Raro

culture around Lake Raro

demonym: Raron

Lake Raro is an inland sea in the north of the continent Fuma, south of the Paban mountains and north of the Kugma mountain range. Situated around that sea are various cities, including the capital city of Raro, where the nyaagcheek, king, lives and works. Originally, the Rarite people made up the majority of the population, but after increasing connections between Rarite people and the Sela people in the north, Sela make up a sizable portion of the population as well.

Naming Traditions

Family names

Raron children are named before they are born. When parents first lay their eggs, they will write the name of the child on the egg in a color unique to their family; as the sun beats down on the eggs, however, the name eventually fades. In Raron tradition, this is the child taking on the name while they are waiting to hatch.

Other names

Nicknames are acquired readily over the course of one's life. It is not uncommon to have a name used by clutchmates, one name used professionally, and another name used by friends.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Rarons primarily speak languages from the Sheechsa language family. One of the primary identifying traits of Sheechsa languages is that they lack bilabial sounds like /p/ and /b/ because Rarites do not have lips. All vowels are also unrounded for this same reason. It is not impossible for Rarites to create those sounds, but it results in many Rarites having an accent when they speak languages in the Patadon language family spoken by the Paban and Kaloran peoples.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

Rarons prize jewely as a sign of beauty, even though lack of jewelry is not perceived as ugliness. For Rarites, this can also manifest as long necks and legs being considered more attractive than shorter ones, just because they are usually able to display more jewelry; however, as the Sela prove, with their very short necks, there are workarounds, such as wearing many decorated sashes instead of necklaces.

Gender Ideals

There are four genders in Raron culture, corresponding roughly to male (shavve, plural shavaa), female (nguuv, plural nguuvaa), both simultaneously (khuuv, plural khuuvaa) and neither (ga, plural gaa). It is not expected for someone's gender to be the same over the course of their life. While some have the same gender from birth until death, most will go through at least one change.
Shavve Rarons are referred to with the pronouns he/him. They typically wear feather adornments around their necks which blend in with the surrounding feathers. These feathers are either their own or obtained from other shavvaa, who create the necklaces themselves and give them to their friends as gifts.
Nguuv Rarons use the pronouns she/her. Unlike shavvaa, nguuvaa wear brightly colored feathers with beads and other eye-catching decorations. Unyozeo shells are popular. It is a custom for nguuv to create and wear their own jewelry, but it is common for nguuvaa to host parties where many people (including other genders) can make their necklaces.
Khuuv Rarons use the pronouns they/them. They also make their own jewelry, but they often wear multiple necklaces at once of various colors and vibrancies. For Rarites with their long necks, some necklaces will be worn as chokers that sit higher up, but khuuv Sela will sometimes create sashes instead. It is also common for khuuv to wear beads around their ankles or to pierce their beaks or lips to hold more jewelry.
Ga Rarons choose a personal sound that can be used as a pronoun for them. This can make translating their pronouns difficult, so there are some standard ones: ze/hir and xe/xem are popular translations. Ga Rarons will often eschew jewelry all together, but if so it will typically be ankle jewelry only.

Courtship Ideals

Courtship is a public affair. People display their availability in code, using beaded jewelry and rags to communicate their interests and availability.
Sexuality is not typically defined by the gender of the individuals, but some preferences can emerge. There is no stigma against persuing someone of the same gender nor of a different gender. Families are encouraged to have multiple genders involved, but family members do not need to be involved sexually.
Clutchmates are often the first place that people look to find mates or family members. These courtships can start innocently as young children or start when people are older and reignite the spark.

Relationship Ideals

Children are raised communnally by dedicated professionals, and children grow up with their clutchmates. When they get older, families are created consciously by the members and often consist of friends and clutchmates. A family is registered with the community. Families tend to be rather large, with the general principal that larger families are more able to support the individual members. While small families, as small as two people, are allowed, it is generally frowned upon to register a new family with less than 4 members instead of joining an existing family.
Families are fluid and members can come and go. Some families last for generations, while others last only a few years. There is no set makeup of genders, either, but multigendered families are also encouraged, for healthy diversity of thought and experience to create wisdom to pass down onto younger generations.
Choosing a mate is up to the whims of the individuals involved. Parents who lay eggs may maintain relationships with their mates, but it is not necessary and it does not matter because their children may never know who their direct biological parents were.
Because of the loose nature of the relationships and because families are not associated with raising children, young people will often bounce between families at first until they find one that suits them best. Some families actively recruit others to help boster their numbers and have their legacy live on, but others are somewhat closed—not officially, because that is illegal, but some families make joining extremely difficult to dissuade would-be family members.