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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Idabrius" data-source="post: 4323216" data-attributes="member: 67832">AnnwnayahEladrin culture in Jandana is largely influenced by two major facts: Eladrin live until killed and have a birth rate comparable to a mortal race. This has bred a society fraught with violence in which major wars are undertaken at a much higher rate than in mortal lands. The Eladrin arrived in their current home some time over twelve centuries ago (by Eladrin count) and settled lush basin that would become known as Dinas Ayah, the Silver City. The records of the eladrin’s long journey and final arrival, the foundation of their glorious Silver Empire (Annwnayah) and their extensive history were kept by the cyfar, story-tellers who were hired by wealthy patrons. Eventually five great families arose as the most powerful patrons in the new-founded city. After  a brief period of intense inter-family warfare the other kinship groups were subdued and began to gravitate towards one of the great Five. By this method of appropriation all historical heroes and distinguished personages became attached to one of the Five Families. By the time of the Incarnate King Hesam, the Five Families had codified each of their great stories into huge tomes bound with leather and gold that were kept in shrine-like conditions at the seat of each Families’ power.These books are known collectively as the Five Branches, referring to the Eldarin view of the forking path of history. Each moment, the Eladrin theologists claim, contains in itself its own opposite. Therefore, any recorded history is but a “branch” or a cutting from a larger garden of complex interwoven truths. None of the Five Branches are without bias, and most have become so layered since their creation that the original tales have been obfuscated entirely.The people of Annwnayah are ruled by an Eladrin known as the Incarnate King. The great priests (most notably Araxa) in times long past have determined that the Incarna manifests himself (or herself as the case may be) by certain signs that only the Kamdin Presbyter can hope to recognize. Candidates for the Incarna must be chosen from one of the great Five Families, as it is only through their noble bloodline that the divine can manifest. The Incarnate Ruler is a personage with mighty divine implications. The “garden” of history is believed, in the Incarnate, to be fully represented. All contradictory truths find unity in this figure and thus the Incarnate is truly Divine. Lesser Incarna (those who show the potential for being Incarnate Rulers) are less fully divine due to the presence of the Incarnate Ruler and his theological significance. No Incarna can be the culmination of the divine opposites if the Incarnate Ruler is serving that function.The Five Families are forbidden by strict custom from intermarrying in order to preserve the pool of Incarna and make certain that the numbers of potential candidates to the Rulership do not dwindle. Eladrin chosen as potential Incarna are sequestered from childhood with other Incarna and are all brought up in the art of ruling the Empire. It is frequently the case that the current Incarnate Ruler choses his own successor from the potential Incarna. However, there have been several notable cases in which the Kamdin Presbyter acted against his Ruler’s choice and elevated a different Eladrin.One of the most important events in the history of Annwnayah was known as the War of the Incarna. Following the death of King Rahkshan and his Presbyter, several of the Incarna children manifested the signs of the Ruler. Without waiting for a new heir to be chosen, the Incarna Esfander crowned himself the Incarnate King of Dinas Ayah. Because he was crowned by a mere thearch and not the Kamdin Presbyter (who had yet to be replaced), his rulership was open to accusations of illegitimacy. Though it was Esfander who eventually drove the marauding Fomori armies from Annwnayah, as soon as the war of defense had ended militias sprang up the Empire over in order to defend their candidate. Esfander was eventually murdered by the Incarna Vahid, and many of Esfander’s followers fled to the Middle World during the time of the Confluence. Secretly encouraging these political purges, Vahid convinced many of those supporting losing or dead candidates to flee Jandana. When many of their numbers had been depleted he himself had the Kamdin Presbyter crown him.Vahid later died in the Black Horror which slew many of the deathless Eladrin. After this plague had ravaged the Empire for nearly a century, the Incarna Rayhaneh was made Queen.Society in AnnwnayahThe largest population center and producer of all culture in Annwnayah is the capitol, Dinas Ayah. This is not because it is situated in a particularly favorable location or because the apparatus of government all operate from this point. Rather, it has been built up through myth and legend over the centuries to have a cultural gravitas and weight that no other city in Annwnayah can match.The lifespan of Eladrin (being nearly eternal) lends to a different societal structure than one that mortals are used to. Some Eladrin consider themselves first and foremost a warrior, waiting only for a war which requires him or her to leave their daily drudgery of maintaining the Empire. Even artisanal and farming classes believe in the necessity for constant warfare in order to keep Annwnayah from being overwhelmed by hostile foes—and they are not wrong, for Jandana is a dangerous place. Of course, there also exist many tracts (the most famous being Social Responsibility by Araxa) that decry this attitude as dangerous and foolish, not to mention heretical. The very fact that these writings exist, however, and their general popularity indicate that there is at least some group of Eladrin who behave this way.The great majority of Eladrin in Annwn are either share-farmers or artisans located in one of the great cities. Dinas Keshvar and Dinas Kuhha are both major trading and crafting cities in Annwn. The gnomish wanderers of the southern regions frequently make stopovers in Dinas Kuhha to trade with the Eladrin there; as gnomes are known to bring bits and pieces of every culture they come into contact with, Dinas Kuhha has a reputation for being somewhat of a cosmopolitan nexus—while Dinas Ayah represents the long traditions of Annwn, Dinas Kuhha is often associated with forward-thinking Eladrin and politically dissident ones. Many supporters of the Incarna Esfander, for example, hailed from Dinas Kuhha.Marriage and childbirth in Annwn society has developed in a particularly stultified fashion. Perhaps as a reaction to the extremely long lifespan and fairly high childbirth ratio of their race, both of these events are major milestones in the life of Eladrin and are not undertaken lightly. The Annwn thearchy forbids remarriage and punishes extramarital childbirth (though not sex, as long as proper precautions are taken) with extreme harshness. Annwn Eladrin tend to marry only after they have matured fully and spent at least one hundred or two hundred additional years as bachelors. Women tend to control the marriage organization, and it is societally impolite for a man to approach a woman with a proposition.The subject of the Rulership has long been discussed by scholars and priests in Annwn, and while there are a number of divergent opinions, nearly all support the divinity of the Ruler. This is not because of a system of oversight but rather because of the very powerful manifestations of the Divinity of various Rulers throughout history. The “monolithic” viewpoint on the Divinity is that of the priesthood—that the Incarnate Ruler incorporates all the disparate elements of truth and is in fact a unison not only of the Five Families (which are bound to support him) but also of all the metaphysical conundra of the world. The first Incarnate Ruler was supposedly the leader of the Eladrin when the crossed the seas and settled in the country of Annwn. The thearchy of Annwnayah is fraught with many contradictions. While the Ruler is nominally the end-all on theological debates, it often falls (and is the custom to fall) to the elder scholars of the Empire to decide on theological matters. This is usually solved by the riddle-synod in which high ranking theologians gather together to ask questions in a rapid paced round-circle ritual. Scribes are always present to record these sessions in a special ecclesiastical shorthand.The Kamdin Presbyter is at the top of the hierarchy, but rarely engages in synods. Rather, he is responsible for appointing the heads of the fourteen great theological schools that dot the fourteen provinces of Annwnayah. These fourteen men (or women) are known as the Masters, and they usually compose the entirety of a riddle-synod.A separate arm of the thearchy is the Candescent Order, charged with hunting down heresy and expelling it. If the fourteen schools are the philosophers of the Annwn thearchy, the members of the Order are the fanatics. While tensions between certain devotions of thought amongst the fourteen schools are common, all scholarly theologians find something to fear in the Order. The White Seekers, as they are called, even cross the borders of Jandana to hunt down and exterminate exceptionally deadly heresies in the middle kingdom.Interestingly, the notion of heresy is quite an alien one in a religion in which all truths are part of an intricate web. The theologians who founded the Candescent Order did so to prevent unnecessarily recursive arguments, infinite regressions, or things which the synods have declared theological dead ends. It is the purpose of the Annwnayah schools of theological thought to examine and meditate all possible paths of truth. Long treatises are often written just for this purpose; however when a certain line of thought is deemed unconstructive (recursive, defeatist, or otherwise suggesting that the Incarnate Ruler is not the perfect synthesis of the divine) the scholar who published the work is expected to turn his mind to more useful tasks. If he does not, the Candescent Order sends out one of its White Seekers to convince the unrepentant heretic to do so.</blockquote>

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