Thellaridiei
The village here is a group of families who work to herd reindeer together.
Language:
The Fae here will automatically resort to speaking in Sylvan with a dialect difference that is native to the Winter Court. They do not speak Common, but they can also understand a bit of Celestial.Nomads:
The villagers are also semi-nomadic reindeer herders, so they are not always in this location. However, this village has some of their more permanent dwellings because it is where they stay during “summer” months. Otherwise, they’d be living in pointed tents that are lightweight and easy to assemble. When it comes time to make camp, the herders put up large wooden poles ringed by smaller branches. Then, they wrap the cone in reindeer hides and sheets of birch bark. These are all secured by ropes or strips of sinew while they lay reindeer furs on the floor. A hole is left at the top for smoke to escape. Inside the tent, family members gather around the central hearth.Time:
- When the Republic Group first met the villagers here, it was the equivalent of May. The Winter Fae here call it Iron Season, which equates to Deo in the Solaris Calendar. (The Winter Fae call it the “Solar Year” vs. their markings of the passage of time in the “Lunar Year.”) At the time, The Winter Fae here said it was approaching their equivalent of “summer” despite it being cold all year round, because the sun was staying out longer, and the reindeer were starting to grow their new hair.
- The land was also not covered in snow and was instead grass, as the temperature had been warming up, though the villagers commented that even for summer in the Winter Court, the heat had been the most unusual they’d seen it in centuries.
Industry & Trade
The village’s community system can be defined as a working partnership where the members have individual rights to resources but help each other with the management of the herds, or when hunting and fishing.
Infrastructure
Turf Huts:
- The villagers live in a semi-permanent residence called Turf Huts.
- Since this village happens to be their summer settlement, there are also huts built at their winter settlement elsewhere.
- They move between the two throughout the year, staying in their pointed tents while in the field or moving around.
Description:
- The turf huts are supported by curved wooden poles forming a dome. The dome is covered in sod has grass growing over it that appears to blend into the land around it.
- Net cages are left on the roofs for drying meat.
Living Quarters:
- Children eat and sleep on the left side of the tent, and their parents on the right.
- Men sit closer to the back of the tent with their weapons and drums.
- Women occupy the front with their loom and other tools.
- The division of men and women correspond to sacred areas within each home.
- Men go through a backdoor to worship or bring in meat and firewood.
History
Some of the families here have actually migrated from distant parts of the Winter Fae Court after the land started to become unstable due to the Queen of Winter’s turbulent emotions caused by the last war between the Fae and the Elysian Empire. Due to this, some of their traditions have become mixed, and some of the families even had to learn how to speak to each other due to differences in dialect and language between the areas of the Winter Fae Court (Common isn’t known throughout the Winter Court as much as most places)
Geography
Thellaridiei is a rural Winter Fae Court village located in the mountains named Olir’s Summit (after the god of Winter, Ice, Wind, and Storms of the same name).
Natural Resources
Reindeer Herding Products:
- Reindeer are used for transport, milk and meat production.
- The main product of reindeer herding is meat. However, skins, bones, and horns are important raw materials for making clothes and handicrafts. Reindeer Meat Preparation:
- Reindeers are cut with a knife at the joints so that the neck, arches, chest, sides, back, steaks and extremities are left undamaged. The material for center thread and for bellings, the skin from the reindeer's legs, which was needed for fur and shoe sewing, is also preserved this way.
- The villagers use nearly every part of a reindeer, including their tongue, marrow bones, blood, intestines, hooves and brain. The skin and colon are often used for sausage skins. Blood Sausage in particular are used in meals during festivities. Marrow bones, which are split to access the marrow, are also considered a delicacy.
- Reindeer retina are used as storage vessels. The first two for blood or reindeer milk, the latter for fat from the reindeer's internal measurements.
Drying Meat:
- The villagers eat reindeer meat, and one of the ways they prepare it is by drying. That's what the nets on top of their turf huts are for, but in some places the meat is also smoked. They dry the meat outdoors in the early spring sun before the flies arrive. This dried reindeer meat and jerky are an important means of transport during the summer.
Cheese:
- Reindeer milk is used to make cheese and is known for it's high fat content (17%). However, the fat content also makes it impossible to drink such milk. The cheese made from it can be stored for a long time. In some cases, housewives from the village sell it to permanent residents in exchange for money.
Fishing:
- The villagers sometimes catch fish from the mountain rivers and lakes, but they usually don’t have as much time to fish due to their important herding duties.
- They prepare fish by broiling, drying and smoking. When they catch fish (mostly trout or char), you can find them hung up in the smoke traps in their mountain huts.
- Small fish are usually prepared by hanging them in a low position over a fire with juniper. The villagers rarely salt their fish. Instead, they clean the fish after cooking them and mix it with fresh lingonberries and crowberries. The dish is normally eaten with a spoon.
- Surffish in vessels of birch bark buried in the ground is an old tradition.
Berries & Bark:
- The villagers also gather berries and plants, which give their diet more vitamins and minerals--along with fiber, which they also got from eating inner tree bark. At times, berries are combined with reindeer milk, which they store over the winter in wooden jugs been immersed in cold springs. It is always highly looked forward to by the villagers when Spring comes.
- Extra berries are frozen for later use.
- When it comes to bark, pine trees are the best choice. The soft, inner whitebark of Pine trees can be boiled in water to the consistency similar to cream. Small strips are cut from the bark of many different of pine trees. If they were to cut too much bark out of a single pine tree, it would definitely kill it.
- The harvested inner bark is used to prepare cooked food or bark gruel.
- Pine tree nuts can also be made into flour after drying them in heat (a great source of Vitamin C!). Pine tree nut flour is not mixed with bread, but consumed with food in a different way. Hunting:
- During certain seasons, the villagers go out in hunting teams with fences and traps.
- However, Individuals hunt all year round using traps, bows and arrows.
- Hunters go out for meat and animal or furry monster skins.
- They usually target moose, bears, and beavers.
- Eggs from certain birds around the mountains are also sometimes found and eaten.
Type
Hamlet
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