ZEITGEIST One shots and side quests.

[RangerWickett]

Pre-amnesia, Kasvarina was aware the Vekeshi mystics were useful and that by playing to their biases she could get rivals and enemies around the world killed while keeping her hands clean.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

But why was Kasvarina not, herself, a Vekeshi mystic of the radical extremist variety? It does not seem incompatible with her Obscurati leanings.

Is Cula Ravjahani, for example, not a Vekeshi mystic, and also Kasvarina's second-in-command? Is Cula a Vekeshi mystic of the radical extremist variety, or of the more modern moderate variety?

 

[Lylandra]

Sentosa, Akela Sathi (Lonely Companion). Themes are "elf brothel, wat do?" and a serious examination of the ramifications of the Akela Sathi system on eladrin society, relationships, marriages, family structures, child-raising, and expectations on both men and women.

Your move.

My own GM actually ran a significantly detailed side quest on this exact topic that spanned a large degree of homebrew content. I would like to see what others would do with the absurd subject handled in a serious fashion.

My GM and I did most of our brainstorming for Elfaivar when I had only the PHB avaliable (he gave me some additional infos), so he went with the Akela Sathi being a Sentosa-only institution and my character knew nothing about this tradition.

From the little that was known about Eladrin history, we deduced that Elfaivar must have been governed in a decentralized way with lots of local rulers and customs and a governing circle, the Ramandamandala, sitting in Bharata (it was called an Empire after all and I'm thinking in terms of the HRE or feudal Japan).

The development after the Malice fitted into this narrative with Lords warring and the whole empire falling apart, each region falling into chaos and trying to find a way out. One way, the PHB suggested, was Lords who tried to capture brides in order to become or stay powerful, and this destructive, oppressive way ultimately failed. I dubbed this narrative as "the mad Kings' era", a scary bedtime story to be told to little girls when they didn't behave.

The other, more successful path, was the founding of Enclaves centered around a surviving woman, who would be known as a Matriarch. I tried to find an explanation about how or why this would have been more successful, and came to the conclusion that it was 1) less destructive, as it was founded on growth and not on violence, and 2) that it basically made the Matriarch the "property" of the whole enclave instead of one power hungry guy. It was more of a bargain: she was given power and the position to lead, while she also provided hope for her people.

Combine this with far less people and the tradition of having a tradition of decentralized government one could easily understand why the enclaves would develop very divergently as every Matriarch had her own idea of what was best for her community.

But back to the Mad Kings. My GM took this hook to develop one lunatic King who managed to fly under the radar for quite a while, made some deal with a surviving devil of the Golden Legion and started an "empire" of his own. From what I know so far, it seems as if he used the pact to infuse several of his troops with fiendish blood and developed a strict hierarchy where he would give brides (captures, but maybe also some of his descendants) to his most loyal subjects. Hana Soliogn (Gale) is actually one of this King's descendants, so... that's where my character learned from his existence. Point is, he is aggressively trying to expand his territory, threatening Kellandia and the surrounding enclaves. So rallying them all and trying to mobilize a defense alliance had been one subplot that's been spanning half of the campaign by now.

Regarding family structure and sexuality in the enclaves, well, that's an interesting topic in my opinion (and I hope this text doesn't turn out to be essay-length when I am finished). As a first disclaimer, we (supposed westerners) tend to see fantasy societies and even other cultures through a modern-day, westernized eye. So we also tend to think that some conclusions are the only logical ones or that a society "of course" would develop in a certain way. I actively tried to shut that out when I thought about Eladrin society. I first tried to make a few assumptions:

- Eladrin society would have probably been egalitarian before the Malice. There is no historical hint that one gender was dominant, on the contrary: Kasvarina had been a wife, a soldier, and a successful single-parent mom of two girls who turned out to play important roles. The Ramandamandala also consisted of Lords and Ladies.

- Eladrin once were Elves who became fey due to their meddling with the Dreaming. It may be a bit of a fantasy stereotype, but I imagine fey to be less anxious when it comes to expressing their sexuality. And they'd probably be more likely to experiment as well. (I'm not even starting with the 5e Eladrin, who came much later, who can sometimes also switch their physical sex if they want to)

- Eladrin families most likely included one momogamous couple, even if we don't know whether they mated for life. (Kasvarina married Pillai)

Now the Malice struck, leaving only a few surviving women. And of course the question on how to survive and repopulize would arise in the Enclaves. Women who had been married to a man would most likely try to reunite with their husband in case he had survived the war. They'd try to have kids, sure, and the emphasis would be on having daughters to multiply, even if sons (who at least added up) would be seen as a blessing, too. In this scenario, I guess, very few couples would have allowed other men into their relationship. But we can only guess on how their daughter would find and choose their partners.

Lesbian or Bisexual women who had been partnered with a woman might have felt pressured to have kids and therefore sexual encounters with men. But there is no reason why they would threaten their society's peace by choosing only one partner. The Ananta Paudha philosophy of "serving" their community could have arisen from here with the Matriarch declaring all men to be eligible partners. The concept of fatherhood would be abandoned very soon in such an enclave, and, depending on the success of the concept, her daughters could continue "free love", leading to a community much alike "modern" matrilineal societies.

The same could be said about enclaves centered around a Matriarch who was single. Here, I assumed a lot of choices, but all lead to kind of abandoning fatherhood as a concept as seeing a child as someone calling a kid "my child" would easily lead to jealousy and strife in the enclave. Instead, children were offspring of the Matriarch, and all of the enclave looked after them. When her own daughters became mothers, they also became their primary progenitor. Here, I envisioned that some enclaves could develop several pathways: Ranging from young women running away with one man they love to women using polyandry but not fully developed partnerless reprodution to Matriarchs who saw all men (minus their brothers and sons) of their society as potential mates.

All of these societies would follow a matrilineal tradition, such as children derive kinship from their mother, staying with her and her society until they came of age to seek partners (and some, eventually, founding enclaves) of their own. And yes, jealousy or being shamed for one's sexual activity would probably be shunned upon. After all, women with an active sex life meant more children for the Enclave. Which could in turn mean that women might feel or be pressured to have partners, and have daughters. Which would make life reeeeally tough for asexual women.

Sexuality for male Eladrin would be a tough topic, but I'd think that the rate of bisexual men was much higher than in humans, so quite a few would simply resort to homosexual love. I also envisioned that violating a woman's sexual autonomy would be among the highest crimes against society as a whole (see my idea on the Matriarch as being "property of the whole enclave"), so violators would be punished harshly (most likely exile, but maybe even death).

I can also envision that young Eladrin men interested in women would, at first, try everything to get their attention, including said reckless displays of heroism. Which might be against the advice of their caregivers who saw them as valuable signs of hope (at least more valuable than the aging men of the surviving generation). Same could happen with eladrin veterans desperate for a female partner, even if many lacked the fire of youth.

Regarding Kasvarina's reaction: I saw her rage sparked by the same notion that made my character sick (well, she got a wholly different background and even accepting "randomly" born children made her confused). That the men had the "right" to have one sexual encounter once per year. Because that would mean they could ultimately demand sex. I didn't even think about Kas remembering prostitution as women serving men (it was an egalitarian society with no history of patriarchy), but as "people" (maybe even slaves) serving needy Eladrin.

 

[RangerWickett]

Because she didn't believe that ideology. She knew it was valuable to have people who did have those views, but she was more of a 'run a global conspiracy that will hurt a lot of people for (what I see as) the greater good,' whereas Vekeshi mysticism is motivated a lot more by grievance and vengeance. She didn't, y'know, create the mystics, but she was willing to use them.

Kinda like Putin and the Russians using social media deception to mobilize and amplify the hostility of white nationalists and radical militias. Putin doesn't care about black people, but he knows that a bunch of violent racists could cause division in the US, and every bit of chaos deflects attention away from the stuff he's doing.

As for Cula, here's her bio:

Cula has served as an aide to Kasvarina Varal for over a century, but only a few years ago was recruited into the Obscurati. While Kasvarina directs policy, Cula undertakes missions, leading groups of Vekeshi mystics on raids or assassinations. Now that her mistress has disappeared, Cula has been forced to keep control of the many threads she controlled. She maintains a perpetual expression of kindness which is not hard to tell is fake, though it keeps her from showing exactly what emotion she’s really feeling. That emotion is usually disdain. In Kasvarina, Cula saw a woman truly devoted to fairly helping who suffer from the vices of others, and she finds few of the Obscurati officers live up to that ideal. While her opinion of Kasvarina glosses over some of her darker misdeeds, Cula is nevertheless motivated to help the weak, and to ensure the cruel fall. At the convocation she represents the Miller’s Pyre faction.

By the time the convocation was being planned, Kasvarina created a proposal called Miller's Pyre not because she agreed with it, but because she wanted Nicodemus to pay attention and know that she understood that his best intentions would turn to ash. Cula, as suggested by the above bio, had a view of Kasvarina as a sincerely good person, but she wasn't. Cula was 'second in command' only in the sense that she oversaw and ran objectives among the eladrin in Elfaivar. She wasn't privy to the whole scheme. Kasvarina used her.

But yeah, Cula was more moderate as Vekeshi mystics go. She was cutthroat enough to see the value of using the more radical mystics, but wouldn't have agreed with Kasvarina's full philosophy.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Essentially, what you are saying is that Kasvarina Varal was, pre-amnesia, the de facto unifier of many eladrin enclaves and pushed them towards the more radical and traditionalist side of Vekeshi mysticism, while not being a Vekeshi mystic herself. Presumably, people never figured out that Kasvarina herself was not a Vekeshi mystic.

Is this correct?

 

[Andrew Moreton]

My take on Indian culture is somewhat inspired by Indian Hindu culture , although dropping the caste system and filtered though my ignorance and confusion with so many other sources.
So they have a Male and Female god at the center of their faith with a mixture of Avatars and children of these main gods and a few strangers thrown in to fill out the pantheon. The main female god Ssramma is of course dead , her partner the tripartite Farmer, Warrior and Thunder god Daval who has retreated from the world somewhat in grief after his wife's death. I decided that original Eladrin culture was somewhat Matriarchal, and had somewhat of a Female gender preference with about 2-1 Female Male ration.
From both the Fey and Indian influences I went with a more sexually free culture than the more typical western culture which makes up most of the rest of the world, I also have gone with their gods being powerful Fey demigods living in this world and its neighboring planes unlike the gods of the Clergy from their distant and disconnected planes, which also made the death of Ssramma both more disastrous and more permenant .

The combination of their Matriarchy and native gods gives rise to much of the tension with Crissilyr and the clergy which at various times has been more of a patriarchy.

I have also gone with Eladrin being very long lived , so the malice at 500 years ago is really not all that long ago ,with Eladrin easily living to be a thousand or so and maybe even immortal fading away into the Dreaming as they age. The pc Eladrin in my campaign not really being fully up to date on her racial culture having visited an Eladrin enclave for the first time in the last session.

The Eladrin empire was a series of independent principalities ruled with various degree's of control by an Imperial family who grew in strength when outsiders threatened and reduced in strength during times of peace. The Eladrin empire embraced the dreaming to a degree no other culture does with Fey living and working among the eladrin and the borders between the realms being weaker. The death of Ssraaama and nearly 2/3 of the population broke this with only a few centers of population (the enclaves) maintaining their ties to the dreaming and many of the Fey fleeing deeper into the dreaming to avoid the consequences of Ssraama's fall. Many of the Male Eladrin died in futile attacks on the Crisslyians , but in doing so helped break the power of the clergy and leave its current rather notional occupation of Elfaivar.

I had Vekeshi vengeance more tied to the mainstream of Eladrin culture with Living being the best revenge central but the attacks on enemies of their people in their lands also being an ingrained tradition to keep the clergy and other threats away. Amongst other people the mystics just moved the definition of threat to meet something their culture needed although as a group they are always hostile to the clergy.
Thinking now a Vekeshi crime syndicate with a strong hostility to the familias may have been something interesting to introduce but I think I have missed my chance

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

Another thing that confuses me is the part where eladrin are fey, but the adventure path never, ever actually acknowledges this.

Are they originally from the Dreaming? How does that work?

 

[RangerWickett]

They were elves whose ancestors were closely affiliated with the Dreaming.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

What do "ancestors" and "closely affiliated with the Dreaming" actually mean in this context? How does it affect their fey status, and what does it mean for their present-day relation with, say, the Dreaming and the Unseen Court?

Does the Unseen Court even exist outside of Dreaming Risur? Is the Unseen Court essentially a global government for the Dreaming, worldwide, or at least Dreaming-Lanjyr-wide?

 

[RangerWickett]

Just Risur-wide.