Nagalstun Telkhines
Hailing from the shorelines of the Kingdom of Doggur, the Nagalstun are believed to be the oldest Telkhine people on Icarus. For millennia, the Nagalstun have roved the seas of Icarus, truly making the seas their home and developing some of the most advanced sailing and navigating methods in the world. Legend has it that they were once fully aquatic too, and while that legend holds no credence, they are certainly the most adept of telkhines for life in the water, with smooth and silky waterproof coats, webbing between their fingers and toes, and the ability to hold their breath for up to an hour.
Naming Traditions
Unisex names
The Telkhine language of "Doggresh" is a fairly gender-neutral language, later borrowing the words for "male" and "female" from Archaic Utheran. While other Telkhine dialects have adopted masculine and feminine names, the Nagalstun have stuck to their roots and nearly all Nagalstun names are Unisex.
Family names
Among the Nagalstun, "family" is not blood relations. As Nagalstuns normally live in large communal societies, family, or "Paka", is chosen from the people you are close with. This Paka will eat and sleep together, protect each other, and give each other the support they need to live life. Members can come and go among Paka, as they are not rigid and it is even encouraged for Nagalstun to migrate to different Paka to see from others perspectives.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Nagalstun Doggresh is almost a completely different language from the Doggresh spoken by the larger population of Doggur. It has borrowed very little from other languages, and from what it has borrowed has mostly been words for things they had no experience with, such as when coffee was brought to them by Krek Orcs.
Shared customary codes and values
For the Nagalstun, ensuring the health and wellbeing of their community is the most important thing they can do. All must work together and ensure there is enough to go around for everyone. If even one member of the community is suffering, the entire community suffers. The community eats together, sleeps together, cares for the young and the old together, and will go to great lengths to ensure the community is put first. This does not mean that they don't have privacy, far from it, but even individual dwellings are traditionally built open and without doors.
Common Etiquette rules
Many customs exist among the Nagalstun that others would find quite strange, especially when it comes to meals and eating overall. For starters, it is considered respectful to throw a piece of your meal into the ocean or other nearby bodies of water. Inedible leftovers are also thrown into the sea as well, as they view it as highly inappropriate to take from the land and not give something back to it. The world is to be preserved and honored, not treated like a trash heap or stripped for every last scrap of resources.
Another common mealtime custom is to sit on the floor and eat, that way everyone is equal. It is rude to sit higher than someone else, and to take more food than everyone else, as all must be shared equally.
Common Dress code
Art & Architecture
Traditional Nagalstun villages are built on a series of boardwalks that extend out in a circular pattern around a central platform, and are connected to each other by short bridges that make the entire thing appear like a wagon wheel when viewed from the air.
Ideals
Gender Ideals
Gender, as a concept, has always been strange to the Nagalstun, as grouping people together based on biological characteristics is anathema to their communal society. While they do acknowledge the distinction between biological sexes, known to them as "Dan Falal" ("Those born with a rod") and "Dan Weitan" ("Those born with a flower"), it is not used to categorize or give one group power over another. As such, while individual Nagalstun may dress and act more masculine, feminine, or androgynes as they wish, they never apply any labels of "gender" onto themselves and often prickle at cultures who do.
Encompassed species