eunuch lore question apropos of nothing: i'm curious what the social outcome would be for a normative Wardi man who loses his penis/testicles unintentionally, due to disease or tragic scything accident or whatever.
say a man is like 35, gainfully employed, sexually normal, married, has healthy kids, enjoys hunting and sporting with The Guys, generally the perfect specimen of Wardi masculinity; then a spider bites his dick while he's asleep and it gets the worst infection ever and the doctor has to chop the whole thing off to save his life. what happens to this man? does he get kicked out of the male gender space and reassigned as a eunuch, or has he successfully established himself as enough of a father/husband/brother to stick around even with his Biological Male Essence destroyed?
alternative scenario: this same man, with all his perfectly masculine interests and personality, gets his fateful spider bite like 15 years earlier, after he's had most of the expected male puberty but before he's fully taken on any of the social roles of a grown man. what does his family do? is he still considered a son for the purposes of inheritance? can he ever get married? what is life like in this society for a man who genuinely wants to have kids and be a dad and all that but is definitely, obviously, 100% infertile?
If you asked the average person, they would definitely say that men and eunuchs are at least a little different, and they would probably invoke an Essential Maleness That Is Stored In The Balls. Ones more enlightened in the ways of medicine could explain to you that having enough semen Stored In The Balls is specifically what masculinizes a body and has subtler effects on a man's health, character, and temperament; cutting off the source entirely makes one more akin to a woman in body and temperament. But the image of "a eunuch" in their mind is really less about what parts of their anatomy are present, and more about how and when and why these parts were taken away, and what role that action places them in.
The Eunuch in the cultural imagination and practice is a servant administrator in the court, or guards of female priests and royalty, the vast majority of whom were probably sold and castrated at approximately 9-14 years old at their father's behest and you can really tell they aren't Men. Or a specific body of priests who are gelded as the first of many autosacrificial acts. Or a criminal who was gelded in punishment and humiliation. Or maybe the natural kind who never saw a blade but still sounds like a girl at 30 and can't grow a beard or sire children. It's not the beloved friend of 20 years who just lost his balls in a desperate act of medical intervention after a horrific spider accident. He's technically a eunuch now, but he's not, like, a eunuch eunuch. If anything he's more akin to former warriors who made it into old age alive, minus a limb. If he was born without the limb he never really could've been a complete man to begin with, it's a pity. If he lost the limb on the cusp of adulthood it's outright tragic. But he had a full life and nothing about him has Really changed. Mocking him for lacking some of the traits of manhood would be like mocking the elder who's lived to the uncommon old age of 85 for not being able to hold a spear. It borders on absurd. Similar logic can more or less go for the spider victim in his late 30s, though there are differences in that losing your balls has much more specific baggage than losing a limb and people are likelier to giggle about it a little, or may evoke his loss of Essential Maleness if it's socially or politically advantageous to cast him as weakened and feminized.
But the average man clasps his spider victim friend's hands and warmly assures him he's lost none of his spirit, and from there on strictly avoids invoking his lack of testes unless the latter has found some humor in his circumstances. The average woman finds any desperation-tinged displays of machismo from the spider victim extra amusing and/or irritating given the literal lack of balls to back it with (some might even take a little vindictive glee), though her opinion on this behavior probably did not change with the loss of his testes. The respected, established spider victim goes on hunting with the guys and being the head of his household because Biological Male Essence Of The Balls is really only present or absent by social and societal consent.
The spider incident happening to a much younger man is different along a similar line of logic, he's not going to just suddenly Stop being a man to others around him, but unlike the older victim his his role Has materially changed. The chief economic value of a sons is as an inheritor of property and a guarantor of your family's future prospects by making more sons. That's not the ONLY economic value of a son (much less their only value in general), but that's their primary purpose when it comes to securing the collective family's future. The youth who has been mauled by a ferocious spider doesn't stop being a 'son', there's no law or taboo that Prevents you from treating him identically to your other boys, there's no (non-reproductive) stations in life he's forbidden from strictly on the basis of not having balls (there are many he will be passed over for in favor of an intact man if his status is known, though). But he's not going to be managed the same way as other young men, in the same way that you don't offer a post-menopausal woman in a political marriage. He unambiguously physically cannot do his Job, and this job is a major part of entering the world of adult manhood. This is complicated a little by adoption being a legitimate means of acquiring an heir (almost always of a family member along your same patriline) but that's Never going to be your first choice, especially not when the stakes are high, and you're unlikely to bank your family's future on your sterilized son's choice of adoptee. You're just going to rearrange your inheritance to position an intact son as heir (or adopt one if you don't have any), who will receive most of your property and eventually have sons of his own, and meanwhile your spider victim son gets whatever share is contextually appropriate, probably what the youngest would have gotten.
There's nothing preventing him from getting married, he can be head of his own household and adopt an heir and pass whatever he inherits to him, but the primary incentives for marriage are gone and the spectrum of marriage opportunities that will suit your family's socioeconomic needs (and marriage IS about benefiting the collective first, and everything else second) is much narrower. It might just not be worth the bride price. He's not going to just Not Be Seen As A Man Anymore, but he may be unable to fully inhabit an adult man's role in his family and community, which will bring his Lack Of Essential Maleness Stored In The Balls closer to the forefront of the minds of people who know his condition.
I should note that 'receiving an accidental sterilizing injury where your balls are removed' is also an extreme outlier scenario so there's no conventions for how that Changes things. The analogues that have specific cultural baggage are being a 'natural eunuch' (usually describes undescended/absent testes, sometimes describes otherwise 'abnormal' male characteristics co-occurring with infertility, even if the testes are developed), or actually being Made A Eunuch By Intent To Make A Eunuch (the exact baggage of which depends, in part, on what you've been made a eunuch for). Both of these cases are likely to make you perceived as something that is effectively Other than a man by default, are commonly assumed to annihilate your sex drive, and are considered to make you physically weaker than other men.
General audience empathy trial by fire is three of the main characters being introduced in a segment where a dog gets killed for a funeral and this is normal
Do you have any sort of timeline or plan for releasing the white calf story? The immense amount of worldbuilding and character stuff on this blog is frankly a way of enjoying the story on its own but I am curious about the actual written work.
Answering this having spent the past few weeks working on it a lot more (part of the reason for my inactivity) I Do Not have a formal timeline but life is short and my intent is to share a beta version. Probably a 3rd or even just 2nd draft + proofreading. Though the intent is also to continue from there, hire an editor if I can afford it, and have something polished to self-publish later (which would still be available free).
This is an absolutely terrible way to go about things but I've never had goals loftier than 'self publishing and also hosting it free on fucking ao3 or something', so I'll drop a copy when its at the 'hosting it free on fucking ao3 or something' stage. Under the absolute most ideal conditions (unlikely) that could be a 4 month window at this point, it is a more Feasible goal to have an AO3-tier beta version done by 2027.
Might take a break to give the first few chapters an edit and share those, idk.
I'm trying to identify various extraneous scenes that won't make it past draft 1 to give myself a more realistic appraisal of how much I've written, here's a scene that accomplishes nothing and goes absolutely nowhere of Jaenys picking a fight with a camp follower (who is picking through the site of a battlefield for valuables, which he's extremely upset about because Faisa might be dead there) and losing because he has no fucking idea what to do with a lone elderly peasant woman being completely unintimidated by him
Wood bison are tiny, with most falling into the 4-4.5' range at the shoulder and only the very biggest bulls clearing the 5' mark. Their legs are long, their build is lean, and their humps are narrow and relatively undramatic. Their herds tend to be on the smaller side, consisting of 8-15 cows and young whose movements are directed by a single dominant cow. Mature bulls are predominantly solitary outside of the breeding season, though subordinate breeding-age bulls may form bachelor herds, particularly in more resource rich areas.
They tend to be extremely shy of people, often encountered only as the distant sound of lowing bulls or a blur of brown and red-gold crashing away through the underbrush with alarming speed. They are interfertile with domestic cattle and occasionally known to breed with them, but hybrids are exceptionally rare compared to crosses between cattle and their wild aurochs cousins. Bison/aurochs hybrids are semi-legendary and unlikely to occur due to mechanical difficulties of reproduction alone, given the disparity in size between the species.
Wood bison most prefer mid-density woodland with good opportunities to browse. They exhibit preference for leaves over grass, and mainly consume the upper portions of their favored plants. They are a keystone species in much of their range, most notably for maintaining patches of meadow. They assemble in clearings to socialize and wallow and for communal activity during the breeding season, and preferentially browse young plants along the edges of these open spaces. In many cases, this activity allows for meadows to be maintained where conditions would otherwise be more than adequate for full tree cover, creating microhabitats for grazers and pockets of biodiversity for low growing plants and their pollinators. The seeds of meadow plants stick to their fur, and may be carried long distances to other open areas.
In most Wardi dialects they're referred to either as 'pine cattle' or 'hill cattle' due to this animal's near exclusive association with highland pine forest and the lack of other bison to compare them to, though the species as a whole occupies much wider variety of habitats across its range. Their association with alpine forests in the hotter parts of their range is the result of populations who spread during the LGM becoming stranded as relicts within "sky islands", which may often be the only sufficiently forested/cool habitats to sustain these animals.
Could you put together some kind of summary of Imperial Wardi's history, including its origins? Having trouble piecing together the full timeline, esp. when retcons come into play
Yeah I'll fucking bet lol, your wish is granted I have a LOT of timeline for you. End count as of hitting post now is 10,300 words.
I realized that a lot of this timeline would be really annoying to read without a map for reference, and I have no current maps, so I decided to help by drawing this blob with words on it. This illustration vaguely gestures at how different places mentioned in this post exist in spatial relation to one another.
(note that I've only labeled things that come up in this post, and not all of them because I ran out of space) (Sorry I don't have an actual updated map, geography is my enemy and anything I make with hard lines will be outdated within two months max anyway)
Alrigh tthat being said here's the timeline (under the cut because this is the longest post I have ever made)
TIMELINE:
~22,000 years BP
-The first homo sapiens have spread into this region via land exposed by lower sea levels at the LGM (mode of entry was from present-day Finnerich), following big game. Neanderthals had already been present, having made a similar dispersal much earlier, but disappeared (relatively) rapidly after homo sapiens arrival, with populations likely already in decline and subsequently collapsing due to resource competition with homo sapiens, interbreeding with homo sapiens, and diseases spread by homo sapiens.
-Oldest homo sapiens rock art (in this specific region, that survives to the present day) is made around this time in caves along the Urubin River Valley.
-early dogs arrive alongside homo sapiens.
~18,000 years BP
-Neanderthals are completely extinct here (which may have been one of their last few strongholds worldwide. they lasted longer than they did irl), save for their genetic descendants among homo sapiens.
~14,000 years BP
-giant camala (this region's dominant Big big megafauna) have become extinct here (huge fucking camelids have survived to the present day in other parts of the world though)
12,000 years BP
-Oldest surviving (pit-fired) pottery is from this time.
-The climate is the wettest it's been during homo sapiens habitation and forest habitats expand, especially in northern areas that receive the most rainfall. Woodland bison and unémeti deer settle newly forested this region.
~11000 years BP
-The last giant pterosauroids in this region are extinct. Archeological evidence would support the notion that hunting by humans was the chief cause of their extirpation here, especially given plentiful finds of flutes made from their crests (which were chambered and could be modified into a playable instrument), sometimes dozens in a single grave. (Hypothetical pop archeology would involve debates on whether mythological dragons are rooted in cultural memories of these animals, and people would make further bold claims that the paleolithic 'dragon flutes' were used in rain-summoning rituals and that's why folkloric dragons were associated with storms 11000 years later)
-Camiche seeds and acorns can be found intentionally deposited in graves.
~10000 years BP
-Notable deforestation has occurred due to both climatic factors and human maintenance of more productive savanna habitats. Camiche tree seeds + leaves, acorns, and maga tubers are cornerstones of the diet to many foraging societies. Woodland is converted to oak savanna and managed via regular burns and pruning to better concentrate these plant species, as well as wild game.
~8000 years BP
-The "comb-ware" material culture is dominant throughout the southern lowlands, typified by pit-fired earthenware that is decorated with thin lined patterns impressed by a comb/comblike tool.
-First evidence of permanent settlements by foragers living in the most resource dense areas around the Erubin and Kannetod rivers.
~6000 years BP
-Another major human settlement event is in progress, this time taking the long route along the ‘tail’ of the Viper Seaway, as the land bridge from modern day Finnerich is now only a smattering of islands. There have certainly been other movements in and out of the region before this point, but this wave is notable for bringing domestic cattle and horses.
-The pastoralists and foragers are often in conflict, with nomadic foragers being increasingly pushed into proximal areas, while powerful settled foragers successfully keep the pastoralists out of their land, for a time.
~5000 years BP
-massive plains bison have become extinct here, though their smaller woodland cousins will survive to the present day in highland forest, albeit isolated from the rest of their (otherwise fairly expansive) range. Aurochs spread into previously bison dominated range, though fill a largely different ecological niche.
-The comb-ware material culture has faded.
-cattle are used to pull un-wheeled sledges.
-Lowland forests along the southern coast of the Viper sea are reduced to scattered woodlands.
-Pheasant remains are found in large quantities in Erubin river forager settlements, indicating active husbandry of tame birds. They will eventually become the one animal originally domesticated in this region.
~4500 years BP
-domestic barley arrives from the east, and practice of settled agriculture begins to be adopted around the same time. This subsistence method appears to have been taken up and abandoned in favor of pastoralism at various times after its introduction, only having a permanent foothold from introduction into the present day along the Erubin river and parts of the lower Kannetod.
-Earliest evidence of urbanization, with larger settlements being mostly located along rivers and on plains close to water sources.
-Earliest evidence of ceremonial slaughter of animals related to funerary rituals, with graves near the Erubin commonly containing the remains of dogs.
-Pottery begins to be fired in ovens.
~4000 years BP
-The earliest cities have developed along the Kannetod and Erubin rivers.
-the wheel, cart technology arrives.
-looms make their first appearance
-coastal populations in the southeast are using boats for near-shore ocean travel and foraging.
-There is evidence of routine long-distance land trade, such as jewelry decorated with shells only found in the ocean hundreds of miles northeast making occasional appearances as grave goods.
~3500 years BP
-many islands near the coasts have been settled by humans. A distinct material culture had emerged on the present day Elumuqi islands. They were accompanied by dogs but did not appear to tend other domesticated animals, and subsisted as foragers.
-Sophisticated copper working techniques are used to make jewelry and tools. "Copper age" has begun.
~3000 years BP
-Domesticated khait arrive from the east. They are initially being herded like other livestock, and used to pull and carry loads. They aren't as strong as cattle but have the advantage of better long-distance endurance and higher speed.
-Rock art from this period overwhelmingly depicts domesticated livestock and humans as its subject matter.
-The first large, complex settled society has emerged along the Kannetod river, and politically dominates this region. Their territory is mostly set within dry plains and they and rely on extensive irrigation systems to feed a large (for this period) population. The earliest settlements that have been near-continuously inhabited to the present day are from this time.
-Wares characteristic of Kannetodi society are made with red clay and decorated with geometric figures.
-pastorialist settlements in the Taijung range are notable for use of wood and mud frame pithouses in their winter permanent settlements, when most other peoples in this region who build permanent housing have shifted to level ground mudbrick buildings.
~2500 years BP
-White Sea elowey societies have been dispersing around the sea over the past several centuries. They create settlements on parts of the southern coastline (modern day Wardin and Ephennos provinces) at various times over the next thousand years but are routinely displaced, only gaining a permanent foothold on the Elumuqi islands to the south, becoming the ancestors of modern day Jazait. They encounter the indigenous human populations there too, and resource conflict contributes to the latter’s cultural extinction.
-The cairn builder culture makes its appearance, and is associated with most megalithic structures that can be found here. Most of their megaliths are singular standing stones characterized by engraved decorations of Specifically wild ungulates. Rock art from this group left on natural surfaces commonly shows more typical pastoral scenes with cattle, khait, horses, and people, indicating key difference of intent between these and the art on megaliths. Their early graves are simple, containing bodies and grave goods placed in shallow pits, piled with turf, with rocks carefully piled atop.
~2300 years BP
-foraging societies have almost entirely disappeared; baseline subsistence methods in this region are settled farming along the lowlands of the two major river systems, and seasonal transhumance pastoralism in the plains/highlands.
-khait bridles and reins have arrived from the east, the practice of using khait as mounts takes hold.
-Cairn Builder material culture exhibits rapid adoption of mounted nomadism, and its range begins to expand drastically, with the societies that comprise this material culture ultimately dominating thousands of square miles of the Sub-Viper plains.
-The first of their large, iconic hill cairns appear during this period, with the bodies placed in shallow pits, encased in a mausoleum-like structure built with bricks or large stone slabs, which are then stacked with rocks and buried beneath turf, eventually growing over with grass and dotting parts of the landscape as unnatural hills. Some cairn graves of wealthy/powerful individuals are gigantic and contain many khait and precious grave goods with a single human carcass. Simpler old type cairn graves can still be found, likely for lower class individuals.
-Serpent stone megalith is erected by the cairn builders.
-Pastoralist societies in the Highlands along the Taijung range appear to be experiencing rapid depopulation, many settlements abandoned.
~2100 years BP
-Cairn builder material culture has spread across the plains all the way to the Blackmane mountains, and is associated with increasingly complex and stratified nomadic pastoralist societies. Graves of high status individuals sometimes have other human bodies placed similarly to slain khait, suggesting slave and/or retainer funerary killings.
-Kannetodi civilization experiences abrupt collapse, in part associated with war. Many settlements are deliberately burned and abandoned. Much of its population shifts northeast to the upper reaches of the Kannetod river, and is likely ancestral to most Wogan-speaking groups.
-Centuries of gradual island hopping human dispersal from across the sea to the northwest (originating from island populations near modern day Finnerich) is the final major human settlement event, with the first waves of migrants arriving during this period. This is associated with the Taijung range and adjacent highlands becoming repopulated, and brought the language family modern day Chenahyeigi and Hnaimale largely descends from.
-maize and the practice of nixtamalization is most likely obtained from contact with seafaring peoples originating in or near present-day Bur. Maize spreads throughout the entire sub-Viper seaway landmass over the next half millennia.
~2000 years BP
-Taijung range begins to be repopulated by small mixed pastoralist-farming societies, who develop differentiated cultures on a rapid scale due to geographic isolation in settlements separated by rough terrain.
-Urbanization burgeons in the southwest along the Erubin river system, likely in response to population growth due to farming with maize, which is more productive (though less hardy and requires more processing for adequate nutritional value) than the native barley, and grew well in the Erubin river's fertile floodplain. Flexible use and rotation of the two staple crops allowed people to maximize production from all arable land.
-Most proto-Wardi groups are organized into chiefdoms with similar cultural practices; powerful urbanized agrarian chiefdoms become the earliest monarchies around this period.
-bronze items appear on the record, though with few signs of large scale local production; copper (and still some stone) tools remain dominant. Most bronze artifacts of this era were likely trade goods. This region (and the sub-Viper seaway as a whole) does not appear to receive much long-distance import of tin (extremely scarce in the eastern seaway), and never sees a true "bronze age". Routine manufacturing of bronze items will only come much later, with more robust access to long distance trade.
~1900 years BP
-Cairn builder material culture is in decline, with the dearth of the cairns themselves likely indicating individual societies that make up this material culture shifting to cremation.
~1700 years BP
-Urbanization begins to occur in the Yellowtail river valley.
~1500 years BP
-Most societies in this region are now practicing cremation, burial appears to be avoided/reserved for low status individual.
-The ancestors of the Ephenni tribe have a distinct material culture by this time with a nearly unbroken line of descent to the present day.
-ironworking takes hold in this region, the regional "iron age" begins. Copper and stone tools are gradually phased out of primary use. Most early iron artifacts utilize meteoric iron, which is relatively abundant in this region and does not require mining operations to access.
~1200 years BP
-Large scale mining and trade of iron ore by settled societies. The centers of iron production are along the south face of the Taijung mountain range, parts of the Yellowtail river valley, and the uplands around the Briya river headwaters.
-The Morinnae tribe (of the proto-Wogan language family) now has large, urbanized settlements along the lower Kannetod river.
-There is evidence of ceremonial mass slayings of human captives becoming a feature of warfare among settled agrarian societies.
~1100 years BP
-Nomadic pastoralist chiefdoms that oriented their seasonal transhumance around the Briya river are in the process of a cultural split, with some forming permanent agricultural settlements along the lower river and some remaining seasonally nomadic. This division is the root of the modern day Cholemdinae and Wardinae tribes. Oral history records this split as abrupt, but in reality this was gradual (and likely not a one-and-done separation), and the two likely retained a shared cultural identity (or at least routinely exchanged people) for much, much longer.
~900 years BP (from this point on I will be using contemporary tribe names to refer to the more or less direct ancestors of these groups).
-The direct ancestors of the Ephenni have two powerful societies along the Erubin river, with two hereditary monarchs. They share language and most cultural features, but are not unified. Both are in competition and culturally dominate most of the west/south.
-The Wardinae along the lower Briya river are organized into a fairly powerful settled chiefdom/kingdom, but have faced considerable hardships, with some major settlements having been sacked and rebuilt more than once.
~900 years BP
-Figurative vessels reminiscent of contemporary forms make their first appearances.
~800 years BP
-Wardinae and Cholemdinae languages have become distinct.
~775 years BP
-The North and South Ephenni unite under one monarch.
~750 years BP
-The real historical version of the culture hero and Ephenni founder-king Erub is born around this time. His mythological Wardinae partner Jaenes Probably didn't exist, or is an amalgamation of several kings. An epic poem detailing Erub's life preserves a wealth of historical detail, but has a tendency to ascribe the feats of multiple figures to just a couple men (for example, Erub was likely the eldest son (if not grandson) of the first Usoma of unified Ephennos, rather than the architect of that union.
-The saddle and stirrups have arrived from the east (invented by people on the great plains far north of the Viper seaway, taking the long way around as most tech received overland does). This technology existed concurrently to chariots but in geographically separated locations; the saddle/stirrups got to present-day Wardin first. Chariots never have tactical use in warfare here, beyond later adoption as vehicles for commanders.
~725 years BP
-The historical Erub's regime is defined by expansionism, a desire for control of the two great rivers (Erubin, controlled by the Ephenni, and the Kannetod, inhabited by Wogan-speaking peoples and dominated by the Morinnae specifically).
-Erub and a Wardinae king form a military alliance (in oral history, this is a relationship between near-equal partners, in reality, the Wardinae were likely a client state, albeit an initially privileged one).
~705 years BP
-The palaces of the Morinnae are sacked and burnt.
-680 years BP
-After decades of wars of conquest, a very large state with Erub's dynasty at the helm has been established with present-day Erubinnos (whose name derives from the old name of this kingdom) as its capital. The Erub dynasty's territory is massive, stretching a couple hundred miles from the lower Kannetod river to the western coasts of modern day Ephennos. This time period exists in modern Wardi cultural memory as a golden age and Erub is more or less shared as a founder culture hero.
~650 years BP
-An already powerful land empire across the Mouth seaway to the west, born in modern day Bur, has been setting its sights overseas. Imperial Bur begins making footholds along the western coasts of present-day Wardin via trading colonies. Initially, this appears to have been with the consent of the Erub dynasty, which benefited from these trading colonies. Imperial Bur gradually starts using these port colonies as staging points for incursions elsewhere along the Viper seaway, but leaves the kingdom of Erubinnos alone.
~600 years BP
-Likely origin point for the oral epic poem detailing Erub's life, itself deriving from older poems.
~585 years BP
-Imperial Bur has grown more aggressive, eventually entering a war of conquest against the Erub dynasty. Mythologically, they brought siege to Erubinnos, were fiercely resisted in vain by all its subjects, and wiped out Erub's bloodline (even the baby ones) by cutting their achilles tendons and feeding them alive to starving dogs. In reality, they exploited discontent among Erubinnos' conquered subjects (particularly the Wardinae, who, if not vassals initially, were more or less vassals now) and were assisted by many Wardinae chieftain aristocrats, who were promised liberation of their territories from the Erub dynasty's yoke. These people weren't stupid and recognized that Imperial Bur's designs were, obviously, not altruistic, but in many cases miscalculated how exploitable the empire's terms were and how favorable alliance could be.
~590 years BP
-Imperial Bur conquers its first major foothold in the eastern half of present day Wardin (province). In the early stages, the model of control for most of the empire's conquered territories was to preserve native institutions while integrating them into the empire. Each imperial province had a Burri (later Burri-Wardi) ruler self-styled as a Usoma and married to a native aristocrat, which allowed native institutions to run but ensured that they ran to the benefit of the empire. Burri-controlled Wardinae lands severed the kingdom of Erubinnos in half, and this was pivotal in the final conquest of this region.
-The collective term "Wardi" (or rather the word it derives from, language has shifted substantially in 600 years) is first used as an exonym in Imperial Burri sources to group the native settled agriculturalists on basis of similar cultural practices and language. It probably derives from the Wardinae tribe's endonym specifically.
-Imperial Burri writings about Wardi-speaking peoples at this time describe men performing something resembling the contemporary lion dance, and elderly women occasionally being present adjacent to battlefields and performing shrill screams and other behavior described ambiguously as "witchcraft" directed at their enemies, both of which resemble features of modern day Odonii battlefield performances and likely represent the deep roots of this tradition.
~586 years BP
-Imperial Bur emerges victorious, deposing the Erub dynasty (probably not via dogs, their favored method of execution was the less romantically brutal act of beheading). The conquered kingdom of Erubinnos was converted into two provinces, whose areas of control roughly align to modern day provinces of Ephennos +Odkotonnos), and Wardin + Erubinnos. Each is ruled by a Burri Usoma with a native aristocrat wife.
-Imperial Bur is an extremely large, complex state, and has and many of the social and material technologies that often accompany this. Most significantly, this period of contact introduces their writing system. Wardi-speaking state societies had written proto-language used in record keeping and administration (a wealth of pictograms and numerical signs), but not a true written language. Modern day Wardi script descends directly from Old Burri script, though also includes characters descending from old pictograms, and has heavily diverged in the present day. Bur also introduces a lunisolar calendar, improved sewage and aqueduct technologies, and more experienced modes of large scale urban planning. On the other end, Bur absorbs native modes of deity into its pantheon (both as calculated political maneuvers and in passive syncretism), acquires the domestic pheasant and duck and a hardier strain of winter barley, and, most significantly, adopts the saddle and stirrups after getting repeatedly owned by mobile mounted combatants. The death of chariot warfare (regionally) occurred over the course of Imperial Bur's existence.
~550 years BP
-Finns have begun taking to the open seas as a sophisticated sailing and raiding culture and minor trade competitor, and are a thorn in Imperial Bur's side. Their coastal raiding mostly occurs within the Viper seaway, but hits parts of modern day Wardin's western coasts.
~530 years BP
-A full temple to Inanariya (chief solar god, divine ancestor of the Burri emperors) and the imperial cult is constructed in the city of Ephennos.
-Imperial Bur institutes a ban on the consumption of dog meat and rearing of livestock dogs, which ultimately kills the practice in most Wardi speaking tribes aside from the Wardinae, for whom it was a core wedding tradition and carried on in secret.
~525 years BP
-Imperial Bur is in its prime. It brings relative stability to its controlled interior, connects distant lands with a robust land-sea trade network, and its imperial core is glutted with extracted wealth. Its core and many of its provinces experience massive population growth.
~450 years BP
-This population growth has started being a huge problem. Imperial Bur is over-extended and struggling to feed its massive population and pay its legions of troops. Increased demand for grain and precious metals spurs conflict between Imperial central government and provincial governments (as well as those of other occupied territories).
-In the context of bellyaching/openly rebelling local colonial rulers, Imperial Bur has been transitioning away from the practice of integration into native institutions in favor of direct rule, with the emperors increasingly installing provincial government by direct appointment (rather than depending on loyal puppet Usomas to make beneficial appointments for them) and chipping away at native institutions. Worship of the imperial cult starts becoming more directly enforced.
-Among Wardi subjects under direct rule, "Wardi" has taken up use as a collective endonym and name for their shared language. A sense of shared ethnolinguistic identity has taken form (which was never really present prior). Tribal affiliation is also becoming much more shakily defined. Prior to Imperial Burri rule, most proto-Wardi tribes had clearly delineated means of membership (mostly by patrilineal descent or with formalized modes of integration, and tied to ancestral land), but affiliation is becoming socially defined more along one's place of birth/ancestral land. This is largely due to distinctions between different Wardi-speaking peoples only being superficially reflected in imperial governance and organization, rendering older modes of identity harder to keep strictly delineated.
-The contemporary version of Erub's epic poem is first recorded in writing, though other written versions predate the one that is standard in the present day.
~445 years BP
-A Burri-Ephenni provincial Usoma attempts rebellion, receiving considerable support from leadership within the rest of the Ephenni aristocracy. This stage of revolt lasts a little over a year and is lost.
-Emperor Innyon III begins purging traitors from Ephennos' provincial government and awarding their land and peasantry/serfs (and that which was seized in suppressing the revolt) to political allies and accomplished soldiers. This is in large part a bid to quell dissent within military ranks, with there being serious political conflict among military leadership and mutinous behavior and large-scale desertion and turn to banditry by unpaid troops.
~440 years BP
-Shifts in governance mount into an avalanche of changes. Aristocratic settlers arrive en-masse, bringing their serfs with them, and an aggressive campaign seizes arable land along the Erubin river, displacing indigenous Ephenni and West Rivers or enslaving them into serfdom. Burri serfs taken overseas by their lords and native serfs find themselves occupying the same social class and undergo significant cultural exchange over the years, having a high rate of intermarriage in the west. Burri language having a particularly strong influence on Odkotonnos' regional Wardi dialect is partially due to this.
-A massacre occurs when frustrated, bored soldiers descended upon the already-conquered Ephenni town of Anae Nib for pillage. Many survivors flee across the Erubin river at full flood; accounts describe drowned bodies littering the shores the next morning. This event becomes legendary and is a core part of the founding mythology of modern Ephenni identity.
-Displaced Ephenni and West Rivers people have separately moved into the scrublands south of the Erubin and begin to cooperate, carving out a place for themselves with coordinated attacks on Cholemdinae nomads who already seasonally lived there. First instances of the term “Riverlander” is used, at this time to describe shared circumstances as displaced peoples of the Erubin river.
-The young Burri-Ephenni aristocrat Hamzhe Yanne, who had himself escaped execution, adopts his great-grandmother's Ephenni maiden patronym, Menyotidiwe, and becomes established in leadership of displaced Ephenni Riverlanders. Other prominent leaders include Sit-Urbinnas West Rivers chieftain Sidetaig Kuliganija, and Ephenni chieftain of formerly royal descent Katajaenet Nedela. The latter two were instrumental in forging cooperation between the Ephenni and West Rivers peoples, who mostly spoke different languages and had a rocky history.
~430 years BP
The Riverlanders are formalized as an alliance between key Ephenni aristocrats and West Rivers chieftains in exile. Katajaenet Nedela has moved his people to the abandoned mountain fortress at Three-Khait Hill, in the eastern foothills of the Taijung mountains (near the Briya river's headwaters), which will gradually build up into a town. The West Rivers chiefdoms in exile are ranging from there up to the Yellowtail to the north. Significant instances of both political and everyday intermarriage deepen ties between these groups.
-Riverlanders begin engaging in continuous mounted raids against the fringes of the Imperial Burri state, though these do not amount to much of significance at first and were mainly oriented around resource acquisition.
414 years BP
-"The Cattle Raid of Old Pine Hill" occurs, wherein a small army of Riverlanders successfully capture and drive a very large number of cattle (folklorically 2000, much likelier something like 500-800) through a river crossing and out onto the plains, which becomes instrumental for the group's survival during a tough winter and goes down in history as a part of modern Ephenni, Ephenni Riverlander, and West Rivers founding mythologies.
~370 years BP
-Imperial Bur is in an escalating state of collapse. It is overexpanded with war on multiple fronts (most significantly with Hsemdan, a powerful rival state to the northwest of its territory), struggling to feed its own population, and suffering a series of floods and earthquakes, which (in the context of hardship at home) are very readily interpreted as signs of divine disapproval of its ruling dynasty. Serf revolts abroad and at home become more frequent, and increase the pressure in spite of their lack of success.
-Collapse of the ancestral tribe of the modern day Hundinae, Atig Wermani, and Loberani tribes initiates their cultural divergence into three groups.
355 years BP
-As the Burri empire’s eastern oversea flank collapses, the Riverlanders and Wardinae leaders (in addition to Hundinae/Loberani mercenaries) form an alliance and engage in revolt on three fronts. This lasts seven years in total.
-Due to quickening collapse, Imperial Bur withdraws from modern day Wardin without putting up much of a fight, relatively speaking. Of Wardi-speaking peoples, the Wardinae tribe emerges strongest with their lands and institutions least gutted by occupation (they lacked any notable agricultural abundance or precious metal deposits, and their occupation was mostly strategic as they were sandwiched between two much more important colonies), which sets the stage for what comes later.
-The rest of the imperial province of Erubinnos (which then contained much of both modern day Erubinnos and Morihe) is abandoned shortly after, but does not fare nearly as well. It was a key breadbasket, was a province that forced unrelated groups that were active enemies into the same borders, and was among the provinces that had its native institutions most thoroughly dismantled. It collapses violently into a group of warring chiefdoms.
~350 years BP
-Imperial Bur is putting up much more of a fight when it comes to Ephennos, which is its most critical overseas breadbasket. A pivotal series of battles take place to retake Ephennos. The Battle of the South Bend goes down in history and becomes heavily mythologized for the resounding defeat of shock-and-awe utosai mounts used by Imperial Burri cavalry. Legendarily, the Riverlanders broke a utosai cavalry charge by covering three khait in pitch, setting them on fire, and loosing them in the charge’s general direction, which caused the giant reptiles to panic and completely destroy their own lines. While romantic and dramatized in its telling, this Is probably more or less true, but leaves out that use of fire to panic the utosai was long at play (rather than a desperate, spur of the moment hail mary), it was just the new tactic of setting a large ungulate ablaze that wasn’t sufficiently accounted for. This battle did not win the war, but was a major turning point.
-Upon Burri retreat and the retaking of Ephennos, Riverlanders perpetuate several massacres of Burri/Wardi serfs that did not defect to their side (or who simply remained on their land), and reconquer their former lands along the Erubin.
-Most of the displaced West Rivers people just kinda go home, though also experience a period of turmoil as they resettle, and spend decades in active conflict with surrounding peoples challenging their territorial claim in the wake of the chaos.
-Menyotidiwe Yanne's grandson is self-styled as Usoma of Ephennos and has a month-long reign before overthrow by rival claimant, Katajaenet Odebi, who claims to be of the line of the last free Ephenni king. Odebi disputes Menyotiwe's claim on basis that old Ephenni royal inheritance passed from monarch to nephew via his sister, and that he had direct uninterrupted descent by that method. Katajaenet emerges victorious, though does not reinstate matrilineal inheritance. Public support is heavily divided between the proven war leader and more traditionally legitimate claimant, but the Katajaenet dynasty ultimately survives and will go on to have a long rule.
-Many Riverlanders (especially intermarried Ephenni-West Rivers families) have developed strong ties to the land they occupied in displacement and permanently remain south and east of the Erubin, originating the contemporary Ephenni Riverlander tribe. Over the next few centuries, they take on a mode of social organization more akin to that of Taijung Chenahyeigi chiefdoms and develop a distinct dialect, though are culturally and linguistically "Wardi".
~345 years BP
-Complete withdrawal of Imperial Bur from its overseas colonies (the state itself will take another ~25 years to collapse entirely).
-The Wardinae tribe falls in line under the first Amanti dynasty (verrrrry very very distant relation to the contemporary Amantis), accepting Amanti Jaenys (a war leader and aristocrat, descendant of a pre-imperial royal family while not a direct heir) as their Usoma. They will go on to become politically dominant in this region and have an outsized hand in the arc of the next few centuries.
~340 years BP
-a "warring city-state" period begins, as liberated Wardi tribes struggle to reform damaged/suppressed native institutions, reassert individual identities, and better the conditions of their own people. Many formerly occupied provinces have dissolved into chiefdoms controlling a network of city-states, frequently at war with one another. There are dozens of self-styled Usomas, with varying degree of territorial control backing their status. All modern day provinces of Wardin are centered upon former powerful city-states that achieved regional dominance over their neighbor in this period.
-A Titen-Ephenni aristocrat, Odochotas Jaenys, is styled as Usoma of Odkotonnos (formerly of the imperial province Ephennos and now a free-floating city state). Odkotonnos' case is complex, as it was built up by Imperial Bur as a port city meant for trade and extraction rather than agricultural production, and overseas trade is collapsing along with the empire that dominated it. It is also very culturally diverse, with a majority that is an near-even split between culturally Ephenni and Titen (a Burri-speaking ethnic group) and substantial minority populations from across the former empire's eastern half. Odochotas goes down in history for being at the helm of some truly exceptional statecraft, maintaining the unity of a culturally diverse populace, successfully expanding the city's agricultural production, rapidly filling the void of local sea trade along the west and south coasts, and managing economic ties with a complicated mass of warring city-states.
~325 years BP
-Loberani tribe, under Usoma Hounyari Atub, expands their territories west, in an alliance with the Wermani against the Hundinae. The crater lake As-Hita Echinouwe is a core site of contest, as it is sacred to all three groups, and is also good agricultural land.
~323 years BP
-The Loberani take control of As-Hita Echinouwe.
~320 years BP
-the Katajaenet dynasty of Ephennos has aims to conquer Odkotonnos, courting allyship from smaller city-states between the two, but fails.
~300 years BP
-Odkotonnos has conquered its neighboring city-states as tributary vassals and expanded significantly.
-A cult Resembling that of modern day Odonii priestesses takes solid shape around this time, with the much older "celibate female spiritual authority" model now being utilized in organized cult veneration of the hearth across a majority of Wardi city-states. Hearths have already long been connected to concepts of both sovereignty (via being a site of ancestral worship, itself tied with identity in ancestral land) and the home (for more obvious reasons). The hearth associations would ultimately be lost.
-Annual human sacrifices on the winter solstice also appear around this time.
~270 years BP
-Regular renewed contact with people from the fledgling Burri Republic (currently a hereditary monarchy, will go on to become a monarchy elected by senators, themselves elected by a citizen class). Occupation by rulers from the west is still within living memory of those of uncommon old age, but there is great emotional distance between that specter and people in boats coming and going to offer tobacco and fine wool. The modern inner sea trade system is gestating, but it will take another two centuries to recover to even an approximation of its previous form, having previously been facilitated by the largest empire to exist in this part of the world.
~250 years BP
-Wardin, under the first Amanti dynasty, begins expanding north along the Briya river. It conquers the major city-state Jaesi (around the border between the modern day provinces of Wardin and Erubinnos) as its tributary and will later absorb it.
-The Hundinae regain control of As-Hita Echinouwe.
~200 years BP
-The first Wardinae Amanti dynasty falls to the Haigmanitawe dynasty after a succession crisis. The first of the dynasty is Haigmanitawe Ibrija.
~160 years BP
-Odkotonnos is now a prosperous and large city-state, and a primary benefactor of overseas trade. It is emerging as a major trade power around the Mouth seaway, like Bur and Finnerich, and has good relations with the former. Finnerich begins to occupy a strategic position of curbing its power, which would weaken both of its rivals without needing to enter direct conflict with Bur, the more powerful of the two and only one with an actual legit navy.
-Ephennos is briefly at war with Odkotonnos again at some point around here but loses badly.
-The concept of "the Odomache" first appears in Wardin (Odonii also exist in something much closer to their present state), as a celibate female priest who takes on the Face of a deified lion to act as a protector of royalty and the state as a whole for certain rituals. This initially is not a single figure appointed for life, but rather a role that the most senior of priestesses can take on as ritually necessary.
155 years BP
-Ephenni Usoma Katajaenet Yanne dies young without male heirs, and a succession crisis ensues between his brothers, Erub and Emensakata. Each had divided support among the Ephenni aristocracy (which comprised the royal court and institutions of government), and this succession crisis broils into a destructive 2-year war. The Ephenni and Wardinae had strong ties at this point and were involved in each other's politics, and the Wardinae favored Emensakata. They provided mercenaries and ultimately helped secure Emensakata's victory.
-Wardinae Usoma Haigmanitawe Achotas heavily courts Emensakata into closer allegiance, and the two begin to more actively participate in one another's defense and maintenance of tributaries.
-Finnerich establishes colonies on the northwestern coasts, near the end of the Taijung range.
149 years BP
-The militarily allied Ephennos and Wardin go to war with the Yellowtail tribe (at the time the most powerful Chenahyeigi-speaking society by FAR and the only one with significant urbanization) in a conflict over land surrounding the Yellowtail river. They are ultimately successful after a 3-year war, cutting their territory nearly into a third, reducing it to approximately its present day state. Ephennos and Wardin divide the spoils between themselves.
-Ephennos and Wardin formalize their co-rulership by treaty and attempt to seal their ties in the eyes of their populace, with each Usoma exchanging a daughter in marriage with each other's sons. In reality, Emensakata's position was very vulnerable due to internal opposition and Ephennos being weakened by a war of succession, and he was getting the shorter end of the stick in this relationship, accepting this in return for the protection of his interests by the more powerful state. Wardin quietly consolidates political power over Ephennos via its sway over Emensakata.
-Finnerich launches an invasion of Odkotonnos. Bur is appealed to by Odkotonnos for aid, and agrees to assist its strategically important trading partner with its navy. This aid is ultimately limited, as peak campaigning season overlaps with peak storm season in the Mouth seaway, during which open water travel is more dangerous and safer routes take much longer. Finnerich on the other hand has relatively short routes that keep its ships much closer to land.
144 years BP
-Finnerich has won several decisive victories and moves to capture Odkotonnos, a difficult gambit given the city's excellent fortification. Most of the populace retreats to the walled city and is starved out for nearly a year. Their army has suffered a few catastrophic defeats with substantial loss of life in pitched battle and, by the end of the war, their city is being defended as much by children, women, and elderly men as it is warriors. The populace suffers tremendously under siege and eventually experiences mass death from starvation. The iconic image of this time in the city's cultural memory is street dogs eating corpses, survivors eating the street dogs.
-Wardin is appealed to for aid, and agrees on conditions of Odkotonnos becoming its tributary, but one with relatively light demands and agreement for mutual defense. Odkotonni leadership acquiesces and the allied Wardin and Ephennos raise a levy and dispatch an army over land, defeating the Finns in two pitched battles en route.
-Bur gets cold feet due to the costliness of the ongoing conflict, suffering two major naval defeats, and facing unusual early summer storms, and ceases direct involvement, though Burri mercenaries are hired by Wardin in the late stages.
-The siege is not going well for Finnerich by this point due to diminishing resources and aforementioned unusual summer storms making resupply and long distance raiding difficult. A final effort to breach the inner walls and occupy a defensible position before the arrival of reinforcements is half successful, but the central fort is not breached. They are then themselves placed under siege by the Ephenni-Wardinae. Their hastily reconstructed gaps in the city's defenses hold up, but are broken in less than a week when one of their own number, frustrated with the length of the siege and miniscule chance of victory, turns traitor and lets the Wardinae-Ephenni soldiers in in return for his safety. Finn forces are massacred, attempts by Wardin military leadership to prevent soldiers from looting the city they came to aid are only semi-successful. Among the sheltering survivors of Odkotonnos, heated internal debate occurs over whether to let the Wardinae forces into the fort, who were quite obviously not coming to their salvation out of pure benevolence, but the exhausted and starving survivors relent. Odkotonnos is quietly conquered by Wardin without further bloodshed.
~139 years BP
-Haigmanitawe Emensakata is succeeded by Haigmanitawe Erub. This is the Other great founding "Erub" in Wardi mythologized history, and is the primary architect of the modern state. He specifically played up associations with his namesake and a notion of returning Wardi-speaking peoples to their "golden age", when all of the south was the kingdom Erubinnos. His territorial ambitions mirrored that of the Erub dynasty hundreds of years before, though now with a sense that there was a collective Wardi people in a fallen state that demanded unification under a firm hand.
~130 years BP
-What is now the province Erubinnos was composed of four city states at this time. These had been in conflict for much of the past century, though scrambled to negotiate some form of political allegiance in light of Wardin's territorial ambitions. This union falls apart when then-city state Erubinnos is courted by Wardin and turns against the other three, and an ultimately short military conflict ends in all being conqured, Erubinnos ending with the most beneficial terms.
~129 years BP
-From there, Lobera is brought to heel, this time mostly via diplomatic means, with the smaller kingdom submitting as a client state with the benefit of its substantially more powerful patron's protection. At this point, Wardin now has near total control of every waterway in its proximity.
~125 years BP
-This is the beginning of what I call the "modern period", where the state exists in something close to its present day form. Haigmanitawe Erub instituted a series of sweeping reforms that formally divided the kingdom into provinces. He framed this kingdom as benefiting a collective Wardi (as an ethnolinguistic identifier) people, and delineated the rights and privileges of conquered Wardi-majority "provinces" from non-Wardi "tributaries", with many former tributaries seeing their conditions vastly improve. Wardin is the politically dominant province, but other provinces are distinguished from tributaries in having absolute military support, open trade and sharing of resources, free movement of people, individual provincial governments with positions filled by native aristocracy and ability to enact local laws (though the Usoma in Wardin holds appointment power for top roles and veto ability for laws). Tributaries are left to native systems of government (though not without political interference) but have few (sometimes no) benefits from the relationship, paying tribute is a matter of suffering economic loss that is more manageable than war with a more powerful state, and especially more manageable than the consequences of total defeat.
~120 years BP
First instance of winter solstice human sacrifice occurring at As-Hita Echinouwe, organized by the state of Wardin. Additional human sacrifices are forbidden.
119 years BP
-The already meaningless title of "Usoma" for provincial governors is retired in favor of Michlábawai (dead literally 'great chieftain', though doesn't have the same connotations of the English phrase since Michlaba refers to aristocrat patriarchs who head an estate). There is only one Usoma.
115 years BP
-Haigmanitawe Erub is succeeded by his son Haigmanitawe Yanne.
~110 years BP
Haigmanitawe Yanne establishes the council of priests, an advisory body containing seniors from each core priesthood. At this time, it consists of eleven Etadinii (plus the high priest), two Odonii, and five Galenii (plus the high priest). In addition to acting as advisors, this group solidifies each year's calendar, plans public rites, and makes decisions about appointments within the temple institution.
107 years BP
-The jewel in Haigmanitawe Yanne's crown is tributary conquest of the Atig Wermani kingdom, which has the desirable commodity of gold deposits and skilled metalworkers. Many of the torcs and cuffs you see on present day noblemen are tributary extracts made by Atig Wermani artisans.
-The Hoüheteni, eunuch guards of Odonii priestesses, are first granted warrior order status in recognition of accomplishment on the battlefield. Yanne did not place them into the core military structure (leaving the Odomache as their symbolic general), but they were granted privileges of warriors (notably free bearing of arms within the capital), and recognized members of their order were granted gifts of land.
101 years BP
Haigmanitawe Yanne is succeeded by Haigmanitawe Amit.
~90 years BP
-Haigmanitawe Amit adds the Odomache to the council of priests, thus significantly increasing her hard power.
~85 years BP
-The second Amanti dynasty succeeds the Haigmanitawes, with the last ruler Haigmanitawe Amit being generally regarded as a shit monarch and dying after a long period of illness. Dynastic change manages to occur with minimal turbulence, as Haigmanitawe's death was successfully concealed from the public and much of the court for months (given he was severely sick already largely absent from most affairs), giving his successor/brother-in-law Amanti Wai ample time to shore up support for his position.
~83 years BP
-Amanti Wai kicks off his reign with another go at the Yellowtail people after a failure to pay tribute, which became an excuse for attempt at total conquest of the Yellowtail River Valley. This becomes a lengthy, costly conflict against a mountain people with heavily defensible land that Wardin likely could not have won, but fracturing among Yellowtail chieftains gave Wardin the upper hand during later negotiations. They accepted relatively harsh terms of tribute in return for continued self-governance.
~75 years BP
-The chieftains of the Green Hills people submit to tributary status upon the first approach by ambassadors.
~70 years BP
-Morihe concedes to tributary status on exceptionally favorable terms (the tribute borders on symbolic), with Wardin having interest in this kingdom as a buffer on its eastern frontier. The commoners of both states have much less positive relations, and the mutual raiding between herders in the borderlands continues unabated.
-At this general point in time, the Odonii priesthood has markedly increased in power, particularly in its involvement with warrior orders besides its own and ties with powerful aristocrats in the Wardin province's government. The priestesses have established functions in basically every public rite, and the Odomache has transitioned from a purely ceremonial role/basically a living icon to a person with real political sway.
68 years BP
-Amanti Wai is succeeded by his only son Saijen, who reigns for 6 months before dying of illness, with his 13 year old son being next in line. Saijen's sister, Usoma-Hittibe Amanti Hife, rules as lawful regent for three years until her nephew Asita comes of age, and is the de-facto ruler for much longer, having tremendous sway over her young nephew. Hife is the only female monarch in the modern era.
-Under Amanti Hife's reign, the Atig Wermani kingdom comes more directly under the Wardi sphere of influence and develops a more favorable tributary status, with guarantees of mutual military aid.
65 years BP
-Amanti Hife is succeeded by her nephew Amanti Asita, who will go on to rule for almost half a century. His reign is characterized by relative disinterest in expansion and focus on consolidating power, both in maintenance of tributaries and better centralizing Wardin's Relatively weak and decentralized monarchy. The cold war between the Odonii priesthood and the monarchy first simmers into being during this period, as he makes many attempts to curb their power while preserving their functions, and invests much more in the Etadinii. His reign all in all is a time of relative peace and prosperity for his subjects.
~55 years BP
-Wardin assists the Atig Wermani in repelling an invasion from the Brunai people of the northern Highlands.
~51 years BP
-A substantial fire torches a district in the city Ephennos in relation to local winter solstice rites (which involve mass handling and transport of fire).
39 years BP
-Amanti Asita, concerned about the Odonii priesthood's personal militia, decrees a cap on the Hoüheteni order at 300 men and invests heavily in the other warrior orders, introducing a policy of rapidly promoting able young noblemen and adding better benefits to orders under central command (particularly the Odotsomale cavalry, a pet project of his), with the goal of returning the Hoüheteni to their previous default of "exclusively eunuchs" in hopes that this will worsen their public perception. This end of things has limited success, because the general consensus seems to be that a set of elite geldings being accomplished warriors is unusual and cool.
34 years BP
-Wardin at long last attempts the old switcheroo and designs to establish an overseas colony in southern Finnerich, proceeding in invasion after the typical two sets of ambassadors with demands to submit or be destroyed are laughed off. The invasion succeeds in large part due to recruitment of a few dissatisfied members of Finnerich's council of lords (a Finn king's hard power rests mostly in their loyalty). It is ostensibly a tributary with a couple trade colonies attached, but unlike other tributaries, native governance is heavily meddled with, with the direct installment of a new Finn puppet king, full replacement of the council of lords with loyal political allies, and establishment of Wardi trade colonies.
~25 years BP
-With the current Odomache retired from active duty and dying of a tumor, Amanti Asita decrees that the Odomache must henceforth be chosen by the council of priests (rather than by an internal vote of Odonii senior priestesses alone) as is befitting to her place in said council.
~24 years BP
The old Odomache dies at 57, and a new one is elected by council for the first time. This one is a member of the Haigmanitawe bloodline, though not a direct descendant of royalty.
22 years BP
-Senior Etadinii priest Jaigmane Odohoü is found murdered by an unknown perpetrator, a year after successfully petitioning to have Odonii seniors barred from overseeing rites at the solstice games (extremely politically significant martial festival), which ostensibly ban women's attendance. This is the latest in Occasional But Noteworthy suspicious deaths of political figures with a history of conflict with the Odonii priesthood, bolstering suspicions that the priestesses (or at least some among their number) have been utilizing their Hoüheteni to take out political enemies.
20 years BP
-Crown prince Amanti Erub dies prematurely in a chariot racing accident. His younger brother Cabouri takes his place as heir.
-Population growth of the urban commoner and middle class, particularly in western coastal cities, is starting to become a concern. The vast majority of people in this state are and will continue to be peasant farmers, but this demographic is growing more slowly in comparison and starting to add strain to food supply.
19 years BP
-Amanti Asita attempts to curb the power of the Hoüheteni and Odonii by generously providing Odonii members of the royal guard for travel, hoping to relegate the warrior order strictly to their role as temple guardians.
18 years BP
-Amanti Cabouri dies prematurely of fever. The aging Amanti Asita's youngest son, Stawis, is now the only remaining heir.
16 years BP
-Amanti Asita dies at 65, and his 30 year old son Stawis is crowned as Usoma. Stawis was virtually unknown to the general public compared to his eldest brother, who was generally well liked. Amanti’s reign is characterized by prioritizing infrastructural improvements, strengthening Wardin's position as a trade power, preserving his father's accomplishments, and relative disinterest in expansionism.
-Amanti Stawis begins his reign with his pet project of damming the Briya river to improve the city of Wardin's reservoir. No one asked for this but this will come in handy later.
15 years BP
-Amanti Stawis begins another pet project focused on road improvement.
-Titenegal (a territorial division of the Burri Republic) accepts the establishment of a Wardi-run trade colony and garrison on one of its near shore islands.
14 years BP
-Hundinae tributary fully revolts, dispatching an army to reclaim As-Hita Echinouwe with the assistance of Lema mercenaries. They sack the town and take hold of the fort on the rim of the crater lake, also trashing the temple, desecrating and throwing its holy icon into the lake. Wardin doesn't take the bait, and makes one attempt at diplomacy/threats with Hundinae king Asawani, which fails, resulting in a 2-year conflict. As-Hita Echinouwe is successfully retaken early into the war and the rites there are performed as usual.
-At the same time, Yellowtail chieftain (one of several) Uru Urunija rebels, refuses to pay tribute, and attempts to draw Wardin into open conflict on wildly unfavorable turf and exhaust them, hoping to negotiate out of tributary status from a position of strength. One of Amanti Stawis' genuine worst decisions is taking the bait (there is a reason the Yellowtail river valley is a self-governed tributary and not The Province Erub in spite of Wardin wanting this land soooooo sooooooooooo fucking bad it’s the only excellent agricultural land in their vicinity that they don’t control), feeling overconfident due to the ongoing success against the Hundinae. This mainly did Not go horribly by sheer luck, which was fever spreading within the fort and Uru dying of illness after his son was killed in battle, which created a domino effect of his levy falling apart and the fort's remaining defenders negotiating from a position of weakness, agreeing to pay reparations in return for the siege being broken and status quo being restored. This was still a major blunder for Wardin and cost them a lot of resources and good men and gained them nothing but a tributary that was back at status quo levels of “reluctantly cooperative and ready to revolt at a moment's notice”.
-Noted male feminist Amanti Stawis removes the ban on women attending the solstice games as spectators, though reinforces laws banning women from viewing the opening rites, and maintains the bar on Odonii overseeing any associated rites (beyond the senior Odonii's default roles in planning public rites, as members of the council of priests).
13 years BP
-A late season tlat piladne (atypically cold winter conditions with heavy snow, resulting in mass livestock death and winter barley failure) is blamed on the rites at As-Hita Echinouwe failing due to the damage to the temple and its idol. Both undergo a lengthy reconsecration, though the idol cannot be physically fixed.
-Granaries are opened to alleviate spring famine conditions.
12 years BP
-Low (though not disastrously low) winter rainfall suggests that the rites were still not fully successful.
-Wardin secures victory over Hundinae king Asawani. The capital is sacked and razed, unpaid tribute and "reparations" is taken in loot, and Wardin seizes control of the southern half of the kingdom and awards its agricultural land to outstanding warriors. Survivors flee north. Asawani and his sons are ceremonially slain at As-Hita Echinouwe to resolve the insult done to the sacred lake and slain priests.
-Finn noble and war leader in exile Taighr a Teng takes advantage of Wardin's preoccupation with revolts by adding another to the pile, emerging as a leader in revolt against southern Finnerich's puppet government.
11 years BP
-Wardin experiences an excellent harvest year. The yearly rites evidentally have worked now that the Hundinae royal family has been executed, insult to the lake was likely the problem.
-Amanti Stawis leans on the eastern provinces to encourage their urban commoners to move to the freshly colonized parts of the Hundinae kingdom and work the land.
-Amanti Stawis has dragged his feet on doing anything about Finnerich, but cedes to public pressure. Wardin intervenes and re-invades Finnerich in defense of its puppet government.
-Amanti Stawis prohibits the Hoüheteni from taking up ship space to attend with their priestesses, and supplies the few Odonii accompanying the soldiers with members of the royal guard.
8 years BP
-The Odomache either insists upon accompanying the soldiers to Finnerich to perform her core functions as a priest, or is pressured into doing so (interpretations differ). Stawis maintains the proscription against Hoüheteni traveling overseas, instead supplying her with members of his own personal guard. This will look really bad shortly.
-The Odomache is captured by the Finns along with senior priestess Amanti Mitlippe. The former is killed while the latter is released to report the death. The Odomache's head and vestment are seen on display. Taighr a Teng, now styled as a king, is seen to be carrying her ceremonial spear thrower/scepter as a trophy. Attempts to recover the body fail. Such a death for an Odomache unprecedented, as this is a priestly role and the Odomache has always been kept far from any actual battlefield. A dead Odomache whose body cannot be given rites is even more alarming.
-Wardin loses its war against the Finns and completely pulls out. Everything that happened here is disastrous to Amanti Stawis' public image, and it is rumored that he conspired to ensure the Odomache's death.
-An Etadinii senior priest is executed for providing disastrous false divination on the war.
-After making it back to her homeland, senior priestess Amanti Mitlippe commits suicide on the stated basis of having been raped during capture and thus violating her vows.
-The Odomache is given funerary rites in effigy.
7 years BP
-A prolonged drought initiates. This is a drought-prone region and droughts as long (even much longer) as this one turns out are on the record, but this one is marked by unusually little rainfall FOR drought conditions (including a lack of autumn tropical storms on the southwestern coasts, which are part of a separate weather system from the regionwide winter-spring seasonal rains)
6 years BP
-The Odomache's killing and dismemberment and previous damage to As-Hita Echinouwe becomes posited as the source of the rites there failing for two years in a row, resulting in acute drought. There is no orthopraxic means of installing a new Odomache without the previous one having a funeral. Etadinii senior priests hold council on what to do about this and come to a consensus that a new Odomache cannot properly be installed until the rites can be perfomed correctly.
-Amanti Stawis orders the Temple of the Moons to be fully rebuilt and reconsecrated. This construction project takes 4 years.
-50 royal hounds buried at the groundbreaking for the new Temple of the Moons to act as its guardians.
-Another reconsecration of the idol is performed.
5 years BP
-Endemic raiding between herders in the borderlands of Erubinnos and Morihe escalates and increases in aggression due to drought related strain. Morihe revolts, seizes land around the upper Kannetod river for farming, and intercepts trade and tributary extraction along this critical waterway.
4 years BP
-nine Hoüheteni and three members of the royal guard are involved in an assassination attempt on Amanti Stawis and his sons. They fail to kill him but succeed in mortally wounding his eldest son, who dies the next morning, leaving Amanti (in his mid 40s) with a six year old boy as his only heir. Upon torture, two identified the same senior Odonii (who was in the process of being confirmed as the next Odomache) and Amanti’s nephew in law and sons as the architects of an attempted coup, though one claimed that the assassins acted on their own and sought blood for blood re: the previous Odomache’s death. More evidence of a planned coup was produced. The implicated Odonii was quietly executed via forced suicide and Erub and his sons were publicly executed. Stawis grows increasingly concerned about the Odonii becoming rebellious and deepens ties with seniors he’s had working relations with, Haidamane Faiza and Otadiwe Erubi. He also strips Hoüheteni order from their license to bear weapons within the capital, and permission to attend pilgrimages as guards, continuing the trend of supplying attendant priestesses with members of his own guard. This is controversial.
-During the campaigning season, Wardin launches a 6 month assault on the Morihe occupying parts of Erubinnos and successfully takes back the western banks of the Kannetod but struggles to maintain it. The eastern banks remain under Morihe control.
3 years BP
-Eleven Galenii priests commit non-sanctioned autosacrificial suicide in the lake of As-Hita Echinouwe in response to the drought.
-basically every tributary except the Atig Wermani has grown uncooperative as they bear the brunt of both drought and extraction. Wardin fails to respond forcefully in most cases, increasing public perceptions of Amanti as a weak ruler, though not getting involved in like 6 wars at once is probably a good call.
2 years BP
-Highland Cholemdinae nomads start to move in on occupied Hundinae land and raid settlements, direct occupation is more or less withdrawn, settlers are left to fend for themselves or flee.
-The province Erub, heavily reliant on meltwater and seasonal flooding from the Yellowtail (which is now mostly a series of pools) for their agriculture, is in a state of collapse, exacerbated by epidemics from unsafe drinking water and constant raiding by the Yellowtail tribe, moving in on their ancestral lands. Its populace has begun to migrate en-masse to Ephennos and is straining its resources.
-The provincial governors of Lobera and Erubinnos begin effectively threatening secession, themselves bearing brunt of agricultural extraction (given their location along the Kannetod) with the Briya and Yellowtail drying up.
-The Temple of the Moons is fully rebuilt.
1 year BP
-Amanti Stawis' keen interest in infrastructural projects has come in handy, with the Briya dam having gone a long way to improve the city of Wardin's water supply and his new irrigation and dam projects being fairly successful.
-The religious end of drought-mitigation methods is still doing jack shit, the yearly human sacrificial rites are repeatedly failing. The priesthoods are consulted again for what is causing the rites to fail. Their advice is revised to a cautious suggestion that, now that the temple is rebuilt and consecrated, an Odomache being installed at the next rite may or may not resolve the drought, don't kill us if we're wrong we don't fucking know what's going on.
-Haidamane Faiza is elected as incumbant Odomache by council of priests.
6 months BP
-An albino wild aurochs calf is sighted near the Briya river's headwaters. Albino animals are generally embodied spirits of land or water, and aurochs are particularly special. It is divined and interpreted as THE spirit of the land, and a winning majority of priests argue that it has embodied itself in order to be sacrificed and reborn, though the unorthodox nature of this procedure has many wary. It is captured and grafted to a domestic cow with the intent of being sacrificed on the solstice, in addition to the usual human.
In the modern AU, would Brakul like to become a father?
He's the only one of them who actually Likes parenting + is good with kids + wants children on any level that extends beyond expectation/necessity, and is extremely attached to his biological children and laments not being able to be their father because they Exist and he's their actual father, but he could've gone his whole life ultimately being okay with the fact that he's in a position to be unmarried and childless. Or at least just focusing on feeling guilty about abandoning his firstborn but not even slightly wanting to start his own household to like, 'make up for it'.
So I think the accurate take for the modern AU version is that he kinda wants kids but not anywhere near to the point that it's a dealbreaker to be in a childless marriage, but also isn't at peace enough with being childless that he won't periodically check if Janeys has budged from his "no, ew" stance, but also kinda knows deep down that he doesn't Really want everything parenthood entails and isn't cut out for that level of lifelong commitment, and at some point would refocus into lamenting that he's not in a position to have much of a relationship with a niece or nephew or something.
It's also a "canon event" that he and Hibrides were in a relationship when they were younger before coming to terms that they were incompatibly gay, she terminated an accidental pregnancy and he guilt tripped her about it for weeks but tried really hard to make it sound like he was mainly upset about greater trust and communication issues and not that she aborted that shit without his approval
I’m curious about the moral status of animals in Wardi, especially non-sacred ones. Have serious religious or philosophical arguments against slaughter or sacrifice ever been raised, and do these ideas have any uptake? Are there any groups of people (beyond individual idiosyncratics) who practice vegetarianism for any reason (not necessarily a moral one)? Do domestic animals have any rights under civil or religious law or are they treated as objects/property? What about wild animals?
Should note ahead of this post that when I use "religious law" this refers to cultural customs and proscriptions that are Strongly socially enforced, often have communal punishment as a backing, and may or may not have backing in the legal mechanisms of the state, but this society does not have holy texts or strict doctrine to adhere to so it's a very mutable sort of 'religious law'. The code of religious law followed by priests (which are a state body) IS more solid but not 1:1 with various forms of common religious law (many customs of which are widely shared but some vary from place to place).
There is no vegetarianism beyond individual idiosyncrasies (and on the other hand, most people have primarily vegetarian diets as a matter of necessity anyway). This is a very unlikely society for religious/morally oriented vegetarianism to take root in, this is one in which veneration and consumption of animals is closely linked rather than viewed as contradictory. There ARE minority stances of cultural criticism against slaughter of cattle in particular (and the other 'hoofed stock', khait and to a lesser extent horses), this is an aspect of a sort of neo-traditionalist stances developing against perceived moral decay/erosion of traditional practices (the latter is True in that former tribal lines and unique customs are becoming increasingly intangible, especially of minority tribes relative to the politically dominant Wardinae and powerful Ephenni).
This specific idea first emerged in some segments of the northeastern Loberani population, and advocates that slaughter of hoofed stock was not an ancestral practice to their people (this is partly true, most eastern Wardi-speaking peoples on the plains around the Kannetod river did not slaughter their cattle under normal circumstances for a large chunk of their history, though like, an Archeological Examination would find evidence of routine horse slaughter) and that others should follow by this example. The claim here is that traditional religious law in which the flesh is not consumed after some types of sacrificial killing is meant as a proscription on livestock slaughter for meat in General, that the particular covenant between humans and hoofed stock entails sharing of the living body only, and that this fact is made obvious by lack of traditional khait slaughter under normal circumstances, in spite of them being ostensibly clean animals for eating. This stance does not advocate vegetarianism, however, just that hoofed stock in Particular should not be slaughtered for food (harvest of milk and blood from live animals, consuming testes extracted in gelding, killing poultry and wild game, and animal sacrifice is not up for question).
(Animal sacrifice is thoroughly embedded in tradition and religious worldview and goes unquestioned outside of individual idiosyncrasy. Barring shifts from external cultural influences, you'd sooner see a large scale religious adoption of full vegetarianism than more than incidental rejection of animal sacrifice)
Domestic animals have "rights" under both religious and state law for clean slaughter (techniques that are largely built around minimizing suffering of the living animal and its deceased spirit, in addition to ensuring that the meat is good to eat). In terms of actual slaughter techniques, this means killing the animal with a deep cut that severs the trachea resulting in death by suffocation, rather than by exsanguination alone (reserved for animal sacrifice) or by other Relatively efficient means of killing (such as piercing the heart, blunt trauma to the skull, breaking necks of poultry, etc). It also protects the animal from additional distress before slaughter such as being immobilized (defined here by having the limbs tied; securing the animal with a halter is normal) or wounded prior to killing. There are other, more immaterial aspects to clean slaughter as a form of cruelty reduction, such as slaughtering out of visibility of other animals, speaking a standard prayer of gratitude before the killing, and extracting the heart from the carcass to be disposed of uneaten (this allows the animal's soul to go unharmed).
Hunting of wild game doesn't need to/can't abide by clean slaughter, but does follow the custom of leaving the heart uneaten and buried, and a longstanding custom upon retrieving a kill is the dealer of the killing blow giving a (very short) formal speech that implies that the hunter was not the cause of the animal's death and expresses gratitude for the given body (I'm having trouble wording it but to frame it in a very cynical and unfair manner, it's an attempt to gaslight the animal into believing it offered itself to die so its spirit won't be mad. Though the gratitude expressed is culturally genuine, if individually a perfunctory act). In most places it's customary to offer something to the animal as its heart is buried, usually the hunter's own blood or default libations of milk/wine. A taboo against hunting nursing wild animals or their unweaned young is held in most places (not a social taboo but a spiritual one with perceived non-human consequences) as well as a myriad of other little taboos (which vary from place to place and sometimes are specific to singular families) that seek to avoid punishment from the wild animal's spirit. Killing albino wildlife in a hunt or under other everyday circumstances is also a broad taboo, as these are generally held to be embodied spirits (different thing from an individual animal's soul, these are generally the spirit of a landscape or body of water rather than that of an animal). A fear of angering greater powers does not prevent killing of nuisance animals (livestock predators, potential/known maneaters, crop pests, venomous snakes, etc), often proactively.
Hoofed stock have some specific legal protections against abuse (only ever really enforceable on any levels beyond the social in cities); a drover can be fined for beating their beasts of burden (as proven by bleeding wounds), this fine is one half bulo of grain or a barter equivalent (this is about a day's pay- goes to the city, or to the animal's owner if it's not the driver), or receiving a public lash to the hands. This is framed as maintenance of public decency.
There are broad cultural stances against cruelty to one's animals (generally defined around an idea of inflicting unnecessary suffering or harming an animal for no reason). A lot of typical and accepted practices would not match up against contemporary animal welfare best practices (ie: khait are generally saddle trained with sessions of an experienced rider mounting it and clinging on until it becomes exhausted and stops fighting, it's normal to cuff an owned dog for unwanted behavior and most people will kick or throw rocks at street dogs that are causing annoyances, there's a hazy line between using a stick or crop to gently guide livestock and whacking it to make it move, etc), but the average person is going to think badly of you if you show cruelty to an animal that isn't causing any harm.
Relationships with domestic animals are framed around reciprocity, and you'll see a notion of kindness towards even broadly disliked animals displayed as a virtuous behavior. For example, a fictional account of the first modern era Usoma (Haigmanitawe Erub) traveling his domain contains multiple moral anecdotes, one of which describes him preventing one of his guard from beating a skinny street dog that stopped in front of his litter, commanding that the dog is spared and even fed from the same supply as one of his own hounds. (the moral here is more that a strong patriarch doesn't need to resort to petty violence and anger to command authority, and is generous and fair to those beneath him, but showing kindness and mercy to even the lowliest of animals is at least used in allegory to display these qualities). One moral folktale motif involves a mistreated owned dog remaining fiercely loyal to its master in spite of the cruelty, saving its master's child from a threat and dying in the process, and the master experiencing profound regret for his treatment of the animal and making amends by giving it a burial outside his home's door (where it can continue to stand guard and be in the company of the living). Another common morality tale involves a greedy and ungrateful man who works his old plow ox to death, after which he finds himself haunted by its ghost and beset by misfortune, experiencing conditions that mirrors that of the ox (overwork, dehydration, starvation), with the story ending in him either learning his lesson and giving the ghost the last of his dwindling food and wine and removing the yoke from its back (at which point the ghost leaves him in peace and his suffering alleviates), or he just dies too and that's the lesson.
Bottom line is that animals are generally valued, especially domestic animals and ESPECIALLY cattle and khait, which are culturally beloved. The worldview classes them as sentient feeling beings and to have a sapient spirit (though the latter is not special to animals and also includes like, rivers and landscapes) and everyday religious practice and observed taboos bear this in mind. They are in no way considered objects that can be treated with however you please. Animals are still firmly property in the sense that they are owned, bartered, inherited, taxed. You're really not going to find societies with domestic animals that Aren't property (in an explicit legal manner or otherwise) because people need them to survive and absolutely no form of domestic animal management can actually grant them personhood-like autonomy, least of all among people living at subsistence agrarian scales where this relationship is one of profound dependence.
High altitude pasture at dawn in the Taijung ('blue belt') mountains, West Rivers country. These mountains comprise part of the broader Highlands region and contain its tallest peak and second-largest (semi intact) pine forest. These pastures are only inhabited on a seasonal basis by herders, while permanent settlements are mostly located in the range's foothills and its two major river valleys.
Lioness dragging home an awitet drake in breeding plumage
Awitet and their relatives spend most of their lives at sea, but remain bound to the land for both mating and laying their eggs. Breeding drakes establish small shoreline territories and will spend a few weeks noisily squabbling and displaying, while hens come and go, only lingering to mate with sufficiently blue-flippered drakes and bury their eggs. There may be hundreds of awitet occupying a shoreline colony at any given time during the breeding period.
Most awitet breeding colonies are located on uninhabited islands, as these animals are exceedingly slow and clumsy on solid ground and have limited avenues to defend themselves against big land predators, beyond hissing and flopping themselves into threatening postures. The only mainland awitet breeding colony in Wardin is located within the coastline of the Hamacabe, the only true desert in this territory, and one in which large predators other than jackals and feral dogs (which pose a limited threat to an adult awitet) do not routinely occupy.
However, shifting human settlement and land use patterns in the broader northwest have put tremendous pressure on the regional lion population, and contributed to many of the remnants being driven into new territories with unconventional prey sources (doubly so with the contemporary drought slashing wild ungulate numbers). A small but seemingly stable lion population has emerged on Hamacabe's coasts over the past few decades as shoreline specialists. These lions still range inland in their foraging, but largely sustain themselves by scavenging beached marine life, hunting shorebirds, and capitalizing on the seasonal congregations of awitet. Awitet have been a particular boon to the lions (if only a brief, seasonal one), as they are much easier to kill than deer/gazelle/aurochs, are a calorie-dense treat, and after a couple months their unguarded eggs hatch en masse and provide a few more days worth of easy meals. The colony's numbers could already be noted as dwindling (mostly due to surplus killing of the chicks, who already faced unfavorable odds of surviving their first few hours without the addition of new predators to the mix), and this prey source may not last for much longer before it collapses or relocates to safer shores.
An old wémeta aro (Wardi name) cow showing off her baleen. This species is the biggest marine reptile (maxing out at around 14.5 meters) in the eastern inner seaway system, and is among the most successful in general with a distribution ranging from pole to pole. These are efficient pelagic cruisers and can move with remarkable speed for their size, though lack the dramatic breaching behavior found in some of their close relatives. They are apparently silent animals to human perception, but communicate with other members of their species via infrasound (sometimes visually detectable by a wémeta aro resting on the surface as the water boils with vibration around it).
Unlike many of their smaller relatives, wémeta aro (and the rest of their filterfeeding clade) give live birth to clutches of 6-12 calves and provide no further parental care. Usually, only a couple calves per clutch can be expected to survive to maturity. The calves spend their early years as suction feeding hunters of fish and cephalopods before fully developing their baleen plates and transitioning to filterfeeding. Adult cows migrate en masse to shallow, warm coastal waters to give birth. They may travel thousands of miles in a single year, but always return to their own nursery grounds for this purpose. Where this occurs, it is a predictable seasonal occasion and a prime time to hunt these animals, who otherwise rarely approach the coasts.
A smattering of dessert foods, dramatically sunlit for effect-
Top left: 2 honey and sesame coated dates (dried)
Bottom left: sesame/nut/seed honey balls (mostly sesame with some ground walnuts and poppy seeds)
Center: baked dessert dumpling stuffed with crumbled paneer, chopped dates and walnuts, honey; glazed with anise-spiced honey.
Top right: leftover paneer with leftover spiced honey.
Nut candies like these are made by toasting finely chopped nuts and small seeds (potentially also dried fruit), cooking them in honey and/or palm syrup, shaping them while still warm and pliable, then allowing them to cool before eating. They end up solid on the outside with a decent crunch and a chewy center. These are super easy to make and can be eaten year-round due to being composed entirely of shelf-stable ingredients. This same prep can also double as a crunchy coating for other sweets, as seen with the dates here.
This other dumpling-type dish is large, half-moon shaped, and usually made with barley flour. However, the two co-ops I went to had pretty much every type of flour imaginable save for barley, so fuck me I guess. I mixed durum wheat flour with masa (so at least something in there was accurate, these might be sometimes made with a mix of barley and maize flour as a way to stretch one or the other out) and decided to see what happened. This combination actually worked out alright, as did my intended fancy preparation of using yogurt and honey in the dough. (I actually measured shit this time, 2 cups of durum flour + 1/2 cup of masa + 1/2 cup plain whole fat yogurt + 2 eggs + unknown quantity of honey + enough water for the dough to be the right texture, this was enough to make 4 dumplings).
The glaze is just more honey reduced at high heat with some finely ground anise seed and a little cumin. I thought this turned out to be a nice combination with the pastry, which was otherwise very mild in flavor and only subtly sweet. In most cases, if this sort of additional sweetener is present, it would probably be taken on the side as a dip rather than used as a glaze.
A selection of 'small tachywa' found in the White Sea and parts of the eastern Inner Seaway.
Tachywa is a colloquial term that refers to toothed members of a broader clade of mosasauroid marine reptiles. These are significant among other marine reptiles for being fully aquatic (unlike tiviit, all of whom lay eggs and must haul out for nesting). These mosasauroids can be divided into three major clades: the beaked tachywa which are mostly on the small end of the spectrum and adapted for capturing small prey, the broadmouthed tachywa which are more basal and mostly target large prey, and a group of massive filterfeeders (often classed separately, though they are actually more closely related to beaked tachywa than broadmouthed tachywa are). All are endothermic, viviparous, and covered in tiny, smooth scales. They are primarily visual hunters with excellent eyesight, and many also possess acute directional chemoreception via forked tongues and an aquatically adapted vomeronasal organ (though this capability is heavily reduced in some genera).
Animals on display here (no names yet):
1. This tachywa is only distantly related to the rest seen here, being an example of a smallish broadmouthed tachywa while the rest are beaked. They are mostly found very close to the shoreline, primarily foraging within estuaries and occasionally traveling short distances up into rivers. They are not as fast or robust a swimmer as other small tachywa, but maneuverable and capable of moving very quickly in short bursts, and hunt primarily by ambush rather than pursuit. Of the animals shown here, they are the only one that poses a predatory threat to humans (albeit rarely). Most attacks on adult humans or elowey are actually investigatory in nature, as they prefer smaller prey items, but fully predatory ambush attacks on young children are known to occur. As with their much larger relatives, they handle food items that are too large to swallow whole by performing a 'death roll' to tear off manageable chunks of flesh.
2. This is a generalist predator that pursues a wide variety of small prey, notably foraging for small crustaceans by rooting around in the seabed with their sensitive snouts. These are the small tachywa most commonly pursued by hunters, as they are relatively slow among their brethren, mostly occupy shallow waters, have particularly thick blubber useful for oil, and their meat is mild, even vaguely sweet. They also exhibit the most complex sociality of the tachywa seen here, with related individuals maintaining longterm social bonds, foraging solitarily but often moving in groups. Cows provide direct protection for their calves for about ten months after birth, though the young must feed themselves.
3. This is perhaps the most familiar small tachywa to White Sea coastal communities, as they live almost exclusively in shallow waters and are a common site within bays. They breach frequently and are known to lie at the surface and slap the water with their tails, which appears to play a role in communication with conspecifics. They are notable for closely shadowing fishing boats in order to snatch fish from nets, and are often considered to be highly intelligent and a bit of a nuisance.
4. This species primarily occupies deeper waters near shelf edges, and rarely approaches the shoreline. They are exceptionally fast swimmers, though have poor maneuverability compared to some of their relatives. This is among the more social of these species and generally found in large aggregations, though they do not appear to form permanent social bonds or directly cooperate in hunting. They are known to be capable of capturing small seabirds by launching themselves into the air, and are claimed to sometimes kill fishermen in the same manner (at least in part rooted in accidental airborne collisions with people on boats).
5. This species is more often seen washed up dead than alive, as they spend most of their time foraging in deep water far from the coastline and typically keep their visits to the surface very brief and inconspicuous. They possess very large eyes and have phenomenal low light vision. This tachywa is a suction feeder that predates almost exclusively on cephalopods and other soft bodied animals. Their jaws are toothless save for a pair of small tusks in males, which play a role in sexual display and in reproductive conflict. Old bulls are often heavily scarred with injuries from conspecifics.
On this episode of Lore Friendly Cooking we have one of two Wardi 'dumpling' type dishes, this one being called awore a'wit (literally 'bird's ball', colloquially shortened from awore sedem a'wit for 'bird's nest ball') due to its nestlike appearance during prep. Top left photo shows a fried variant and a baked one I kinda fucked up (the big one), and top right shows the interior of the baked one.
These are made with a mixture of maga (fictional tuber vegetable with a cabbage-y taste; potato suffices) and flour, though cheaper/simpler variants (especially those found as street food) will leave out the tuber and the additional steps it entails in favor of exclusively using flour. The tuber is cooked down and mashed, then combined with a small ratio of flour and water (or with yogurt and egg in more elaborate preparations, which I did here) to make the dough. The dough is rolled into balls, then hollowed out by poking a hole with the finger and pinching the sides to form a cup, then stuffed, sealed, rolled in flour, and cooked (by frying, baking, or steaming).
Preferred stuffings vary regionally (also seasonally depending on ingredient availability), but this dish is most commonly made to extend limited amounts of fresh meat trimmings by combining them with vegetables, with lentils and other preservable/preserved ingredients during lean months, or as a dessert stuffed with cheese and honey. Simpler variants than the ones I made are common as street food in some major urban centers.
The stuffings for today were 1) minced """horse""" shanks (pork shanks) with onions and olives, and 2) minced shrimp with onions, garlic, cilantro, and leftover 'horse'. These stuffings were cooked before going in the bird's balls, but some preparations would have the stuffing be cooked along with the dumpling. The side is a standard hot yogurt sauce with finely minced garlic, chilis, and cilantro, very slightly cooked down in olive oil (left nearly raw), mixed with yogurt at a high ratio, and salted.
Oh yeah I’ve been neglecting to acknowledge the oceans much but like. Unlike land fauna which is mostly familiar clades present in the pleistocene (with a few aberrent lineages that went extinct in like the fucking cretaceous irl), the oceans are composed more heavily of lineages originating in the cretaceous and none of the irl marine mammals (besides maybe sea cows) are present, it’s mostly marine reptiles in those niches. This is ‘for funsies’
We've obviously at this point seen how important being clean is in Wardi culture, and that made me curious about Jazait/Elowey in generals bathing practices? I know they're largely from different cultures, but it had me curious.
When it comes to elowey cultures in general you're going to see the same range of focus on hygiene and the concept of cleanliness as in human cultures, but less emphasis on inundation with water, more emphasis on brushing as a mode of hygiene, and about the same concern for hygiene surrounding excretory functions, on average. Their fur is a little more water repellent than the average land mammal but it still takes a while to dry and washing too frequently can negatively impact skin and hair health (doesn't stop some societies from insisting on it it as a matter of social acceptability or religious practice though). Brushing is very important for personal hygiene as a matter of removing excess oils, dead skin, dirt, shedding fur, etc, and you're almost never going to find a society where the average person doesn't have multiple combs of different sizes for baseline personal hygiene. Lice and fleas are also a ubiquitous potential issue for elowey (as they are for every sophont with integument, though fleas are less of an issue for humans with that bald thing they've got going on) and something that every person is going to deal with at some point in their lives (if not near-continuously). Combing is also necessary to reduce/eliminate parasite loads.
Elowey also shed their undercoat at a slow, steady pace without seasonal peaks, and living spaces can become clogged with fur without active intervention. Routine brushing for hygiene also helps control a person's shedding, and also allows the hair to be efficiently collected for use in some contexts (some elowey societies use the longer underfur of the mane as a textile source, either as a supplement for more fruitful animal/plant fibers or on its own for special items/garments).
You'll sometimes see people using their teeth on themselves/their children/etc in a pinch, but use of the anatomical tooth comb (flattened/projecting lower incisors) is not instinctual so much as something that comes to mind when no tools are available (or is a cultural practice supplementary to grooming with tools), is not as efficient as anything that can be done by hand, and is sometimes culturally or individually considered to be animalistic/unhygenic or otherwise a social faux pas (it can be kind of similar to using one's saliva for grooming, like how in some contexts it's normal for an adult to lick their fingers to do some quick grooming of their child or how you might resort to using spit to get something gross off you if you don't have water).
For Jazaiti society specifically, under ideal conditions a person should fully bathe with fresh water about once a lunar week (per Jazaiti timekeeping, this is every 8 days), fully dry comb every morning and wet comb every night (lightly dampening fur with water and other cleansers prior to combing it). Multiple different types of combs and brushes are used which have different names (I don't have the names), a wide and fine toothed comb for fur maintenance, a long and very fine toothed comb for deep grooming/louse removal, and a plant fiber/animal bristle brush used for wetting the fur and applying oil or other topical fluids. Combing yourself or others with your teeth is considered animalistic and unbecoming. For Elumuqi Jazait, where the average person may be in frequent contact with seawater, the fur is also oiled during daily wet combing to maintain skin and fur moisture (the traditional all-purpose oil source is from the blubber of small tachywa (dolphin-sized mosasauroids)). Nagualizimuqi Jazait mostly use olive oil for routine self care and reserve tachywa oil for ceremonial purposes. It is a baseline expectation that one comports themselves and represents their clan with dignity, part of which is a clean physical appearance and smell, fur that is tidy and unmatted, and not having fleas visibly jumping all over you.
Ablution of the hands and feet is where the more religious dimensions of hygiene reside. Saltwater and freshwater are both appropriate for ablution. A person with unclean feet can tread a pathway for demons to follow into otherwise guarded areas. One should never wear their outdoor shoes into the home or other protected spaces, and should wash their feet before passing through the entrance (people keep washbasins at the entrances of buildings. The method is to extract basin water into a cup, use this to wipe down both feet, then pour the rest over the hands and scrub). A person has two souls, one of which is continually molded by the world around you and molds it in turn. This one is located in the wrists and hands, and unclean hands can contaminate the people and things around you. Ablution of the hands is a routine necessity. This society is particularly touchy about excretion as a source of pollution. Latrines must be located outside of the home (though many Nagualizimuqi Jazait communities have culturally adapted to having strictly delineated areas of the home for use of a chamberpot, in cases where they're in mixed Jazaiti/Wardi settlements and the practices of the Wardi majority preempt having suitable public latrines), and one is supposed to clean the anus and genitals with water and smooth rocks kept for this purpose and then rinse the hands, or at the very least to not enter the home or engage in several other key activities until this ablution has been completed.
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