Adaran
Adarans are resilient and industrious, reserved and incisive. They care about the sensible and the mystical, and the harshness of life among the peaks has not made them grim or fatalistic. Typical Adarans are guarded with strangers but openly emotional among their friends and family. Life is too short to waste time with pretension, and the Path of Light teaches integrity and honesty.
Adarans are generally distrustful. More than a thousand years of siege has taught them to be that way. Most Adarans tend to reject the novel and the strange, preferring the known and the trustworthy. If someone manages to earn an Adarans gratitude or trust, the resultant loyalty is deep.
Normal Adarans live simply compared to the people of tamer lands. That is not to say they live without joy or comfort, but that they have access to fewer diversions and luxuries. Given this, an Adaran takes great joy in work and leisure, and similar pride in strong relationships. To an Adaran, real luxury is found in a sturdy house, loose and comfortable clothing, and another's warm arms to curl up in before sleep. An Adaran toils in the fields, drives animals in small pastures, or hunts in the mountains, then gathers with friends at night to tell stories, make beer and bread, and enjoy a smoke.
Adarans value the spiritual because they know material existence is fleeting. They respect the spirits along with their ancestors, elders, and those who show good judgment. Spirituality has its place in everything, from patterns of weaving to actual meditation.
Arcanists, martial artists, and psychics who protect Adar seek perfection in body and mind. They have to. At any moment, they might be required to offer body and soul to hold Adar against the Inspired. Even the commoners know that meditation on the Path of Light is important work, not laziness or inaction. In fact, inaction can be considered evil.
Real evil lives in Adar, though. Although the vast majority of folk are concerned with the welfare of at least their local friends and families, a few of Adar's residents are descendants of those who came to the land of refuge to escape persecution or prosecution rightly deserved. Even so, wicked Adarans try to maintain a veneer of propriety—acting honest and assiduous so they can better survive
Naming Traditions
Feminine names
Masculine names
Family names
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
Cuisine
Food holds a special place in Adaran life. It is a requirement for life, but it is also a mode of expression, a blessing from the spirit world, and an experience. An Adaran avoids cooking and eating when he is angry or grieving, lest his emotions taint the meal.
Food is usually baked in or roasted on a clay oven built in the house, though broiling over an open fire is a common alternative. Adarans avoid using utensils. They use their hands, sometimes protected by leaves, to pick up food, intending to involve all five senses in eating.
Adarans like spice. The fragrant herbs used in cooking provide taste, and many also aid digestion and fortify the body. Foreigners can find Adaran food too spicy, and Adarans often find foreign food bland.
A wide variety of comestibles can be found on the Adaran table, from broad, woody cavern fungi to the meat of mountain sheep, from fleshy fruits to the milk of oxen and goats—along with yogurt and cheeses from this milk. Some Adarans refrain from eating meat, showing their respect for the lives of all creatures.
Monasteries are often more limited in fare, due to the ruggedness of the land around them. Still, the ascetics appreciate food as a manifestation of life.
Art & Architecture
Art
Adaran art is more craft than fine art. From carved knife grips to chanted meditation verses, art in Adar often serves a dual purpose. It's also very personal.
People in Adar take time to do their tasks. They make beautiful and intricate jewelry and armor, personalized carvings to hang over a house door (which aids in knowing the residents), and even multicolored crystal windows for their temples. Beauty is always coupled with functionality. A golden roof on a temple not only shows reverence, but it also never tarnishes. A mural not only recalls the past or reveres an ancient master of the Path of Light, but it also beautifies and seals the stone.
A popular art form in Adar is "earth paining." Such works, made of colored earth, are often group efforts and are usually stylized images of intertwining lines of color. The paintings are created in a ritualized and meditative way. Intended to be impermanent, such paintings are at once the product of contemplation and creation.
While storm winds howl, the warm hearth provides a place to gather and create. It's also where stories are told and dances performed. Adaran tales tend toward morality plays, extolling wisdom and survival. Their folk dances are group affairs involving rings of people switching partners or couples dancing in time with one another. The kalashtar path of shadows martial dance is derived from ancient Adaran steps.
Architecture
Buildings in Adar are made out of stone, with wood used for roofs. Built to withstand the wind, precipitation, and trembling earth, houses are usually broad and low with sharply slanted sides. To an Aundairian, Adaran living spaces would seem cramped, but a native of Adar values a house that lasts more than she does a high ceiling. Adarans take care and time to personalize their dwellings—an Adaran might spend years carving designs into the walls of her home.
Most houses have a central opening in the roof with another smaller roof built over it, like a small tower. Such openings allow light in and stale air out. Adarans believe, according to the Path of Light, that these openings are also pathways for the mind and focusers of positive energy.
Grander edifices, such as the shrines or temples that form the center of a community, are often domed. Most Adarans take pride in a well-appointed village shrine. All buildings face east when possible, or north, but Adarans never build main entrances facing south. The east invites the light and life. The north invites wealth. South is considered a direction of decay and death.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Adaran people live modestly. Mountainfolk and monks alike see craft as a leisure activity, and the precepts of the Path of Light have reinforced this custom for over a millennium. Adaran crafts are usually functional, and they are always products of care.
Adarans wear loose and comfortable clothes including simple sandals when it's warm. In the cold, they layer in cloth and fur. As with all their crafts, they take the time to decorate their clothes—leather and cloth are often richly colored, and patterns of elaborate lines are woven or painted as highlights. Bright colors in individualized patterns often make it possible to tell who's coming down the ridge before that person's face can be recognized.
Skin is a place for adornment as well. Intricate, temporary body art made with herbs provides a way to focus the mind while allowing one to share the results. Herbal paints or powders are also applied to indicate a spiritual or emotional condition or event, such as yellow for happiness or ash-gray for grief. Many adherents of the Path of Light paint an inverted white triangle between their brows.
The Adarans' love of craft manifests in a variety of jewelry. From glass beadwork to tiny silver plates strung together as a head covering, Adarans spare no effort in producing beautiful objects to wear. They enjoy bracelets, armbands, and torcs. Rings are also favored; Adarans wear just as many rings in their ears and noses, and on their toes, as on their fingers.
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