Mountain Agarthans

Mountain Agarthans are one of the five primary culture groups of the eponymous country, Agartha. While the title does not describe the people who live within the mountainous capital of Agartha City, it does refer to those who lived on the cliffsides, clearings, and edges of the mountain in general as well as those all along the Creathal.
While Agarthan culture as a whole has melded together in ways that make the edges hard to tell, historically Mountain Agarthans were seen as hardy and adaptable people, sometimes hard-headed but good intentioned either way. They are largely what the outside world thinks of when asked to imagine an average ancient Agarthan.

Naming Traditions

Family names

Mountain Agarthans typically use the Adsarth¹ language to name their children. The meanings behind such namings can be varied and long-storied, but family names usually describe some ancestral quality, profession, or notable locale of the family. Names describing specific mountainous regions or bends of nature are common. It is common custom to give children simpler or softer names, and then let them choose either to keep the name or forge a new title for themselves as they come of age and, for lack of a better term, "harden" from life experience.

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¹: Represented by Scottish from Adhar meaning Air, Saor meaning Free, and Guth meaning voice

Other names

Mountain Agarthans and their cultural cousins, Forest Agarthans have a cultural habit of making great titles for one another, either in Adsarth or in Common, and often make it a contest among each other to not only have the best, catchiest, or most grandiose name, but also to prove it. Some are admirable, such as Teasag House-Lifter, but very few want to hear the tale of those such as Cailean Seventh-Liver.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Adsarth is the primary language of the Mountain Agarthans as well as their cousin-culture the Forest Agarthans. It's a very throat-centric language, which some linguistic historians believe came from needing to vocalize throughout the echoing mountain ranges.
There haven't been many dialects, since it and the neighboring Isglalla used in other parts of Agartha seem to come from a similar origin point. But in the modern day as Common has become spread and more and more universal of a language, there's been a sort of accented dialect that is spawned from these very intense languages.

Culture and cultural heritage

Mountain Agarthans contributed a good portion of the public Agarthan image how it exists in the modern day. Historically, they were seen as trailblazers of the mountains, finding the safest routes and creating communities along them. They were determined, hardy, adaptable people who stuck together and gave to each other even in eras and seasons where they had little.
This image isn't gone, and neither is the culture, but as time has gone on Agarthans have mingled and mixed and adapted to the point there is less distinction between them, although you can still largely tell the city folk from the rural people. But, for many, their personal or family history in the mountains still means a lot to them, every time they pass a painting on a cliffside or check the wind for snowfall.

Shared customary codes and values

Mountain Agarthans tend to value teamwork and camraderie as a core social value, as well as determination in the face of adversity. While modern Mountain Agarthans know the importance of rest and recovery, there's an universal work ethic that means they aren't the kind to easily take a day off unless they very literally have to.
Adaptability is also a core value, as when your homes could be assailed by Dragons, Boulders, Flooding, or Avalanches, you learn to be prepared for everything and accepting of anything. Until more recent eras when defensive magic and architecture reached new levels, this resulted in easily set-up and torn-down homes.

Common Dress code

While there's variety to the nines and back in the modern day, traditional Mountain Agarthan wear was long, thick, and usually made from all manners of wool from the native Agarthan Sheep or Goats, especially if one was lucky enough to tame one of the Direlambs. They tended to be dyed green from the lush grass at the base of the mountains, or various shades of red and brown from the saturated soil from the mountains.
They also tended to make their clothes rather form-fitting, as much as they could anyways, so that while climbing or traversing they would not snag on any sharp cliffs or particular rock edges, and a longer train would also be much more likely to get dirty in the process. That's not to say that the Mountain Agarthans perfected the style of the catsuit, but one could expect wool-lined pants and shirts rather than long flowing dresses and robes.

Art & Architecture

Mountain Agarthan art took multiple forms, the most famous and typical of the culture being large cliffside murals made with deft hands, precise strokes, and pigments found within natural minerals and roots in and around the mountains they were drawn on. These murals often told stories of the villagers lives, tales of mythology, or were signs and references for others to discover along their paths.
Wool working was also an art form for traditional Mountain Agarthans, with their yarn spinning, dying, and weaving being masterclasses in creating soft, beautiful, and temperature resiliant clothing for centuries. Even with the modern advents of fashion, Agarthan Wool is a popular choice for Winterwear from Paris to Diana and everywhere inbetween.

Foods & Cuisine

Mountain Agarthans diets mainly consisted of mineral-rich vegetables farmed near rivers from the mountainous snow melt and meat and dairy from their common sheep and goat herds. Some villages, closer to the low plains, bred cattle for various purposes, but the majority of Mountain Agarthans enjoyed lamb and goat both for meat and dairy. Mountainous Poultry were also found, but were far less common before more modern times.
Common cuisine included sandwiches, stews, bread rolls, savory cheeses, soups, and vegetables with gravy. Local mineral deposits gave them many forms of salt to work with, and naturally growing herbs were used for aromatic and flavoring purposes, although the advent of trade introduced a world of spices that Mountain Agarthans were all too happy to incorporate.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

Regular communal dinners were and are a common staple of Mountain Agarthan families, and made their way into The Mother Dragons Faith as one of the many kinds of sermons the faithful provide. It's an oppritunity for families to come together and share in what they have, and for parents and children alike to unwind away from chores and the reminders of home. These often turn into story times or village meetings as well, since everyone was together anyways.
Different villages would also have different holidays and game days at the advent of Winter and Spring, one to get everyone together to stockpile and forage before winter hit, and the other to carve moats and rivers for the rain to flow down into. They also celebrated many holidays of The Mother Dragons as well as solstice celebrations in general.
Two Mountain Agarthan specific holidays are Opalclas, a yearly art competition wherein the artistic and competitive of the village and/or local area compete to greate the best murals aligning with a yearly theme, and Lomadhalasch, a contest and wool-focused holiday where any previously unsheared sheep or goats are shorn and there are various contests and celebrations regarding the wool and its production.

Birth & Baptismal Rites

Whenever a child is born in a Mountain Agarthan family, after one month the child is annointed with oil from the local Rèidhflùr Lily that grows right at the edge of the mountains. A priest will say a prayer for the health and wellness of the child, and the parents will be given a specially chosen Rèidhflùr seed from the local temples garden to grow with the child.

Funerary and Memorial customs

Depending on how devout the deceased was, they will either be buried in the local temple graveyard and/or at the foot of the mountains. Either way, once buried and any services related to it are performed, either religious or communal, the body is buried with a number of Rèidhflùr Lillies equal to the number of years they were alive.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

In the old days, people living at the base and slopes of the various mountains in the Creathal valued strength, durability, and impeccable fiberwork. Thus, the picturesque image of a Mountain Agarthan regardless of gender was someone powerful, dependable, and with long yet tightly bound braids. For Dwarves, this extends to their beards as well.

Gender Ideals

Borrowed from the Dwarves, who make up the majority of Mountain Agarthans, there is little difference in assumed tasks and responsibilities based on born gender, and instead merely based on ability. While this does lean to what could be seen as traditional gender roles, as many non-Dwarf species have greater levels of sexual dimorphism in the field of muscule growth, it is not an ironclad rule nor do many Mountain Agarthans fall into the trap of gender bioessentialism.

Relationship Ideals

While monogamy is the primary relationship time among Mountain Agarthans, importance is placed on bonds and relationships of all kinds, from Familiar, to Romantic, to Platonic, to Blood-Sworn. It takes a village, after all, and when your villages are at risk of being beset by monsters, rockslides, and the treacherous environment of the mountains, there's more of a reason to band together than ever, no matter what facet of affection the relationship belongs to.
This leads to everyone in a given town, village, neighborhood, what-have-you to have a close affection for each other, with children often referring to even non-relatives with some manner of Uncle, Aunt, Piuan², or Cousin. If they're families are closer, they might refer even closer to their peers as Siblings and the adults as their second parents.

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²: Gender neutral version of Uncle/Aunt for Adsarth

Related Organizations

• Agartha
• Smàragclann
• The Mother Dragons Faith

Related Locations

• World-Mountain Agartha