Setting the Setting - OD&D (3LBB) & AD&D2e - Part 5 - Cultures: the Thal'Sunari Elves

 


In the previous 2 posts, I took a closer look at two of the 9 cultures generated for my Local Campaign Area.  The first was the dominant culture of the area, the Eldorian humans, who despite not being native to the area, have given it their name. Next came the Thunderan Dwarves of the Cobalt Bastion, merchants and emissaries of an advanced and mercantile Dwarf republic. Today, I'll go over some rolls and choices I made to further define another of our 3 major cultures, the Elves. This is where things really start to get interesting.

For the Cultural Archetype, I rolled and got Egyptian. At first glance, this might seem strange, but if one thinks about it, there's a fair amount of precedence for Elves being associated with stars and other celestial bodies, from Tolkien's Elves' association with stars, to the Forgotten Realms Sun and Moon Elves. Given the significant role of the Sun and the Moon in Egyptian mythology, this cultural archetype seemed intriguing and worth keeping and exploring.

Egyptian: The campaign has an ancient Egyptian flavor to it. This category may also include the Sumerian or Babylonian empires, if you prefer.

For technology level, rather than roll, I decided to go with Roman. Bronze Age would also have been appropriate, or just going with Hundred Years' War or Renaissance to go with the previous two entries. I felt it would be fitting though, for a culture steeped in tradition like Ancient Egypt to have made some advances, while eschewing (for the most part) some of the foreign ideas being brought by subsequent settlers.

Roman: This is more accurately viewed as a specialized category of the Bronze Age or Ancient settings, although the Romans came to power hundreds of years after the end of the Bronze Age. Military organization and tactics continue to advance, along with the first real applications of military engineering and siegecraft.

In the previous two posts, I assigned Neutral to the Eldorian Humans and Chaotic Good for the Dwarves. In keeping with my idea of having one of the 9 alignments associated with one each of the 9 Cultures in the Local Area.

Continuing with the somewhat unusual idea of a Chaotic society of Dwarves, I decided our Egypt-inspired Elves would be Lawful Neutral, a little bit unusual for usually free-spirited Elves, but perfectly fitting for a society based on Egypt, so frequently depicted as very traditional.

Lawful neutral: The people seem obsessed with laws and government organization. Sweeping social programs are conceived to address problems confronting the realm, but they lack compassion and tend to treat everyone the same regardless of circumstances. Complicated bureaucracies and regulations often dominate government. Other than bureaucracy, a dictator may rule lawful neutral lands.

I'm seeing here an ancient Elven culture, steeped in traditions and customs as strict as laws, of which there are also plenty.

For form of government, while Hierarchy, Theocracy or Magiocracy would have been fitting for Egyptian Elves, we've already mentioned a sort religious satrapy for the overall government of the area. I therefore selected Monarchy, giving us an ancient, pharaonic dynasty of long-lived Elven Kings and Queens.

Monarchy: Government by a single hereditary sovereign. Unlike the autocrat, the monarch's powers are limited by law, and he serves as the head of a different governmental form such as a miiitocracy or democracy.

Hierarchy: A feudal or bureaucratic system which proceeds through different levels of a religious institution.

Satrapy: Conquerors and representatives of another government wield power over the region, ruling it as part of a larger empire. The satraps themselves might be bureaucrats and military officers, or they may be unusual characters or monsters of some kind, such as dragons, beholders, or vampires.

The Local Campaign Area Chapter proceeds from here to Subsistence Systems, culture/race relations, and Population Level, but I feel like these are best addressed when we get to detailing and mapping the land itself and plotting the settlements.

I put Egyptian Elven Kingdom into the Culture Name Generator at Vondy.com to see what I could get.  From the options that came up, I picked Thal'Sunaria, and shortened that for the culture's demonym and language - Sunari.

I also thought of migratory patterns, and through some rolls and choices, decided on settlement waves for our 9 cultures. The Sunari Elves, fittingly, are native, original people to the Local Campaign Area 9 (though not the only ones.).


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