served as the main transport into hamlets buried in the forests, with the sea taking the place of primary trade. When Aiolia had first begun its confederacy before the arrival of Eternal, at last trade between the cities became standard. It would still not be until four hundred years after the coronation of Eternal that the realm would see the beginning of the construction of the Diolkos. Golems, some of the first Aiolia had seen, laid the stones that would eventually become the wagonway.

The Diolkos heralded a new era in Aiolian trade. Trains of wagons hauled increasingly larger loads of materials, delivering to each city what they required. Highwaymen grew prominent, as did defenses on the wagons themselves. Predatory animals were pushed back into the woods, the Diolkos becoming the only safe overland route. The economic boom of tourism and trade shot the production of golems forward, something that pleased the Vasilias greatly.

Submission: Temple of Ituin, Goddess of the Stars

Corresponding lore: https://forums.candarion.com/topic/1111/devotion

Location: Kakaisda

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Obrexian / Coalition of the Azure Hunt entry, sort of living post
https://forums.candarion.com/topic/1239/coalition-of-the-azure-hunt

Congratulations to our three winners, @Alexrk, @bryson3842, and @Darius! Your lore will be featured on the candarion.com homepage this month. Additionally, @Alexrk's post has been selected as the Lore Ministry's Pick -- great work 🙂

Looking forward to seeing what everyone submits next month!

Congratulations to our three winners, @ThunderPony, @Darius, and @TheValeyard! Your lore will be featured on the candarion.com homepage this month. Additionally, @ThunderPony's post has been selected as the Lore Ministry's Pick -- great work 🙂

Looking forward to seeing what everyone submits next month!

Beer - The Supplement:

Unlike wine; beer is generally regarded as a drink for nourishment and sustenance than it is seen as an intoxicant. Consequently, the Sogad gives beer far less cultural weight behind it than they do to wine. That is not to say that beer production is primitive or rudimentary, just that it is consumed in a more mundane and domestic context than wine.

Two varieties of beer that are most popular in the fertile shores of Lower Sogad are Boveza and Doveza - the former being a thick low-alcoholic beverage made of barley and wheat that is drunk as a substitute for meals, and the latter being its more alcoholic counterpart that is much more bitter and has a thicker consistency. These drinks are commonly given out as rations and payment to soldiers and labourers in Lower Sogad, to the point that the consumption of such drinks is seen as the mark of a professional. Amongst the nobility, the consumption of such beverages signals a modest and rustic character to the individual.

Meanwhile, in Upper Sogad, a drink that serves roughly the same function as the porridge-beers of Lower Sogad is the Xshyon. It is a drink made of palm wine mixed with barley meal boiled in goats milk and topped with honey and dates to flavour. Unlike its Lower Sogad counterpart, Xshyon is significantly less important in the societies of Upper Sogad, regarded only for its nourishment and nothing more beyond that.

It should be noted that the divide between Upper and Lower Sogad in their preference for either Boveza or Xshyon is not merely due to the different climate and landscape of the two, but a divide that is also cultural.

The more mountainous and pastoral Upper Sogad favours the cultivation of trees and animal husbandry far more than agriculture, hence the use of palm wine and goats milk in their beverage. Upper Sogad is also primarily inhabited by Sogad-speaking peoples, whose culture, religious practices, and social preferences greatly favour wine over any other alcoholic beverages. Lower Sogad meanwhile, with its more temperate climate, is much more suitable for the growing of grains and is primarily inhabited by the descendants of Moharid-speaking peoples that socially reveres a more simple and spartan lifestyle when compared to the more flamboyant and sybaritic Sogad.

Short Story "A Shepherd's Introduction":

https://forums.candarion.com/topic/1298/a-shepherd-s-introduction?_=1620052761855

Edit: Oh oops, didn't realize it was over.

Who is Educated?

Pianto Dia Florina has many different racial demographics within the realm. We have Humans, mostly ethnic Kry humans, Dwarves, Orcs, Elves, and however many more pop up in the region.

The city is only explicitly split between the Humans from the Florina's Children ethnic group and everyone else. Kry humans also have some level of an implicit split, as they benefit from the Kry culture in the region and the influence of the neighboring realm of Kryizon.

Florina's Children are mostly all educated. How this happens is further explained when you look into the system of education, but the general take here is that everyone from that group has had some level of formal education.

Is there a formal system of education or Tutors?

There is no formal public system of education, but there is a developed and supported private system of education. In practice, your access to education is directly tied to your families access to wealth. Here is a breakdown of how wealth is distributed in the realm.

The members of the ethnic minority, Florina's Children, have access to education. Why? Because they have a widely unequal amount of access to wealth, and therefore to education. The formal education sector is not explicitly labeled for members of this group; they just tend to be the primary customer.

Dwarves and other humans (Kry) are second in terms of education. Dwarves play a large part of the underground industry that the city is built upon. Elves and Orcs have very little access to formal education. Since orcs and elves are considered enemies in the neighboring Kryizon, even though they have a better status in Pianto City, no one goes out of their way to help them.

Now that access to education has been discussed, the primary means of formal education are private tutors. These are highly educated individuals that go to the primary residence of their pupil's family and provide direct instruction to however many children a family has. There are no educational buildings, but many families do have rooms in their homes dedicated to it. This system of education rewards the wealthy that can afford private tutors and punishes those that cannot.

How are the well educated seen/treated in the realm? | How are the illiterate seen/treated in your realm?

The majority of citizens of Pianto City don't put too much value on formal education. Especially because the majority do not have equal access to this private system of education. Parents from the lower classes simply do not expect their children to become literate or to receive any formal type of education. The vast majority go into trades that their families have done before them and learn informally.

For those groups of citizens that have access to private formal education, it really depends on the culture of the student's family. Dwarven families tend to stress literacy and languages, for trade purposes. A dwarf that works in the heart of the industrial belly of the city is looked up upon if they have access to the written word and multiple languages.

Florina's Children have internal competitions between their families over whose children are the best. Education is seen as important, but no more important than other fields such as competitive sports, wealth, diplomacy, and political relationship building. They do not gauge their importance over other groups in the city based on their level of education. Even the most illiterate and uneducated member of Florina's Children is seen as higher than someone from another group.

It's important to note here, Florina's Children don't have the influence they have because the majority of citizens democratically decided they are the best. They use cruel economic and political means to attain this power. The lower class does not think they are beneath the educated upper class. The heel of the upper class forcibly keeps them in this dynamic.

How Literate is your realm?

Since Florina's Children make up 6% of the 65% of the total human population in the city. Highly educated individuals are a vast minority. The upper class is all literate. The middle class has a literacy rate of around 50%, depending on their family industry. The lower class has a low literacy rate, probably under 10%.

Does the level of education affect your culture in any way?

YES! Because literacy is the highest within Ethnic-Florinian's; their culture tends to be written down and has the most documented history. Poetry, Books, Research all tend to be hoarded by this small group. However, the lower class in Pianto City primarily use music, spoken word, dance, and story-telling to carry their culture.

Education is just another way that class-divide is enforced in the realm. That divide goes all the way down to the very means by which the different classes express themselves.

@ThunderPony
Who serves in your army? Is it a professional or a conscript army?
Men of a certain age, not already in the regular army or otherwise unfit for duty are allowed to volunteer in the Golden Militia. This militia is made up of local volunteers with the aimed purpose of keeping the Golden North safe.

The Golden North is Obrexia’s northernmost region. Its sweeping, flat, fertile land and plenty of rainfall make it excellent for growing most of the food in the realm. But where there’s honey there are also stingers. The land is, or rather was, plagued by monstrous beasts. The people that tamed the land were backed by the Obrexia army, of course, but they wouldn’t allow themselves to be defenseless. This bred a culture of athleticism, honor, brotherhood and duty that led to the formation of the Golden Militia. To this day, the official army does most of the monster hunting and patrolling, but the militia is always ready to support.

Some that fill the ranks are retired army veterans, many are hunters, all are commoners. The militia is made of farmers, fishers and tradesmen, all who mill about their normal days, until duty calls. The Golden Militia will not fight other peoples, they answer to local lords, only to defend against beasts and natural disasters.

How is your military trained in its tactics?
The militia trains once for a few days every month outside the major settlements to run training drills. The leadership is mostly made up of retired army officers, so the drills tend to watered down versions of the official army drills.
Each month, the volunteers are assessed and must pass a physical examination or risk being retired from the militia. This exam includes marching, a timed run, and some strength tests such as push-ups or pushing a log. Most people, being laborers, pass the exam with ease. The only people that fail are those who are sick, injured, old or a combination of the three.

The exams are followed by lectures and drills. The lectures typically teach about common monsters seen in the Golden North, emergency responses, following orders from military commanders, and a bit of propaganda. The drills train group tactics, cavalry maneuvers, archery practice, and spear and shield fighting.
For most, a few days per month of training is not enough, so the government encourages the general population to participate in sporting competitions, such as archery, jousting and racing. Athletic culture is huge in the Golden North, forming strong tribalism among the major holds.

What are your army's favored tactics and formations?
By and large, the tacticians of the Golden Militia favor keeping distance from the monsters that roam the plains. Horseback fighting is favored as horses can often outrun smaller predators. Long lances are given to the cavalry as well as swords. The swords are used as last defense however, as it is preferred to fall back to archers in the event of a broken or used lance. Those not on horses are often given longbows or crossbows. The militia relies on the army to do any fighting up close, as the militia is not often equipped with armor or well tuned gear.

Is it highly hierarchized, how important is rank or social status?
Nobles are ranked as generals of the militia, however, this title is mostly a formality, as most nobles do not often take personal interest in the militia. The title allows them to call for reinforcements from other holds and command troops in times of emergency. For the most part, nobles rely on their lieutenants to handle the operation of the militia. Outside the militia, these ranks do not affect one’s social status much, save for the rare discount here and there by grateful citizens.