Adelian Culture

The culture of Adel varies and is influenced by geographic location and climate conditions, by political development, by past history, among many things. But some common threads can be found that can produce a working knowledge of a world culture in Adel. Adel is a colossal expanse of land, but the continent is united in general despite being divided by national borders, and patterns of culture have spread across its entirety.

Heroes And Legends

Adel has a vast history of songs, poetry, artwork, and stories both written and passed on by oral culture. These all have to do with the major themes of life in Adel. The mysterious past, the fear of a looming cataclysm, the black expanse beyond the sky, the ancient ruins and remnants, the valor and cunning of legendary heroes and heroines, their mythological enemies, and the majesty and inscrutability of the Spirits, are all major subjects of stories.

The great heroes in Adel’s stories delve into the unknown places of the world, into the deepest jungles, coldest mountains, the centers of lifeless wastelands, and even into mythical islands beyond the sea, above the sky or into the shadows of the underworld. Heroes in stories are loved by everyone, and they find great treasures and slay evil beasts.

Many people who seek the dangerous life of the dungeon delver, the soldier or occult scholar, find themselves unable to cope with the hardships and reality of the experience because they have been raised on a sensationalized view. They may become jaded, turning to banditry or the underworld to sell their sword or wand in service to something more material – wealth. But others succeed, becoming the next great legend of Adel.

Adventurers And Attitudes

The common person in Adel is not a combatant or adventurer, but neither is he or she weak. Nearly every person knows a way to defend him or her self if personally threatened. The people of Adel spent hundreds of years perfecting ways to destroy each other, beginning with the early war-like cultures, then the age of the empires, then the Intolerable War. Many know martial arts, and these are still taught to children.

Clergy in Adel tends to serve many purposes. They offer aid and relief, medical services, they are missionaries, they serve food to the hungry; they can just as easily be assassins or subversive persons depending on their beliefs and organization. Clergy are some of the most common sorts of adventurers in Adel because their empowerment by the Spirits makes them the most trusted of the many who inhabit Adel. They are often sanctioned by their churches to go on expeditions to any strange or dangerous places, often supervising or leading groups of less trustworthy mercenaries.

Military and guard forces are just as often sent on task to do dangerous work. It is they who keep the peace from common threats such as animals, undead and lower forms of magical beasts. They are quite capable at their job, and Adel is a safer place for it. Villages aren’t razed by monsters every day – they are not points of light in a sea of darkness.

Most of Eden’s conflict is created by powerful individuals and organizations, due to ideology or interests. More often than not, the creatures doing what could be considered “truly evil” deeds are spirits or monsters who either know no better or can do nothing more. The world or their own inherent attitude pulls and pushes them towards those acts. Rarely do non-spirits act purely in the interest of evil or destruction – it is often a more personal motivation that will lead to immoral or dangerous acts.

Spirits And Religion In Adel

Spiritual reverence is the norm for anyone’s life. The vast, overwhelming majority of people in Adel worship multiple spirits that touch on their lives in multiple ways. Every village keeps a spirit shrine for their local guardian spirit, where the spirit lives and can be sought for help. A spirit becomes a figure in the village, and almost like a part of everyone’s family. Such spirits help with education and offer other minor magical benefits. Larger cities have spirits that hold special places in city councils or in the mayor or sheriff’s offices. The spirits tend to have characters that reflect the area – a local spirit of a small village might be slightly sheltered, but friendly, while that of a massive trade spot might be cynical, worldly and wily, or at least come off like it.

Almost all spirits look very human-like. They have human-like faces, bodies, relative sizes, hair, two arms, two legs. Depending on their purview, they also have signs of their divinity, some of which they can hide. They may have wings, they may be surrounded by glowing motes of light or burning fires or clouds of floating snowflakes. They may have tentacles or fins or long tails for sea spirits. They may have weapons embedded into their bodies.

The Greater Spirits are the closest that polytheistic Adel has to real “gods.” Every person has religious allegiance to at least one Greater Spirit, and usually holds it above the other of the Nine, but there are any number of minor local spirits, or even groups of spirits, that a person might also worship. A farmer might worship “the spirits of the earth”, in general, along with Paikar, the greater spirit of nature. He also worships the local Spirit for his village, whom he is likely good friends with, and perhaps one rain spirit that he met on a trip into the forest, and asked for its name to be able to send prayers to later on. Spirits, if they are friendly, will often yield their names this way.

Discussing how Adel’s culture affects Spirits is complex. Many spirits, such as Ainyu, are full-fledged members of Adel’s cultures and act indistinguishably from the normal folk. Otherwise “wild” spirits like Muikara can sometimes be seen wearing clothes and bartering with people in cities, owning property, or even becoming married to people and living with them, even producing offspring with mortals. A spirit can be recruited by a village to serve as a local guardian, though many villages often have a genealogy of guardians dating back hundreds of years, with the descendants of the first local spirit still watching over them.

Yet many more spirits hide from the people of the world and continue living as they always have, enigmas in the eyes of Adel’s societies. That said, most spirits do live in the wild and have nothing to do with Adel’s culture. They give boons, touch lives randomly and mysteriously, and continue to act as spirits have, inspiring awe and devotion in people. Adel’s societies for the most part know where they are not meant to encroach, and nature is ready to punish them if they try to stretch their boundaries.

It is considered dangerous and unfortunate to have to fight a Spirit – and considered a great taboo to actually kill one. Often, a beating within an inch of life, and then an oath, will be the deciding factor in a dispute between a person and a spirit.

Necessities And Luxuries

Clothing in Adel tends to be simple for the common folk. Modest cloth robes and robe-like garments, tied with hard belts or with sashes, are common wear among the normal folk. Simple undergarments are also typically worn. Women tend to wear more colorful clothing, often robes and other garments with red or yellow colors and patterns and matching sashes, while men will wear plainer clothing with of a single set of colors. Leather or cloth shoes and sandals, or sturdy boots, are common footwear.

Among the elite, suits and coats with vests, shirts, cravats, fancy hats and sleek shoes show off distinct social class. Athirua fashions, bold and sensual, are in vogue with high-class women – open-back, sleeveless, long dresses that tie around the neck, short or side-slitted skirts, filmy see-through clothing, all are popular among the bolder girls. Athirua themselves have always worn less substantial and more open clothing than others because of their origins in the tropics, their lifestyle as nomadic entertainers and general dislike of burdensome clothing, but their habits have become the fancy of many others.

Food in Adel varies among cultures. Rice is ubiquitous and Amaranth is a key food item. Red meat is very rarely consumed, as cattle is typically used for milk which is another important component of the average diet. Milk is widely used and almost central to the diet. Fowl are used for their eggs and sometimes their meat. Insects supply a lot of protein, particularly for Adelian children who are often told to go into the fields and pick off insects from plants and eat them, as a game (and snack). Nuts, berries and fruits are foraged for or grown. Corn, cabbage, potatoes, roots, citrus, wheat, beans and lentils are common crop, while tomatoes and grapes are often considered to be more high-fetching luxury items. Rare herbs, flowers and other plants from dangerous or secluded locations can turn a man’s fortunes instantly around if sold to interested parties, often arcanists.

Technology:

Eden is, for the most part, functioning on a relatively middle age scale of technology. Horse carriages are common transport, grain mills are still in service, and the concept of a factory is somewhat alien. However, it has a few distinct applications of spirit magic, alchemy, and the arcane in general that give it a more modern feel. One example is that a combination of alchemical products, wood and coal burning and spirit energy keep the major cities warmed and alight in Eden. Many household items in major cities are built with special rune-encrusted receptors which allow them to work off of essence – but the main sources of fuel for such items are arcane chemicals.

Arcane Chemicals, when in contact with an Alchemical Prism, produce kinetic energy. Prism Engines are very large rune-encrusted boxes, powering animated carriages and Prism Floats – large basket-like vehicles with large Prism engines at the top providing flight energy. They also power Sweepsails, ships that fly with kite-like steel sheets in place of sails. Arcane Chemicals are a cocktail of minerals and plant oils prepared by special rites. Aside from being used to fuel engines, they can be encased into ammunition fired with rifle-like shotstaffs or cannons. Prism Vehicles tend to be the exclusive purview of the military and economic interests of the world. Due to the unsure nature of producing a Prism Engine, they aren’t terribly common, though not rare either.

Another interesting arcane device is the Voice-Box, invented in Andaliel, a desk-size object with an Alchemical Prism and spirit energy receptors that allows for quick magical broadcasting of voice over wide areas. It has no real speakers or anachronistic parts – it just generates sound in thin air. A Voice-Box has a number of “Slave-Boxes” which can’t broadcast, but can receive broadcasts. The main Voice Box is designed to be able to target these with its magic and deliver the sound. Voice Boxes are rare and controlled.

Not everyone knows how they work, and as such, even a villager who has seen one may be forever fascinated and wondering what magic powers it. Even the people who make them aren’t entirely sure how they work, and they pray and burn incense and perform other esoteric rituals to appease the spirits of steel and invention and magic, to insure proper functionality. Superstition reigns.

Minor spirits are used in major cities, and sometimes out in the villages, in much the same practical ways. Small spirit shards and fire pekor bugs are collected in globes and used to light homes and streets. Water spirits are used to aid in irrigation, and in certain places, even to maintain sewage systems. Most don’t enjoy the job, but welcome being around mortals as something fancy and interesting.

Calendar:

The yearly calendar of Eden has 12 months, each with 30 days. Day naming is not treated very specially – the standard is to refer to a day by its number of the week, for example, Firsday, Secunday, Thirday, Fourday, Fiveday, and so on. Some nations have their own local standards carried over from local traditions, but these rarely matter as a whole in comparison to the universal standards. The order of the months is as follows:

1st – Dawnmoon (Ainyu)
2nd – Azuremoon (Damakran)
3rd – Feymoon (Iomadi)
4th – Greenmoon (Cuporo)
5th – Firemoon (Athirua)
6th – Spiritmoon (Setah)
7th – Songmoon (Anpe, Elf)
8th – Greymoon (Inaw)
9th – Devilmoon (Rhonnu)
10th – Darkmoon (Dromidae)
11th – Coldmoon (Dwarf)
12th – Duskmoon

There are numerous holidays and festivals throughout the year, most notably the “appearance day” of each greater spirit. The new year’s eve is a religious holiday but not celebrated. Rather it is a day of quiet contemplation and reverence. There are two gift-giving days, one in Firemoon and one in Duskmoon. The first is a lover’s holiday where people give their sweethearts a token of affection, whereas the second is a child’s holiday where the parents and elders hand the children rewards for their growth and good behavior during the year. Each major race has a racial holiday in one of the months.