Is it weird to say I like hearing about Spark? XD Anyways, I was thinking about what to Ask next and I realized I don't actually remember talking all that much about Illfezzazi culture. So why don't I spam you about that next? XD
Illfezzazi culture, if it were to be boiled down to a single sentence, would be “Life is beautiful”.
The nation spans quite a varied terrain, from scorching desert to dense forests to open plains, due in part to the secession of the western coast of Bondelan during the Imperial Civil War several centuries earlier. The secession and joining with mainland Illfezzaz led to short-lived cultural upheaval, as aspects of Bondelanni society were incorporated and adapted to Illfezzaz. The region is still more reserved than the rest of Illfezzaz, but they have largely shed the more restrictive societal aspects of their former empire.
For comparison to the real world, Illfezzaz has some aspects of Arabic styling, as one might expect from a desert-based culture, with some Brazilian and Scandinavian elements as well. There are more days of celebration throughout the year than anywhere else in the Coral Sea, large parades and feast days filled with music and brightly-colored costumes and decorations. Jazz is popular, but it hasn’t taken as strong a hold on the region as it has on other parts of the known world.
There is a passion for life and living it to the fullest, and the greatest taboo in Illfezzazian culture is to impede someone in what makes them happy - with the exceptions of murder and rape, of course. This is a double-edges sword, of course, in that what would be the criminal element in other civilized nations is accepted as a part of culture. Drugs, prostitution, gambling, and other vices are all legal, and some areas of larger cities have become seedier as a result. Most Illfezzazi take this in stride, but there are some elements who wish to have something done about such unsavory types.
The nation is ruled by the Bega’liph, a hereditary title that has - allegedly - remained within the same family for over one thousand years, passing from son to daughter to son. Any citizen may meet with the Bega’liph and tell them exactly what they feel and face no reprisal. Governing itself is done jointly by the Bega’liph and a small parliament chosen from the nine largest cities every ten years. On a more local level, towns and cities generally run themselves with a mayor and town council.
They like their food spicy, and their clothing loose and flowing. Gender and sexuality are almost entirely non-issues in Illfezzazi society, it’s citizens allowed to marry and spend their lives with whomever they want, providing it’s consensual, of course. One of the few places where gender comes across is in the names - Unmarried women have the “en’ modifiers before their surname, while umarried men have the ‘el’. Upon marriage, both men and women lose these modifiers, replacing them with ‘ez’. There is no taking of the spouses surname, unless for some reason one desires to. This is an odd notion, however, to most Illfezzazi, who have difficulty understand why someone would want to change their name when they’d spent so many years getting used to it.