Marlammite/Marlammesh
The language and the people of Marlamma
The concept of ethnicity comes in different flavors on Earth, anyway; in the Bronze Age the most important thing was who your parents were, and what their memorable deeds were, not simply as a point of pride but because in a state of near perpetual war, those facts don't change. Your gods and religion might be forcibly changed any number of times in your life, and with it, the adoption of new traditions and most of the trappings that we call ethnicity today, a mix of genetics and culture.
But Tergaith has hundreds of species of sentient beings, 30+ or so of which a player might choose for his or her PC; any combination of these living inside the (contested) borders of Marlamma's empire are, technically, Marlammesh.
A common spoken tongue, delved into much more deeply in the article Marlammite Language is one unifying factor, and the shared Religions and Faith of the empire is another thing keeping the people of the region feeling connected to each other despite dramatic variance in appearance and home life among species, races, and lineages - each of which mean something a little different.
Naming Traditions
Unisex names
Most names are multipurpose and are not strongly gendered; in literature, often a name will be framed as "[name] son/daughter of [father's/mother's name]" to clarify which gender is intended. Pronouns take the form of zo 'this' and tamzo 'that' etc, and are inherently gender-neutral.
Family names
Family names tend to focus on the place or the nearest city where a person is originally from, or where their forefathers were from. Not everyone uses a last name, and even within the same family the parents might use a different city of origin than their children, in cases where they were born in a place other than where they gave birth to their offspring, so they tend not to be terribly useful for identifying a person as part of a larger group. Noble lineages are often an exception, and the concept of a family line and inheritance is highly developed in Marlamma.
But for the average person, a farmer or day laborer, they have a name that might be as simple as 'firstborn daughter' or a morpheme that sounded good to their parents, like Bilha or Kinphor, possibly with a broader meaning but probably without.
See the Marlammite Language page for more details and ideas about names.
Other names
Deities and Rulers have multiple versions of names.
- Royal figures. In Marlamma, the names of rulers are nor directly used by the common classes, referring instead to the office they hold: God Queen, God King, Prince, Lord, Ruler, etc. When addressing each other, or when addressed by high priests in ceremony, the full name set of the royal figure consisting of birth name, family line, ascendant name and bestowed name is used in a particular formalized order; all four must be perfectly stated or the speaker must start over from the beginning. In tomb etchings the full name will be used, and on monuments, the ascendant name is used in order to differentiate from other rulers in the same family line.
- Gods and Goddesses. The names of Gods come in three forms:
- The common form by which they are generally known and referred to in most settings and on etchings, for instance, Siluru, Tenma, etc.
- The full form, which includes the honorific of the God, for instance, Siluru the Lady of Bloom and Rot (Silurunevlemzu)
- The aspect form which further defines the specific qualities of the god/goddess; not all gods have aspects. These are indicated by a dash, for instance, Tenma-Kinur, the full moon, which is Tenma in trickster aspect.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
Marlammite is the spoken common tongue in the empire - find out details at Marlammite Language. However literacy is somewhat rare, so a distinction should be made between spoken and written language. A more common form of 'shorthand' Marlammite, called common script, is used for simple transactional writings, receipts and notes on reed paper from a black stain kib (a quill or hollow stick filled with a dry form of stain) or marking charcoal. Official Marlammite is written with a specific stylus and is an art reserved mostly for official scribes, wizards, and those educated in such schools as those that scribes and wizards attend.
Languages from outside the empire are spoken by foreigners, but the language groups in this region of Ulem are fairly homogenous, only diverging greatly outside the Great Basin region where different writing systems entirely are used - heiratic scripts, pictoglyphs and other formats. Within the region the languages and dialects are similar enough so that even foreign travelers can make their way through a simple conversation in Marlammite.
Different species in the Empire often keep their own languages as well, with Draconic and Orcish being relatively common. Dwarven and Elven are also very different languages from Marlammite, heard in the Dwarven undercities and the treetop villages of the Elves but not often encountered in the civilized towns of the empire.
Shared customary codes and values
Marlammites, like all cultures, have aspirational moral standards as well as everyday mores for living in the big city, or out in the countryside. The standards of their ideals are set around the edicts of their gods, and specifically around the very real fear of angering or offending those gods by some selfish or unintentional action which the gods reject. While there are innumerable variations on the finer points of ethical behavior even within the same family, the civilization as a whole is founded on four main principles upholding the edict to earn honor by doing honorable things, structured as a hierarchy of priorities, and the empire's success may be attributed to their wide-ranging simplicity and effectiveness.
- First, do what is honorable in the sight of the gods.
- Then, do what is honorable before your rulers.
- Then do what is honorable for those who know you.
- Then do what is honorable for those who do not know you.
The concept of honor, unfortunately, is somewhat nebulous, leading to a wide variety of in-the-moment ways to interpret these edicts, handed down by Siluru to the first king of Marlamma in ages past. But this freedom of interpretation also gives the edicts longevity from their flexibility, and by compelling the people as a whole to think deeply about honor, their family name and how their own accomplishments will build or detract from that family honor.
Much has been written, therefore, by scholars, priests and teachers regarding the nature of honor, and on the things that bring honor and those that bring dishonor. Some baseline agreements have thus arisen:
- Honor is derived from a combination of deeds, humility, and selflessness.
- There is honor when facing a challenge greater than your power to overcome it; there is dishonor in seeking acclaim from overcoming a challenge that is of no account.
- Strength lies not merely in force of arms, but moreso in the ability to protect that which is weak.
- Mastering emotions is more honorable than being mastered by them. An honorable person is mastered only by Gods, and chooses to serve others.
- Weakness is not itself a sin, but the weak should look to improve their own strength rather than relying wholly on others to be strong for them.
- Conversely, the highest honor of the strong is in lifting the weak to make them strong.
- The glory of the battlefield is for the soldiers; for rulers, glory comes from avoiding the need for a battlefield in the first place.
- Your soul will be called to give an account of your deeds before the gods; ensure you are worthy of Ain.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Marlamma has a highly attuned beauty aesthetic, valuing both epic and naturalistic portrayals. Fitness and wholeness are idealized, but deformities and disease are also considered 'gifts' from the gods in many cases, and though magical healing is able to restore people from injury or sickness, often times soldiers may choose to suffer the loss of a limb, or scholars the loss of eyesight over time, as a sign of the gods dictating their destiny.
Physically, Marlammites are great enthusiasts of elaborately maintained facial hair and coiffure, of perfumes and ointments, and of cosmetics for men and women. Shoes with a slight heel are also favored by men and women where they can be worn on hard floor or stone (they work less well on sand or soft ground).
Fecundity and a bit of curviness is appreciated; this is made evident in the two aspects of Siluru, one a curvaceous maiden with a child on her hip as the lady of bloom, the other a rail-thin crone bearing a sheaf of rotten wheat. Tenma likewise is quite rotund, befitting her moonish nature. Hammat is thickly muscled, and Yamut is literally a bronze god, tall, broad-shouldered and with biceps threatening to tear through his tunic any moment.