My Fantasy RPG World, Feedback and Ideas appreciated

I haven't figured out the specific traits of deep giants, I just thought of them today.

Perhaps it is boring but Scarterran giants are not front loaded with exotic powers. Scarterran giants are giant sized. That is the alpha and omega of their special abilities. All giants were created to be servant races of the First Age dragons, but most giants went independent when dragon civilization collapsed.

Brute giants are like big sasquatches and peaceful dispositioned. Scale giants are reptilian humanoids and are generally belligerent. Sea giants are giants with gills.

I am not familiar with Arlong Park is. I'm a pretty casual anime viewer. I think Scarterran sea giants might look kind of like the Sea King from One Punch Man minus the creepy heart shaped nipples.

Just a recap in case you don't have an encyclopedic memory of my entire thread, but Scaraqua is primarily populated by four native races of aquatic humanoids.

Merfolk - Fish People
Astalakians - Crab People
Karakhai - Shark People
Ojiongo - Cephalopod People

All other Scaraquans combined (including sea giants) probably amounts to a smaller population number than any of the four peoples listed above. So far I have sea dragons, sea giants, frog goblins and seaclopes.

I guess sea giants are essentially land creatures that adapted to the sea.

I am still brain storming the specifics, but Scaraqua is certainly going to have some of terrifyingly large cephalopod monsters and the will be called kraken. I'm not 100% sure what they will look like. They might just look like giant squid with creepily expressive human-like eyes, or they might be something more overtly fantastic looking. What I do know is that kraken are going to be large, very malevolent, very clever, and very magically potent.

So on land, Greymoria is my Neutral Evil deity. In a lot of cases she is the goddess sized version of a bratty child throwing a tantrum. She is jealous that the other deities, especially Mera are loved more than she is. So Greymoria creates a bunch of monsters to punish the people for not loving her. This of course makes mortals love her even less. Rinse and Repeat throughout infinity.

All my deities have a split personality. Taedi is Greymoria's sea-based alter ego. Taedi is still evil, but she represents a more adult evil than Greymoria's tantrums. I'm still working on the specifics, but I suppose Ursula the sea witch is a reasonable base line. Maybe Taedi has a dash of mad scientist who doesn't think through the long term implications of her brilliant schemes.

The ojiongo, or squid people are Taedi's chosen people. Compared to other Scaraquans, ojiongo get a substantial mental attribute bonus merfolk, astalakians, and karakhai and they have a greater magical aptitude. By all rights the ojiongo should be ruling the seas and they would be the first to tell you this.

The problem is the ojiongo have too many captains not enough sailors. At any given point, there are probably at least two hundred ojiongo megalomaniacs working on their "foolproof plan" to take over Scaraqua, but they spend more time thwarting other ojiongo than they do dominating the "inferior" Scaraquan races. As a result, most of the truly powerful political figures are merfolk.

I figure kraken are very similar, only they are bigger and stronger and more patient. Ojiongo have about fifty years to make their mark before they succumb to old age. I figure kraken have roughly a millennia before they succumb to old age. I don't know how many kraken I'll have a dozen, a hundred, a thousand, but like their smaller cousins are they are going to be stymied by fighting with each other.

That all being said, I'm not sure what kind of scheme a hyper intelligent giant squid would hatch if she was a powerful sorceress and could reasonably expect to live over nine centuries. My first thought is that they use their magic to give boons to lesser Scaraquans and make Faustian bargains in exchange for favors, but if that is the case, there really isn't much reason to make them giant sized though I suppose even patient schemers have to throne down for the cephalopod equivalent of fisticuffs eventually.

I'm still working on the specifics but at some point in the distant past, the goddess Taedi thought it would be a good idea to create a sea monster so large that it makes a great white shark look like a guppy by comparison. Not a kraken, the Kraken with a capital K. The Kraken was too destructive and eventually the other sea deities had to intervene before the Kraken destroyed everything. The modern kraken are either going to be distant offspring or the Great Kraken or they are going to have sprung from the Great Kraken's corpse.

 

I respectively disagree.

I like this kraken from the MTG wiki better than



A lot better than Tidal Kraken from the MTG card. It's a little too human for my taste \/



Something like these would be more to my liking \/

I do like the big and smart combo, but it's not a huge subversion of expectation because I am hardly the first person to make intelligent squid monsters. Among other things, real cephalopods are pretty clever. By some accounts one species of squid is considered by some scientists to be the smartest animal on Earth other than humans. Unfortunately for the, they don't live very long so their capacity for learning is limited.

I also figured since real cephalopods have a wide variety of unusual abilities like chameleon power, detachable limbs, and ink shooting that it would make sense to make cephalopods highly magical.

Yeah, most of the dragons died in the First Unmaking and the wars that preceded the First Unmaking. There were at least a hundred million dragons. Their population recovered a bit in the Second Age but they were limited by elves and other smaller races competing with them for living space.

Then the Second Unmaking killed most of the dragons again. So at their peak in the First Age, there were probably around a hundred million dragons. Now in the Feudal Era of the Third Age there are probably about 10,000 dragons world wide, give or take (though I can retcon this demographic to something else later). Probably about a 40% live on land full time, 20% live in the sea full time and 40% are amphibious but I figure most amphibious dragons spend a majority of their time in the sea.

That is a very good idea.

I figured kraken would be a competitor to dragons. This made me think this could be another injustice heaped on poor Greymoria. Greymoria has created a bunch of races with the goal of them killing a bunch dragons, and the dragons overcome them all pretty easily.

Taedi is a lot less hostile to dragons and she accidentally creates a race of monsters that can consistently kill dragons. Technically Taedi and Greymoria are the same person but they are also not, it's sort of a Zeus/Jupiter thing.

I figure that since Kraken are methodical plotters, if they wanted to cull the dragon population they would probably set up traps for young dragons or arrange raids on dragon nests rather than try to kill fully grown adult dragons. That is a major limiting factor on Scarterran dragons. Young dragons are powerful, but they are not as powerful as they think they are, so they do a lot of reckless things. That's why dragons tend to have have five or six eggs per litter. They are lucky if one survives long enough to reach sexual maturity. That is without manipulative kraken putting danger into the path of young dragons.

Good point, I very recently came up with a new original monster, I'd like to tell everyone about. It's a floating orb of eyes with sharp teeth! I call it Ocumatus (singular) Ocumati (plural). It's based on the Latin and Greek words for "eyes".

But due to oddities with the Draconic language, the pronunciation is counterintuitive from the spelling in English. It is actually pronounced BEE-WHOLE-DUR.

Draconic spelling grammar rules are weird, what are you going to do?

 

I'd be interested to read it!

There's some weird stuff going on behind the scenes with Wizards of the Coast, so I'm going to hold off on giving them more of my money for the next year or two.

I did originally create Scarterra to be 3.5 edition setting but I was also concurrently working on a d10 system for fantasy and my friends all pointed, "Instead of doing two separate home brew projects, why not make Scarterra in d10?" That fits because it's easier to throw out things in D&D I don't like.

Rather than reinvent the wheel and make a 5th edition D&D world perfectly conform with Scarterra, I would settle for just overhauling the divine stuff and leaving the rest of D&D intact for simplicity.

The Nine is the the true foundation of my lore. Almost anything else I'd be willing to let slide for a D&D adaptation.

I have some metaphorical fires to put out in my real life that is taking a lot of my time up, but I'm hoping either this summer or autumn to try using video conferencing to run a second Scarterran RPG campaign online. Scheduling will be difficult with people in different time zones but it's something I'd like to try.

Anyone who has read this thread would be welcome to join such a hypothetical game. You know, if they learned the d10. But it's all there for free online. Character creation rules is less than 700 words. Basic dice mechanics, less than 3000 words.

But really 90% of the mechanics are summed up in this very short article.

The Golden Rule of Dramatic Dice Systems

If specific rules don't exist for the specific situation you are in or do you want to bog down a gaming session looking something up, come up with an attribute + ability pairing and a difficulty, then roll it.

 

Perhaps it's not important to others, but I prefer my fictional worlds to have economies that make sense. I am pleased that the Youtube channel Deep Geek has recently posted videos on how the Hobbit economy worked, How Mordor's economy worked, how the Elf economy worked, and the like. Tolkien's background was in linguistics not economics, but he was detail oriented enough that he provided enough details to let others fill in the blanks.

Anyway, here is my basis for Scarterran economy. I watch and/or read a lot of material on medieval and classical history so I was able to base this largely on how real pre-industrial farming worked with some small tweaks.

When I get around to figuring out Scaraquan farming, I will have to make up more "facts".


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How do most Scarterrans feed themselves?

A majority of Scarterrans are subsistence farmers with small parcels of land allocated to them from their local lord, or less commonly owned outright by small family units.

The basics of small family farms are pretty universal for humans, elves, dwarves, and gnomes and other civilized folk. Different regions might grow different crops but the fundamentals of subsistence farming are mostly the same.

Most of the food that Scarterran farmers grow, they eat themselves. In a typical year at best, only 10-20% of their crops are excess which is either collected as taxes by their feudal overlord, share cropping agreements by the lands owner, or the excess is traded with merchants for coin or bartered for non-food goods and services.
Choosing Crops
A noble man with a vast estate is probably going to select crops to maximize the highest yield of crops that can be sold or traded. A typical peasant farmer is not trying to maximize his farm's yield, he is trying to avoid starvation for him and his family.

Maybe the climate and soil of the farmland that a peasant family has is ideal for high barley yields, but he is not going to plant one crop exclusively no matter how big the hypothetical yield would be. Sure during a good year, a farmer that plants all a single crop suited to his land is going to have a nice big surplus, but If they have an early frost the following year takes out all the barley and barley is all he has, his family will starve.

Barley can handle a dry year, but they don't like cold snaps. Rye can handle colder weather but they don't do well during dry years. A farmer planting four or five different types of cereal is not going to be happy if one of his crops has a bad yield, but at least his family is probably not going to starve if the other crops are doing okay.

Planting various crops has a secondary advantage that different crops have a different planting and harvest schedule. If the planting and harvest schedule is staggered, there is less of a strain on the labor supply because a farm's labor demand tend to spike during planting and harvest time. This is easier said than done, as most staple crops have similar but not identical harvest cycles unless the climate of an area is able to handle both summer and winter varieties of different crops concurrently.

Fortunately in the Feudal Era of the Third Age, most major staple crops are available on every continent. Scarterrans have a wider variety of crop options than real world pre-industrial farmers did. That means you easily see a small farm that grows rye, barley, maize, and potatoes among other things.

Different regions pick their crops largely by what the soil and weather conditions permit, but also vary by what the locals prefer. For instance, elves tend to dislike potatoes and favor maize.

Human And Animal Power
A very lucky peasant farmer may own a draft horse or ox. A few villages have communal draft animals owned jointly by several families. Most of the time, the local lord owns most or all of the draft animals.

After the lord's personal estate has been plowed, then he is likely to loan his draft animals to his serfs or rent his draft animals out to the local peasants for a nominal fee (or an IOU for labor later). Generally speaking, there is an ideal time to plow and an adequate time to plow. The nobles get to plow during the ideal time, and the subsistence farmers have to make due.

Often subsistence farmers get to do most/all of their plowing with human muscle rather than draft animals. Not only is this physically demanding but animal plows tend to be deeper and straighter so they produce higher crops yields. Thus, rich people who can afford more animals tend to have the best crop yields.

Whether or not a farmer has access to draft animals, planting time involves a lot of hard work. Usually every able bodied man, woman, and child is utilized with planting and harvest time, while the rest of the year the bulk of farming work is performed by men.

Lean Times And Good Times
Farms have good years and bad years. Some of this is based on external events such as bad weather, war or other calamity. But a farm's annual yield can also be affected by personal factors. Maybe one or two key members of the family got sick or injured (or dies), so the family wasn't able to work in the fields as much.

Generational change can create good or bad years for crops. A family unit with lots of able bodied young adults is going to be able to farm more efficiently than a family with a lot of children and elderly. To a lesser extant, male/female ratios also affect labor available.

A farmer that has a good year is going to want to bank something for future years that are less prosperous. How does a Scarterran do this?

Storing extra food is an option, but food is perishable and is hard to store long-term. Food can spoil is if it is too warm, too damp or too dry. Food stores can be despoiled by vermin or stolen by thieves.

A farmer can sell excess food and store coins and theoretically use the coins to buy food during lean years. Coins do not spoil, but they can be stolen. Also, if the entire region has a bad year for crops, that means food prices are going to go up substantially during those years. Unfortunately this means that when coins are needed most needed to buy food, they are least useful.

If a farmer cannot easily bank food or coins, he will instead seek to bank good will. In most cases, farmers want to bank good will with their neighbors and with the local Nonagon. The best part for the farmer is that good will of this sort is usually inheritable. A farmer's children and grandchildren can reap the rewards of his generosity after his death.

A farmer that is having a good year will often throw a feast for his neighbors. A farming family with an excess of young adults might volunteer to help a neighboring farm family with some of their chores. Perhaps a farmer having a good year is overly generous with dowry or wedding gifts.

If the farmer falls on rough times later, his neighbors will hopefully remember his past generosity and be willing to give him a helping hand. Most farming families are out for themselves first but they strive to give more to their community than they receive so they can have the label of being "respectable" as respectable farmers can count on the support of their neighbors.

If every family in the village is has having a bad year for crops at the same time, then it doesn't help much if everyone is respectable, but that is why a forward thinking farmer will try to bank good will with the Nonagon.

A lot of religious groups are happy to aid local farmers for free just to give their patron god or goddess goodwill, but they are still human (or some other mortal race that is similar to humans). Priests, clergy, and theurgists are more likely to give aid to peasants who donate generously to their local temple. Frequently farmers like to bank goodwill with the Tenders and Stewards of the Gift as these groups are more tightly integrated with farming villages than most, but almost every priesthood has at least a few temples and clergy that are embedded in the local agricultural communities.

It is difficult for a farmer to store food long term, but with a little bit of Plant and/or Purification magic, some priesthoods can maintain silos of emergency food for long term storage. Many priesthoods also own more mundane resources like land, draft animals, and livestock. They usually have treasuries of coins.

They can heal the sick and injured (which helps farmers with labor losses). They can use a bit of of magic to enhance crop yields or cure plant blights. While rare, some theurgists, mostly Nami affiliated, wield enough Weather magic to summon or banish rain clouds, but most weather witches are loathe to do this casually.

A lot of priesthoods also recruit new members from farming communities. If a priesthood oblates a farmer's son or daughter, that family will gain honor and prestige in their community and the priesthood will owe them a favor. The family also has one less mouth to feed. Also, family ties rarely disappear completely after a man or woman is ordained so a family with blood relatives among the local clergy can usually beseech a temple for aid faster than the general populace can.

Side Work
A lot of cases, a farm family's plot of land is too small to feed everyone exclusively from their own land requiring them to seek additional food elsewhere. Sometimes peasants need to obtain non-food tools and supplies they cannot produce themselves.

Farmer's wives and daughters generally only work in the field during harvest and planting time. In most cases they stay in the home. This does not mean they are not contributing to their family, far from it.

The women are usually making things. Textiles, pottery, herbal remedies, and more. If the family has a surprlus of anything, they can sell or barter it. In a lot of cases, a farm family makes more income from selling their wife's excess handicraft than they get from selling excess crops.

For a serf family, where the local lord often takes all of the excess crops, this may a family's only way to obtain excess coin.

Between planting and harvest time, some farmers have extra time on time on their hands. Peasant men can and often do sell their labor. Serfs may be ordered to perform extra labor or they might actually be paid for their extra labor depending on the local laws and customs. This labor may be paid with coin, goods, or food.

Local lords or wealthy landowners that have more land than they have laborers are the most common employers of this excess labor, but farmers in the off season can find work in mines or quarries or perform day labor in nearby towns.

A skilled craftsman can normally make a higher income than a farmer can, but this assumes there is a constant demand for his good service. Sometimes, farmers moonlight as blacksmiths, tanners, or other craftsmen. More commonly, craftsmen may moonlight as farmers putting aside their craftsman's tools during harvest and planting time.

If the local government maintains a militia, peasant farmers who serve in the militia are often rewarded with extra money or extra food. For obvious reasons, most militia training and military drills take place between planting and harvest time though hostile powers are often likely to attack at planting or harvest time, so there are sometimes readiness drills at these times.
From Harvest To Bread
A potato can be pulled out of the ground and thrown into a cooking pot almost immediately, but most cereal crops need to be processed before they can be eaten. One needs to separate the inedible husks from the delicious seeds with some threshing and milling.

Threshing processes vary by crop and region, but the goal remains the same, separate the inedible husks from the edible seeds. Then a farmer typically tries to figure out the best seeds to use for planting the next year's crop while the rest goes for processing at mill.

Depending on the crop, milling may be done small scale in the homes of farmers or an entire community's crops can be milled in single centralized location controlled by the local lord. Mills can be powered by wind, water,or unlucky draft animal or workers.

Turning a mill wheel is the very definition of backbreaking labor and mills tend to be filled with gritty dust in the air that no should be inhaling. Scarterra doesn't have a lot of animal right's activists but a "millstone donkey" is a common metaphor for a very unlucky person. If a human or other mortal is pushing a mill wheel, that human is probably a convict or other person sent to the mill as a punishment.

A rare few mills are powered by magic, bypassing the need to work humans or draft animals to death on this unpleasant task. Either they make a golem push the wheel or animate a self driving mill wheel. Even if one were to view creating a magical mill as a one-time expense, this is still not very economically. It commonly takes well over a century or two to recoup one's expenses for this magical investment. If a local lord builds a magical mill is probably doing this to show off his wealth and power.

Mills can serve as a method of control. If the local lord controls the only mill, they have total control over how much flour everyone receives, or at the very least they can set the prices.

Even if the local lord doesn't control the only mill, the local elites probably control the best mill. Rich people tend to get the finest ground flour and the poorer people get coarser ground flour. Most mills use a literal mill stones of some kind, so people to have to deal with tiny specks of grit from millstones in their bread. Again, rich people generally get the more carefully milled grain and don't have to spit out rocks as much. A major cause of lost teeth among the peasantry is biting too hard into a chunk of millstone and then getting an infection which requires the tooth to be pulled.

Scarterrans have one small advantage over real world pre-industrial farmers. A theurgist with Purificiation magic can magically filter out impurities from poorly milled flour. Not every community has a Purification wielding theurgist among them and not every theurgist is willing to serve on mill duty. Sometimes, priesthoods control mills instead of or in addition to local lords controlling mills in which case they might be a more egalitarian than the nobility but as alluded to earlier, even priesthoods can show favoritism.

Whoever controls the mills, flour is then distributed and made into bread, noodles, cakes, porridges, ales, and whatnot.

One Cannot Live On Bread Alone
Larger land owners nearly always have extensive orchards, vegetable gardens, and herbal gardens. Most subsistence farmers, even lowly slaves, maintain a small garden with a few seasonal vegetables and herbs. If they are lucky they have some fruit trees or bushes.For protein, it is very common for Scarterran farmers to have chickens for eggs, goats for milk, and pigs for meat. Conveniently, livestock, especially pigs and goats can often eat agricultural byproducts that humans cannot digest such as discarded corn or wheat husks. Manure can help fertilize fields though nobles and other elites tend to have the most draft animals so they tend to have the most manure. Rich people are also are better able to afford to the services of gong farmers from local towns and cities, so their fields are usually the best fertilized.

Even nobles don't eat chicken very often, chicken is eaten even less commonly eaten than beef. Most regions of Scarterra use pork as their main source of meat for peasants and princes alike, but some places are more prone to eat goat meat or beef.

Milk cows are mostly a middle or upper class luxury, but a few regions that have abundant pasture land might see a few lucky peasants or serfs with their own family milk cows.

Between planting and harvest time, peasant farmers may hunt and fish or go out into the woods to look for edible mushrooms, fruits, roots, and nuts. Sometimes the local lords or priesthoods place legal restrictions on where peasants can or cannot go hunting and fishing but just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't happen, especially during lean times where a struggling farmer has to choose between clandestine poaching or watching his children starve.

Most nobles aren't sadists who want to watch their subjects to starve and they can loosen hunting restrictions during times of woe, but whether times are good or lean, certain game is associated with different classes. Often venison and wild boar meat is reserved for the upper class while peasants are more likely to eat rabbit or salmon.

Food is food, not every noble is a snob with their dinner plate and some upper class people like eating rabbit and salmon.

 

(first sidebar)

Peasants, Serfs And Slaves
I covered the the distinctions of peasants, serfs, and slaves in another article.Often, Scarterran nations and provinces only use slaves or they only use serfs or they only use free peasants, but in some cases societies are mixed. For the most part, the daily routines of a farmer is mostly the same for a slave, serf, or free peasant but there are differences, especially in mixed societies.In mixed societies, slaves usually get the short end of the stick in all things. Slaves are generally stuck with the least valuable lands and the least access to tools and draft animals. Slaves have very few if any options to get out of their horrible situation, but serfs and slaves have more mobility, both up and down.Counterintuitively, serfs have some advantages over free peasants. If a noble lord has free peasants and serfs, in a lot of cases the noble will give preferential treatment to his serfs. Serfs often are given the most fertile plots of land and have priority access to the lord's draft animals and farming implements.

During good times, a free peasant is better off than a serf because he can keep most of the fruits of his good fortune and a serf's excess crops are all taken and sold by his lords.

During a lean times, a local lord with excess stores of food is likely to give his serf's his extra food stores while selling food to his free peasants. If there is not enough food stores to feed everyone, the free peasants go hungry first.

Unlike slaves, serfs and peasants have a little bit of social mobility, both up and down. Because of the aforementioned benefits of greater access to food and tools, free peasants sometimes ask to be made serfs. Other times, serfs desire more freedom and autonomy over their own affairs so they petition to be freed from serfdom, often with the sponsorship of one of the priesthoods or in exchange for some special service.

Serfs and free peasants can and sometimes do intermarry and the status of their children is often nebulous.

(sidebar two)

I have based this article on Professor Bret Devereaux excellent overview of how farming worked in Ancient Rome.

https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/

But that was only a baseline. Compared to real world ancient Romans, Scarterrans have a bit more access to draft animals, more crop options, and they have a little access to magic but the basics are largely the same.

 

I don't need a separate "How do _____ feed themselves?" article for everyone but a few odd balls have different ways of putting food on the table than the norm.


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How do most wood elves feed themselves?

Most Scarterrans are either "civilized" farmers eking out a living on plots of farmland and rarely traveling far from their home village or "barbarian" nomads ranging far and wide to hunt and forage.

The wood elves and their allies in Codenya break the mold by splitting the difference with a roughly even mix of agriculture and foraging.

Wood elves have made ancient oaths to the god Korus and a great many forest creatures to minimize their impact on nature so they are reluctant to clear too many trees for cropland or housing.Typically, about two thirds of the year, the wood elves are living in mobile tent cities, typically not staying in the same place more than one or two weeks before moving on. The remaining third of year, the wood elves and their allies move into their "winter villages" and live in sturdy but fairly cramped permanent houses through the cold and snowy times of the year.

Typically roving nomadic clans number between 100 and 300 members. Most winter villages hold between three and six clans.wood elves have a disproportionately high number of "food mages" and they are patient. They have cultivated unique Codenyan varieties of many domesticated plants over the centuries. Codenyan food plants are not bred to maximize yield, they are bred to minimize maintenance.

Most Codenyan food plants are very pest resistant and very weed resistant. wood elves and their allies usually spend about about three or four weeks carefully planting their crops, then they mostly leave them be for six to seven months while they roam their forested homeland hunting and foraging, only occasionally stopping by to check on their crops. Beyond their cereal crops, wood elves and their allies will try to encourage the growth of wild fruit and nuts wherever they go to make future foraging easier.

In late autumn, the Codenyans will harvest and process their crops and live off during the winter months.

With everything so decentralized with each clan managing their own affairs, one might wonder why Codenya's has an active noble class. It is because there are approximately 10,000 clan units in Codenya and their migratory paths crisscross over the vast nation with so many 10,000 clan units wandering around all doing their own thing, clans are inevitably going to figuratively or literally step on each other's toes and someone has to mediate dispute within clans.

Wood elves move around so they don't overtax any one area's resources, so one has to make sure that too many clans don't unwittingly overtax any single area. Someone has to periodically check on their crops throughout the year, so the nobles dictate which clans check on which fields and when. They also are expect to make sure that come harvest time food stores are distributed fairly.

If there is an external threat, the nobles have to go clan by can to recruit warriors. During peace time, the nobles are also expected to supervise clans make sure that each clan is drilling for various dangers and that a respectable percentage of the adult population is combat ready at all times.

Some human nobles neighboring Codenya have joked that the wood elf nobles are "royal cat herders" given that wood elves in general are a willful, independent lot. Adding this, only about two thirds of the nation is made of elves, sometimes conflicts arise between Codenya's cosmpolitain demographics.

Relative to humans, wood elves tend have more fluid gender roles. Men and women alike are roughly equally likely to be seen hunting, foraging, maintaining crops, or manufacturing tools and clothes. Much like with most human farm communities, during planting and harvest, just about every able bodied man, woman and child is out in the fields.

(sibebar)

Primary Related Location
land of Codenya
Related Organizations

• Nation of Codenya

Related Ethnicities

• Codenya kalazotz
• Codenya satyrs
• forest gnomes
• wood elves

 

There is a mini-contest on World Anvil for showcasing an interesting bar or tavern. Unlike the other contents, I am free to use old content for it. But I can certain edit or spruce up the article. Probably want to make a tavern diagram. I'm open to any and all suggestions to make this article better. My articles related to kalazotz actually get a proportionally more views than most of my other articles on my Scarterra page.

This is, theoretically one of my best articles already since it's the only one strangers liked and commented on. Here is the direct link to the article for what WA browsers actually see.

Below is what is in the article right now, but I plan to tinker with it over the next week or two.


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The Drunken Bat Inn and Brewery

The Drunken Bat claims to be the most famous tavern in all of Scarterra. Located in the Elven Empire, government's last major West Colassian port. They might be right. They regularly see travelers from Swynfaredia, Stahlheim, Kantoc, Apseldia, Nishi, Azuma, and the Elven Empire and those are just the everyday visitors.The bartender usually will give free drinks to visitors who give him interesting mementos from faraway lands, so the walls are filled with curios from every corner of Scarterra.

The prices are a bit higher than elsewhere but beer, wine and spirits are imported from every corner of Scarterra.
Purpose / Function
Originally created so kalazotz and dwarven traders could enjoy a taste of home in a busy port dominated by elves and humans, the owners of the inn gradually expanded the drink and food menu to create a truly cosmopolitan drinking and dining establishment to enjoy food and drinks (especially drinks) from all around Scarterra.
Architecture
The inn is three interconnected two story buildings with an overhanging second floor.

The central building is the main tavern area, the west annex houses their distillery and storage space while the east annex houses their guest rooms.

The kalazotz staff prefer to sleep in the dark cellar underneath the distillery.
History
Originally, the drunken bat was a tavern/inn set up to cater to dwarves and kalazotz doing business with the Elven Empire.Among other things, it was near impossible for kalazotz to get their favorite spirits such as fermented rabbit's blood or grub whiskey.

Being near a major trading port and having a very experimental owner, the tavern invested a lot of money in buying exotic drink from around Scarterra.

The tavern had a rotating drink menu including things such as wood elven spring wine, Umeran sake, East Colassian honey mead, Mondarian rum, and other exotic drinks.

Originally the tavern bought exotic drinks for a lark, but as their reputation grew, the tavern found itself awash in new customers asking for exotic drinks.

As the inn expanded, they increased their menu of foods as well, importing a lot of exotic spices, meat, ad produce as well as exotic drinks.
Tourism
If you want to taste the food and drink of a place thousands of miles away, this is place to go. This is mainly for tourists tasting food from exotic foreign lands. If a distant traveler comes to the inn expecting a taste of home, they will probably be disappointed. "Lousy bats didn't get the spices right!"

Most of the exotic faire is not about authenticity but about novelty. Clan Balché is fond of wild experiments combining food, drink, and spices from disparate.

You want a gin and tonic with wood elves made gin in tonic water from Mera's Lake accented with spices imported from the Colassian Confederacy? That's one of the less exotic mixed drinks they can make.

 

Now for a dive into Scarterran Science!, psychology edition

Psychological and Cultural Effects of Long Life Spans

Elves and humans are physiologically very similar except elves live roughly five times longer than humans do. Not only this, but elves stay in their physical prime for a larger percentage of their lives than humans. Some Scarterrans, humans, elves and others have openly wondered why elves are not dominating humans. Elf warriors have five times the time to hone their weapon skills, elf leaders have five times the time to hone their tactical skills. Elf builders should have the expertise to make better fortifications, better tools, and better arms.

History is full of small groups of powerful people dominating larger groups. Dragons are stronger than everyone but it is joked that dragons can barely tolerate each other long enough to mate and raise offspring. Dragons certainly aren't capable of unifying to conquer the world. Elves are hardly perfectly unified, but they are far more united than dragons and they are at least as unified with each other as humans are if not more so. Maybe elves cannot rule the entire world in the the Third Age, but they should at least be able to dominate humans in their local regions but instead elf princes have to treat human princes as equals.

On average, elf warriors are a little bit better than the average human warriors and elf craftsmen are a little better than human craftsmen. But that is average people, and many humans are not average. The best warriors and craftsmen in Scarterra are disproportionately human.

This is counterintuitive to humans. This leads one to wonder if humans have superior minds or that elves have some kind of learning disability. The answer is mostly no, but partly yes. There are multiple factors that explain why elves aren't supermen.


Longer Lived Races Tend To Stretch Out Adolescence

In every mortal race, whether they are long lived or short lived, children and adolescents lack discipline but their minds are primed for learning. Longer lived races such as elves tend to culturally stretch out adolescence longer than physical adolescence.

Most elves consider the age of majority to be about 90 years old. Physically, an elf is done physically maturing sometime in his/her early fifties. Most human societies consider the age of majority at 16, 17, or 18. And a human is usually physically done developing at 15 or 16. Humans don't waste time. Part of this long adolescence is a product of elves' love of slow time.

Even relative to their long life spans, elves remain in their physical prime longer than humans. Elves don't pump out babies nearly as fast as humans, and they tend to subscribe to the idea that "it takes a village to raise a child." A lot of young elves secretly fear adulthood and enjoy not having many responsibilities and having a bunch of adults looking out for them. By contrast, most human children and adolescents say some variation of "I can't wait till I grow up!" often.

Among humans, both lowborn and highborn families put a lot of pressure on their children to marry and produce grandchildren at a fairly young age. Elves, especially low born elves, don't arrange marriages nearly as often as humans do. Though they are physically mature by age fifty, elves commonly discourage young elves from even thinking about marriage and courtship till they have seen at least a century. There is no hurry and both young men and young women are expected to gain some life experience and wisdom before they can figure out whom they should mate with.

"Slow Time"
Elves have moments of slow time and "fast time". In vulgar argot, elves call this "normal time" and "human time". Elves and humans still have 24 hours in the day and sleep for roughly a third of that day. Elves and humans still have 365 days in the years and they have the same cycle of seasons.

To an elf viewpoint, a human lives entirely in "fast time". Elves prefer "slow time" whenever they can. Elves will figuratively and literally stop to smell the flowers. An elf will typically take much longer to eat her meals than a human does because she wants to savor her food while the human is thinking about what she wants to do after dinner. Elves like to savor courtships. Elves like to day dream. Elves take longer when reading because they will stop to ponder specific passages. Most elves are so content with inner reflection and living in the moment that boredom is almost an alien concept to them.

A human carpenter practiced his trade from childhood into adulthood and did less else but think about carpentry. Most other humans would be happy to have a skilled carpenter build their house. All four elf culture tend to value being self sufficient. When possible, they want to build their own houses, cook their own meals, and craft their own tools. This broad approach to things slows down an elf's quest for excellence. Going back to the house example, they will talk to other elves about carpentry first whereas a human is likely to fall back on his own education and trade their services for those of a carpenter.

This can go a long way to explain why an elf that practiced sword fighting for thirty years is on the same level as a human who practiced sword fighting for five years. The elf is in slow time. He didn't train with the same intensity over those thirty years that the human did over his five years. While the two are equal soldier, the elf swordsman is a probably a better cook, a better poet, and a better carpenter than that human swordsman. On a more practical side, the elf is probably a better strategist and archer.

Elves are not lazy, frivolous or stupid. If there is a house fire, an elf is not going to stare at the intricate shapes of the dancing flames in fascination. He will race to find a bucket of water just as a human would do so. Elves can and do respond to emergencies in a timely manner. They can also keep to a critical schedule. An elf peasant farmer knows just as well as a human farmer that if he doesn't get his planting done in a reasonable period of time, the end of the year harvest will be bad and his family may go hungry.

In other words, when an elf must act quickly and decisively, he or she will act quickly and decisively. This is what elves call "fast time." There are exceptions, but most elves don't want to fall into fast time longer than they have to.

Very few elves will admit it, but they are not as good at handling stress as humans. Lucky elves live just over five centuries. Typical elves live around four centuries. Some elves can handle fast time better than others, but An elf that spends large portions of her life in fast time is probably going to age fast and is likely to succumb to age based illnesses before or shortly after her third century. Elves that spend a large portion of their lives in fast time are at a high level of risk to develop a mental illness and whether or not they have a clinical issue, they are probably going to be somewhat socially off putting from other elves.

On the plus side, an elf that is well accustomed to fast time is going to be a lot more efficient at developing skills and accomplishing tasks than a typical elves. In this case an elf that studied sword play for thirty straight years with the focus of a human is going to be able to fight with the strength of twenty men.

Not just this, an elf that is able to continuously maintain a human like focus could end up mastering many, many skills. You might find a master swordsmen who is also an master alchemist and a master blacksmith and a master historian. Perhaps he researches legendary magical weapons of yore, then figures out how to replicate them and trains extensively so the blade has a worthy user. Even in the Third Age, a disproportionately high number of Scarterra's greatest mages are elves.

Depending on what they do with great abilities, elves like this are simultaneously both pitied and honored, for they have sacrificed their own happiness to develop skills to aid their society. Or maybe they are just out for themselves, these elves are little more than social outcasts but other elves follow their exploits with morbid fascination none the less.

Elf leaders, those born into the leadership position and commoners who earned informal leadership positions tend to adapt quickly to fast time or they find they are stripped of their titles. As a matter of course, leaders have to constantly solve problems as they come up, so this means they don't get to enjoy much slow time. Despite having lots of access to best mundane and magical healers and eating the best food, elf leaders tend to have average lifespans at best.

Undead And Other Artificially Extended Life Spans
It doesn't matter what mortal race someone was in life, cheating death is not only difficult, but it has a high price that is immediately apparent. Mortal minds can only handle so many memories and experiences without issue.

If a mortal is artificially extending his or her life span with magic, then it's not a question of if the mortal will go mad, but when.

Not only is an undead brain not able to comfortably assimilate, two, ten, or a hundred lifetimes of knowledge and memory, but most undead are separated from the simple joys of life. Even if an undead is not physically harmed by sunlight, it is not going to be able enjoy a warm spring day the way a living person could. Food, drink, company, sex, comfort, laughter...all these things are harder to enjoy the longer a creature remains undead. This makes coping with the long years even harder.

If they are lucky, a free willed undead creature might develop a high functioning form of mental illness, but this is not always the case. A lot of liches and vampires end up committing suicide. Others develop schismatic personalities, especially if they became undead specifically because they were afraid of death. They fear death with a passion, but they also subconsciously hate their existence and secretly want to die. Such tortured souls, rather commit suicide outright they will concoct highly risky schemes for advancement in order to provoke an outsider into killing them.

Most free-willed undead are plotters and schemers by nature. Since they both want to live forever and also harbor a secret death wish, their schemes can seem nonsensical to outside observers as they alternate between absurd levels of caution only to react to a small threat with overwhelming force later.

One of the best ways for an "immortal" undead to retain his/her sanity is to pick a goal that is very difficult to achieve. "If it takes me 10,000 years I swear I'll _______". Of course there is always the danger that they accomplish their elusive end goal, at which point the undead creature is likely to enter a near catatonic state as the rewards of the destination are probably not half as satisfying as the journey.

For good examples of how grand ambitions and madness intersect, one might be the vampire lords. Vladimir the Conqueror literally tried to conquer the world and ended up goading the world into killing him. Rallark the Loyalist has set the grand goal of destroying every vampire but himself. Lorshellis the Successor waxes hot and cold between wanting to take over the world and wanting to save it. Vralic the Hunter is obsessed with finding an honorable death worthy of his magnificent life and unlife. Dalak the Dark One is now Scarterra's most powerful Infernalist and no one knows exactly what is doing, but Infernalists are all mad and ambitious in a nihilistic way.

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Slow Time Isn't Just For Elves
This article most compares and contrasts elves and humans a lot, and most of these comparisons apply to other races.

Gnomes and dwarves live substantially longer than humans, among others. Most of the basic principles in this article talking about elves apply to the other long lived mortal races.

Dwarves are not known for stopping to smell the roses or enjoying deep self reflection, but they are not commonly rushed either. When they are working on almost any task, it is more important for them to do it perfectly than for them to do it quickly. About the only time a dwarf rushes a personal task is if lives are literally on the line.

Dwarves also find comfort in repetition.

Dwarf, "Did I tell you about my clan's glorious history?"

Human, "Only about forty times...."

Dwarf "I better make it an even fifty then. It all began when...

Whereas elves acting in slow time tend towards self reflection, dwarves prefer to strengthen their ties of community in some way. This is why dwarves seemingly never get tired of telling the same same histories, the same old stories, and the same old songs over and over again.This ties into the dwarves' tendancy towards high filial piety and ancestor worship. They can not only name all their ancestors five+ generations back they can tell the stories of their ancestors' victories and defeats.

According to the gnomes' own legends, they were created to build bridges and alliances between dwarves and elves during the Second Age. Thus it is not surprising that a gnome's sensibilities are roughly half-way between those of a dwarf and an elf. Gnomes like to take time to smell the roses and reflect inwardly and they also find comfort in repetition, telling and retelling old familiar stories especially if the repetition reinforces family and communities ties.

Among non-humanoids with long life spans, it is difficult to make generalities. Dragons, kraken, and aranea often fill their time with plotting and scheming. They make brilliant plans and back up plans and back up plans to their backup plans. Delvers and giants just seem okay living life one day at a time.

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What About The Short Lived Races?

Humans don't live nearly as long as elves, gnomes, or dwarves. That said, there are some races that don't live as long as humans.

It is theorized that they experience a more extreme version of "fast time" though this is often denied by the other races who say this is a flimsy justification for racial prejudice.

For instance, tengku don't typically live as long as humans. Some say that this is a major contributor of a tengku's avarice. Because they know their own mortality is coming, they want to own everything they can now.

Ojiongo are the shortest lived of the major Scaraquan mortal races, and they are known to be very ambitious and power hungry. They only have a short time to make their mark and this supposedly drives their Byzantine machinations.

Some say a short life span leads orcs to extreme risk taking and a desire for glory, but orcs only age slightly faster than humans, so this supposition is a stretch.

Kalazotz have shorter life spans than most, and they are pretty mellow and patient. Satyrs have fairly long spans and they are notorious hedonists that seem focused on short term concerns. Both of these seemingly disproves the rule that shorter lived races feel pressure to life to the fullest and the longer lived races are more patient.

 

So I'm thinking Scarterra could use a fourth dwarf subculture. Specifically in the continent of Penarchia which is all too human right now.

Well I usually come up with heraldry late in the process but I'll try your method seems sound.

This is the original heraldry of Meckelorn, where most of my dwarves believe their race sprung from the Great Stone of Meckelorn. They were founded late in the Second Age. They built a bunch of fortification to defend against hostile elves, not knowing they would need them to fight off hostile Void demons. The dwarves were lucky. While 90% of the elves died during the Second Unmaking. The dwarves lost barely over 50% of their population.



Meckelorn was able to recover and now they had enough numbers to be a political equal to the elves, eventually they got surpassed by the new humans but anyway, Meckelorn was forced into exile by Mordock the Destroyer, but the Meckelorners were able to liberate their homeland and they changed their heraldry to focus on their martial stance and show a broken anvil that was fixed.



Before Meckelorn was thrown into disarray, they had a long stint with a tyrant king. A lot of Meckelorners thought the king's younger brother Prince Mondarious would be a better king but Mondarious was like "I'm a dwarf of honor and will respect the proper succession."

But his brother tried to have him killed anyway. A few of the dwarves who said "I want Mondarious as our king" suffered suspicious accidents. So Mondarious chose voluntary exile and left with a bunch of fans. Eventually forming the tiny kingdom of Mondert far away.

Their heraldry uses softer colors and their anvil is a makeshift anvil made of volcanic rock showing their adaptation to their new home.



Meckelorn had a small colony not far away that eventually grew in wealth and prestige and became independent. This is of course Stahlheim.


Their heraldry has less red because they are less martial. They feature gold to show off their wealth, and their anvil is unbroken because they never were conquered.


I'm still working on the details, but my concept for the fourth dwarves should not have a hammer and anvil in their motif.

My base concept is that these dwarves split off from Meckelorn before the Second Unmaking rather than after it like the other. During the aftermath of the Unmaking both the Meckelorn dwarves and the Penarchian dwarves assumed that the other dwarf group died. Then over the course of the Third Age, they forgot that there were any dwarves apart from themselves.

So the Penarchians are going to have different legends, religion, culture, etc. The biggest difference is going to be Penarchians don't believe the Great Stone is all that great and they don't emphasize Hallisan worship like the other three dwarf cultures.

My base concept so far is the Penarchian dwarves are not evil per se but they are assholes.

Compared to the rest of Scarterra, Penarchia is a primitive backwater. They don't have a complex system of feudalism where there are large nations united by ties of chivalry and honor. Penarchia has a bunch of petty warlords squabbling over small scraps of land.

I'm thinking Penarchian dwarves aren't out there conquering and enslaving people but they do like to quietly enter a human war and offer to sell weapons and armor to both sides. Then they meld into the shadows and laugh at the foolish humans eating popcorn to watch the show in between counting their money.

More details will be forthcoming as I think of them.

Mondert is geographically isolated but they do have a small segment of their population that likes traveling to distant lands. Eventually some of these explorers bumped into their distant cousins by accident. They have had limited contact with Meckelorn and Stahlheim for centuries. But only recently did they rediscover the Penarchian dwarves.

Most Penarchian dwarves do not believe the Mondarians' stories about Meckelorn and Stahlheim. Most Meckelorners and Stahlheimers do not believe the Mondarians' stories about the Penarchian dwarves. Because the source of the rumor of these foreign dwarves is always along the lines of "My uncles' friend's wife's cousin met a traveling adventurer who swears they are real...."

The West Colassian dwarves and Penarchian dwarves could fund an expedition to seek out these foreign dwarves but why bother? If the Mondarians stories are true, the other guys sound like cowardly jerks anyway.

 

I fleshed out Penarchian dwarves more. I still want to figure out how they raise their children, what their rite of passage into adulthood (because I think every society needs that). And to make @Warden happy, I need to figure what their heraldry looks like.

Maybe a ferocious beast of some kind. Possibly a dragon, but with Swynfaredia I have enough dragon banners to choke a banner eating dragon, but I suppose Penarchia is geographically and politically removed from Swynfaredia, so Penarchians can use dragons in their heraldry without having the same implications.

I'm not sure what form of government they have but that will be a separate article. Probably a hereditary kingdom. Not exactly creative, but if it ain't broke don't fix it.

As always, I'm open to any suggestions on how to better develop Scarterra's newest player.

Unlike the other dwarves I created thus far, they are not going to be friends with the kalazotz. They might not have any friends at all. I'm not 100% Penarchia will even have kalazotz.

Penarchian dwarves

At some point before the Second Unmaking there was a major enclave of dwarves in West Colassia (at the time, just known as Colassia) and another one in Penarchia.

During and immediately after the Second Unmaking the two dwarf enclaves lost contact with each other and they assumed the other group of dwarves was wiped out, then they forgot about the other group completely.

The Penarchian dwarves took greater losses in the Second Unmaking than the ancient Meckelorn dwarves. Unlike historical Meckelorn, the Penarchian dwarves did not create any breakaway nations. For most of the Third Age, the two dwarf enclaves only knew of each other as a traveler's tall tale or distant rumor, if even that.

Currently the Penarchian dwarves are very mercenary in their dealings with their (mostly human) neighbors. There are a lot of brushfire wars in Penarchia and it is very rare for Penarchian dwarves to take the battlefield directly but they are happy to sell weapons and armor to whoever can pay, even if they end up selling equipment to both sides of a conflict. While they claim to be indifferent to what human rules what lands, they commonly give the underdog in a war better trade deals. This is believed to be mostly so they can prolong a conflict and not out of any true sympathy. Also, while they will haggle for the best deal possible, as long as they are making some profit, a deal is considered worthwhile even if the profit is very small.

Sometimes, this makes some enemies, but their enemies must be careful. If any human group turns to violence against the dwarves for selling weapons to the "wrong" side and is discovered doing so, the dwarves will ally with those humans' enemies and take the battlefield with them.

Thus, most Penarchians turn a blind eye to the dwarves shady dealings because they don't want to provoke a more violent response from them.

One thing the dwarves do to maintain their mercenary neutrality is minimize land they occupy on Scarterra. Even compared to other dwarves, Penarchian dwarves spend a majority of their time underground. This also helps their trading racket. The Penarchian dwarves have tried to set themselves as the ultimate middlemen for deals between Scarterra and Scarnoctis.
Culture
Major Language Groups And Dialects
Penarchian dwarves speak their own unique dialect of Dwarven. Penarchian dwarves and other dwarves have no trouble understanding each other, but they think each think the other dwarf sounds strange.
Shared Customary Codes And Values
Deals are important to Penarchian dwarves and it is taboo to break them, especially deals sealed with a hand shake. Even if circumstances change, a dwarf expected to hold to the letter of the original agreement. This is true even among non-dwarves.

Penarchian dwarves have a well-deserved reputation for being greedy misers, but they believe in fair dealing even if their view of "fair" is subjective. They won't hesitate to exploit someone in a poor situation, but they will be honest about it. It is considered a point of pride for a dwarf not to misrepresent himself. Penarchian dwarves rarely lie, and they almost never knowingly pass on inferior goods.

Being a bully and a miser is acceptable but being a liar is considered dishonorable.
Average Technological Level
Their metal work and alchemy is significantly above all their human neighbors in Penarchia. Otherwise, their technology is more or less the same as their human neighbors.

The dwarves produce much of their own food, but they rely heavily on trade if they want tasty food. They will trade their metal work and alchemical goods for long term agreements for delivery of foodstuffs or alcoholic beverages. Short term deals are usually for long-term stores of value such as precious metals, gemstones, and reagents.
Common Etiquette Rules
Even more so than most dwarves, Penarchian dwarves are insular and private. Stoicism is considered a virtue. A nod of recognition is all a stranger or acquaintance can normally expect from a Penarchian dwarf in public setting.

They will figuratively let their hair down in private, especially around meals, but even a feast with lots of fine food and drink, Penarchian dwarves tend to be less merry and gregarious than other dwarves.
Common Dress Code
Among their own kind, both male and female Penarchian dwarves often dress to impress, favoring fine cloths and jewelry to display their wealth and status to other dwarves. Gaudiness is disproved of however. A true dwarf of taste strives for casual elegance.

Penarchians often say that all dwarves look alike, and the dwarves are happy to play into stereotype to present a unified front to outsiders. There is an unspoken rule that Penarchian dwarves should strive to be indistinguishable from their kin among outsiders. When treating with outsiders, Penarchian dwarves dress practically in utilitarian clothing favoring earthy tones of brown and grey.
Common Customs, Traditions And Rituals
Most Penarchian dwarves worship Phidas primarily believing that Phidas created the dwarves to tame the unruly realm of Scarnoctis, but they will usually give the rest of the Nine's their due. Their worship practices tend to be highly ritualistic focusing more on orthopraxy than orthodoxy.

Penarchian dwarves take pride in their family honor and regularly venerate their ancestors, but they don't commonly keep ancestral shrines. Ancestral shrines that are seen are especially elaborate and as much a means for wealthy clans to show off than it is to honor their ancestors. In the unlikely event a family keeps a modest shrine, they probably are secretive about it.

Many families keep a book or collection of scrolls of their family's history, but whether the clan is poor or rich, they don't normally showcase their book of family history to outsiders.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
Even though in the current era, their infant morality is fairly low compared to other Scarterrans, Penarchian dwarves don't have a name day for their children until their second birthday. So for two years, babies are called "it".

Before being formally named, the infant is exposed to the element. They are typically christened in a windy tunnel, covered in dirt, held close to a fire (but not burned) and then washed clean with water.
Funerary And Memorial Customs
Typically formal funerals invoke the four elements. Funerals are held in a windy location, then the body is ceremonially washed before being cremated and the ashes are released into a field.
Ideals
Gender Ideals
Penarchian dwarves are patriarchal and patrilineal. Dwarf women fully join the clan of their husbands when they marry.

It is uncommon but not forbidden for women to leave their homes on business. The majority of the Penarchian dwarves that outsiders see are male.

Like with other dwarf societies, most full time soldiers are men, but women are usually encouraged to at least undergo so basic weapons training so they are not easy targets if they are attacked while the men are away.
Courtship Ideals
Most marriages are arranged by the family of the bride and groom. Though most matchmakers will take the wishes of the couple into consideration, the strength of the clan is of foremost importance. The family of the bride typically pays a dowry, and they do this very publicly to showcase their clan's generosity, wealth, and prestige.

Penarchian dwarves are an insular and ambitious lot and to get different clans to trust each other and work together, it helps if they have matrimonial ties. It is very common for clans to arrange reciprocal arranged marriages. Since dwarf women join the clan of their husband, it is considered fair and equitable exchange if both clans give up a daughter simulatanously. No one ever accused the Penarchian dwarves of being especially romantic.

 

That is a good idea. Though I'm not a linguist so I'm not planning a deep dive into fantasy languages.

Dwarves probably name treasure after colors or they name colors after treasure even more so than humans. After all, "gold" is both a color and a treasure.

I know internet searches isn't always accurate but while I've seen different names for colors like "red" and "blue" they all seem to have relatively consistent heraldic meanings (though I suppose the top internet searches are always for old English).

1. Green – Vert
Green signifies that someone has loyalty in their love relationships. Other meanings include hope, joy and prosperity or abundance of riches.

2. Blue – Azure
Blue signifies a person’s unwavering loyalty, chastity, faith, truth and strength.

3. Red – Gules
Red is traditionally associated with military strength and cunning, martyr for a cause, warrior and magnanimity.

4. Black – Sable
Black can mean wisdom, prudence, grief or someone who’s inner beliefs and resolve remains constant.

5. Purple – Purpure
Purple is the color to signify royalty, regal, sovereignty, justice and temperance.

Metals
6. Yellow or Gold – Or
Gold traditionally symbolizes wisdom, constancy, faithfulness, glory and great generosity.

7. Silver or White – Argent
Silver represents truth, innocence, purity, sincerity and peace.


Whatever icon or beast I end up using for the Penarchian dwarves national banner, black and yellow/gold will probably be the dominant colors.

 

I'm glad you approve. My articles on World Anvil all have a fair number of hyperlinks. I put a lot of effort in to do this.

Hopefully someone can surf my World Anvil page a long time. It'd be even better if I were a better graphic designer. The most popular World Anvil sites have more varied presentation. it would be even better if there were links to buy my book, but first I'd have to write one.

World Anvil does make it fairly easy. They added a new tool to autofind words that could be relevant links.


And there are built in sidebars. If you click on the article for elves, it will present you with this lovely sidebar.

Genetic Descendants

• half-human half-elves
• satyrs

Geographic Distribution

• East Colassia
• Elven Empire, territory
• land of Codenya
• Land of Kahdisteria
• Nerymer
• Principality of Silfûrhëim
• Scarterra
• West Colassia

Related Ethnicities

• dark elves
• grey elves
• sea elves
• wood elves

Related Technologies

• Alchemical Food Preservation
• alchemical poison detection
• alchemy

Of the four elven ethnicities, wood elves are the most developed so far. Their sidebar looks like this.

Diverged ethnicities

• Half wood elves
• Silfûrhëimers
• taiga elves
• volcanic wood elves

Encompassed species

• elves

Related Organizations

• Nation of Codenya
• The Acro Bats

Related Myths

• Zarthus spiritually affiliated creatures

Languages spoken

• Elven

Related Locations

• land of Codenya
• West Colassia

 

Rather than write a history from my usually omniscient perspective of Scarterra, I tried to write a history from the perspective of a biased narrator though I fear Beslfyl's voice might be too similar to my own.

I'm not sure if I need more gnomish colloquialism. "Mahrlect" is going to be a gnomish curse word, but Beslfyl is a proper lady and is not likely to drop the "M" bomb during a history lecture.

Go to Scarterra Homepage
Gnome's Eye View of History in West Colassia

As told by Beslyfle the gnome, matron of Fumaya's Tenders.

Today we West Colassian gnomes are fortunate, arguably more fortunate than the rest of the gnomes in Scarterra.

It was not always this way. We owe our good fortune now to the wise and heroic actions of our ancestors.

During the Second Unmaking, most of the gnomes that managed to survive were those who had alliances with other races. A great many little folk had attached themselves to survivor enclaves of elves, dwarves, satyrs, anyone else who would take them. There were some accounts of xenophobia early on during the Second Unmaking, but it seems that it once it became apparent that all mortals faced a common enemy. War creates strange bedfellows and this was a war for life itself.

After the Second Unmaking, the numerous temporary alliances began to dissolve. We little folk are diplomatic by nature, so some gnomes were willing and able to make their temporary alliances permanent. The Meckelorn gnomes claim to be the direct descendants of the gnomes who fought alongside the dwarves during the Unmaking. The forest gnomes of the land of Codenya claim similar ancient ties with the wood elves.

These were exceptions, not the rule. At the dawn of the Third Age, the majority of gnomes chose to expand and either attached themselves to the new human tribes, or they created their own settlements which were annexed by emerging human chiefdoms.

Initially, relations between little folk and human folk were good. While the period of The Little Unmaking had harsh winters and harsher demons, at least the mortals were getting along. There was a lot of land and not a lot of people, so there wasn't much reason to fight.

The Nine gave the humans the basics of all the Gifts but the mortals with Second Age mortal races still had access to more advanced farming, metalwork, seafaring, and writing techniques more advanced than the primitive humans. The elves and dwarves were pretty tight-fisted with their precious lore but our ancestors shared our knowledge freely. This meant for a time gnomes were welcome among humans when dwarves and elves were treated with suspicion, envy and fear. Then the era of The Little Unmaking gave way to the Era of Warlords where our souls were in less danger but our bodies were more vulnerable.

This era of good feelings did not last long. The Red Era, was rough for everyone, gnomes and non-gnomes alike both before and after the Era of Warlords. I'm not going to pretend that life was easy for the larger folk, but life was especially hard for the little folk. Once the threat of The Void had faded, faith in the Nine and a general community of mortalkind faded as well. After a couple generations, humanity forgot all the lore we gave them and they assumed their ancestors created the lore themselves. To humanity, gnomes transformed from small benefactors into silver tongued parasites.

Warlords fought with each other and the strong routinely exploited the weak. We do not like to admit it, but there are times being small is a severe disadvantage. Gnomes were commonly enslaved by humans (and though they now deny it) by elves. Frequently, because gnomes are fastidious if not strong, gnomes were often "house slaves" rather than "field slaves". Because gnomes are small and unassuming and read nuances better than the larger folk, our enslaved ancestors were able to overheard a lot of juicy secrets.

We are not sure when Delas himself lived, but the Order of Delas quickly grew and expanded. Using innocuous gnome household slaves as the base for their spy network, the Order of Delas was able to isolate and eliminate the warlords and others who were especially egregious in their abuse of gnomes.

The Order of Delas claimed to avenge any and all gnomes suffering injustice, but in truth they were only able to make examples of the worst offenders. Those larger folks who routinely abused little folk found themselves eating poison, suffering mysterious accidents, or finding all the skeletons in their closet exposed for all their peers and rivals to see. Eventually the bigger races took the hint and the rampant enslavement and rape of gnomes largely ceased though gnomes remained well below humans and elves in status as well as stature. Life for West Colassian gnomes gradually got better, but they were still second class citizens and generally given the least fertile fields to farm and only the most menial professions open to them.

At the very least, the crime of larger mortals raping gnomes became much rarer. The memory of our dark past remains. Even though the vast majority of couplings between big folk and little folk are consensual, half-gnomes are rarely fully welcome in gnome communities. Gnome mules—sorry half gnomes, are a living reminder of what our ancestors had to endure.

While the machinations of Vladimir the Conqueror were horrible in all the lands they touched, the aftermath was good for gnomes in a way. Vladimir had many enemies, but his enemies hated each other almost as much as they hated Vladimir and his cronies. Since his foes were not able to provided a unified front, Vladimir's armies were able to isolate them and crush them one by one, until the little folk stepped in and helped the larger mortals pull their heads out of their asses.

With our silver tongues, we gnomes were able to convince would-be rivals to ally firmly against a mutual foe. Apart from this, lowly gnome servants are often easy to overlook. gnomes were and are highly literate, even those who work menial jobs can usually read and write. Lowly house servants, stable hands, gong farmers, and other menial gnome workers were able to clandestinely deliver messages between estranged allies and they were able to spy on lands controlled by Vladimir and his cronies.

While the human bards love to sing about the heroic generals who fought Vladimir and his undead hordes, they would not have been able to muster their forces without our ancestors' communication and logistical efforts. While the common people often didn't notice the small folk's contributions, the lords and ladies did notice the gnomes' contributions and rewarded our ancestors fairly.

As the war time alliances solidified into new nations, there was usually at least one gnome in the room when new royal charters were being drafted and signed. As reward for their contributions, the gnomes asked for farm land that was good—but not too good to be declared gnomish villages.

Most of the nations formed in the aftermath of Vladimir's death do not exist anymore, at least not in name. But once our ancestors got their foot in the door of royal courts, we never let go.

This was the status quo in the continent for about a thousand years. Then came Mordock the Destroyer. He destroyed a lot of people and things, but we managed to keep our foothold in the halls of power...barely.

Despite the name history has given him, Mordock the Destroyer did not actually want to destroy everything and everyone. Mordock killed a lot of royals in the human lands he conquered, but he let lesser noble families go on ruling their lands with minimal interference if they were willing to pay him taxes. The dwarves got it rough because none of them were willing to bend the knee to a half-orc whereas more than a few humans, both highborn and low chose to do so. Even before his first conquest, Mordock had a lot of human warriors under his banner.

Waredar used to be a very common name for gnome parents to name their girls. Now you hardly ever see it anymore, at least not north of Mera's Lake. Of the hundreds of gnome women bearing the name Waredar during the time of Mordock, one was particularly infamous.

After Mordock conquered a sizeable number of human lands, Waredar the gnome became one of his chief advisor and his main liason between Mordock's barbarian lieutenants and civilized vassals. She was the not the only gnome to serve Mordock's short-lived empire, but she was the main figurehead for all orcish collaberators. She was in fact known as "Waredar the Collaberator".

As everyone knows, Mordock died peacefully in his bed at a ripe old age, but like most tusk mules—sorry, like half-orcs, he was sterile, so he had no obvious heir and his grand coalition of different tribes and mortals collapsed without Mordock's might and charisma to hold it all together.

Shortly after Mordock passed away, Waredar the Collaberator was found brutally murdered along with her entire extended family. There were bloody orc weapons left at the murder sites, but I believe she was actually killed by humans or gnomes because orcs don't normally leave their weapons behind like that. That said, we can't rule the orcs out entirely either. Waredar was not very popular with orcs because they blamed her for Mordock restraining the orc's excesses against conquered humans.

Anyway, gnomes universally and loudly condemned the actions of Waredar the Collaberator and exaggerated her role in Mordock's government. This was enough to convince most humans to not seek retribution against all gnomes everywhere. You didn't hear this from me, but many gnomes that actually did collaborate with Mordock's forces managed to sink into the shadows of obscurity. For better or first, we little people are often good at being overlooked when we want to disappear.

It also helped that while some gnomes served as administrators in Mordock's empire, a lot of gnomes helped organize the resistance against Mordock's forces both before and after his death.

A lot of wealthy humans choose to hire gnome tutors to teach their children. Sometimes the same gnome tutor teaches three generations of the same human family. This has helped West Colassia assimilate more of our customs and it cements the idea of having a wise advisor in human leaders of all stripes.

Not every seneschal or bailiff is a gnome, but the stereotype of a wise and loyal gnomish advisor to the king or queen is a stereotype for a reason. We are wise and thorough, we don't make waves, and we pay our taxes on time. Human lords and ladies value gnomes. Based on various censuses, we believe roughly one in twenty mortals West Colassian are gnomes, but over one in ten of the members of most noble retinues are gnomes.

We are also overrepresented in guilds because we are the best negotiators. Most gnomes understand that the goddess Mera is our creator, so it surprises no one that gnomes are well represented in the Tenders by individuals such as myself. What is maybe is surprising to the taller folk is how often gnomes rise the ranks of the other priesthoods, both the politics driven groups like the Masks, and Keepers and among the more loosely organized Rovers and Stewards. About the only place in the Nonagons you don't see any gnomes holding positions of leadership is in the Testers. Tester leaders are expected to be able to spill blood and thump their chests while boasting loudly. When gnomes spill blood, they rarely do so loudly...

In pretty much every realm in West Colassia, every prince, guild master, or high priest probably has at least one gnome advisor giving good advice. With the ears of those in power, the lofty gnomes at the top are usually more than happy to throw a bone to small folk among us small folk.

While we like to say that gnomes in prestigious positions are more generous and community minded than humans in prestigious positions, this is only a half-truth. We have carrots and we have sticks. We gnomes are open and welcoming to other gnomes but we can be brutal applying social pressure. A gnome seneschal with a reputation for being "unrespectable" among the gnome community is not going to be able to keep his position long when every gnome merchant and messenger blacklists him. A gnome seneschal with the support of the general gnome communities is going to get a lot of favorable trade deals and quiet help behind the scenes to make sure she always looks good in front of her lord.

A gnome in a high position is expected to talk his lord or lady into being generous to gnomes in general. Thus, most gnome peasant farmers some land assigned to them that is good but not too good. We tend to get pretty good deals with the guilds and the Nonagons as well.

And if the local human lords or ladies cannot be swayed by their loyal gnome advisors, we have carrots and sticks. The Order of the Delas has plenty of carrots and sticks to share. Their main carrot is having the most reliable messenger service in all of Scarterra, and we—they are not averse to carrying messages for larger folks. Also very small gnomes quietly carry very big sticks. The members of the Order are far less violent today than they were in yesteryear but we—I mean they, still have members who will clandestinely avenge those who oppress and the princes among humans, dwarves, and elves know this well.

We gnomes are not as strong as the other races, this can be a handicap when it comes to farm work. Gnome peasant farmers generally are more likely to have access to more draft animals than human peasant farmers do. This is partially because we have gnomes at the top of society convincing the local rulers to be generous but it is also because we gnomes are fastidious and forward thinking managers and gnomish villages managed their livestock more carefully than humans. A lot of the best animal breeders are gnomes.

Little folk eat less than big folk. If we have comparable lands, then we have more surplus crops to trade. We can use the surplus to buy more draft animals and ensure that we can continue to have a surplus in years to come. Also, we gnomes are very community focused. It is very difficult for three or four human families to have joint ownership over a strong ox without fighting, but three or four gnome families are able to share the beast of burden fairly.Because of our agricultural surplus, we gnomes have proportionally more skilled craftsmen and learned sages than humans and other big folk. The best of these get invited into the retinues of kings and other potentates helping ensure our continued prosperity for years to come.

(sidebar 1)
On The Topic Of Cultural Assimilation
How do gnomes fit in among human, elven, or dwarven society?

Quite well, they don't take much space so they fit anywhere!

That's a common joke we've all heard before. We assimilate well because we were created to assimilate into other cultures and broker peace. That's why we have nonthreatening appearances and silver tongues.

The humans of West Colassia have adopted many gnomish customs. Mera is the most widely worshiped of the Nine among most human peasants. Most human children have a Geu-Puppy guarding them while they sleep. Most of the larger folk celebrate Hearth Day. Gnomish sages developed the modern feudal calendar setting the death of Vladomir the Conqueror as Year 1 and most human sages have since adopted the same calendar.

Assimilation works both ways. We picked up some traits from the larger folk too. Most gnomes implicitly accept feudalism, a very human government concept. Originally, gnomish Tenders were non-denominational, now nearly all gnomish Mera worshipers are either Walchese or Terrawan. Most gnomes carry crossbows rather than bows and it is far more common for gnomes to keep a weapon now than it was for our ancient ancestors because we have adopted the militia attitude from the local big folk.

To our kind, It usually doesn't really matter if a gnome is a Fumayan gnome or a Kantoca gnome or whatever because we have a wide community and gnomes mingle and mix between the various gnome enclaves in various nations and intermarriages are fairly common.

We of the greater gnome community rarely mix with forest gnomes or Meckelorn gnomes. Their history is pretty separate from ours. Wheras the gnomes of West Colassia's human lands have a common history and common heritage, the forest gnomes and Meckelorn gnomes are far closer to the history and culture of Codenya and Meckelorn respectively than to gnomekind in general.

I have met quite a few forest gnomes on Rumspringa and one or two Meckelorn gnomes. Relations between them and us are certainly polite (they are still gnomes after all), but there is a higher level of formality in our interactions than when meeting other supposedly "foreign" gnomes.This isn't just about the difference between humans and dwarves and elves.

The Stahlheimer gnomes and so-called "grey" gnomes are very much assimilated with the local dwarves and elves of their adopted homelands but they still are very much culturally connected to the most of the gnomes in nearby human lands as well.

If we are not careful, we could have a falling out between Uskalan gnomes and the rest of the little folk. The land of Uskala is a treacherous place and I fear our kind may be assimilating too well there.

(sidebar 2)
Gnomes At War
Most nations in West Colassia have a small professional army on duty year round, and a large part-time militia called up in times of need.

Sometimes service in the militia is voluntary, sometimes it is mandatory, sometimes it's mandatory. Sometimes militia members are "voluntold" to join.

Gnomes may mix well with humans, elves and dwarves in peacetime, but gnomish soldiers don't mix well with larger soldiers.

Sure we have less upper body strength, but a small person can be just as lethal as a big person, if they have a sharp blade or sturdy crossbow. If the militia is just defending their own village, gnome militias do fine. But gnomes on the march are something of a liability.

We have short legs, so our soldiers cannot march as fast as larger soldiers, at least not long term. Gnome soldiers on foot cannot carry as much gear as human soldiers. Our differing reach makes mixed formations of little and big folk awkward.

Foolish generals use gnome soldiers as arrow catchers. Wise generals understand that a gnome's true strength is in fighting dirty and let their gnome soldiers do what they do best. Also, gnomes make great quartermasters and field medics.

Some lords don't want to send poorly equipped gnomes to their death on the battlefield, and they don't want to dirty their hands associating with gnome guerilla fighters. One thing that some human lords have adopted a controversial policy nicknamed the "little people tax" or "the coward's reparations" by those who don't agree with it. This policy was originally created by the Elven Empire but some human lords have copied them.

In these places, humans are required to participate in their local militia and gnomes are not. However, gnomes pay a higher rate of taxes and this money (in theory) is funneled into buying arms for the human militia.

Among dwarf nations, Meckelorn gnomes serve their militia as stealth warriors while Stahlheimer gnomes have to pay a tax in lieu of militia though it is a very small tax because Stahlheim seems to be moving away from militias in favor of a larger full-time army.

Obviously many humans and gnomes believe this is reasonable or they wouldn't do it, but many humans and gnomes alike find this policy unfair and insulting.

 

I'm glad a voice came out, even if that's not what I had in mind. Though it kind of works. West Colassia is somewhat like Westeros in that the southerners are all up north.

The northern humans are a bit more folksy and rustic up north, and I guess the gnomes copy the local humans whether they admit it or not. I also imagine gnomes, as much as they are committed to fostering peace among all mortal races, they are somewhat prejudiced against half-breeds because gnomes don't make nearly as many half-breeds as humans. There is this old meme.



I actually do have half-gnomes. They are just rare.

And I actually use this as the header art for my article on halfbreeds though it's a little grainy when it's resized for World Anvil.



Humans are a bit more open minded about half-breeds because they are responsible for most of them. Also, humans hold Zarthus in higher regard than gnomes and Zarthus is the patron of bastards, orphans and half-breeds.

If you want to PM any errors you see, I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, I revisit at least one or two old articles a day and fix typos as I find them, but editing my strongest suit as a writer.

Anyway, since this seemed well received I will probably write more "The History of _____, as told by _____".

Probably wood elves next. Maybe I'll cover Meckelorn but realistically a Meckelorner covering Meckelorn history would get put a crazy long tangent about how bad orcs are.