Doodled up a simple overview/map of where Becquerel grew up!
Its called Nayru's isles, a semi-small population of zoras live here but also conduct trade with sailors
Lagoon's rise - the main living area of the zoras, a lagoon settled against a mountain where fresh water pours down, a cluster of homes where Becquerel lived - Lagoon's rise is a island elevated slightly with the only way inside is through underwater tunnels, often dark and deep it deters any pirates from attempting to pillage
Nymph's bounty - the largest and densest forest of Nayrus isles, populated by local fauna and a large bounty of different fruit trees
Sailors rest - the lowest flattest beaches for sailors/traders to land to conduct business with the zoras there
Warrior grounds - the least habitable island with monsters hiding on, often used by the zora to train and fight, only for the most skilled warriors to prove metal.
Yesterday I talked about Zora cooking, now it's time for an equally important part of ingestible culture, which is their drinking habits lol
And who better to present it than the ever reliable Zora Guard?
Read more for alcohol-themed lore~~
Zora may not drink for hydration, but recreational purposes are another story altogether. There are a few non-alcoholic options, such as hot or cold herbal infusions or teas (expensive!), but it usually is some kind of alcoholic drink that gets served at a party or gathering.
Zora have much higher tolerance than most other people in Hyrule (unless you ask a Gerudo), mostly on the account of being rather large and their slow-ish metabolism. Thus, if they drink, they drink a lot. And they do have a lot to choose from.
On the weaker side, there's mild rice wine and watered down fruity stuff. It's mostly served with casual meals and is barely considered alcohol at all.
The most popular stuff Zora drink when going out or having a party is a type of herbal spirit, watered down to one's preference (not dissimilar to ouzo or raki) accompanied by various salty snacks.
Then there's a lather large choice of wines made from a wide variety of plants (fruit is a problem when fresh, but fermenting/distilling gets rid of the most problematic bits), mostly favored by the herb haters and some nobles who want to pretend they're better than the commoners.
In theory Zora could drink stuff like beer, ale or mead, but since they don't have much use for the necessary ingredients on the daily basis, they don't really bother sourcing them just for this purpose. After trade went back to normal, some taverns started importing limited quantities as a curiosity.
Of course Zora also make a wide variety of unnecessarily strong distilled spirits, mostly from herbs. This is the kind of drink that's more of a luxury and meant to be consumed in small quantities. Almost all of these are considered a poisoning hazard by most of Hyrule, so you're unlikely to find them outside of the Domain.
Zora don't really have a legal drinking age, though obviously common sense is applied, like, you don't give wine to a baby and shop clerks will think twice before selling hard liquor to someone not looking fully grown. Zora kids usually start getting served milder drinks at home with dinner around the time they hit their final growth spurts (so at 40-60, which would be roughly 14-16 in our years).
The guards, unsurprisingly, tend to drink especially heavily (it is their major bonding activity), to the point that some amount of tavern outings are included in the yearly expenses (Bazz spent two weeks arguing for it with the palace accounting when drafting the Guard budget). On a daily basis they have to buy their own alcohol though, They mostly go for the common herbal spirits and wine, as these have the best price-to-value ratio when one wants to become shitfaced.
Pic 1 is more of a special occasion, which means the drinks are paid for from the Guard budget (it's just the cheap stuff though! Bazz wishes he had something better but then he'd have to buy for everyone and he's not made of money).
Also, a glimpse at the Zora tavern! It's just a big room with a few very long kneel-height tables (the guards stash their weapons and less comfortable armor bits underneath). Drinking is a social activity and the assumption is that you want to have as many friends around you as possible. The cheaper alcohol will be served in bottles or jugs, along with complimentary snacks, while the more high quality stuff is available per glass at a special order.
Bazz is the only one from the Brigade who -drinks-, and he has some rather concerning levels of tolerance. Rivan will sip his one drink throughout the night, but dip once the party becomes too much. He's actually pretty judgemental about Bazz's alcohol habits (especially because he was there once they started and he knows exactly how unhealthy they are) and also really dislikes being hit on by his drunk coworkers. He's also worried about Dunma, who insists on joining the outings for socializing reasons. She used to sit with the other youths, but after some less than pleasant experiences she consistently finds herself flanked by her dad and Gaddison.
Gaddison is probably most normal about alcohol, usually having a few casual drinks throughout the night. She's terrible at the social part though and most people tend to avoid her anyway, so she usually sits at the very edge of the table and either leaves with Rivan and Dunma, or the moment she sees Bazz cross the shitfaced threshold.
(1. she Will Not deal with him in this state; 2. Drunk Bazz is significantly less effective at shutting down people trying to be weird at her)
As for Pic 2, one of the perks of getting Link back in Bazz's life was getting a high quality drinking buddy (before that the best option he had was, funnily enough, Sidon, and usually they'd just end up talking about work anyway).
Bazz has a taste for the most cursed, borderline medicine-adjacent stuff (Link isn't that far off comparing it to paint stripper) and has a sizeable collection stashed in his office. Rivan knows about its existence and every once in a while threatens to pour it all in the Reservoir, heedless of the ecological disaster that would cause.
Pic 3 is just Sidon enjoying a glass of wine while going through some late night paperwork. He's (embarrasingly) not really fond of the herbal stuff and actively repulsed by whatever is in Bazz's glass on any given day. Bazz is well aware of course, so he always offers to share just because he finds Sidon’s poorly hidden wince hilarious.
EDIT: Also for those curious:
Bazz gets really mean when drunk (though it takes him a while to reach that point), Rivan becomes extra affectionate (or he would if he had more than his one drink of the night) and Gaddison gets quiet and might punch you for looking at her wrong. Dunma just has the giggles and Sidon is the emotional type (if it will be happy or sad this time is anybody's guess).
Continuing the fashion theme, let's look at the royals and the non-Hyrule native Zora! And finally have some Sidons, he's been kinda sparse in the loreposting until now.
part 1 - commoners & nobility
part 1.5 - Seggin's outfit history
Read more for fancy fish outfits~~
Let's start with the non-Hyrule Zora! Represented here by Dorephan, Muzu, Yona and Khira, who were all born a fair distance away from Hyrule mainland, in the Necluda Sea Domain.
(I will elaborate on the Sea Zora and other Domains later, let's not make this thing any longer than it absolutely needs to be).
The Necluda Domain is close enough to Hyrule that their jewelry follows more or less similar design conventions (the outfits become less and less familiar the further east you go). The main difference is the metal used (copper and bronze) and common stone colors (purples and reds are common, contrary to Hyrule's blues and greens). Their outfits tend to feature more elements (such as rings, fin tips adornments and torso pieces) and no fabrics.
Family crests exist, but their designs are not gendered, and the practice of combining them is less common. Usually the partner who's lower in status just takes their new spouse's crest as is.
Another crest-related practice is royal servants taking on the crests of the family they serve.
In general, the Necluda Sea jewelry tends to feature more elaborate, intricate designs than Hyrule's and puts more emphasis on extensive chest adornments. The dangling torso pieces are decorated with plates of solid metal to flaunt wealth (metal is much harder to come by in Sea Domains than in Hyrule).
We never see any commoner Zora from this Domain (they don't really travel outside in the first place), which is a shame because their outfits are very different from the upper class. They wear barely any solid metal (only on the neck, if at all, it is really expensive) and their adornments are made from coral, shell and wire.
A guest can go around the Domain in their own adornments (although it's advisable that they remove any royal-coded stuff, such as headwear or pauldrons). If they choose to stay however, they will be asked to dress appropriately as to not stand out. For the Necluda folk this means throwing out basically everything, since even the metal is no longer appropriate.
Dorephan (a Necluda Sea Prince) got a whole new outfit upon his marriage to the Hyrule Domain's Zora Princess. His chest piece was swapped for the decorative engagement armor and an elaborate fabric ensemble on top. He had to lose the rings and the torso plates (Elder Council deemed them "too confusing") but managed to keep the little clips on the tips of his fins and Necluda-typical footwear (though in appropriate silver of course).
He also took on the Hyrule Domain's Royal Crest in its entirety (while Hyrule Zora noble families merge their crests, for the royals it's just the one that remains unchanging).
For Muzu, the new outfit was mostly whatever he was wearing before but in silver. The tail ornament, while purely decorative in Necluda Domain, conveniently fit his new position on the Council, so he could keep it without much trouble. He was also allowed the fin clips, seeing how Dorephan kept his.
The most drastic change was the chest piece, which became just a bit of silk rope denoting his "attendant" role. He really wanted to keep Dorephan's old crest on his neck, but was forced to go back to his family one (which got modified to be more male-coded, and thus appropriate for the Hyrule Domain nobility standards).
(If he was a servant of anyone else the situation would be different, it's just that the Hyrule Zora Council didn't want to have a citizen display allegiance to a whole another foreign power).
Yona's situation is mostly the same as Dorephan's, she has to take a new crest, lose the "weird" parts, wrap herself in silks and swap bronze for silver. She uses Dorephan's precedence to keep the fin clips.
Even her engagement jewelry (the tail ornament) got plated silver to match.
For Khira the required changes were least extreme, she just had to swap her set for a silver one with some minor redesign to fit in better (the damn gendered belts). Just like in Muzu's case, her torso adornment became an "attendant" rope detail. She also returned to her old family crest.
The Mipha illustration is to showcase how big of a deal fabrics are in the Domain! They're extremely expensive (made from fleet-lotus silk which is difficult to harvest and requires ages to spin and process) and limited to royalty and some highest-rank positions in the court (such as High Priests, top military commanders, guild leaders, Elders).
Mipha was quite shocked upon receiving her Champion outfit, it was more fabric than even she (a literal princess) has ever held in her life.
Sidon has multiple jewelry sets and then often forgoes some more annoying armor bits when he feels like he can get away with it (the Council is not amused). In private he basically just wears his neck brace with the royal crest (and the whistle, always the whistle) and a simple belt + arm brace + anklets set. The little feathered aigrette is usually the first to go (the way it attaches makes his forehead itch).
He also has a bunch alternate sets that don't follow his everyday outfit design, usually meant to be worn at casual gatherings or in private.
Back when he was younger and starting to pick up some royal duties he was really self conscious about being taken seriously and one of the ways he tried to remedy this was More Jewelry. In practice it made him feel even less confident and didn't seem to have any effect on the Council's attitude (if they found it pitiful at least they had the decency to not say anything).
The last illustration is mostly to show how different royal wear is from your normal Zora outfit. Bazz is, arguably, a guy with some really expensive taste in jewelry, and even he looks underdressed next to Sidon.
One big difference is the neck brace - both common and nobility Zora both use the same simple design, while the royals wear this big, elaborate construction that lets bits of their (pure, unblemished) neck skin show through (haha).
The exclusivity of fabrics was mentioned already, but it's the same with any headwear (tiaras, headbands, fin ornaments) or armor-inspired shoulder adornments, which are strictly royalty-only in casual wear. Similarly, only royalty is permitted to carry weapons without being dressed in full armor.
Royal belts, arm- and leg braces are of course really big and intricately detailed, but in this regard some nobles aren't that far off with the fanciness of their pieces (Bazz's arm braces are very comparable to Sidon's).
The royals can also wear any number of clip on accessories without any regard for their significance.
For public appearances, it's expected that a royal will wear a full set (neck, royal crest, belt, arms, legs), a fabric ensemble on top, some kind of shoulder wear and a designated headpiece. Ideally one or two more ornaments should be added for more impressive overall effect.
Let's kick off the zora loreposting with something easy. Food! Great excuse to draw my guys having a nice meal.
Read more for my thoughts on Zora cooking~~
Dinner parties are usually held at Rivan's, since he's the only one with any cooking skills and his house is the most convenient. Bazz's place would be much more comfortable for hosting this many people, but then they'd have to include Seggin and no one wants that (Trello is cranky but much less intentionally hostile, so Rivan usually ends up extending the invite to him as well, this is his dad after all).
Zora diet is much less varied than a Hylian's as it is ultimately majorly raw fish/meat based. Most Zora don't even really bother with cooking or seasoning their food - they enjoy the raw taste and texture and don't get sick from parasites and such anyway.
A healthy diet should include some amount of greens, usually kelp and algae but leafy vegetables and herbs also work. Zora can eat small amounts of roots, mushrooms, some grains and some fruit, but they tend to process them via pickling or brining for easier digestion. Rice is a common side/base, even though it doesn't provide much actual nutrition (good for filling up when there's not enough protein though!). Legumes, wheat, milk and stuff heavy in sugar are a hard no for a Zora stomach. Hot spice doesn't cause any serious digestive problems, but consuming it tends to make one -really- snotty which is kinda bad table manners, so it's an acquired taste.
The dish spread I drew is a bit chaotic (flavors don't pair super well and there is way too much variety for a casual meal) but it showcases the main logic of Zora cooking I think.
A proper meal will have a bunch of small dishes, most of them (if not all) cold, and they're meant to be picked at and shared by everyone.
The main course is almost always some kind of raw fish dish (or smoked, if there's no fresh catch available). Rice and seaweed/pickles are offered as sides. Everything is served plain, and vinegar, salt or fish sauce are used to season the meals to one's taste.
For hot dishes, there's various soups, Rice Fried With Things and then fancier stuff like meat steamed in leaves/kelp or herb grilled fish.
No fruit, sugar or wheat means Zora have very limited dessert choices. Most popular are rice cakes (can be sweet or savory) or egg-based puddings of sort.
Zora don't really drink for hydration (they'll get that water in them anyway throughout the day) so beverages are usually just there to compliment the food. A common choice for a casual gathering like this is cold herbal infusion or mild rice wine (Bazz has been explicitly banned from bringing anything stronger than that to Rivan's house).
The spread in the illustration has been mostly prepared by Rivan and Link (the only two people here with actual cooking skills) with minor prep help from Dunma. Trello contributed a jar of pickles, Bazz brought drinks and Gaddison showed up.
So today we're going back 10000 or so years to ask the important question of: where did the Zora even come from? And why are sea-creature-shaped people living so far inland, what's up with that?
Read more for my attempts to rationalize vidyagame aesthetics choices~
As we know from Creating a Champion, the Zora are not actually native to Hyrule, as it is said that they "settled in Lanayru" more than 10 thousands years ago (let's save the question of "is 10k years of living in a place enough to be considered native to it" for another day).
I have major issues with the idea that basically nothing happened over this many years ( BotW and TotK seem to imply that the ancient era wasn't that different from the present day Hyrule), so I allowed myself to mess around with the world and such a bit more than I usually do.
Hyrule used to have a native Zora population - the River Zora. They inhabited wetlands and riverbanks and were semi-sedentary, travelling up- and downstream with the change of the seasons (basically they'd follow fish migration patterns). They could be found around Central Hyrule, Lanayru, Faron or Akkala, though the exact spread varied with climate fluctuations and flooding patterns.
They were roughly Hylian-sized, with the age span of 150/200 years, and lived in small communities of few dozen individuals (usually 2-3 families). They had okay relations with their Hylian neighbors (Hylians weren't too interested in wetlands and Zora didn't care about farmland or forests, so there wasn't much reason for territorial disputes) but would frequently fight each other for best fishing spots of the season.
The River Zora were quite well adapted to living on land - enough so, that aside from tadpolehood they'd rarely go underwater for too long, preferring to hang around in shallow waters. Because of this, their diet included stuff like plants, roots and mushrooms, not just fish and meat.
The River Zora had private homes (sort of, the main construction would be abandoned every season and possibly used by others in this time, but the expectation was that a family would be able to return) and had pretty strong sense of private property; fishing gear, tools, home furnishings etc belonged to an individual or their family and be hauled on rafts from one seasonal dwelling to the next.
They also wore rudimentary clothing, mostly simple capes and hoods, worn for the purpose of shielding from the sun and protecting the gills. Personalized handmade accessories would be crafted from leather, fibres and bronze and then gifted to other members in the community.
In general, save for internal squabbles, the River Zora were happy to chill in their wetlands and follow the patterns of nature. They very much lived in the present; while having extensive oral tradition of storytelling, they didn't really feel the need to create any historical records or even really write at all.
Now the ancient Sea Zora were a very different story.
I'll leave most of their biology for another time, when I go more in depth on saltwater Zora (contrary to River Zora, these guys are still very much around and haven't changed much), but the most important part is that they're Large and Sharp.
The Ocean-born Zora of the old times used to live in large hordes, freely roaming the waters, letting themselves be swept by the currents.
The group would be led by the strongest and most assertive individual and upon their death (or injury) would often split into 3-4 smaller ones, if there was no clear and worthy successor.
While for most it would seem like the Ocean Zora were just wandering aimlessly, they actually were in something like a perpetual state of pilgrimage, from one temple to another.
Now the concept of Zora temples is a whole thing itself that I will elaborate on more once I get to the Religion part of my lore series. For now, in big tldr, the Ocean Zora were (and still are) deeply spiritual, and they externalize it by building giant, elaborate temples. The purpose of the temple is 1. gaining favor with the deity; 2. marking the place as belonging to the Zora people; 3. establishing a fixed point allowing different Zora groups to meet and exchange information/resources/members; 4. storage of historical records; and finally 5. a mark of a Great Deed for the Zora leader who managed to complete a project.
A Temple takes anywhere from 50 to 1000 years to build, depending on location, size/skills of the group and available materials/tools (usually it's around 100-200).
Aside from Temples, the ancient Ocean Zora had little else to ground them, having very nebulous familial bonds and basically no concept of privacy or ownership.
At some point, couple thousands years ago, a group of Ocean Zora split off (succession crisis? territory conflict? not enough resources? who knows) from a bigger horde, went really far west for whatever reason, and made a landing on the shores of the Hyrulean continent. And then, of course, they set out to build a Temple, in the deep underground cave system of Lanayru province.
(The temple was for Nayru, as per custom of gaining favor with the local deity; the Ocean Zora subscribe to a very particular system of polytheism).
The construction took a long time, longer than anybody expected, for many reasons, and so, the new Zora had to occupy themselves with,,, living life in the meantime, which mostly meant getting acquainted with their River cousins.
By the time the Temple project was finished, the new generations of Hyrule-born Zora were no longer able to return to saltwater. If it was because of River blood, freshwater-developed eggs or Hyrule just being a cursed land intent on trapping its inhabitants forever, nobody can tell anymore. The reality was that the Ocean Zora had to suddenly abandon their free-spirited ways of life and find a way to settle in this new land forever. And so they did.
Over the years, they mixed even more with the River Zora, their traits combining into the Hyrulean Zora of the present day. The Ocean lineages quickly established themselves as dominant (they were bigger, stronger, had better weapons and were good at organising large groups) and slowly the River Zora either integrated completely or were pushed further and further out, until finally they were completely gone as a separate people. Eventually, the Hyrulean Zora community became as we know it today, concentrated in Lanayru's Domain, in the city that has since been constructed around the Temple that started it all.
The Ocean Zora also gradually lost their old ways of life, embracing parts of River culture (some sense of privacy & personal property, the idea of family units) and Hylian ways of managing things (such as establishing a royal line and a nobility class, having a specialized military and guilds etc).
While the freshwater trait seems to prevail over anything else (when a Hyrulean Zora has a kid with an Sea Zora the kid will always be freshwater, maybe with some salt tolerance), the Ocean blood seems to be almost equally as strong in terms of general physical appearance. The more specific Ocean traits such as extra fins, more vibrant colors or elongated features are less commonly passed down, but well-regarded if they manifest. All River traits (translucent webbing, face fins, dappling) seem to have disappeared completely, save for the little dots on Zoras' limbs and tails.
So yeah! The Hyrulean Zora are a mix between River and Ocean Zora, and thus kinda,,, uniquely neither. Zoras from other Domains call them Upstream (if they're nice) or Lake (if less so).
The Zora Royal Family looks so distinct from other citizens not for some magical royal reasons, it's just that importing foreign partners from Ocean Domains makes them have more Ocean blood and thus higher likelihood of manifesting Ocean-specific traits (size, unique features, uncommon scale colors). It is done on purpose, to justify the divine right to rule and stuff. Hence the arranged marriages and "you have to have a wife/husband to be crowned".
All the stuff about the Ocean Zora doesn't really apply to modern day saltwater Zora really, they've mostly transitioned to the Domain way of living. Some pilgrim-nomad groups still exist though! It's just much less common.
I might have mentioned that Seggin is one of my favourite guys to use for exploring some more high concept Zora lore. Here he is modelling for my musings on Zora casual/military wear.
Read more for details~~
First pic, going from top left.
Bazz - he's here in his standard casual set mostly for reference. He's actually a bit shorter and bulkier than Seggin was at his age (he might have that Seggin Look, but some of his mom's genes do show through).
Young adult (casual outfit) - very standard look for a young man of a highborn family. Includes arm and ankle braces, elaborate belt and (most prominently) really fancy neck piece showcasing the family crest. It's common for nobility to have multiple jewelry pieces of each type and swap them around for fashion reasons. The family crest always stays though.
(By the way, this jewelry logic is specific to nobility. Royals have their own, different ways and common born folk usually don't bother with most of this stuff at all).
Young adult (standard issue armor) - Seggin joins the army at the usual age of around 70 and thus gets outfitted in the standard armor. He has to use the basic design belt, as at this rank he's not allowed to stand out.
Adult (married) - Seggin gets arranged married to another highborn military Zora, Yatga, in his 110s (more details on the wedding later in comments to pic 2).
Non-royalty Zora women follow the princesses in giving their fiances "armor" as an engagement gift. "Armor" is usually a custom jewelry piece, bigger and more elaborate depending on the woman's wealth. Yatga's "armor", the belt adornments, is actually rather modest for her social standing, as her family doesn't possess that much cash (part of the reason why she got married to much wealthier but lower status Seggin).
Additionally, their family crests get combined into a new one to signify a creation of a new household.
Seggin's casual outfit now includes his engagement adornments and a new crest on his necklace. He keeps his belt with an old crest, which isn't that uncommon. With a bit of heraldry knowledge you can tell a highborn Zora's life story just looking at their jewelry~
Adult (Royal Knight) - Seggin is talented (and good looking) enough to get assigned to the royal knight branch of the military (in the past the Zora army was much more extensive with many specialized branches, after the Calamity it shrunk to just the Guard).
The royal knight armor is purely ceremonial and is only worn for looking good around the palace. This time Seggin is allowed to keep his personal belt jewelry.
Adult (early Calamity - Sergeant) - Seggin dons the standard armor once again, as it is the more practical outfit. He is now high enough rank to keep the fancy belt, but ditches the engagement "armor". At this point in time his wife is already dead, their relationship was never particularly good and the bulky adornments aren't great for fighting.
Adult (late Calamity - acting Captain) - Seggin was never anyone's first choice for a commander, but he proved astonishingly difficult to kill (despite his best efforts) and eventually kinda found himself the highest rank officer left on the battlefield. He's wearing a captain's finned helmet and a captain's sash fashioned in the improper way (as it was not officially bestowed on him) taken from some poor deceased superior.
Adult (post-Calamity) - after a few years spent exclusively in armor, Seggin is back to a casual outfit. It's basically the same as his married one, minus the engagement adornments.
Adult (Guard Captain) - after the Calamity the army is decimated and the Zora have only enough resources to keep one branch functional - the Domain Guard. Seggin gets the Captain position by default, as he is the most experienced soldier left available. The Captain armor is a cross between functional and ceremonial; it has to signal power and status (it is the Domain Guard, part of the job is intimidating the citizens) but also be comfortable enough for actual fighting. Seggin keeps his personal belt, as usual.
Elder (Council member) - current day Seggin, after getting forcibly retired from his Guard Captain position. The outfit consists of casual jewelry (although the necklace has become more elaborate) with the Council member sash on top. The sash is tied in the way reminiscent of the Guard Captain style (it's customary for councilmen to fashion them after their previous positions) and is decorated with a "military" brooch. As an elder, Seggin can now also wear a tail adornment.
Pic 2 - the wedding of Seggin and Yatga.
The highborn Zora life kinda sucks when it comes to relationships, as they have to navigate a very annoying set of social expectations and arranged marriages are the norm.
Seggin's and Yatga's marriage is a clear example of this - they had no interest in each other outside of some respect in terms of fighting skills. Her family was extremely high status in social terms (ties to royalty, Ocean blood, long history) but not too wealthy, Seggin's was less fancy but held considerably more actual wealth. Yatga got married off as soon as it was proper (at 100), while Seggin was a bit older (late 110s).
They were married under Nayru (the most proper, old way, typical for the high nobility. no divorces.) in the military custom, so armor + best jewelry + (in Seggin's case) engagement "armor". Yatga's wearing a cape, as she already holds a minor position in the Zora Diplomatic Mission to Hebra.
Their family crests got combined into a new one (or, technically, two, as every crest has a male and female design, another annoying part of the highborn culture) and they both had to swap out their old necklace centerpieces (it's even part of the ceremony and all).
(Seggin's old family crest is still in use actually, but in female version, as his younger sister did the smart thing and never married. They're no contact though so who knows what she's up to these days).
After the wedding Yatga waited for the first moment having a kid wouldn't be too inconvenient, stayed with baby Bazz just until it was mostly sure he would survive tadpolehood, and immediately ditched the whole family business to go back to Hebra (possibly with the person she actually liked). Seggin was, if anything, a bit offended, but ultimately took it well, as he had no interest in relationships in the first place. All this resulted in Bazz being raised by the extended family and later Rivan's parents.
Pic 3 - since I was in Seggin mood I drew a little scene of the man showing actual genuine warmth. Shame it's not your son, dude >:U The princess already has at least two dads, she doesn't need you unlike -some- other kids.
Bazz works so hard~ by now he probably spends more time in admin than doing actual like, guarding things,,, stuff.
Read more for my thoughts on Zora paperwork~
The theme is paperwork bc its what loosely connects these three unrelated drawings lol. Can you tell I wasn't very focused today.
Pic 1: The cut content from the army branches/ranks post, was supposed to show Rivan wearing his Lieutenant badge, but I got distracted by the opportunity to draw Bazz's office.
Rivan being lieutenant is very convenient for Bazz, since there’s very few people he trusts more, and he needs someone capable of taking over whenever he's away. Despite his goofy sunshine personality, Rivan is actually one of the more competent guards with lots of field experience, and people tend to listen to him just because he's too damn likeable.
He is completely hopeless at dealing with anything management or politics related though, so he can't be left in charge for too long. Maybe when the times are calmer.
Pic 2: What even is all this paperwork that Bazz keeps complaining about? Most of it is just really, really boring reports. Every Guard intervention in the city, monster patrol, suspicious activity, it all has to be diligently reported. Bazz then takes the reports, cringes at all the typos, and summarizes them into one big daily/weekly/monthly report that will be presented at a Council meeting. Aside from that there's training regimens, guard rotations for the week, inventory, reassignments, budgeting...
We can't forget the matter of actually being the -City- Guard either; a concerned/hurt civilian is supposed to turn to them for immediate help, and then it's decided if the case needs to be elevated or not (oftentimes this kind of legal proceedings generate the most paperwork).
Given the sheer volume of things that need to be written down, Zora actually do use paper quite a lot, it being by far the most convenient medium for daily use. Anything deemed worthy of long-term storage (in Guard's case e.g. monthly reports, yearly budgets, more significant legal cases) is sent to a scriptorium to be transferred to stone tablets.
Bazz is actually quite well liked by the scribes for being very succinct in his documentation. There's a dartboard with Sidon's face on it.
Haven't seen you in a while, Torfeau! She's the one who most often handles Bazz's paperwork delivery bc she's a good egg who doesn't read important correspondence.
Also an end-of-day Bazz's desk looks almost clean, wow.
Pic 3: While the required Guard paperwork seems overwhelming, it's pretty manageable once you get the hang of it and is not actually the case of Bazz's chronic lack of sleep. That would be snooping around in old government archives and making personal copies of anything that looks interesting, or is off-limits (which makes it automatically interesting). He just likes knowing stuff, okay???? No other particular reason >:U
Gaddison is the only person (to Bazz's knowledge) who knows the full extent of this operation, and she kinda begrudgingly respects it, just on the account of the audacity. Sidon has Suspicions, but something tells him to not look too closely.
+as a bonus, I recorded a timelapse of the bazz&rivan pic! its a mess bc I kept forgetting things and then its not even for the final version bc I remembered that cast shadows are a thing like. next day.
I'm too tired for any actually involved lore today, so all you get is this sketch of the Bazz Brigade in their teenage pre-Guard years. And they definitely had Reputation lol
They're like around ther early 50s here, so the time when young Zora are assigned some easier jobs or start pursuing apprenticeships.
Rivan and Gaddison help out with fishing, while Bazz is doing the rich kid's path of getting formal education and being spear trained by Seggin.
In their free time they're your typical teenage gang of punks who bother everyone smaller than them just because they can. Rivan's the instigator most of the time, while Bazz is the one who makes sure they don't get into any actual trouble. The boys being a nuisance was actually what lured Gaddison back to them (she's been doing her own thing until now) - with her pretty terrible reputation, loitering with equally bad-behaving old friends sounded honestly great.
They all had their reasons for acting out actually, Bazz's being (unsurprisingly) his father, who at this point was very actively pursuing a political career in the (very unstable) Zora Court. Which made him even more annoying to be around, and Bazz had to be around him for the spear training.
Gaddison was a mess ever since the Calamity wiped out both her home and her whole family in Goponga. Her childhood was kinda just being passed around between overloaded communal care places and then getting kicked out of different sharehouses for "bad behavior".
Rivan, out of the three of them, had the most normal family and went through the war with minimal trauma, he was kinda just living his life vaguely assuming he'd follow in his mom's healer footsteps.
So when she died suddenly, while helping out a Guard unit during a monster control misson, it was a real shock to both him and his dad. Trello got incredibly depressed (and finally started letting Seggin's talking points get to him) and Rivan just found himself angry and aimless. Taking the medicine path suddenly didn't sound so obvious, and what's worse, the neighbourhood kinda assumed he'd take over his mother's community organising duties (she was one of those people who hold the whole thing together with a smile on their face). He couldn't do it, everybody got mad, he failed the med apprenticeship qualifiers (didn't even try to prepare), his dad got mad, and then there was no other opportunities because Trello was to wrapped in his own issues to help him out.
At least his oldest friend was equally upset with his place in the world, so Bazz Brigade was back online, kinda. Definitely not under this name though.
Bazz being able to wave the "do you know who my father is" card around was definitely something that made this whole troublemaking thing possible. Both Rivan and Gaddison were initially conflicted on the ethics of it (it's objectively wrong to abuse your social standing to avoid consequences! also you don't even like him. hypocrite.) but they had to admit it was nice to finally not be bothered about acting out.
Seggin never liked Rivan much, but this made him absolutely despise him and his "bad influence" on Bazz (lol. look who's talking).
