Shan
The Pelagic Folk
The Shan are the diverse people of eastern Sol, inhabiting the bountiful Yù Forest and lucrative Dōng Islands. A race of humans, they arrived alongside the many early humans who sailed from the west, settling the continent of Sol ages ago. The southeastern woodlands and islands of the continent were teeming with dangerous predators and brutal peoples including the ancient Yuan-ti and lizardfolk. The ancestors of the Shan carved this land out for themselves through conquest and over a millenia later remain the stewards of their lands. Originally, the Shan were waves of settlers from many tribes which may have had some common regional origin in the continent they arrived from. Over time, a common identity began to form based around city states and fiefdoms straddling the coastal and island lands of modern Shanrao. Early Shan culture was fabulously wealthy from maritime trade and luxurious resources including sugar, silk, whales, and spices like nutmeg, pepper, cardamom, and many others.
Hierarchical Splendor
The prominence of landowners in Shan society allowed for a complex social hierarchy to form. The sheer scale of resources required a large labor force, which produced enough wealth that landowners rose to become an aristocratic class, able to afford sophisticated educations and noble estates to oversee the education of their children as well as the overseeing of their centres of production. As such, a feudal system of wealthy landowners and serfs bound to work the land emerged, resulting in an enormous population of productive subjects and fabulously rich aristocrats at the top. Shan society developed at a faster rate than that of the other humans of the continent, allowing them to make great strides in early technology, arts and culture, and philosophy. The strict and overly ceremonious nature of Shan society has resulted in daedal bureaucracies, elite knightly classes, and a sophisticated aristocracy.
Festal Folk
Despite having a rather stoic and reserved exterior, Shan people observe more holidays, festivals, and feasts than most. Throughout their traditional calendar, many seasons are marked for holidays and festivals. Ancestor worship is the chief expression of spirituality in Shan culture. There are feast days when families get together, give offerings, and make pilgrimages to shrines of prominent ancestors. During festivals, rich mix with poor and enjoy games of chance, strong drink, and an easening of strict hierarchies for a spell.
Naming Traditions
Feminine names
Xian, Dai, Sun, Peng, Wu, Yi, Jin, Su, Lu, Hao, Wei, Ma, Lin, Sai, Ri, Sao, Nu, Xu, Shi, Hei, Bai, Lan, Chu, Wan, Shao, Lei
Masculine names
Hao, Xi, Xiang, Hu, Zhou, Lei, Tang, Han, Zheng, Zhu, Yan, Luo, Ye, Xu, Sun, Mo, Shi, Xun, Meng, Liang, Fu, Lei, Song, Cheng, Shen
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Shan tend to idealize softer features, pale skin, and thin, petite physiques. Contrasts show up often in Shan beauty standards, especially pale skin and dark hair and eyes. Large size, robust bodies, and facial hair is considered less desirable. In a society dominated by wealth inequality, an appearance which communicates affluence and distance from labor is preferred.
Gender Ideals
Shan society is patriarchal and highly structured in terms of gender roles. Women are traditionally expected to be reserved, demure, and rarely heard from. Men are the movers and shakers of society, acting as the handlers of coin and industry. They are expected to be intelligent, compotent, though, paradoxically, not overtly assertive socially. For both men and women, it is ideal that one is in total control of their expression and presentation at all times. Stoicism and gracefulness is preferred over rash expressions of emotions.
Courtship Ideals
Courtship is highly ceremonial, ritualistic, and impersonal. Either party can initiate it and it is usually done though mutual friends, couriers, and messengers in the early stages. The length of courtship before marriage may last years. Moving too fast or being too open about one's intentions is considered impulsive and undesirable.
Relationship Ideals
As mentioned, the spheres of men and women are well defined in Shan culture, with men operating in public and women operating in private, domestic spaces. It has traditionally been considered the norm for men to take multiple wives to assist with domestic and childrearing labor concerns. It isn't against any cultural or legal rules in Shanrao for a woman to take multiple husbands, though it virtually never happens outside of the aristocracy. Despite this, extramarital affairs are considered gravely taboo.
Encompassed species