Sildaryn (culture)

Cultural Overview

The Sildaryn live within the vast forest which they claim in it's entirety. The Sildaryn consider the entire forest region sacred, and maintain it in as natural a state as possible. They chose to live in harmony with nature rather than bending it to their will. The Sildaryn have no formal or informal relations with the rest of the Treahni, mostly due to differences of opinion on matters of ecology and moral obligations towards the planet and its prior occupants. This separation allowed their culture and species to diverge.

Origins

The Sildaryn split from and migrated from the region occupied by the People of the Ark before the collapse. They are now an isolationist culture, and sub-species unto themselves. Most Treahni don't even consider them related, or recollect their mutual past.

Geography

The Sildaryn claim the entirety of Eastern Annexea from the Sildar Mountains to the southern coast.

Language

Sildaryn

Migration

The Sildaryn are migratory, travelling in cycles attuned to the seasons, but returning to established tree house villages. It is a staged migration, around a rough circle with twelve village stops, along the path. Travel is by foot, as they live in dense forest without roads, and without beasts for riding, or hauling heavy wagons or carts.

Hinta

The term refers both to the village group and the tree house dwellings which they occupy as stopovers along their migratory loops. Some of these stops are time-shared with other groups. Depending on the time of year the hinta occupying a given site differs. They engage in trade by proxy, leaving goods for future visitors and taking away items they may need from goods left by past ones.

Family

Orphans

Amongst the Sildaryn peoples, orphans will find a place on the edge of the existing family circles, where they are treated charitably, but have to find their own way in life.

Religion

Primary Beliefs

Ideals

• Respect (Avoid unnecessary killing; Vegetarianism)
• Loyalty (Family, Clan, and Nation)
• Charity (Sharing of resources, Assisting the less fortunate)
• Harmony (Understanding of the natural world and the role of the Sildaryn within it)

Suffering is beauty

The story of one's soul is told, not in deeds performed, but in the ebb and flow of the emotions experienced throughout one's life. The joy, the sorrow, and the calm, are all just movements of a greater whole.

Religious Figures

Dalfyn

Have Dalfyn been killed by their hinta, or another hinta, yes. As to the necessity of such an act I cannot say. It is one of our greatest sins. The Dalfyn guide and nurture the very souls of our people. to conceive of someone willingly breaking that covenant is abhorrent to our very nature. Sildaryn believe life is sacred, and should never kill unnecessarily. That being said if a fellow Dalfyn was such an extreme danger to our people, or the forest we all depend upon, it is possible that only their death would stop them. However there are many less final options to consider first.

Ceremonial

Senescence

An elderly Sildaryn who is no longer healthy enough to continue the cyclical migrations of their people will be given hospice with the Dalfyn at one of the scared groves. Usually the next one along the path, as at least one of the stops for each Hinta's cycle will be a sacred grove. They are treated well, have access to healers, and generally convalesce into old age and death. This gives them more quality of life than the monthly shifting of residence, and rigours of travel would. Health permitting, they garden, tend to the trees and plants, care for animals, study and teach anyone willing to sit and receive the wisdom of their experiences.

Diet

Food

The Sildaryn are vegetarian, and practice a naturalistic agriculture, tending to low-impact agriculture keeping the forest in as natural a state as possible. Crops include anything that grows naturally in the wild, they will assist food producing plants to produce higher yields, maybe propagating saplings and the like, but they don't plant orchards and fields. Given that the forest they claim spans roughly two million square kilometres, and ranges from temperate in the north to tropical rain forest in the south, quite a variety of fruits, nuts, and other greens are available.

They chose the vegetarian diet back when they separated from the other People of the Ark. It's been a long time and they have changed physiologically. They probably can still eat meat, but it is so ingrained now they won't. In addition to their religious prohibitions against the consumption of animal flesh.

Cultural Dishes

Saluc

A jellied fermented fungi and fruit mash. It takes about a ten-day to prepare, but must be eaten within a day or two when ready. It doesn't travel well while fermenting, and if fermented too long turns very sour while separating into a curd and runny liquid.

Spice / Flavours

Honey

Gathered after subduing the wysps in a nest with smoke from bundle of soaproot leaves. Harvesters climb the tree and cut away sections of the honey bearing comb. The gathered comb is then lowered to the ground in baskets, where it is placed in glazed clay pots for storage and transport.

Medicine

Nelpyr

A very powerful stimulant derived from the Nelp fruit seeds. This effects of this drug can be addictive and can cause aggression and blackouts in chronic users.

Persons

List of Sildaryn Persons

Stories

Contemporary

Druid (fifty word fantasy)

Elves (fifty word fantasy)

One Year Later (fifty word fantasy)

Song (fifty word fantasy)

Myths

Mala E Pala

Songs of Neelam

See Also

Sildara

Sildaryn (language)

Sildaryn (people)