Galifrem

Have you heard the Galifeims live underground. Would that not make them dirty all the time?
-Gossip from Duchess Wilena of Rangus in Estain

Galifrem are the Ghrefeims living either in the cave system or outside the Myndoed Galline. They are a rather big difference between those that live on the surface and the ones that live beneath both culturally and appeances. While both are considered to be Galifreims, the ones living on the surface are considered a minority within the Galidynos nation.

Government and religion

"I do not think Grefeims can a single Brenin that can represent all of us. We are too divided and spread out for it to work. In the eyes of Ongrefeims, I am their Brenin, but I do not consider myself Brenin O Grefeim. And I knew not how to contact other Firsts, since I was elected for this rank. I have not chosen this myself."
_{-The first elected leader of Onghrefeim, Veldur.
Book of Irath
Chapter: The First War}

The Ghrefeims are, like all Firsts, very intelligent, and the Gallifreims are followers of Irath. Though the Gallifreims no longer live by the king's lineage, and have their own governmental system based on wealth and age. They still are very religious and have their own church, which is considered by the Dynbodaul as an underbranch of the true Irathian Church.
Every family with a certain amount of wealth have the oldest person in their family as their faily head. The family heads have their assembly where they decide matters within the community. Mostly it is the wealthiest who gets picked as leaders, since everybody love their shinies.

Food ressources and trade

The Galifreims tend to have bug farms. These bugs are typically only found within the cave system of Galline, and are much larger than regular bugs found outside these cave-systems. Other than that, the Ghrefeims also survive on the plants and fungi that grows inside the tunnels and cave-systems. One of these fungi is the Litsin Sidamelo, which they use for clothing material as well.

While they can live primarily of the natural food sources inside the cave-systems, they also rely heavily on the food trade with other minor ethnicities of Galifreims outside the cave-systems. However, this has caused a slight conflict amongst the surface Galifreims and cave Galifreims, since the minorities of surface Galifreims feels like the majority of their harvests goes to the caves, and the high taxations rates of the produce outside the caves are rather high for the surface Galifreims. The argument from the cave Galifreims are, that the surface Galifreims receives more money from their tolls on cities near the border, their quarries, and their mines.

Most of their trade with the Dynbodaul brings food and some materials to the Galifrems, however, it is mostly passed to the cave Ghrefeims, not the surface Ghrefeims, even though trade routes are passing through their part of Galidynos through the Myklan or Clûrwír rivers in The Flooded Scars. While the export is often the gemstones and other precious materials. Some nations, like Estain, have a high import of limestones for their buildings, and since most quarries in Galidynos have some of the best limestone quarries, they do get a fair deal of money out of this.
Transportation of stones within the quarries is primarily by quarry donkeys, since they are stronger and better at carrying the stones for a long distance.

Culture

Culture and cultural heritage

The Galifrems are just as religious as the Dynbodauls in Western Agia. They have very familiar religious practices as the Dynbodaul, and have traditions for wearing veils, though unlike the Dynbodauls it is only the priestesses and nuns who wears it. The Veils in Western Agia are mostly focused on how Dynbodauls makes their, but the Gallifreim priestesses either trains with Dynbodaul nuns or priestessees, or they have veils made of linen or wool exported, or some churches even make their own kind, using the Litsin Sidamelo.

Art & Architecture

The Galifrem highly values age and wealth as part of their social structure. This can be seen in their architecture that are tall carved-in houses on the walls of the caves. Here the youngest lives on a higher floor, while the elderly lives on ground-level. The most wealthy has wider houses, that can host several older and wealthier family members.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

Even though the cave Ghrefeims are not built to withstand the light outside their caves, they still appreciate it. Somehow they have found a light that can hold on to the Glux's light for several hours. These stones are often left out to be warmed up and carried back where they are used as a kind of lamppost. There is one large Glux stone which is placed within the main church in Cerreg. Only onces the stones is carried out in the light to absorb the light, and then carried back. It happens when the Glux has its longest course over the sky, in month Glux Alchus.

Common Myths and Legends

The Three Brenin's Dreams

"First there was six shiny stones, each their own colour. The red one was further away from the other. The other were glowing more, but the red stone still went further away, and the further it got away, the more dimly it glowed. Suddenly dark stones surrounded all the coloured stones, and the red one was being consumed by the dark ones." Explained Nethir.
_{-Book of Irath
Chapter: The Three Brenin's Dreams.}

The Ghrefeims had a king's line, Breinhoeleid, like all the Firsts. It is not stated who the first Brenin, or king in modern tongue was, but the chapter The Three Brenin's Dreams in the book of Irath, states that Nethir was king in a few centuries after the firsts' creations.
He was having the same nightmare for several days before he decided to find a person who could tell him the meaning of the dream.

The first candidate was the Taroth Leetah, whose respons was "I believe the stones represent the treasures you are gathering. By sharing all the stones equally, they shall shine bringhter, and keep the greed away, but if keep one of them for yourself, the greed shall corrupt you, and darken your path.", but this was not the right answer, since not all stones of the Ghrefeims can be shared, and this Leetah understood.

The second candidate was the little Harawyr, Spith, but he did not understand the meaning, and simply answered "The stones represent your people, and if a part of his people choose another path for themselves, they could risk becoming consumed by darkness, that could mean Rathias might get them." While the Brenin Nethir saw wisdom in this, he asked what could be done, but for this question, Spith had no answers.

The third candidate was Jorela, but her answer was the same as Spith.

"The dream represents the First. One of the First had choosen a different path for themselves, but the further they got, the more vulnerable they became, until Rathias finally could get to them and corrupt their minds."
_{-The answer from the Dynbodaul Oleana
Book of Irath
The Three Brenin's dreams}

The fourth candiate was Oleana, who told him the right answer to the dream. Nethir felt this was an appropriate answer, and he thought it was similar to Spith's, so he asked her what could be done. Oleane answered that the First needed someone to guide them on their right path.

The First War

According to the Book of Irath, in the beginning, the Firsts shared everything they could, unless it held a special meaning for their species. Centuries after the three brenin's dreams, the divide between the First started to happen.

Distrust for the Ghrefeim, particular the surface Ghrefeims, started to happen with a coup. During this time the Ghrefeims were divided into the surface Ghrefeims, called Unghrefeims, and cave Ghrefeims, Onghrefeims. The coup happened within the Unghrefeim royal family, where the young king of the Unghrefeims had suddenly passed away, and Urgan, the uncle to the young king made himself king.

Urgan had ordered his men to fish closely to the settlement of the Môrwen, killing several of them in the process. When the king of Taroths, Bryeash, came on the behalf of the Môrwen to solve the conflict between the Unghrefeims and Môrwen, before it got out of hand. He discovered the last king had an accident, and that Urgan had taken his place.
Bryeash brought up the conflict between the Môrwen and Ungrefeims, but Urgan argued the deal between the Firsts were to share everything equally, and it was not fair that one species kept precious things for themselves. Bryeash saw the greed and selfishness within Urgan, for he only spoke for himself and could not see reason.

"I am the new king of Grefeims. You can call me Urgan. Or at least the Ungrefeims, since those idiotic Ongrefeims will not see reason, and choose me as their king as well. I am the late Brenin O Grefeim's uncle. Sadly my nephew died rather young, and had no heirs. Since I am the last decent who is Breinhoeleid, I was chosen by most Grefeims to be their king." Answered Urgan.
_{-Book of Irath
Chapter: The First War}

This led to Bryeash making a wood embargo on all the Unghrefeims, but this only made Urgan furious and attacked once more the Môrwen, leading to the king of Môrwen, Me'an, died and his son swore revenge. The Taroth and Môrwens made an alliance to go to war together in order to fight Urgan and the Unghrefeims. Bryeash also contacted Veldur, the elected leader of the Onghrefeims at the time, who also wanted to avenge the young Unghrefeim king that had died at the hands of Urgan.

It was a young Onghrefeim who suggested to divide the Unghrefeim forces by infiltrating the Unghrefeim settlement. And with this strategy they succeeded. However, the Unghrefeims had the Dynbodauls as their allies, but the Dynbodaul king, Menaes, did not intervene in the war. The alliance of Taroths, Môrwens, and Onghrefeim won the war, killed Urgan, and made the rest of the Unghrefeim to Onghrefeims.

It is believed that the surface Gallifrems originates from the survivng Unghrefeims, but even to this day, the surface Gallifrems and cave Gallifrems have their differences, one of these is caused by this very myth, since the surface Gallifrems think they are being subjugated to prejudices due to their ancestors actions.

Encompassed species

• Ghrefeims

Further Reading: