Coscivian civilisation

The four-pointed star, a recurring motif in early Cosco-Adratic art, has come to serve as the symbol of Coscivian civilisation.

Coscivian civilisation is the heritage of values, norms, customs, ideas, social and political movements, and artifacts associated with the. Coscivian civilisation spread beyond its home continent during the 9th and 10th centuries anno Domini to encompass new lands and peoples through migration, colonisation, cultural exchange, and assimilation, and today forms the dominant cultural paradigm in several nation-states, including Kiravia and Livensóla, as well as the way of life of Coscivian minority and immigrant populations in many parts of the world, particularly Umcara, where Coscivians comprise some 40% of the population.

Coscivian civilisation and a common Coscivian identity were consolidated under a series of Coscivian Empires that united the various peoples of Great Kirav, who despite sharing certain ancestral, linguistic, and cultural affinities did not previously have any common consciousness, into a single overarching cultural and political system. This civilisation continued its independent social and technological development over the subsequent centuries, and remains a distinct, if comparatively minor, cultural sphere in the world today.

People

Coscivian peoples
ꍞꎋꍹꅳꉊꋚ ꑎꎏꐃ

Total population
3 trillion approximate
Regions with significant populations
Kiravian Federacy	883,663,723
the Cape	XY,000,000
Paulastra	XY,000,000
Faneria	X,000,000
Caphiria	~51,000,000
Tierrador	29,156,881
Cartadania	21,174,000
Rumelistan	11,291,540
Cærulean Archipelago	619,000
Languages
Cosco-Adratic languages Elutic languages Intheric languages
Religion
Monotheism Christianity, Coscivian religions, Islam, Deism

The Coscivians or Coscivian peoples are a meta-ethnicity comprised of the various ethnic groups that have been historically included in Coscivian civilisation and whose respective cultures draw on and contribute to the wider pan-Coscivian cultural complex. Coscivians are not a biological race, and do not constitute a single ethnic group. Communities living Coscivian culture come from disparate genetic, ethnic, linguistic, and national backgrounds, and usually have strong ethnic and communal identities nested within a broader Coscivian cultural identity. Nonetheless, the existence of a Coscivian people (Koskiplānon, Koskidérum) is widely recognised both within and without the Coscivian world, and a meta-ethnic Coscivian identity has existed since the First Empire. How "Coscivians" and "Coscivian people" are defined can very greatly by context. In modern Western sources, terms such as "Coscivian people" or "ethnic Coscivians" most often refer to [REDACTED] (see below).

The Coscivian peoples trace their ancestry to multiple waves of prehistoric migration from Crona, Levantia, and the antediluvian Arctic, the genetic legacy of which is unevenly distributed across different Coscivian subgroups. The genomes of modern Coscivian-Kiravians show a tiny but detectable admixture from the extinct hominins Homo sapiens sariporensis ("Sarolasdra Man") and Homo vetus montanis.

The largest individual Coscivian ethnic groups/ethnic supergroups are the Kir people, Cape Coscivians (taken collectively), Antaric Coscivians, Ensciryan Coscivians, Eshavian Coscivians, Paisonic Coscivians, and Æonaran Coscivians.

Major Themes

Primordial Universals

• Monogamy and Patrilocality- From the time of the Adraīan Empire (and possibly before), the Cosco-Adratic peoples distinguished themselves from their neighbours by their strict adherence to monogamy, and may have been the first people in Éorsa to institutionalise marriage in any form, monogamous or otherwise. The word Coscivian itself may originate from the Old Kasavic root *gxasvē, mreaning "spouse". Traditional historiography has traced the Coscivian self-conception as a society oriented towards ethical ends and a well-ordered society to the institutionalisation of marriage. Coscivians also practice patrilocality, meaning that a bride becomes part of her husband's community (not only geographic but also tribal, ethnic, and in modern times national and class) upon marriage.

• Monotheism- The Adraīans were a selenolatrous and henotheistic people who believed in a multitude of spiritual beings but worshipped only the Moon. The religious beliefs of the Kasavs are less clear, though it is known that they believed in an impersonal force called the Wàz, which survives in modern Kiravian superstition as ūsa. The worship of celestial entities continued among the Ancient ʔptovi and other West Kasavic peoples, and though it is unclear when monotheism coalesced as a popular belief, it was the Ancient Eskean philosophers (particularly the Strabians) who argued in favour of an aphysical, conscious Supreme Being. A diverse assortment of monotheistic beliefs proliferated outward from Helska across the Intheric Basin, eventually giving rise to the organised religions now classified under the umbrella of Coscivian Monotheīsm. Even today, monotheistic religion (or at least belief) remains ubiquitous in Coscivian countries, with both neo-pagan revival movements and staunch atheism being extremely rare.

Worldview and Philosophy

An archive of Shaftonist texts from the Second Imperial period in Vólakelva, Trinatria

• Shaftonism and related emergentist, transcendentalist, holistic, and personalist philosophies emphasising ethics and virtue as life's central questions, focusing on humanistic aims and action according to higher principles.
• A schizo-sacramentalist conception of reality, reflected in language and art, that emphasises the holistic interrelation of states and processes and, from an Occidental perspective, does not distinguish clearly between the symbolic and the real.
• Parametrist schools of thought, similar in nature to parametric determinism, as developed by X, Y, and Z, and reconciled with Shaftonist philosophy by Q.
• Reliance on deontic logic, with a strong sense of duty, jurisdiction, rights, property, and "standing" in both the personal and political spheres.
• Non-dichotomy and a general rejection of dualities and binary oppositions common in other cultures (e.g. the Left-right spectrum, yin and yang).
• An irrealist conception of time, viewing time as neither a linear progression nor a cycle, but rather as a medium for change or a mere mental construct.
• A strongly spatial approach to philosophy, law, and social organisation, rooted in the "locative teleology" of the Eskean thinkers and manifesting in modern times as the "moral compartmentalism" debate.

Civics

• A legacy of several inclusive, decentralised empires and a translatio imperii from the Adratic Empire to the Cyptom Empire, to the First, Second, and Third Coscivian Empires in succession, the Akuvaric Empire, and ultimately to the Kiravian Federacy.
• A longstanding principle of helvikor patrá or "liberty of worship" maintained since the 2nd century BC, long predating Western ideas of religious freedom.
• Strong traditions of local governance and a tendency towards subsidiarity.
• A path of political development that largely bypassed the absolutism of the Mediæval West and generally falls short of liberal democracy.
• The Coscivian legal tradition, which developed from the efforts of successive Coscivian Empires to maintain their rule over a vast and varied territory. A key feature of this tradition is the application of Réstiálda or "Cultivated Law", a body of non-statutory law derived from customary law, ancient juristic maxims, and a growing body of tōngan or "points of consensus" established by patterns in case law.

Art, Literature, and Design

Polygonal motifs in a stained-glass window - Elginsar, Devalōmica

Plan of a star fort. Many such forts were built in the golden ages of Coscivian, Kiravian, and Livensólan expansion, and can be found at the centre of numerous Coscivian cities and towns.

• Millennia-old tradition of rhetoric (Iatic: vūroska, Kiravic: kísrūkrāsta), which is considered its own discipline and applied across genres and even media.
• Great attention to symmetry, order, and cohesion in æsthetics, following from the emergentist, holist concepts of Shaftonism.
• A fondness for synæsthetic expressions, reflecting unusually high incidences of synæsthesia among Western Éorsans.
• Recurring polygonal motifs, especially regular pentagons and octagons, parallelograms, and stars (especially four-pointed) in art and architecture.
• Several distinctive schools of architecture, most prominently Coscivian Historicism, Coscivian Modernism, and Kiravian Exurbanism.
• An heritage of monumental statuary, sometimes colossal in scale, originating from the Boreal Megalithic and influenced by subsequent developments in religious and civic ideas, continuing to the present day and best exemplified by the Marble Emperor. The ubiquitous Kalma statues erected throughout the Cape are the prime example of this tradition in a modernist context.
• A marked preference for skyscapers and high-rises in urban settings, even in areas where economic pressures do not necessarily demand them. This theme of verticality in Coscivian architecture can be traced back to the Inter-Imperial Period, when the mountainous and forested geography of Éorsa gave rise to the construction of towerhouses as fortified dwellings. Structures inspired by towerhouses continued to be built through the Second and Third Empires, and became strategically useful during the colonisation of also mountainous and forested Great Kirav for protection from Urom and Cromwelute attacks. Contemporary Kiravian cities and towns tend to be noticeably more vertical than Western settlements of commensurate size, with even rural towns typically having a few blocks of lowrises.
• A rich and enduring tradition of engravings, woodcuts, and prints as the leading graphic artform, rather than painting as in Western culture.

Cultural practices

• Affiliation with endogamous ethnosocial groups (tuva), within larger linguistic, cultural, or religious cohorts.
• A long tradition of literacy and a critical role for literary canons in establishing the identity of groups and movements. Paper was developed early on in the softwood-rich forests of Éorsa, allowing for the early flowering of a vibrant (and democratised) literary culture. Written language has long exerted dominance over spoken language among Coscivian peoples, with the forms and style of the former acting as a prescriptive force on the latter.
• Use of the Iatic script or related scripts derived from the Ancient Adratic, including Iatic numerals, which reflect a vigesimal system.
• Use of the Iatic or High Coscivian language as a transnational, transethnic prestige language of scholarship, high literature, diplomacy, and law.
• Use of lunar and lunisolar calendars derived from the Classical Iatic (the Calibrated Coscivian Calendar being the most widespread today), and traditionally an eight-day week, rounding out to an even 45 weeks in a non-intercalated lunar year. In contemporary times, the rhythms of rural life in many areas follow the eight-day week, while the Occidental seven-day week has replaced it in most other contexts.

Religion, Spirituality, and Ritual

Sarostivist temple in Avidrona

For most of the past millennium and up to the present day, a majority of people living in the Coscivian World have been Christians, and in most of Coscivian civilisation a "Christo-Coscivian synthesis" of Christian theology with a native Coscivian philosophical framework, expressed through a primarily Coscivian cultural vocabulary... (shit, Starbucks is kicking me out, bbl)

A large number of people continue to practice religions of a Coscivian origin, whether in their pure form or in some degree of syncresis with Christianity or Islam. Largest among these are Sarostivism, Komarism, Iduanism, Ruricanism, and Læstorianism, though smaller religious communities such as Ēnedrism and Perigantism exist as well.

Some Coscivian communities, known collectively as Kēbavem, have embraced Islam. Coscivian Muslims are heavily concentrated in Sydona, South Kirav, and Rumelistan.

Some aspects of Coscivian religiosity traverse individual faith traditions, and can be found in Coscivian expressions of Christianity, Islam, and other "imported" religions. These include an important place for monasticism and similar separated, acestic, and contemplative institutional lifestyles, and a great deal of attention paid to the souls of the deceased (especially ancestors).

Asûrion, the 'Sky Isle': a feature of Coscivian mythology

Funerary Culture

All Coscivian groups and subgroups have a highly developed funerary culture. Before the introduction of Christianity and its baptismal rites, not all Coscivian cultures had strong traditions for the reception of newborns into the family, tribe, or community, a fact that some anthropologists attribute to high infant mortality. Thus, the two cardinal life-cycle events in Coscivian culture have always been the wedding and the funeral. Indeed, reverence for the deceased features in both the Four Precepts ("Thou shalt not diss dead opps") and Four Rites ("Commit the dead to an honourable rest"). The oldest and most influential works in the Coscivian literary canon have been funerary texts such as the Itidhamtagránda, popularly known as the "Coscivian Book of the Dead".

Cremation has a long history in Coscivian civilisation and remains the leading method of corpse disposal in the modern Coscivian World. Cremation practices among the Cosco-Adratic peoples share several common characteristics, such as giving the body a special vestment or draping for cremation, retention of ashes or bone fragments after cremation, and memorialisation of the remains. While the the specific rites surrounding cremation, of course, vary widely with religion, ethnicity, location, and social stratum, these practices are highly conserved among Coscivian groups, and contrast with Western crematory practices that usually involve the outdoor dispersal of cremated remains, which is viewed as highly disrespectful and is prohibited by law in most Kiravian states. Burial and entombment of human remains also have precedent among Coscivian peoples, reaching back into Dark History and amply attested by archæological evidence. Among many Coscivian cultures, especially in mountain areas and boreal regions where natural conditions can make simple interment challenging, Coscivians developed traditions of entombing their dead in aboveground cairns, burial mounds, or cave ossuaries. Burials surged in popularity after the Three Evangelisations and remain the norm among certain groups, such as Ĥeiran Coscivians. However, the more widespread practice among Coscivian Christians is to bury the dead for three or four years, exhume the skeletal remains on the anniversary of the decedent's passing, and (after ritual preparation of the skeleton and observance of liturgical rites) place the remains in a church ossuary, catacomb, or charnel house for permanent repose. South Coscivians and Antaric Coscivians, among other groups, maintain dedicated mausolea at their ancestral home sites to hold the remains of their lineage at a single site.

It has been noted that the particular funerary cultures of Coscivian subgroups are strongly influenced by their ancient religious heritage, even among groups that have embraced Christianity or Islam with minimal syncretism. Communities of Iduan or Komarist heritage tend to favour cremation. Communities of Rurican heritage prefer to keep remains close at hand. Getting kicked out of Starbucks again, shit.

Contact with Other Civilisations

Coscivian civilisation did not develop in complete isolation. [P'ter] [Bottle Culture] [Earlier Levantine Contact] [First Christianisation] During the 8th century anno Domini, missionaries, traders, and migrants from Celtic Levantia introduced Christianity to the Ĥeiran Coscivians. [Third Christianisation]

Polygons, mane.

Coscivian and Occidental worlds

The Occident is the cultural sphere with which Coscivian-Boreal civilisation has had the most extensive contact. Historically, Coscivian-Occidental cross-cultural exchange was a product of geographic proximity, occurring via trade and transmigration between Great Kirav and Levantia. In modernity, it is more often a function of Occidental cultural hegemony on a global scale. In the words of S.P. Vérannív, "The fundamental problem out of which 'defensive' Coscivian identity arose in modernity is that the Occident is the civilisation with which the Coscivian world has the most in common, and therefore the one against which it must define itself in order to complete its dialectical idesis."

"Kiro-Occidental" is an inclusive compromise term intended to refer to a greater cultural world which refers to the traditionally "Occcidental world" of all Christian or Christian-descent nations of Levantia and the Latinic and Istroyan portions of Sarpedon while also making reference to the Coscivian civilization on equal footing to the Occident. The term has seen increasing academic and popular use, especially within Urcea.