Dominion Era/Tolvaar (Culture)
The wolf-shifting peoples of Di'Termalttë, the Tolvaar are known in the Tretalleri tongue as Di'Farêni. Younger by far than the two elfin races, Di'Tretâllë and Di'Elledŷnnë that they share the continent with, it would nevertheless be a mistake to call the Tolvaar primitive. Though their ancestral home lies in the Exiled Realm, due to their good relations with Di'Tretâllë, it is not uncommon to see Tolvaar enclaves within the lands of the Dominion.
Religion
It may well be an exercise in futility to attempt to paint the Tolvaari clans of the Dominion Era in broad strokes when it comes to the matter of religion as writings, both Tolvaari and not, indicate that during this time period, Tolvaari religious views varied wildly from one clan to the next. However, it is useful to loosely categorize Tolvaari belief systems into three groupings: secular, Dominean, and animist. It is important to note that these belief systems play an integral role in Tolvaari culture and therefore, it is difficult to discuss Tolvaari culture at any length without referring to any of these three groupings. This article shall focus largely on the commonalities between these three groupings, but each one is distinct enough from the others that they warrant articles of their own which can be found here:
To temporarily satisfy the curiosity of the reader, and in the interest of brevity, we shall touch upon the distinctions between these three groups briefly.
The Animist Tolvaar reside primarily in the southern reaches of the Exiled Realm. They are concentrated around the white cliffs of Vaar-Akôr, which the Tolvaari Clans consider to be their ancestral lands. The Animist Tolvaar, notably, adhere more closely than the other two groupings to the old ways of the Tolvaari Clans. That is, they believe in the innate sacredness of all things, they reject the concept of gods, and they consider themselves one with the land as the druids once did.
The Dominean Tolvaar are, unlike their brethren, naturally more warlike. They reside primarily in the region in and around the Exiled Realm's border with the Dominion as well as in numerous enclaves in Dominion lands. It is unknown whether their warlike nature is the result of the influence of Dominion ideology, as a competing theory posits that it is instead their innate tendency to war that draws them to the Dominion. Regardless, their close proximity to the Dominion has certainly influenced their religious beliefs and the Dominean Tolvaar worship The Nine of the Tretalleri faith. Where the animist Tolvaar reject the concept of deities, the Dominean Tolvaar embrace them.
The Secular Tolvaar residing primarily in the northern reaches of the exiled realm where much of the trade between the Dominion and the Exiled Realm passes, the Secular Tolvaar are different from their brethren in that they reject any notion of the supernatural that is not accompanied by empirical proof. Easily the most technologically advanced of the Tolvaari clans, the Secular Tolvaar are also the most likely to live in proper cities. There is little to speak of with regard to religion and faith for the Secular Tolvaar for they refuse to acknowledge that which is asserted without evidence, but they are notable for their philosophy that the purpose of life is to uncover truths both personal and cosmic, which certainly places them favorably in the eyes of 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.
