Culture of Faneria

The Fhainn are a subculture of the Fheadhainn Culture Group specific to northern Levantia and southern Faneria in particular, with small communities around the edges of the Great Inner Sea and in the former colonies of the aforementioned nation.

Some Fhainnin people, specifically westerners, have a tendency to nudge strangers with their elbows, poke them to get their attention, or just start talking to strangers as if they know each other. The reason behind this behavior isn't clear, as it bothers other Fhainn almost as much. Westerners are also more likely to be redheads, which has created the odd stereotype of annoying, redheaded Fhainnin tourists, especially in countries with less social openness. Non-redheaded Fhainnin tourists thank their lucky stars the stereotype has a physical trait tacked on.

Northern Fhainn, however, have an habit of touching or using things without asking. This is a result of living communally in larger family complexes being more common in the northern countryside, and leads to some urban culture shock as well as culture shock abroad. Luckily, most of them unlearn it quickly, and it's not universal, but it's enough to be stereotyped.

Most Fhainn living in the north or in the mountains don't take their shoes off indoors unless asked, and will idle awkwardly around the entryway for permission to 'make themselves at home' or explicitly being told where to put their shoes, as it's a cultural habit to give permission to enter by allowing a guest to remove their shoes. Guests don't have to remove their shoes per se, but in rural areas, it can be taken as an insult to not allow guests to remove their footwear.

Southern, or Ninerivers/'proper' Fhainn, tend to be more educated on average than northerners and inland easterners and slightly more educated than most coastal easterners, and show that by being (again, stereotypically) argumentative about policies, belief systems, and the like, and often fail to read the room when doing so with foreigners. The disconnect is that when most Fhainnin do it, they do it for entertainment value and to show off their civic virtue; this is very easily misinterpreted as deliberately picking a fight. Fhainnin have, partially because of this, been stereotyped as more decent than not at semi-sober and buzzed fighting , though if you place the same man against a Coscivian with both fully drunk, the latter will generally be considered a better fighter simply due to Coscivians always being drunk.

Religion

Mythology

The Wyrm of Whyllisge was a legendary monster with six legs and a serpentine body roughly a hundred and eighty hands long that lived on the coast of the Vandarch Sea, slipping ashore to steal livestock and the occasional person for food. It also supposedly was capable of speech, and was possessed of a fickle nature, at times trading favors and bountiful catches of fish for toys and trinkets and at others tearing fishermens’ nets to ribbons or even attacking and sinking ships. Some versions describe it as a demon possessing a sea monster. The Wyrm was supposedly killed when a Priest came along to Christianize the coastline where it prowled, and depending on the version you hear, either the Wyrm was killed instantly by the priest speaking the name of God, or the Wyrm was hunted and killed by a band of knights called the Four Fellows (who have their own set of legends but that’s beyond the point). In either version, the Wyrm is cut apart and its pieces thrown back into the Vandarch. Water serpents were one of many minor objects of worship in pagan times, and the Wyrm of Whyllisge in particular is a conglomeration of sea monster tales and an allegory about the Christianization of most of the Ninerivers. There is no known place named Whyllisge on the Vandarch coast (there is a town inland named after the legend, however), which continues to puzzle scholars. The Wyrm myth is known to have had at least some roots in myths of krakens and sea serpents spread through trade with other early civilizations, but the earliest literature describing it is heavily damaged and currently preserved in a sealed case in the vault of the Peoples' National Grand Library in Teindún out of concern for its condition.

Pagan Deities

Prechristian Gaelic deities (ver. 1): Ninerivers region/'Vandarch' Pantheon Organized broadly into good and evil gods. Good gods were revered and have some remaining cultural influence and form the core of the few pagan communities left, while evil gods were simply placated or blamed. Only 'evil' gods received human sacrifices, which fell out of practice in about 400-600 AD after a great decline starting in the 200s.

'Good' gods:

Braess: chief star god, was killed and his fall created the Vandarch Sea and threw arable soil onto the earth. His spilled blood became freshwater (not sure if the Vandarch is salt, relatively fresh, or less salt than wider seas).

Nehaeleni: wife of Bress, freshwater goddess, sailing and calm seas

Yesus: originally Hesus, later combined with early Christian messages of 'Yesus Kristo' prior to Christianization. Woodcutting, woodworking, and forests.

Maponus: music, poetry, and art; largely influenced by Latin and Goth traders. Lungh: fire, metalworking, and craftsmanship

Bovaero: medicine, reading, and architecture - a patterns and logic god, sometimes represented as a benevolent trickster. Maybe a fusion of several older deities. Commonly the patron god of nobles and the educated.

Benevolus: latinized form of Belenus, the sun god. Associated with the latin Sol/Yahweh/ixequivalent of Sol depending on how the times match up.(edited)

Many local fertility gods

'Evil' Gods:

Briga: Natural disasters and saltwater, namely earthquakes, landslides, storms, and floods - water and earth things, not so much air stuff. scorned wife of Albor.

Albor: open sky god, tries to destroy creation with fire but is stopped by Braess' wife, Benevolus/Belenus and (accidentally) Cernunnast every day.

Cernunnast: death and life cycle of winter/spring/summer, in some cults a cruel god, in others, neutral. Eponia: beasts, hunting, and war. Depictions ranged from violent blood goddess demanding sacrifice to noble savage.

Note that there is no death god - its being and name were devoured by the v o i d. Generally, the local faiths held that you could only experience the things you did to other people after death, and people who were evil either stopped existing or doomed themselves to an eternity of reliving what they did to others, depending on the local specifics. Good people supposedly got to be stuck in a dream/trancelike state. Since the afterlife was based on others' perception of you, slander was considered a crime comparable to murder in the more extreme areas and could easily lead to a duel or feud

Sciences

Philosophy

philosophical works and political thought - filial piety, kin and kith groups, dunan as the foundation of many cities, positivism, perspectivism, theistic finitism, praxis school, actualism, compatibilism, naturalism, organicism, moral realism(?), mathematicism, mentalism, cognitivism, moral absolutism

Cananachan Republicanism

Cananachan Republicanism is a derivative of populist republican political science, coined by Callac Cananach in 1882. The concept is very similar to the radical republican movements of the 1850s, even including some proto-socialist rhetoric in regards to eliminating the traditional class and race boundaries of the Monarchy and feudal system, but roundly condemns the elimination of private property in favor of creating a formal system of public services and utilities, which under traditional Fhainnin law were dominated by noble families. The primary tenents of the system are a rabid aversion to non-meritocratic representation, the use of mass politics in the form of a one-chamber legislature based on population rather than administrative subdivisions, and the employment of particularly extensive oversight measures designed to put the state entirely within the control of the public. The original concept was even described by Cananach as 'a State enslaved to its constituents, entirely focused on the militant defense of freedoms and morality'. The system is usually connected directly to the Fhainic Revival movement; although it has been claimed that only a people as stubbornly moralistic as the Fhainn could make Cananach's system function properly, the connection between Cananachan theory and the growth of Revivalism is largely considered by historians to be a case of converging, rather than concurrent, social movements.

Fhainic Revivalism

Fhainic Revivalism is a major cultural movement spread across northern Levantia, especially within its nation of origin, Faneria. Including architectural design, art, cuisine, language, political and military philosophy and organization, and a wide variety of other topics, the (movement) is by no means a cohesive school of thought, although it is unofficially endorsed by the government of Faneria as the driving force in modern Faneriai society. Outside of Fhainnin, Revivalism has had a mixed history of separatism alongside its common focus on rebuilding native Levantine society, especially within the less stable areas of the Latin States. The major trend of Revivalism is its emphasis on combining traditional Fhainic culture with Catholic worship, although radical republicanism is often considered a part of the movement as well.

Sports

Dannseach, also known as horse-dance, was a type of two-person dressage typically associated with the former aristocracy of Faneria and their descendants. Its origins began in formal horse duels, which were performed with spears and later with cavalry sabers, which became formalized as a ritual associated with the sealing of household alliances, (relatively) nonviolent resolution of grudges, and even fighting for courtship rights. The specifics of dannseach vary widely by region and time, but consistently involved bouts of mock fighting with blunted weapons broken up by rounds of showmanship, during which the participants were expected to perform while increasingly battered to show either commitment to the stated cause of the dannseach or display perseverance over their opponent. A lower-class military variety of the practice was performed, but was in practice indistinguishable from sparring and bore little symbolic relevance to the soldiers beyond showing off their status as professional mounted ardceiteirnn and as entertainment. A brief conflict over the accidental death of a competitor in a dannseach caused an internal conflict in 1734 between the Vicariates of Turlann and Connsmonann, which directly resulted in the reforms which banned lords from maintaining (official) private armies within the kingdom. Dannseach fell out of favor in the mid-nineteenth century, though the military variety remained somewhat popular and significantly influenced modern Fanerian dressage, which is sometimes referred to by the same name to distinguish it from international competitions due to its occasional confusion with, as one Coscivian referred to it as, "...half horsemanship, half weird ceremony, half MMA match." (Nobody understood him enough at the time to properly smash his nose in, because he was already smashed. Alcohol use was not historically accurate for dannseachs because those who drank prior tended to end up being thrown or rolled on by their horse.)

Major Sports Teams:

Teindún Tempests - Baseball St. Jude's Dudes - Baseball Hockey Hockey Racing Football Football Football Football

Art

Literature

Classical and modern Faneriai literary works can be separated primarily based on the presence of heroic tales. In older days, the militaristic lifestyle was considered the highest form of achievement for any person, and so literature of the time was primarily heroic or historic in nature, an often emphasized nationalistic values and traditionalist points of view. Modern literature is a broader industry, but still maintains its roots in the values expressed. However, Faneria's literature is less prominent than most other Levantian nations', and as a result the Bible plays a major role as reading material even today. A large portion of modern works are oriented towards educational material, skill-learning, and other utilitarian functions, while fiction tends to be a mix of a minor creative medium and a large number of derivative epics.

Architecture

Fhainnin Revival Style

broad basing/Northern Mountain Style/Ninerivers Style

- square pillars, plain or with simple base and cornice, sometimes patterns carved or stenciled or painted on sides

- red brick, stone brick, or pine siding; wood, stone, brick, or concrete exterior walls; red brick or stone facades over concrete common

- often thick inner walls with wood paneling, small first-story windows and large upper-story ones

- clay from the Vandarch (religious significance)

- favors square or rectangular shapes mainly, with accentuating half-circle arches (never gothic or other arches)

- rotundas sometimes, usually inside of building form; domes somewhat rare

- favors 45* or 60* roofing (Vandarch Basin vs Mountain Styles)

- side/back porches common, front porches somewhat rare

- mountain style still uses compound-esque court walls

- shotgun houses in inner cities

- chimneys?

- terraces, switchbacks, embankments, and other earthforms very common

- often gardens, ponds integrated into more 'vogue' designs

- during 1880s-1950s, buildings generally lacked first-story windows or used very thin windows as a reaction to crime and in response to glass shortages

- much of the landscape is lined with dykes, dams, terracing, and raised ramparts for highways and trains, etc. King _____ spent a crapton of cash in 1836 on massive projects which later turned into the republican Standardized Raised Rail System, at the time, widening roads and properly paving a lot of them while reorganizing major metropolitan centers

Monuments

integrated urban foliage, earthworks and terraces

Peoples' National Grand Library in Teindún

Triumphal Arch of (king's name)

Triumphal Arch of (King's name)

Oirthidun Civil Arts and Sciences Library

Oirthidun Grand Metro Station

Teindun Old Palace

Oirthidun New Palace

Oirthidun legislative house, directorate building

Rihsport Civil Quarter

Grand Battery of Carthaigh

The Grand Battery of Carthaigh is built around the mouth of the Rhydwell river, overlooking the old latin colony city towards the Vandarch Sea. As the Rhydwell can accept shipping some distance up its length, the rivermouth was first protected by a dedicated naval squadron in 1590 and fortifications erected on the eastern bank to house a garrison. By 1840, these entrenchments had been expanded and converted into a large fortress, which was further modified to house larger and larger guns. At its height, Fort Carthaigh hosted twelve 14-inch and two 20-inch guns in 1930; this was reduced to ten 14-inch guns in 1938 and six in 1941, with the guns being moved to the more vulnerable Rihsport and Sethsport and their places taken by a radar station and a anti-air armaments. Today, most of the fort is tourist-accessible, with only the radar station, a small post maintained by the local military base, and a CIWS/SAM launcher pair remaining in the secured east wing.

Diet

Traditional Dishes

In Fhainnin cuisine, steaks are typically cut into slices and grilled similarly to turkey. Slabs of steak are generally a once-in-a-blue-moon event, but are more common in eastern Faneria. Breakfasts often include hashbrowns or a similar dish made of sliced potato and egg, as well as hot ryemeal/rye porridge. Apples from the southeastern Ninerivers and sometimes peaches from southern Vrael are favorites, as well as a variety of grain cereals and pancakes. Fhainnin alcohol revolves around the major economic types - whiskey and beer - as well as some varieties of dry wines and scotch, which make up smaller portions of the economy but are still culturally important. It is common for people to drink low or minimal-alcohol content beers socially, but proper drinking is left to scotch and whiskey unless the drinker doesn't mind being considered trashy.

Alcohol

Alcohol has a long tradition in Faneria, and is considered a core part of its identity from ancient times to the modern day - the common endonym for the nation itself is a bastardization of the Farsi term 'Land of the Goblet', in honor of Fhainic merchants subverting Audonian regulations during the centuries immediately prior to and during Islamic expansion. Fhainic beer has long been known for its high alcohol content, and the people themselves for their iron guts. This has translated into forays into wines, particularly dry varieties in northern Levantia, and the creation of some of the first modern vintage standards. Many small breweries can still be found across the countryside, and unlike most nations, alcohol licensing is generally lax. Non-alcoholic beers are also readily available for the underaged, with a few very low-content varieties licensed for consumption by minors. These varieties have become especially popular in daily life, although traditional brews still see use in parties and other celebrations. insert a bit on the temperance movement of the 1890s and how it increased political activism and made non-alcoholic beers very popular

Spices

Faneria, much like the other north Levantine nations, has a long history of milder spices, herbs, and garnishes such as chives, borage, fennel, and garlic. A native, rich-tasting plant called luitiugh, or Thickweed, was also commonly used by peasants to beef up soup broths, while flùrlosgadh (Burnflower) has a strong, flavorless cooling sensation that can become painful in more than a small amount. Faneria was never able to seriously challenge the foreign spice trade, and remained a destination for spices, but rarely an exporter in bulk outside of a few specialty herbs. Many other cold and mild-weather plants have since been introduced to Faneria, with much of the market being fought over by smaller family or local/regional companies.

Taisteal Hammarlach

Ahnlach

Bellach

Cyrweth

See Also

Feinii Fhasen