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.