Difference between revisions of "Dominion Era/Tolvaar (Culture)"

Revision as of 18:02, 17 October 2016

Dominion Era Tolvaar
Faeren
Wolfkin
Racial Insignia of the Tolvaar
Land of Origin
Continent of Origin	Termalttë
Homeland	Vaar-Akôr Region
Capital	Disparate peoples/kingdoms with no single capital
Racial Lore
Language	Tolvaari
Characteristics	Tolvaar (Characteristics)
Culture	Tolvaar (Culture)
History	Dominion Era
Government	Tolvaar (Government)
Military	Tolvaar (Military)
Stats	Tolvaar (Stats)
Racial Relations
Allies	None
Enemies	Elledynnë
Neutrals	None

The wolfkin of Di'Termalttë, the Tolvaar are one of the younger races to grace the continent with their presence. Known in Tretalleri as Di'Fareni, the Tolvaar of the Dominion Era thrive in relative prosperity despite of and perhaps because of the general confinement of their territories to the Exiled Realm, which lies in between the realms of the Tretalleri Dominion and the Elledyn'ni Silvered Realm. It is worth noting, however, that though their ancient heritage places the homeland of their culture and their civilization in the Vaar-Akôri region to the south of the Exiled Realm, the good relations that the Tolvaar establish with the Dominion allows them to live peacefully by the borders of the Exiled Realm with Dominion lands, and even in a number of small enclaves officially sanctioned by the Ivory Throne.

Religion

Even at the onset of the Dominion Era, the religious views of the Tolvaari clans varied to such a degree from one region of their territory to the next that it was an exercise in futility to attempt to paint them in broad strokes. However, this is where we begin to see the seeds of the three primary religious groups that come to dominate the Tolvaari population later on in the Dominion Era. Loosely categorized, the Tolvaari clans fall into one of three grousp: the Animist, the Dominean, and the Secular.

Religion plays an integral role in the history of the Tolvaari peoples and the way that their culture evolves and develops over time. It is therefore necessary to understand the interplay between the three religious groups and their respective populations in order to properly understand the way that the Tolvaar shaped their history. It is nigh-impossible to discuss Tolvaari culture, in general, at length without referring to the three groups.

Animist Tolvaar

The animist Tolvaari clans reside primarily in the southern reaches of the Exiled Realm where they are largely isolated from the two encroaching empires of the Dominion and the Silvered Realm. Concentrated primarily around white cliffs of the Vaar-Akôri region, the ancestral lands of the Tolvaar, they are considered far more in tune with their ancient heritage than the other groupings.

Of particular note is the tendency of the animist Tolvaari clans to adhere more closely to the old ways of the Tolvaari clans than the others. One of the most prominent manifestations of this adherence to the old ways are the Imalakya, contests of strength both physical and spiritual held on the third full moon of every second year.

The defining characteristic of the animist Tolvaar is their belief in the innate sacredness of all things. That is, the animist Tolvaar believe that divinity resides within each creature, be it plant or animal, all forms of earth, water, and air, and even in the heavenly bodies that shed light through the day and through the night. Furthermore, the animist Tolvaar reject the concept of gods, believing that to ascribe divinity to a single entity is to deny the innate sacredness that is possessed by all things. They consider the concept of gods a license to exploit and abuse the world around them.

Dominean Tolvaar

The Dominean Tolvaari clans live in and around the region that forms the border between the Exiled Realm and the Dominion of the Tretâllë. Dominean Tolvaar also comprise the vast majority of the population of Tolvaar who reside in the Tolvaari enclaves within Dominion lands.

They are, by nature, more warlike than their brethren, though not in the sense that they often fall into conflict with one another. Though more willing by far to engage in violence than the other Tolvaari clans, the Dominean Tolvaar do not do so without discretion for they believe that the only wars worth fighting are the ones that are fought out of necessity.

Belief in the The Nine of the Tretalleri faith is what marks the line between the Dominean Tolvaar and the others. Though some, particularly the clans that reside deeper into the Dominion and which, toward the end of the Dominion Era, have sworn fealty to the Ivory Throne, are adherents to tha canonical faith, the vast majority have adopted the Nine as deities of their own and treat them in a manner quite different from that prescribed by the Grand Rookery.

Secular Tolvaar

At the onset of the Dominion Era, many of the Tolvaar in the Exiled Realm, particularly in the central and northern regions were still animist, however as the years marched on, what had been a minority slowly began to grow. The Secular Tolvaar now comprise the vast majority of the Tolvaari population, and though there isn't much to be said about their religious beliefs, they are easily one of the most interesting of the three groups.

Of note among the secular Tolvaar is the notion that morality is not something that can be defined or codified in a book. For many of the secular Tolvaar, though there are common-sense rules such as 'murder is bad,' and 'stealing is bad,' the rightness or wrongness of an action is determined solely by the circumstances wherein they occurred. Furthermore, the secular Tolvaar believe that morality does not depend on some respect for innate sacredness or fear of divine intervention, but rather that morality arises from mutual accountability between persons and other persons, the environment, and the larger culture that surrounds them.

The secular Tolvaar are defined by their outright rejection of gods, but unlike the animist Tolvaar, they also reject the notion of innate divinity or any sort of supernatural claim that is not itself accompanied by a preponderance of evidence. Furthermore, the secular Tolvaar believe that the purpose of life is not to, make one's inner divinity blossom, nor have a good death, but rather to pursue truths both personal and cosmic which is compelling for many, including a significant number of individuals in the Grand Rookery.

The Lady Veýs

Although the Tolvaar of the Dominion Era are a largely disparate people, with large differences in culture and beliefs between any two regions in the entirety of their territory, they still share a collective cultural mythos. The most prominent of these, and perhaps the one that has had the most influence on the modern day, is that of the legend of the Lady Veýs. Though it is the secular Tolvaar who comprise the majority of the modern-day Tolvaari population, the Lady Veýs remains an important cultural figure to the Tolvaar. There are, no doubt, skeptics with regard to the veracity of the stories of the Lady Veýs, but nevertheless, one would be as hard-pressed to find a Tolvaari doubter of the Lady Veýs in the modern day as in the Dominion Era.

It is difficult to pinpoint the origins of the stories of the Lady Veýs for the accounts that survive today, while many, largely disagree on many of the finer points, owing primarily to the fact that the writers of these accounts came from many different clans and the disparate nature of the Dominion Era Tolvaar all but ensures that these writers had different perspectives. Nevertheless, there are a few threads of commonality between these stories which provide some insight to the mythological history of the Tolvaari peoples.

Very little survives with regard to the state of the Tolvaar before the arrival of the Lady Veýs onto the scene, and what does survive is second-hand, recorded centuries after the fact once oral tradition gave way to written tradition. However, these accounts of the 'before-time' that do survive agree that before the Lady Veýs, the Tolvaar were in a 'dark' age. Of the surviving accounts, twenty seven in all, there are two primary groups. The 'Kesvarkaya,' and the 'Keskariya' accounts. The Kesvarkaya accounts begin with the phrase Keskevarka, which translated, approximately means 'we were lost,' while the Keskarniya accounts begin with the phrase Kesvekari, which approximately means we were angry. These imply that before the arrival of the Lady Veýs, the Tolvaar were mired in conflict and had lost their way.

Another commonality between the legends of the Lady Veýs that survive us to the modern day, is the idea that the Lady Veýs is a redemptive figure in Tolvaari lore. Once again, the details change dramatically from one clan to the next, but nevertheless, the general sentiment remains the same: the Lady Veýs helped the Tolvaari peoples rise from their dark ages as a peaceful, if not united, whole. This is most commonly reflected in the motif of the 'Three Redemptions' which are generally portrayed in the following order: Redemption from Savagery, Redemption from the Loss of Purpose, and Redemption from the Crisis of Identity.

For the secular Tolvaar and the Dominean Tolvaar, these Three Redemptions are simple. In fact, these two groups agree almost point for point on the matter, leading many theorists to believe that the secular Tolvaar and Dominean Tolvaar both arose from a shared ancestor group that split off from the animist Tolvaar in the past. Regardless, to the secular Tolvaar and the Dominean Tolvaar, the Redemption from Savagery is the introduction of the way of peace by the Lady Veýs, the Redemption from the Loss of Purpose arises from the Lady Veýs' designation of the Tolvaar as the stewards of the land, and the Redemption from the Crisis of Identity comes from the memory of the true nature of the ancient ancestors of the Tolvaar.

The interpretation of the Three Redemptions is shrouded in mysticism from the perspective of the animist Tolvaar and as a result, is very difficult to penetrate and explain briefly. It is discussed in depth in the article written about the animist Tolvaar. Generally speaking, however, the animist ideas of the Three Redemptions align somewhat with the secular and Dominean Tolvaari clans.

Values

Paid for with blood, sweat, and tears, the ideal of peace is one of the most dearly held in Tolvaar culture, even among the more warlike Dominean Tolvaari clans. Its importance to the Tolvaar hearkens back to the pre-Veýsian era of the Tolvaari tradition, where the Tolvaari clans warred against one another. Although the surviving texts disagree about the finer points of this age of conflict, there is a shared sentiment that the period was almost cataclysmic. During this time, the literature alleges, many of the Tolvaar believed that the end of their race was nigh and that as their conflict raged and the lands within which they could freely roam shrank, they would tear themselves apart, leaving nothing but a memory of bloodshed imprinted into the earth itself.