Ashen
Ashen have mostly fire attunement, while a rare few are born with earth attunement.
Originating on the hostile triple island of Molten Heart, the Ashen are a people defined by survival, practicality, ingenuity, and stoicism.
Molten Heart is an unforgiving landscape, characterized by jagged stone peaks and rivers of searing hot molten metal. Before the advent of Sky Ships in 134 AF, the people of Molten Heart lived in constant fear of starvation, as food is incredibly scarce. Likewise, the only source of water on the island was rain water from the torrential storms which buffet the island's north side during the first half of second last month, and the last half of the last month every year. This resource pressure eventually resulted a culture built around the precise and orderly distribution of food and water.
Individuals within Ashen culture view themselves as individual parts of a collectivist whole, cogs in a large machine. The survival of the whole is dependent on the effectiveness of its parts. This grounding philosophy leads toward strict hierarchies within Ashen populations, as well as rigid social orders in which leaders assume absolute power and responsibility over the people under them. At the same time, different leaders have different ideas about how to most effectively govern and survive, leading to spirited debates and arguments on a variety of subjects. This paradoxical competition between both the collectivist and individualist aspects of Ashen culture are both its greatest flaw, and greatest strength.
In Ashen culture, one of the greatest philosophical divides is between mercantilism and resource sharing. Some leaders advocate mercantilism as a method of growing both the economic power of the Ashen, while others push for joining pacts with specific islands for direct trade. As Ashen generally live on islands with a large amount of ex-tractable mineral wealth, they tend to have a significant amount of resources for either method of trading.
Ashen come in two varieties, the Gobi and the Doro. Due to the rapid evolution due to exposure of Source energy paired with the hostile conditions of Molten Heart, before the end of the first century after the Fracturing, both of these races had come into their modern forms. All Ashen have gray to charcoal-black skin.
While most Ashen remain on Molten Heart, several small populations have spread out across the Fractured Skies. The second largest population in the Skies is found on the island of Glass.
Ashen do not live in nuclear family structures. Ashen organize themselves into larger clans within their societies, which function almost as unique subcultures, with their own goals, purpose, and traditions. These clans generally focus on a specific craft or skill, which they take their name from. An individual Ashen can always move from one clan to another if they show an affinity for the particular drive of the clan they wish to join. Likewise, an Ashen who cannot meet the standards of the clan to which they belong, can be excommunicated and rendered clan-less.
Naming Traditions
Unisex names
Ashen are born with a single name, which tend to consist usually of simple easily memorable sounds. Once they reach maturity and are assigned, given, or taken into a clan, they take that clan's name as their sir name.
Examples: Urg Ironbones, Yea Stonecleaver, Broc Warmonger
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Ashen speak both Ignan and Terran instinctively, with only those who make a career out of leaving their communities learning how to speak Primordial.
Shared customary codes and values
Ashen pride three things, structure, cooperation and creativity. The push and pull between these three contradictory aspects was key to their survival in the early years of Molten Heart. Order kept what resources their divided equally, or where they would do the best for the security of the whole. Cooperation allowed the fractured Ashen tribes to come together and build something greater, surviving past those who selfishly fought for more than their fair share. However creativity, the fire of invention, and the accomplishment of talented individuals, resulted in the mechanical innovations that allowed them to tame their fearsome island home.
Common Dress code
On islands with little in the way of resources to make clothes, such as Molten Heart, when an Ashen is not actively doing something that requires some kind of protective gear, most of their time is spent nude, wearing tactically placed Sky Serpent leather garments to protect sensitive areas. Other groups of Ashen wear armour in lieu of clothes, especially those who travel to islands inhabited by other peoples.
Art & Architecture
Ashen architecture is brutalist in design, defined by angular, hard shapes, and the use of stone. Buildings are further supported by metal reinforcement, which prominently features into the design. Buildings are primarily function over form, and cities are built to conserve space and maximize efficiency.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
Birth rights often involve some aspect of earth or fire immediately after birth. The Gobi of Molten Heart, for example, draw symbols on the foreheads of newborns in soot and coal dust.
Funerary and Memorial customs
In death, Ashen practice a limited form of ritualistic cannibalism. Upon death, portions of the body are taken, cooked, and then given to the dead's closest friends and loved ones. The flesh is consumed, spiritually connecting the dead to the living. The remaining body is then cremated, and spread over a place where the deceased spent a lot of time in life. This practice started in the years of endless near-starvation that the Ashen experienced before joining The Pact.
To Ashen, there is nothing more insulting to the dead than a body left to rot. It's also believed that untended dead lead to restless spirits who grow increasingly violent until their remains are burned.
Ideals
Gender Ideals
Ashen cultures do not have the traditional man/woman binary found in other cultures. Each as individual in the society is expected to contribute, and sexual dimorphism isn't as pronounced in both Gobi and Doro, this contributes to a more egalitarian understanding of sex and gender. Most Ashen don't even use or recognize gendered pronouns.
Courtship Ideals
Ashen view reproduction as a necessity to continue their ethnicity, but their history of resource scarcity remains a cultural pressure to limit that growth. This manifests as a limited number of children allotted to each Ashen capable of reproduction, based on factors dictated by the culture in which they live.
Courtship then, is viewed almost mechanically. This does not mean it is not enjoyed, or indulged, but there is generally systems or arbiters who determine courtship for perspective couplings to maximize efficiency. Couplings also rarely last beyond a few years at most, or develop the intensity seen in other cultures when it comes to pairings.
Problems arise when arranged pairings are done against the will of one or more of the participants in the pairing, and at its most extreme, when these practices run the risk of devolve into eugenics if not properly mediated and monitored.
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