Aldeanos
The first gatherers to settle near the Cresciente river, finding or designing permanent ways to get food and other resources, were considered strange by their peers. A century later, when the practice has been adopted by almost everyone else in the area, they were still considered a single, different culture despite being descendants of the same gatherer tribes.
Some would see them with respect and others with annoyance, but they all agree that they didn't belong to the forest "like normal people", but to their villages.
As time passed and all of them decided which traditions to keep, abandon, or add to their lives, the respect and annoyance towards them dissapear, but they really become a single culture that didn't feel like part of the forest or the Agreste culture, but where in great terms with both.
Culture
Average technological level
This vary depending of the family and precise location, some working with their own technology or a collection of alien influences while others simply rely on magic to live day by day.
In either case they are more focused in taking care of their families, living comfortable, healthy and simply lives without causing any permanent damage to the environment.
For some, the latter is a matter of not using too much of anything, while others prefer to create recyclable substitutes of all natural resources, importing from areas where those resources are common, returning all they can to the environment, or a mix of all those. They all make sure to keep areas where nature is not disturbed by any human activity, and keep the cities pollution in the cities.
Common Dress code
Color | Role |
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Brown & Beige | Carers |
Exactly two shades of green | Leaders |
Black only | Farmers |
White | Peacekeepers |
The styles vary from family to family and change with time as it usually occurs, but some colors or combination of colors are always reserved for specific roles that are very important in their societies.
Art & Architecture
The oldest cities are a chaotic combination of ancient, strong buildings and more modern constructions, several families coexisting in the central areas while the most distant farms are the original villages build by their ancestors.
Others are are beatifully organized towns, each layer of buildings belonging to a different generation of a single family, and the core destined for all the family to share and, in rare occasions, to preserve the family history.
Each family, and often each generation of each family, has it's own taste. In family villages or buildings you may notice the different styles in each area.
Common Taboos
Other families private business are not to be discussed, especially if the information was confided to you by one of the members of said family. If you are close enough to a person, you might be in position to ask or even make a suggestion if you are worried, but it's always possible that they will just tell you that it's private, or even get angry at you. Insisting will only hurt any connection you have with that person.
Fantastical theories about real events are frown upon, even coming from children. You won't get in trouble (unless it is about another person, especially if they aren't from your family) but it wont make you any friends either.
Historical figures
While several families keep a record of every member through the ages, the only people that is really remembered and celebrated by every generation, are the original founders of the different villages. In most cases that includes the one who gives name to the family and one or two people that were by their side and shared their goals.
Ideals
Gender Ideals
Unlike many cultures in he Ninth World, the villagers don't associate this concept with physical traits but with the
ineludible roles in the family.
These roles are determined by a complex combination of personaliy traits and specific skills and are one of the few fated things that are really considered ineludible. While the definitions are way deeper and the means to determined are covered in a whole book of the Old Principles, here is a brief description of the villager genders:
Visionaries are interested in and able to understand how things work, to the point of determining any changes required for the community's well being. They are either constantly involved in society or a bit disconnected from it, but are always willing to seek for answers and solutions. There is no pattern in the way this gender interacts (or not) with relatives.
Leaders are extremely rare to find, and their abilities and quite difficult to develop. They are not only good to listen but also to reason with others, and to build bridgest between different members of their family and/or community. In the good times, they barely supervise the work of the keepers and keep an eye open for things to celebrate or fix. They are the first to detect when bad times are coming and to work on a way to deal with problems. While they are not always able to design solutions, they are capable to guide the visionaries and providers to work together.
Keepers are present both at home (as carers and/or housekeepers) and society (working to keep safety and estructure). Ther are almost as rare as leaders and don't participate in decisions unless prompted somehow. They are extremely sensible to the needs of others, especially the family members, even if those needs are not evident in any way.
Providers are the majority of members in most families, but their contribution takes place away from home. While very skilled in the physical or magical aspect, their natural agressiveness and poor abilities to listen to others or understand any needs beyond their own ones, make them unfit for any home activities and apt only for outside work or to negotiate with other providers from external societies. Of course they love their families, they simply lack the pacience (and sometimes the empathy) to show it directly.
While the range of task that a gender can be assigned y very defined and inflexible, they all work together in the same activities depending on their skills and the needs of the family and community they belong to.
The way they have fun or interact is sometimes determined by the same factors, but they pay no mind to that.
Strangely enough, they don't have a pronoun, title or rank for any of this genders and, more often than not, a person's gender is unknown by strangers and sometimes even to other aldeanos outside of their family. It isn't tabu, but they rarely feel any need to talk about it. Each person and their relatives simply know, and other community members will have a close or correct idea.
Meanwhile, strangers tend to assume that the terms man/male/he and woman/female/she are consider gender for them, but to them those are about physical traits relevant mostly when it comes to reproduction and health (and to provide a convenient pronoun to use when they talk in languages that require one to form correct sentences).
Location |
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Aldeas, a country located in the Gatherers' Forest. Ninth World of Grista. |
Languages |
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Ago |
First language |
Palabras (aka Villager (language) ) |
Símbolos (aka Villager's glyphs) |
Families |
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By general rule, each city or town in Aldeas started as a small group of gatherers that for one reason or another decided to settle in a specific area. Those groups, even if they weren't all related by blood, constituted a family under the name of one of more of it's founders. Some cities are a combination of neighbor villages, while others are several branches of the same original family, which adopted people from other tribes as time passed. Every so often a member of one of these families starts or joins another. Rarely, a person can move in with people of other cultures. Those things never severe the connection between them and their families, it just changes it as needed to be good for all part involved. While very private and independent, families are more or less friendly to each others, being apathy the worse scenario. Grudges are always kept by the individual and even when the families are affected they don't embrace the dispute as part of their legacy. When the issues occur between members of the same family, they are particularly careful not to drag others into it... and even then it can get really ugly really fast. |
Myths and Legends |
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They don't tend to believe or create myths. There is fantasy and fiction, born from people's wishes, regret and sometimes even anger. Stories to entertain people and nothing else. In a totally different area, are science and history, fueled by facts humankind all around the universe will never fully understand, but can experience and study. Living beings, natural phenomena and forces like gravity and magic and fate and love. When they meet a creature or experience something they can't recognize or fully perceive, they accept their limits and admit they don't know what it was, or conduct a research to find out whatt they are missing. When they discover patterns they can explain, they attribute them to fate. And what is fate? They don't know. It might be a collection of forces beyong their understanding, a superior being that is running the show, or the rarest form of magic. It could be something entirely different to anything we can imagine, or just a lot of small things that we still don't understand about the universe. Some of them would love to know, others don't really care. They all admit that they are not ready to understand and they have long stopped trying to control it. |
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