Kizen Culture

Stern scholars, contemplative monks, and restrained paternalistic warriors. Boisterous feasthalls, grinning merchants, and ambitious explorers. Kizen Culture is publicly associated with both of these contradictory pictures. This is a culture divided between hyper-ascetic dogma and extreme commercial realities, where homogenous martial traditionalism meets pluralistic and globally-aware urbanism.
Kizen culture is the dominant culture of the Empire of Kizen and Reverent Path Kivish religion. Not all Reverent Path followers adhere to these cultural norms - the Kingdom of Verzavek has its own related culture, for example - but the influence of Kizen culture looms large in the religion. Within the Empire of Kizen, it is also worth noting that subcultures based on region, religion, class, and species create significant diversity. This description focuses on Kizen Bay culture, the cultural norms of the West-imperial elite and major cities. Just as this culture considers Kobold experiences normative and "default", this description will also focus on Kobold norms.
The contradictions and divisions within this culture are strong, yet imperial propaganda downplays these to emphasize a false sense of cultural unity and homogeny.

Naming Traditions

Family names

For Kizen naming conventions, see @waking

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Wakingtongue, the modern incarnation of the original language all the first Kobolds were created with, is deeply tied into the institutions and structures of Kizen culture. Wakingtongue is already the trade language of Stildane, but it is considered rude and somewhat suspect to speak anything else in Kizen communities. Wakingtongue is the default that all people are expected to know, and anyone speaking something else is either desperately ignorant or trying to hide something. Kizen communities can be quite hostile to foreign language use in their midst; foreigners can be startled by how Kizen people act as if other languages don't exist or are somehow threatening. Obviously xenophobes tend to be more aggressive in this regard - most Kizen people just get uncomfortable or grumble when other languages are used if Wakingtongue could be used instead. For Kivish Hardliners this is a matter of religious patriotism, in that Wakingtongue is a divine language of innate truth. For non-Kivish Kizen people, it is more that other language use is discourteous. The government and elites actively work to teach Wakingtongue language to the commonfolk, as Wakingtongue is seen as an innately rational and civilized language that uplifts those who live in its grammar and vocabulary.
There is a specific "bay accent" or bay dialect associated with the Empire of Kizen's central coastline and urban centers. This bay accent is considered the proper way of speaking. The interior plains dialect is acceptable, if considered somewhat cutesy and rural. Outside dialects of Wakingtongue, associated with Liberated Path and Promised Path Kivish who live across Stildane, are mutually intelligble and recognized as Wakingtongue, but are stigmatized somewhat as foreigner-talk.

Shared customary codes and values

Kizen values confidence, intelligence, order, and strength - but has a lot of internal disagreement about how those qualities are displayed. There is an impulse towards smug commercialism on one hand: a confident optimism in magic, technology, rationalism, and the open market that values material wealth and social competition regardless of heritage. On the other hand there is a tradition of disciplined religious austerity, with an extreme attachment to Reverent Path rejections of material wealth and material sensations, combiend with a focus on heritage, self-control, and a willingness to subordinate the self to the communal whole. Some might say this is individualism against communalism, secularism against religion, modern capitalism against martial tradionalism. Those framings might be attractive (especially to Kizen's culture warriors), but they miss the fact that both of these wings of Kizen culture have deep and entangled roots. The people of Kizen bridge these two contradictory visions of 'order and strength', and different communities have a long history of combining elements of both value sets on their own terms. The question isn't "which one" of these two value sets but "in what combination."
Reverence, respect, and gratitude are important in Kizen. Appreciate what you have and do not complain. Complaining is a sign of weakness. Respect those around you and do not engage in petty insults or self-aggrandizing behavior. Topics of respect deserve respect. Joy and jokes have their place, but a person of compsure knows when to display solemnity and restraint (dry humor can skirt this line more effectively). Recognize the status of others and show the proper respect to avoid conflict, but do not engage in excessive grovelling or subordination.

Tradition and Modernity

The Reverent Path teaches that discipline, restraint, ascetecism, education, and humility are all virtues. This is reflected in Kizen culture to varying extents. The Kizen Martial Code is often understood as rules for the 'model citizen' that embody these virtues: it calls for strict moderation of in alcohol use, careful self control at all times, a constant curation of bodily and mental strength, a respect of those of higher rank, and a paternalistic respect for all those of lower rank. The Martial Virtues are perhaps the most culturall important part of the code: punctuality, modesty, honesty, sincerity, straightforwardness, justice, orderliness, conscientiousness, duty, frugality, cleanliness, self-restraint, determination, and reliability. The military and elites take these Martial Virtues seriously. While Kizen's schools try to teach the Martial Virtues to as many as possible, the Virtues aren't really taken that seriously outside of elite or military circles. The Martial Codes are decidedly elite and are frankly rather vague, often acting as propaganda more than a real code to live by.
Business sense and commercial acumen are increasingly valued in modern Kizen. Where bloodlines once decided one's status, wealth and government office now do. There is a strong sense of technocratic optimism across Kizen, that things will get better if the course is kept and that technology represents a more rational and civilized future. In that way, material consumer culture represents a more civilized mode of life. Obviously, this consumer culture isn't nearly as intense as industrial consumer culture - most households still produce some of their own food and textiles and most houses must save up to buy consumer goods as status symbols. However, compared to the less commercial and more isolated past, modern Kizen culture is truly globalized and commercialized. People consume foreign tobacco, coffee, tea, chocolate, yerba, opium, sugar, marijuana, distilled alcohol, cotton textiles, spices such as pepper and nutmeg, and furs in a way tney never had prior. These foreign goods are elite luxuries, but even local Stildanian consumer goods are way more common now than they were even a century or two ago. Even if the middle class Kizen craftsperson won't drink foreign black tea, they will consume local mutated-root beverages being produced as regional cash crops - and they'll do it in foreign style, with faux-ceramic cups and Elfcorn sugar. 

Commerce and Civilization

As the world has become more commercial, people's ties to the land have been undermined. Land ownership in general has become more difficult for the lower classes to maintain, and Eigen-style serfdom is on the decline. Instead, more and more of the lower classes are becoming Tunrokken: mobile contract serfs, bound semi-free workers. In Kizen culture, Tunrokken are seen as higher-status than the Eigen: to be a contract serf is more lucrative and socially mobile than a landed serf. Landed serfs in Kizen are regarded as less dignified and more servile, and they often have fewer legal protections from exploitation or abuse. Contract workers aren't really well-protected either, but there are more mechanisms for any kind of protection for them. 
For all traditionalists and modernists alike, there is a shared value in "civilization": a sense of worldly belonging to a global community of higher powers defined by superior knowledge and rationalism. Learning and intelligence are well-valued in Kizen culture; access to higher learning is a major element of Kizen social mobility. Psychology, theology, mathematics, natural science, and magic are all respected arts here: forward-facing, innovative, strong.

Common Etiquette rules

The Kizen Way is confidence with restraint - a proud and strong, but a little guarded about emotions and always in careful control. Not that everyone actually acts like that, of course. 
A Kizen adult is expected to conform, but not in an over-eager way. It is more important to not appear attention-seeking and loud than to be entirely conforming to the mainstream; there is something respectable in someone who is a little deviant in a confident and practical way, as contrasted with the person who is deviant in a "garish, attention-seeking, in-your-face, impractical" way. Granted, what counts as "attention seeking" is extremely subjective and culturally normative, but any kind of difference that seems to be curated is subject to potential ridicule. Elites get to curate their own different aesthetics and be praised for it, of course. Power decides whose behavior is "attention seeking" and whose is "trendsetting". That said, even elites have to walk a careful line. New fashions that "try too hard" are more likely to get mocked in elite circles, and elites are known to put one another's behavior under very intense scrutiny. Poorer critics of elite decadence and Kivish Hardliners often also use this line of thinking to attack elites they don't like as 'foppish', 'weak', 'attention seeking' deviants.
Given all this scrutinizing, it is rather funny that Kizen culture considers privacy to be an important personal right. It makes sense in a way, though: you have a right to be weird in your private domestic space, but the clearer dividing line to the public world brings more expectation for normalcy in public. What happens in someone's house is considered their business unless it somehow impacts other people directly. While hospitality is an expectation in Kizen culture, a full invitation into a person's house is actually quite significant. Only kin and neighbors are entitled to enter a person's house by default (with permission in normal circumstances) - strangers might be invited into a room or a patio area for hospitality, but full invitation into a home to socialize and even lodge is considered quite significant. The wealthy might have a special guest house or hosting area with curtains blocking off the domestic space, to allow them to fully engage in hospitality while also keeping the domestic private space intact. Poorer people often have mutual "guest rooms" built and maintained by neighborhoods or apartment blocks to allow a guest to have their own space apart. Allowing a guest to have their own space is seen as a form of truer hospitality - if there is no intimacy between guest and host, to lodge them in the same house would infringe on guest and host privacies alike. If there is no other room it may still be done, but there is a discomfort there. The desire to respect privacy extends to interpersonal interactions. Personal space is a thing in Kizen culture. None of this Hainish Cultural physicality and cheek-kissing, that spreads disease and is way too personal. One should avoid discussing family details, misfortunes, dreams, finances, sexuality, or drinking stories with people who are not close. 
Kizen culture values direct communication, but direct and polite when possible. Direct insults or rude outbursts are seen as petulent and weak, just as excessively indirect communication is seen as a matter of weak character. Punctuality is also important. Respecting other's time is respecting them as people. There is a common sense that smalltalk is wasteful of time and energy, even if people still engage in smalltalk. Traditional Kizen culture very much values stoic silence in communication, keeping the words to what is necessary. That is increasingly less true nowadays, much to the annoyance of old-timers.

Common Dress code

First off, regarding clothes and non-humans: Kobold nudity or partial nudity is accepted as long as they have a complete fur coat. A robust fur coat counts as hair as long as it obscures any genitalia and butts, that is the Kizen cultural rule. It is still preferable to have over-clothes, but during hot months it is less essential. This rule extends to furry Starspawn as well, but notably does not extend to Humans, Dryads, Prisms, or hybrids.  
Kizen culture is currently very into pants, shirts, and jerkin vests as the "default" classic fashion. The vests are often modified by gender; male-gendered people may choose to wear their vests in a traditional military style called "jupons". Women might traditionally wear a more colorful 'maidenbelt' or loop around them. Other gendered people often wear "oblatives", or draping over-garments. All of these gendered specifics are more traditional and are not strictly policed. 
Dresses and pants are both de-gendered in Kizen culture, and a truly full wardrobe actually contains both. Dresses, gowns, skirts, and robes are considered more tranquil and contemplative, ideal for religious service, scholarship, accounting, social events, and business. Pants are considered travel and work clothes - Kobolds often find climbing (and therefore work and travel) easier in pants, and Kobolds set the fashion trends.
Partlets, shoulder caps, and collars are all respectable formalwear here, both fashionable and traditional. Black velvet round-shoulder partlets are currently very in right now. 
Tall and voluminous hats are also considered to be very in, as extensions of the Kizen preference for big Kobold horns. Kobolds and non-Kobolds alike wear escoffins and hennins (those big medieval horn hats) when they really want to impress. Adding veils to these hats is very in as well: it creates ambiguity between the horns and the hats and expands the volume of both. There is a strength and majesty to this in the eyes of the elite, even if the resentful poor mock these hats as attention-seeking. 
Subdued colors for most of one's clothing are fashionable: greys, blacks, whites, and browns are respectable and "natural" colors. Dark or faded colors are preferred over bright and vivid ones. Some items, like maidenbelts or a courtship's token pins, are expected to be colorful and really contrast against these subdued colors.

Art & Architecture

The architecture of Eveko should be understood as a template for the ideal Kizen building style:

Evekan architecture focuses on square buildings with steeply pitched roofs and broad eaves, made of brick and plastered wood. Eveko likes to build tall, and even the poorer buildings tend to have large facades, patios, and extra pieces of wood jutting out; these are buildings built with Kobold climbing abilities in mind, and extra-large windows that act as secondary doors on the upper stories are not uncommon. Large community firewood stacks are common, as are large basements

As for art, Kizen traditionally values "arts of the mind": literature, poetry, evocative visual art, wordplay, memorized sagas. These are contrasted with "arts of the senses" that seek to either replicate reality or engage in people's "sensual attachments to the material." Words, letters, and symbols are signs of civilization and the mind, elevating art to a higher level. Those sensibilities have been challenged. Exposure to foreign arts and even to Hainish Culture has created a movement for esteemed realistic art, including non-traditional artforms such as sculpture. 
A counter-counter movement against realism has already started in clerical and scholarly circles: "subliminal" art, intended as a kind of scientific endeavor in evoking emotional and mental responses without realistic or even coherent visual or auditory input. Subliminal art is very controversial, but the idea that certain colors, images, and sounds can subtly connect with and even shape a person's "inner self" has certainly caught the imagination. Many people reject this idea, but are intrigued nonetheless.
Non-religious song, dance, puppetry, and theater are not really respected as art forms in Kizen culture. People still sing and dance and play instruments, obviously, but it is considered entertainment and leisure rather than art. Bardic magicians who channel these forms of entertainment into magic are the obvious exception; the magic knowledge woven into their entertainment make their work special. Everyday non-magical minstrels, though? These people are not considered artists. Minstreldom and dancing are considered a common side hussels for sex workers, and the two trades are seen as related in popular culture (depending on the sensuality of the performance; the two aren't synonymous). Context and class matter a lot for dancers and musicians, with the nature of their jobs and performances shaping their public role and social position.

Foods & Cuisine

Kizen culture has a meat-heavy cuisine. Kobolds, the cultural taste-makers, are obligate carnivores after all. While Kobolds can eat bread, berries, fruits, and some vegetables, they quicly become malnourished without regular access to meat. Kizen culture governments and Kivish clerics promote something called the Butcher's Duty: charitable pricing of meat to the poor, in exchange for more expensive meat for the wealthy. Similarly, elites are expected to pay into religious charities to make meat available to even the poorest Kobolds. Given that butchers make a lot of money from these charities, it makes a lot of sense that butchers are willing to embrace their Duty. A Kizen steoretype is that of the a wealthy or middle class family who pretends to be poor when buying meat, to get access to a lower price tier; a "meat miser". The meat miser is a real phenomenon (not common, but it happens), but the cultural trope is a stand in for someone who values their money over their reputation or sense of basic decency. Non-Kobolds do not usually benefit from the Butcher's charity, as they don't need it to live - though individual butchers may choose to extend the courtesy to preferred meat-eating families. 
Like all cultures, foods tend to coincide with certain seasons. Certain holiday feasts really embody these seasonal changes and create "festive cuisine" associated with times of year. August has Aelbaht, the hay festival of civilization and order. Aelbaht is a feast of fish, berries, fruit, and pork, along with beer and ale. It is a time of light sauces and sweet flavors. September's Phoenix Day/Artuvanas is a feast known for spicy food and spice-eating contests. October's Faidlunfelm is a day of blood soups, blood puddings, and blood sausages.
Kizen culture is known for its Roux Sauce: sauces thickened with a mix of flour and fat cooked together. Roux sauces come in a variety of colors, including white milk roux sauce. Royal Roux includes foreign nutmeg and black pepper, while normal roux uses local spices. 
A notable Kizen dish is Klopse: meatballs, breaded with onions, eggs, and pepper, in white roux sauce. Klopse is a fancy dish, but a favorite. Commoners are far more likely to dine on Kuttelsuppe, a light broth tripe soup with vinegar. Schwarzsauer is the most recognizable local blood soup, but incorporating animal blood into puddings, soups, and meat dishes is a common practice. The corned ham hock is iconic feasting fare. Mett, minced raw pork balls seasoned with salt and black pepper, are beloved across class lines. Herring is the preferred Kizen fish, given the large herring migrations in the Kizen bay and the local "Great Bay Herrings" (mutated giant herring that live in the deep). 
Kizen has a grand drinking culture even if the religion formally bans intoxication. Beer and ale are considered superior to wine and distilled spirits - more virtuous and less foreign.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

There are too many local customs to really give a proper voice to, but here are a few notable customs common across Kizen:

• Weekly prayer and visitation to a temple is expected regardless of religion
• If a lost item is found in a public space, it is expected that the person who finds it should place it in a tree or elevated space (unless there is a designated lost and found area). Stealing lost items is believed to bring terrible luck.
• When someone experiences good fortune or mentions a positive life development, everyone is expected to congratulate them or say a blessing of thanks

Birth & Baptismal Rites

Pregnant people or people preparing for a pregnancy often wear an amulet decorated with the image of a horned rabbit, the symbol of renewal and reincarnation. Seclusion is common late in a pregnancy, along with ritual cleanings. Cleanliness and health are prioritized, to create an orderly environment for reincarnation and birth. Midwives are well-respected in Kizen culture. The purity, cleanliness, piety, and chastity of a midwife is seen as important for their effectiveness, and virtually all communities support midwives for all residents. When a baby is born the baby and parent are washed and secluded, and kept away from any excessively intense smells, textures, or tastes (ideally for nine days). 
All babies born are to be presented to a priest for recognition. Presenting the child to the priest for official recording and recognition is the most important infant rite; it is often also their naming ceremony. Birth certificates or records are often made, with a brief physical description. These birth records are local and inconsistent for common people, but are very well-documented and archived for elites. Elite babies are often also given toys or symbols of prominent ancestors, to check for early signs of a familial reincarnation. 
How to best care for newborns and babies in general is a topic of increased debate in Kizen culture. Some scholars have argued that the younger the baby, the more "raw" their minds and "in touch" with their prior lives. It is therefore critical for parents to take early childhood seriously, to block the wickedness of past lives and carry on the wisdom and goodness. This discourse is mostly focused on the elites; common families, with their higher rates of infant mortality and fewer resources to devote to these trends, are generally not the focus of these discussions.

Coming of Age Rites

Kizen coming of age is marked by a ritual known as the Return or the Submission, which occurs around age 17 typically. 

Returns

The Return is a brief departure from one's family or apprenticeship to spend time as a 'public novice' devoted to clerical, monastic, or community work and devotion. Returns are overwhelmingly religious: most are explicitly Kivish or Uvaran, though some are managed by Lunar Cults. During a Return, novices abandon their old status and occupation to live in public or religious service. Novices are sworn to temples, priests, gurus, monasteries, paladins, mages, or other respected community leaders, and these leaders may rent the novices out as laborers if they so desire. Novices wear plain and obvious robes, marking them in society. People are to avoid interacting with them outside of pragmatic and formal interactions. Novices are to study and live austere lives during their tenure, engaging in no sins or luxuries. Life can be strict, discipline can be harsh, and the rituals often channel the intensifying feelings of isolation and confusion associated with this lifestyle change. Novices are to live as equals with the other novices, forming cross-class and inter-occupational relationships within their religious group. This period is extremely important for those seeking a religious calling: pious and well-studied novices may be spotted and recruited into religious orders, professions, or ranks during this time. An average novitiation lasts around 3 months, though some can be as short as nine days. 
Novitiation varies depending on the local structures: it is not uncommon for some villages, temples, or neighborhoods to swap novices to intensify the feeling of departure and distance from their old lives. It is possible to "fail" one's time as a novice by refusing to follow rules or being unable to learn the proper prayers and lessons, but this shameful occurence is uncommon. After the novitiation is complete, the novices engage in their Return: a triumphant return to life as adults. After the Return, the graduating class of that year gathers again to march and sing together in the November holiday of Glory Day. Glory Day holidays are a common time for graduating classes to reunite year after year, renewing their fellowship with the others 
While Returns are intended to build interpersonal bonds that ignore social boundaries, the boundary-crossing is limited in reality. Elites often novitiate with a mix of other elites and servants - where communities are divided physically by wealth, those divisions are reflected in who Returns together. 

Weddings

Returns are common but not mandatory. They are also not the only form of adulthood ritual. Marriage is basically expected for a functional adult, and acts as its own major coming of age ritual. Marriages are extremely common during the April holiday of Ketishgretin. Not only is Ketishgretin a lucky day for marriage, it is a day when elite patrons donate money to public marriage funds to pay for common marriages. 
Kizen marriages can be quite lively. They are officiated by priests, monks, or gurus, involve feasting and drinking, and are generally quite happy events. Gift-giving by guests in exchange for attendance is expected. The days prior to the wedding are similarly fun and often quite ritualized. The engaged couple is kept apart, with performative exchanging of tokens under a veil "without the chapperones knowing". Bachelor/ette parties are a common tradition, as each of the engaged parties with their friends before the marriage. 
A big Kizen wedding tradition is "Polter According to tradition, each engaged person chooses a friend or relative to "steal" the other the evening before the weddding, for the engaged to "escape" to each other. Sometimes only one partner is "stolen" and they and the friend drink and eat together before the spouse arrives, pays for the meal, and "banishes" the friend. More often, both partners "escape". The entire ritual is joking and jovial in tone, sometimes including costumes to designate the performance. It is not uncommon for, after the escape, the couple to smash a piece of pottery to ward away evil spirits and misfortune. After the pot is smashed, friends come in with drinks and food for the happy couple. A rowdy sub-tradition includes the symbolic burning of undergarments. The extravagance of these pre-marriage events tends to hinge on the wealth and community support of the engaged.
For craftsmen, there is a third coming of age marker: graduation from an apprenticeship. Graduating apprentices and journeymen parade during the June festival of Wonder's Day, and are formally recognized for their accomplishment.

Funerary and Memorial customs

The ideal death is a peaceful one focused on truth and order. The dying are to be given painkillers if possible, and to be encouraged to think mindfully of enlightenment to allow them to drift seamlessly into their next life. Once dead, a person's fate depends largely on species. Kobolds are immediately taken to a temple and prepared for their journey to Rumakel. This is a sacred journey for those of the Reverent Path, which is key to preserving one's virtue across the cycle of reincarnation. In the Empire of Kizen all Kobolds, regardless of religion, must be given to the City of the Dead. Those with damaged bodies or who otherwise cannot be preserved for the journey are carefully broken down into component pieces or at least placed in a vessel to be taken to somewhere they can be broken down. Elites often preserve their dead as best they can, to be mummified and incorporated into the city as whole vessels. Only the most prestigious bodies are kept as statue-mummies and preserved for the centuries. 
Rumakel is essentially a massive containment center for Ederstone, built from the layered bodies of the Kobold dead to block all chaos magic radiation. Contributing to Rumakel is, therefore, participating in the greatest project of civilization. This is taken extremely seriously. 
Non-Kobolds cannot physically dampen chaos magic radiation; their bodies mutate and resonate with Ederstone, having either no or the opposite effect as intended. For this reason, non-Kobold bodies are kept far away from Rumakel and are generally considered unimportant for the great city. Burial and cremation are both common practices. 
Regardless of species, once someone is dead they are considered 'on their journey': something like an open-casket funeral would be undesirable. Funerals are held well after the death, to give the dead time to reach their destination (burial, cremation, or Rumakel). These are solemn ceremonies devoted to memory and loss.

Common Taboos

Intimacy, loud emotional outbursts, and intoxication are all some kind of taboo. Sexuality is the domain of the private. Contraceptives, such as Wanderbloom plants, are to be kept from the private eye and not consumed in public spaces. Kivish Hardliners outright ban such plants, while even the most liberal Kizen families are a big sheepish about their use. Extramartial sex is formally forbidden. Drinking is common, but drunkenness is shameful. Being drunk outside of either tavern or domestic spaces is frowned upon. Drug use is considered taboo - the more intense the mental effect, the more taboo it is. Yelling, loudness, and emotional outbursts are all seen as signs of immaturity, intoxication, or weakness.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

The Kizen ideal is a Kobold with sleek fur, clean white teeth, and large horns. Cleanliness is important. Black, white, grey, and brown hair are all considered "normal" fur colors. Red fur/hair is considered unusual, and is desirable for some but considered ugly and mockable for others. More vibrant colors are considered garish, weird, and ugly. Hairlessness is associated with disease and is generally considered ugly, while long or poofy hair is considered beautiful. Bulk is considered more attractive than thinness, though there is a desired level of muscle/fat beyond which it is considered excessive and less beautiful. 
For non-Kobolds, beauty norms are often influenced by Kobold standards despite the radically divergent biology. Symmetry is valued as beautiful among Starspawn, as is "consistency." Baldness is generally considered undesirable, and facial and body hair are valued. Blonde, brown, black, grey, red, and white hair is all seen as beautiful, while more diverse mutated hair colors are not. Hair  Thinness is generally not considered desirable. Makeup is considered vain and undesirable, but subtle use of makeup for blemishes, inconsistencies, or mutations is expected. Fingernail polish is expected to be white, black, or grey if used at all. Consistency, sleekness, and simplicity are valued.

Gender Ideals

Kizen Kobolds use the Universal gender known as Mei as default. Mei is often translated as a feminine pronoun that can apply to non-binary people for historical linguistic reasons, which will be explored below.
Kobolds are generally expected to be above gender. It is normal for a Kobold to be referred to by a variety of pronouns, sometimes invoking a non-Kobold pronoun to emphasize a Kobold's actions. For example, if a foreign culture associates masculinity with war, using that culture's masculine pronoun to refer to a Kobold that has performed well in battle is seen as a clever way to imply that they are "natural" in that setting. Defensiveness about pronoun preference is seen as excessively material and selfish. Kobolds are mono-sexed, with all members of the species being essentially hermaphroditic. Kizen culture teaches that gender is an illusion associated with the biologically "splintered" sexual bodies of non-Kobolds (which are also, according to the Reverent Path, illusory). Traditional Kivish wisdom is that gender is an imperfect cultural mirror to sex created by The Dream to make sex categories seem more real. Given this, if a Kobold is to be attached to a gender, it must be Mei - or else that person is tainted by the illusion. Some Kobolds tend to be associated with specific genders based on their Body Devotions, as will be explained below.
In traditional Kobold thought, the genders of the outsiders are understood as aspects of a united whole self. Masculinity is considered a representation of youthfulness, war, mobility, impulsiveness, and lust - adolescence, but also strength. Femininity is considered a representation of responsibility, focus, intelligence, restraint, and kinship - maturity, but also small-mindedness. Alternative genders, as the Dryad genders often associated with dual-sexed plantfolk, are seen as open-minded, scholarly, spiritual - good, but often impractical. Masculinity is often associated with the body and id-self; base, but useful. Femininity with the mind, social relationships, and the conception of the self; Other genders with the spirit. All three are contained in Mei, the all-gender.
Non-Kobolds often find that gender carries certain stereotypes - the rowdy boy, the cautious girl, the non-binary space cadet - but that these stereotypes aren't really articulated into a rigid gender role system. Gender fluidity is socially accepted, though can be socially limited. A person of higher status and social connection can more easily change genders than a social outsider. Non-Kobolds are never recognized as Mei, regardless of their identification and pronoun use - 'Mei' can be used as a feminine/neutral esteemed pronoun as a "vernacular accomodation" by courts and institutions, but a non-Kobold fully claiming Mei gender is considered insulting by elites and institutions. That is for real people.

The Pronoun Situation

In traditional Wakingtongue, Kobolds have their own universal pronoun (tied to the Mei universal gender) as well as a Kobold-male pronoun used for literary purposes. Truly ancient Kobolds, before the Kivish Horde, had multiple understandings of gender with many tribes allowing for self-identified sub-genders from which the Kobold-male pronoun is derived. During the rise of the Kivish Horde, Kobold genders were made more distinct from non-Kobold genders. He, she, and they pronouns for non-Kobolds were formally created and legally systematized by the first Empire of Kizen in the 700s and 800s ME. After that empire fell a millennia ago, Kobold genders became more tied to status than species. The Kobold he/him became an esteemed he/him, and largely replaced the non-Kobold masculine pronoun. In the same vein, non-Kobolds have increasingly used Mei to refer to an esteemed woman and multi-sexed plantfolk over history. A number of Kobolds have accepted the linguistic change in the last few centuries as well. For this reason, historical Kobolds are often referred to as "she" despite them not identifying as women specifically.
This historic pronoun drift and the complicated relationships between species and gender here both contribute to gender ambiguity and gender drift. Historic figures like Verkohn the Honest or Kazalim the Phoenix are referred to using all different pronouns. While Kobolds alone can legally claim universal gender/Mei, anyone can use any pronouns for anyone in scholarship and law.

Body Devotions

Kizen culture, which rejects biological 'sex' as a category, rejects gender as an extension of sex. This is obviously a flawed understanding of gender, which is not always tied to biological sex - but this flexibility is seen as the result of Kivish wisdom or Kivish orderings of the world weakening the illusion of other cultures, rather than the product of those cultures. Given Kizen Kobold understandings of gender and sex as illusions and fragments of a whole self, it makes sense that they have historically mapped these gender-illusions onto personal choices and lifestyles. Body Devotions are an orderly way for Kizen Kobolds to adopt a 'gender role' and identity without falling into the gender-illusions. While Body Devotions are intended as a pragmatic tool that plays with gender while 'refuting it', in practice many Kobolds who identify with a gender that isn't Mei (universal Kobold) use Body Devotions to gender themselves. This individualist tendency, and its association with Kobold counter-culture, has drawn intense criticism from Kivish Hardliners and other mainstream conservative cultural authorities.
Body devotion is an ancient Kobold practice intended to help structure reproduction and family life. To allow for one member of a couple to provide for and protect the other during pregnancy, they would designate particular sexual-domestic roles for who would bear the child: the child-bearer would be designated the Vessel, while the other partner would be the Emanation. Traditionally, the partners would switch roles after each pregnancy to more evenly distribute the biological and domestic labor and risk. This domestic transition (being the "father" and "mother" over the course of a life) was seen as part of embodying the universal gender and experiencing the full scope of a Kobold life. An Oblation is a devotary role detached from reproduction altogether, devoted instead to raising existing children, pursuing enlightenment, and perfecting one's role in society. Oblations are usually either older, but some Kobolds may choose to spend time in Oblation due to personal or health reasons. Body devotions, by tradition, only begin at marriage. Assigning a child a devotion in anticipation of a marriage has been done during some historic periods, but is considered extremely weird in modern culture.
Each of these three roles - Vessel, Emanation, Oblation - is tied to one of the "alien genders" or "alien sexes" held by non-Kobolds, and playful use of an associated pronoun is acceptable. The three Kizen gender stereotypes also apply (Vessel as female, Emanation as male, Oblation as other). Traditionally, each of the three roles comes with a small costume change and slightly altered social roles. Vessels, for example, are expected to remain more chaste as well as protected from physical pollution (such as intoxicants they traditionally wear a belt or loop embroided with a bright color (traditionally yellow) or flowers, called the maidenbelt. The maidenbelt is a cultural symbol of restraint, committed monogamy, and domesticity not worn by all Vessels. Emanations often wear vests or coats that are traditionally in military style, called jupons after the over-armor cloth. Oblations often wear long scarves or draping garments over one's neck and shoulders, called an oblative. These devotary garments are not legally or religiously mandated, though a Vessel with a maidenbelt may face mockery. Traditionally, partners place these garments on each other during changing of devotary roles as a domestic ritual.
While body devotions are temporary by design, there is a long history of some individuals keeping lifelong body devotions to fulfill some social calling. Most famously the prophet Verkohn the Honest took on a lasting devotion as an Emanation to devote themselves to conquest and evangelism without losing the ability to produce heirs. A number of emperors and generals have followed a similar path. This is understood as a tactical choice and spiritual sacrifice that is offset by those individuals 'balancing' their life and identity through specialized scholarship and worship. Each of these historical and political authority figures have been "called" to do this by their followers, creating the fiction that this is always an imposition by society on them. Common individuals, often in counterculture or following their own paths, have been known to use body devotions to gender themselves on their own terms. In doing so, they simultaneously violate gender norms and class norms by taking elite privileges for themselves. Still, many in Kizen culture ignore or accept their choices - the conservative outrage is a loud minority opinion that mostly focuses on public figures.
Temporary body devotions may be traditional ways of structuring a marriage, but it is the right of any Kobold couple to refuse them entirely.

Courtship Ideals

Kizen culture imagines the perfect relationship as one of harmony, agreement, cooperation, and stability. The perfect courtship should be a "rational" approach to finding "compatible" partners who can best achieve that relationship. Two rival schools of thought - traditional 'practical' marriage and more sentimental courtship marriage - disagree on how to best accomplish this courtship. Most people draw on bits of both cultural ideals, combining dating and courtship with a practical and level-headed marriage ideal.

Practical versus Sentimental

Old practical marriages were semi-arranged relationships managed by families. A certain amount of individual agency was typically expected for those not bound to arranged political marriages, but courtship was usually limited by one's social position and bloodline. Historical elite Kizen courtship was often managed by matchmakers, who often drew on a mix of medical and mystical tradition to categorize suitors into physical and mental 'types'. Nowadays, arranged political marriages do still happen but have become rarer. Some families still do manage dating for their children, but suitors have more freedom in dating without family oversight and control within those family-mediating courtships. Increasingly, wealth has replaced heritage in deciding acceptable pairings. 
Matchmakers continue to exist, though they aren't strictly limited to family-mediated traditional courtships: many have moved to create dating services that appeal to sentimentalists as well. Some matchmakers keep to the old traditions in how they categorize suitors, while others are in an arms race to discover the perfect "modern" "rational" method. Some matchmakers basically just host events and allow people to "browse" compilations of bachelors with useful information, maintaining a light touch and allowing individuals to guide themselves. Other matchmakers go hard in studying their suitors, conducting elaborate psychological and physical tests on them to seek maximum innate compatibility. In major Kizen cities, matchmaker's guilds work to share information across verified, good-reputation matchmakers (making them more effective at the cost of customer privacy).
Sentimental courtship has old historical roots even if its current form is new. The old romantic idea of fated pairs has been a staple of Kizen's culture for many centuries. Fated pairs are souls in such deep love that they reincarnate together, seeking each other out across numerous lifetimes. These pairs are often deemed to be 'waking lovers' who will awaken together to love; The Dream may seek to separate them, but their love has the power to conquer that dream. "Pure love" in this tradition is carefully distinguished from lust (which is polluted by the illusory material world) or temporary favor. "Bridal quest" literature has long drawn on this fated pair idea to subvert traditional marriage in songs, poems, novels, and plays: in the "bridal quest" or "bridal raid" one member of a fated pair is imprisoned, often by their controlling parents. The other member of the pair must, through guile and sometimes force, liberate their fated beloved - spitting in the face of family mediation and cautious rationalism. This romantic tradition is old enough to be viewed favorably even by most traditionalists. Modern sentimental dating is based much more on individual pursuit, relationships, and feelings - though even mainstream sentimental-dating Kizen culture still sneers at dating as a sport of novelty or dating without the eventual goal of marriage. This cultural disapproval doesn't stop casual dating from still happening in practice in some places.

Courtship Expectations

Whether by family, matchmaker, or individual choice, courtship in Kizen is all about in-person dates and the exchange of tokens of affection. Dates are seen as important measures of compatibility. Even arranged political marriages have ritualized dates - most traditionally nine, split over the three months prior to marriage. Over a courtship, dates are expected to escalate in investment. An exchange of tokens marks a commitment to exclusivity. Each partner is expected to carry or wear their courtship token when they are in a social setting, as a display of their commitment and 'taken' status. Initial tokens are therefore expected to be small, innocuous, and easily worn or displayed. Elite tokens are usually small pieces of jewelry, but commoners might exchange gloves, hankerchiefs, or decorated pins. The token exchange at the end of the first, second, or third date is considered a tense moment when a relationship "gets serious" and moves from an initial consideration to a serious relationship moving towards marriage. After the first token exchange, later gift exchanges grow more notable but are not necessarily worn. Traditionally these later gifts are also non-material and are things like poems, songs, or sketches. Gift expectations typically increase with social class. Gift exchange can make courtship costly and draining for people of certain social circles, especially if their goal is to be impressive. 
Chastity before marriage is expected but not always a reality. Chastity is tied to both purity and self-control - extramartial sex is more shameful when it occurred recently and when the participants should have known better, and the disgrace fades over time. It is also forgivable if it occurred within a committed relationships (after the token exchange while that is still formally disavowed, intimacy within committed relationships is so common that only the most devout or strict care. Sexuality in early relationships is more taboo, and sexuality with strangers is perhaps the most taboo. This leads to a stigma around common sex workers, though this curiously fails to apply to courtesans. Courtesans often, against expectation, often operate in monastic orders, such as the Caretakers of the Curatorial Order of the Perfect Love of Kitesk - they frame themselves as mystics, artists, or even physicians who elevate intimacy as an author elevates the base material of their ink and paper. Kivish Hardliners and other fundamentalists have noted the discrepancy. Some fundamentalists arguing that all Kobold sex work should be religious ordered while others go the other direction and argue that the courtesans should be defrocked and shamed. Being a sex work customer is considered sinful, though many communities turn a blind eye to it. Sex within marriage is considered pure, and mainstream culture does not stigmatize divorced or widowed people as impure.
While chastity is desirable, popular culture also values objects of desire. The ideal suitor is the one that rarely accepts but must often reject. This can sometimes lead to what is commonly called "playing rabbit" or "burrow games": where a person ("the hawk") tries to prove their own desirability by getting someone else ("the rabbit") to overstep acceptable boundaries of displaying desire - only for the hawk to admonish or reject the rabbit. The deeper the 'rabbit' is humiliated as promiscuous, the better the hawk looks in comparison. These can even occur within relationships, particularly early relationships. Being caught playing burrow games is itself socially condemned; the only hawks worth lauding are those who are undetectable. Even the authorities condemn this behavior, calling it 'Games of Desire'. People have been known to weaponize this to pressure people into being in relationships with them, painting the targets of their affection as otherwise playing burrow games. The entire situation is bad for everyone. Similarly, accusations of promiscuity are a common weapon of the spurned. When someone of lower or equal status accuses someone of being promiscuous or 'playing games' without strong evidence, the accused may leverage community structures and sometimes even lawsuits to clear their name. The more high-status the accuser is than the accused, the harder it is for the defamed person to formally protect their reputation. 
Kizen courtship ideals cross species lines. The biggest complication for non-Kobolds is the social ideal of an 'agreeable' pairing: that the physical bodies of both parties should be similar. While cross-species pairings are not banned (as they are between Kobolds and non-Kobolds), radical physical differences are considered undesirable or at least more subject to scrutiny. There is no formal policing of this and it still happens fairly often, but it is an assumption about dating worth factoring in. It also means that Starspawn of similar body types often group together in family and dating circles. Physically-compatible starspawn usually group together outside of Kizen culture if they want to have children, but there is a little more subtle cultural encouragement for the aesthetics to match in Kizen.

Relationship Ideals

Kizen culture imagines the perfect relationship as one of harmony, agreement, cooperation, and stability. A committed couple should be exclusive, monogamous, stable, and should not display open conflict between partners. Relationships are traditionally expected to advance in a linear progression from dating, to commitment, to marriage, to children.
This is not how it has always been. Historically, Kizen culture has been very open to polyamory in the form of 'Star Marriages' that could include up to nine partners. Concubinage was also a historical reality. Nowadays, those things are considered 'primitive' relics of a less-enlightened Kizen. As Hainish Culture has grown more open to non-elite polyamory, Kizen culture has become more monogamous. Some people see these things as connected, that Kizen's culture has embraced monogamy as part of its rejection of Hainish culture. The truth is likely more complicated, but the divide is culturally notable.
The standard 'relationship progression' is very tied into modern notions of the ideal Kizen family and citizen: productive, domestic, stable, and orderly. Couples are often proud of how long they have been together. The maintenance of a relationship is understood as an important task and not just a 'default', even if people are culturally encouraged to downplay relationship trouble and make their relationships seem effortless. Couples are often encouraged to go on dates with each other after marriage. Kizen anniversaries are considered important, with token exchanges occurring every anniversary (these can be material gifts, fancy dinners, or love poems). Wedding anniversaries are important enough for many well-established higher-status workers to be able to ask for the time off as a personal holiday. Employers are also expected to take employee pregnancies seriously; to fire an employee for a pregnancy or childbirth, or to not offer that employee time off for their postnatal recovery, is considered villainous and can often be illegal. Better jobs often give new parents extended paid leave to tend to their new child. Such jobs are rare, but this maternity/paternity leave system is considered an ideal model for employment altogether by some social reformers.
Kizen's vision of harmonious matrimony can have some downsides. For one, conflict within relationships is understood as such an embarassment that many people resort to passive-aggressive communication styles instead of open disagreement. Popular culture is full of jokes about nagging spouses and quiet marital jabs, given this widespread epidemic of passive aggression. And once a marriage goes sour, divorce is an option but is relatively dishonorable without a "valid reason" - divorces that do happen are often messy, as couples both seek to prove to society at large that it was their partner's fault and not their own. Infertility and an unwillingness to have children can also throw a wrench in one's "dating value"; infertility is a rare honor-neutral pathway to divorce that does not reflect negatively on either party, but it also can make remarrying challenging for one or both of the divorcees.

Major organizations

The Empire of Kizen and Reverent Path Kivishta are both associated with Kizen culture.

Related Organizations

• Empire of Kizen
• Kivish Hardliner

Languages spoken

• Wakingtongue language