The seris
The seris are the easternmost branch of the davidovian peoples . Their ancestors migrated to the continent of Karia crossing the Suris Strait around 3.000 BP, since then, they diverged from their cousins on the continent of Teria to the west and created their unique civilization. For thousands of years, they had been the most influencial and powerfull state on the continent. Despite the rise and fall of imperial dynasties, civil wars, and foreign invasions, their culture has influenced enormously its neighbours, both sendentary and nomadic.
Main Seris Exports:
Seris products such as ceramics are very demanded across Karia, in the far north of the continent having a seris tableware is a symbol of wealth and prestige.
But the most demanded seris products of them all are Seris silk, paintings and jewelry aside of the so called Moon stones or light stones. Blatian Emperors and Oronai Kings usually wear robes made of seris silk and decorate their palaces with the most exquisit seris paintings.
Moon stones, on the other hand, are very exotic and mysterious stones, that appear mostly on caves around Seria's southern provinces. These stones were used by the elves of Southern Seria for religious festivals. This stones are particulary interesting because they glow in the dark and usually adverturers that go into caves or dungeons used it to see in the dark or to mark the way out of the cave.
Finally, Seris bards are very demanded. They are considered as the best bards in the known world. They best are hired by the monarchs,nobles or even cities of distant lands for their festivals. One of the accomplishments of this bards is to have made seris poetry known worldwide and available to everybody, as they, if they have knowledge of the languages spoken in that realm, would translate their poems or epic tales to those languages. For example the famous bard, Barzanes of Nibadapta, translated the poems of Leye to the Ikarian language, as he was the "Court Bard" of the Ikarian Emperor Tiberius II.
Naming Traditions
Feminine names
Ilara, Nagara, Iashi, Tioro, Iami, Sura,
Masculine names
Yütak, Sitaces, Barzanes, Mithridates, Asurlan, Leye, Ygasma
Family names
Surnames in the seris world are usually related to a person or a place. And usually have two variants depending if the person is a male or a female. For example:
- "Son/daughter of" : its the most common surname root in the seris world. In the case of a male, it has the suffix "aru", in the case of a female it has the suffix "ara", for example, Yütak Ygasmaru (Yütak son of Ygasma), or Sura Sitacara (Sura daughter of Sitaces).
- Of X place: It is usually expressed with the suffix "entse" which means "of". For example Barzanes Nibadaptentse (Barzanes of Nibadapta)
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
The Seris language is the main language of the seris people, and its the oldest davidovian language ever recorded. The language is splitted into two dialects. The northern and southern dialects. The main difference between them is mainly phonetic for exampe, the north has a soft -r- for words like "Yare" (Dog) while the south has a most hard one.
Also as the south was populated mainly by elves, the dialect there has quite an amount of words of elvish origin.
Culture and cultural heritage
The Seris culture has some common aspects shared with the other davidovian peoples such as the Oronai, the Blatians and the Crorai. They have for example very similar pantheons and their religious rites like forms of sacrifices are similar.
Seris culture is one of the most advanced in Yeia, and the Seris are very proud of it. They considered themselves to be the only truly civilized nation (aside from the kingdom of the Sun Elves) of the whole continent of Karia.
Common Dress code
The common fashion for seris men consists of a long tunic with long sleeps strapped by a belt.
Trousers are also worn, usually long and wide.
During the Bronze Age and the first centuries of the seris empire sandals and short boots made of leather were the main footgear. But after the 2nd century AP the nobility started to replaced them by tall riding boots .
The fashion for women also consist of a tunic, even longer that those of men, covering the whole body down to their feet. Their footwear is also similar to men. The lower and middle classes usually wear sandals or shot boots while the women of the aristocracy usually wear boots made of the finest materials, like skins of exotic animals.
Art & Architecture
Seris architecture is regarding as one of the most beautiful, impressive and famous across Yeia. The luxury and construction of their palaces and public buildings is renown. Most of the palaces, houses of the nobility, temples and castles are usually made of stone.
On the other hand most of the houses of the middle and low classes and other public buildings are built usually with bricks made of clay, but wood is certainly one of the most used construction materials in the countryside.
Regarding to art, the main characteristic of Seris art is their realism, its love for representing landscapes, people with great detail. Most seris noblemen spend their free time, reading or writing poetry or painting landscapes. Landscape painting is certainly one of the most characteristic features of Seris art. Each year the Emperor organizes an exhibition of the best landscape paintings of the Empire and the winners earn a substancial sum of money. There are also portraits depicting the ancestors of the family in every noble house, as a form of inspiration, of remanding the present generations of the deeds of their relatives who lived before them.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
Once a baby is born, he is presented to the rest of their family and neighbourgs and a banquet is held at the parents house.
One month after his/her birth the baby is presented at the temple of Tyr, goddess of the earth, and the priest then draws the symbol of an eye ( the symbol of the god) with milk (which symbolizes purity because its white and it is also what babies are given during the first stages of their life). Once this ritual is done the child is officialy accepted into the community.
Funerary and Memorial customs
Regarding to funerary customs, there is a difference between the upper and lowers classes of society. The upper classes (the emperor and the imperial family, the noblemen, the priests and the namru (the military class of the empire)), are usually buried in family tombs.While the lower classes are usually cremated and their ashes placed on a tomb on the communal cementery, usually outside the city or town.
There are circumstances where people from lower classes can be given an special treatment after death and became buried instead of cremated, usually adventurers considerated national heroes or heroes for the community they lived in. Great poets and singers for example, are also considered national heroes, because as the seris believed, their musical talents were given to them by the gods themselves and with their sons, poems or paintings they have contributed to the welfare of the state, and improving the "national spirit" remembering the seris about their past glories or their origins.
Common Myths and Legends
There are many myths that almost every seris know. One is the
The Siege of Dorstulon, the city of the Ten Walls , that tells the story of the ancient heroes, among them the deeds of the great hero Davidion, father of Kushi, the mythical first king of the Seris, the one who crossed the Suris strait with a davidovian tribe that centuries later would become the seris. Kushi is also the protagonist of many other legends that narrate their first years as king and the fighting with the indigenous tribes of northern Seria.
Parent ethnicities
Encompassed species
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