Old Faith courting and favour
I decided to write out some of the old faith courting rituals since I'm art blocked at the moment and I have Ideas. A lot of these will be based off of the sorta Victorian era way of flirting since I enjoy all of the little secret languages they had.
First off fan language. I like to think this predates the bishops, and they learned how to do it from their predecessors. There's a lot of issues with followers claiming favoritism and dissenting if one of the gods is seen flirting in the open, so they devised a way to communicate with their favored without judgement. i imagine this is the one that Narinder tends to favor since theres a few signals in the real life one that can convey if someone is listening in or following you, and I imagine that the practicality of it made that on more appealing, Also pretty boy with a pretty fan. obviously
Flower language. What god wouldn't give their favored a gift afterall? Flower language is the same as it is in real life, with the added layer of combining flowers to covey particular messages to the recipient. i imagine that the container in which it is given also plays a factor but not that much. i imagine to some degree all of the bishops used this way at least once, whether it was for flirting or not (death threats in the form of nightshade on your doorstep)
Gems and Jewelry. Different gems carry different meanings, the metal tells intent, and the type of jewelry shows who you received it from (so necklace for hekets cult, earrings for kallamars, etc.) Gold is usually given with the intent to marry (romance doesn't matter) and silver is given to those you consider close, whether it be family or friend. gems usually contain the qualities you admire within someone, So and example would be if you admired someone for eloquence and had intent to marry, you would give them a gold and emerald ring. Obviously Kallamar favors this method the most, and cares very little if people see that he favors someone above the rest. He typically gives pearl jewelry to people with specific colours depending the person. Also the jewelry type thing being cult related is a very loose rule, its just a fun thing the cultists decided on their own.
Fruit! its fig incident time (kinda). so you know how figs are typically associated with fertility? Well in old faith terms, offering someone a fig implied an invitation to bed and eating a fig out of someone's hand was akin to telling them to take you then and there. Hekets preferred method of courting, right up their with lavish feasts and specially cooked meals. i personally feel like shes too blunt a person for a proper courting phase so she just tends to get to the point rather quick. (theres a narilamb fig scene I have planned that I can't figure out how to explain but now yall have a basis to go off of so feel free to imagine)
Anyway thats all the ideas I had so far. Hope you guys like them! I'll always take suggestions though so don't be afraid to shoot me an ask :]
