Given that there are many �civilized� races on the Kaliokan Continent, local mores can vary greatly due to proximity to other cultures, either as an adoption of their characteristic or as a reaction to them. The elves and humans 'cross-pollinated' as each ruled the other for hundreds of years.
However, each of the 3 races has some basic characteristics in their societies.
Dwarven Society-
Dwarves, oddly enough, are the most individualistic and iconoclastic of the races. This stems from two characteristics. The first as that many dwarven pastimes/jobs can be pursued solitarily. Mining, smithing, crafting, etc. all have the potential to done largely alone. The dwarven term Kijoak (kee joe ack) means about the same thing that hermit does in english, but it has none of the negative connotations. It is simply a personality trait with the same weighting as shy, or smart, or curious. It�s just how a dwarf is. Some dwarves (about 5-10%) will live most of their lives in solitude. Many others, (about 20-30%) will spend a period of their life living solitarily. This is as it should be to dwarves. This is not to say that there are not outgoing dwarves, but they are more unusual and subdued, expressing their gregarious nature more in the form of curiousity about other people and listening and observing carefully than any boisterousness. The second characteristic is that dwarves are prone to a kind of monomania which they call Urtodispal or �life road�. A dwarf will find something; mining, jewelcrafting, engineering, or almost anything, which fascinates him or her and will pursue it with an insane focus initially, which tapers off over a period of 5 to 20 years (usually). This frequently coincides with a functional withdrawal from the rest of dwarven society, unless the Urtodispal happens to be a social pursuit. Not all Urtodispal are healthy for the dwarf in question (alcohol and violence leap to mind).
These two conditions combine to create a society of people who have learned to work together around each other�s particular hobbies and idiosyncracies. Ironically, dwarves when they do work together are the most tightly knit of the races, having learned how to work around some fairly extremely antisocial individuals. There is very little infighting in a dwarvish organization. There is usually one leader (the person who�s Urtodispal is most directly involved, who is usually also the organizer) and everyone else yields. When more than one person is in this position, they create oligarchic leadership. The dwarven nation is lead by a congress of dwarves whose Urtodispal predispose them to leadership and/or command.
Dwarves are skilled miners and tunnelers, having had millenia of practice. Underground caverns and cave travel are to dwarves what swimming and canoeing are to polynesians; skills that most dwarves pick up in their early childhood. For this reason, dwarves are highly regarded as stonemasons, builders, and engineers. (They can�t do bridges for crap however)
Dwarves in many ways remain the most reclusive race. The elves are in their forests and the humans are in their cities, both relatively easily accessible, but if someone wants to see the heart of the dwarven lands, they have to crouch or crawl 3 miles (depending on whether they are elvish or human) through rock. As a result, the dwarves are able to maintain a very closed society. And unlike humans, who build houses, which fall down and disappear over time, or elves, whose homes are trees, and plants which tend to be grown anew every few decades for a �change of scenery�, dwarven living areas can be thousands of years old. And there are HUNDREDS of miles of abandoned mine shafts and living areas which were abandoned when the vein played out. When the original owners of an area died, it was considered bad luck to take over the living quarters. In this way whole towns were vacated during wars and plagues, as part of the town died, and the rest of the town moved to more populous areas. It is traditional for a dwarf seeking a wife to carve her a home. So each generation has it�s own new construction. All of these factors resulted in areas left uninhabited. And the dwarves have alluded to �things� living in these miles of mines and caverns. Mine flayers, cave drakes, black puddings, restless spirits, tribes of ogres, and cultists (of many races). Many dwarven communities have areas sealed off by huge stone blocks, braced in place.
Humans and elves are almost completely unaware of the extent of the mazeworks within the mountains.
Dwarves are not a �fun loving� people as far as the other races can determine. They do drink, but it doesn�t seem to make them happier. Or anything other than clumsy and quiet. The dwarven pursuit of Urtodispal also mystifies most other races (though few are aware of it�s degree, since dwarves pursuing Urtodispal become reclusive, which in dwarf terms means, DEEP inside the mountain) and cannot be said to be recreation so much as some deep drive, like sex, or eating. Dwarves (when a dwarf who was open enough, and another who was brave enough to broach the subject was found) like sex, and food. Though a race who has adopted as a staple food a kind of fungus can hardly be described as gourmets. And as for sex� well, explaining how they choose companions is difficult for dwarves, so most don�t. But in the few cases where one has been willing to discuss it, it was mostly a matter of timing. Two people who were in a gregarious phase of their life (the 40�s to the 70�s usually) deciding to have some children together. One clue is that dwarves don�t marry �for life�. They marry until the kids are mature enough to take care of themselves, and then go on to other pursuits.
For the most part dwarven recreation consists of finding people who share their Urtodispal, at least partially, and sharing techniques and showing off their skill. And after the Urtodispal has worn off, the dwarves do develop other interests (though not as many as other races).
There are basically 5 broad groups of dwarves, grouped by their Urtodispal. The largest is the workers. Many dwarves are simply fascinated by mining, or farming fungus, or smithing, or any of a number of other pursuits. This is not work to them, this is what they do. Many of them worship gods whose influence their Urtodispal falls under. While they do not worship with the same fervor as certain humans are capable of, the average dwarf is MUCH more excited about their work and focus than the average human. As a result the dwarven pantheon is well taken care of by it�s followers. The second broad group is the warriors. These dwarves have focused on mastery of specific weapons, or study of a particular creature, which happens to be dangerous, and thus best studied once dead or captured, or are interested in tactics, in theory AND execution. There are many dwarves in this category.
The third group is the watchers or leaders. They are interested in people. They are the historians, storytellers, leaders, and counselors of the dwarven society. They study people, what they do, why they do it, what they have done, what they will do, and how best to control them. Many dwarven merchants who travel to other lands fall into this category. These people are often (though not always) charismatic, or at least manipulative. They are the organizers and motivators of dwarven society. This is the second smallest part of dwarven society.
Finally are the priests. These felt a calling towards a particular god at the time when other dwarves felt their urtodispal. This is the smallest part of dwarven society, but one of the most powerful. They could rule the dwarves if they were unified (fat chance) or if they had a desire to rule. Dwarves, both priests and others, do not feel any evangelical need. If others recognize the importance of their god, good. If not, well, perhaps they are stupid, ignorant, or the god doesn�t hold the same sway over their lives. With the exception of certain evil gods, dwarves do not judge one another�s gods (though almost all revere Father Clangeddin to some degree).
Dwarves live mostly below ground, although there are a few (about 15%) who prefer life aboveground. Many of these are hunters, farmers, merchants, or animal trainers.
The dwarves live off of Poti, their fungal amaranth, and the meat of animals raised on Poti. They also raise spices and seasonings (a necessity for preparing Poti). Poti has a textured like tofu, and a flavor to match.
Dwarves keep few pets. They like dogs, although they have three basic breeds. Ikolare�, a thin hunting breed. Bunigo, a heavyset bulldog/mastiff breed, used as guard dogs. And Porchia, a barrel chested breed with large heads but very short stubby legs and docked tails (think of Corgis or Dachsunds that weigh around 35kg). Some dwarves keep owls as pets/sport (essentially dwarven falconers) and large (5kg) fruit bats are also common, though seen as more women�s and children�s pets.
Dwarven communities are very fortresslike and rarely invaded. They are crisscrossed with murderholes and secret passages, as well as traps which can be activated, making these areas absolutely hellish to assault. Those creatures which prey on dwarves use one of three strategies:
1) stealth, sneaking past guards or neutralizing them silently.
2) attacking from below, since most of the defenses are aimed toward surface dwellers (although this requires travelling for over ten miles underground, since the dwarves guard all closer entrances)
3)trying to catch dwarves in the open.
The third strategy is the most common, and means that the dwarven mountains and hills are very poorly �civilized� being commonly traveled by all manner of predators. Of course, the dwarves will commonly make lightning strikes in force against any predator or threat that lingers too long in their territory. But there are many creatures who live continuously in dwarven lands by the simple expedient of staying mobile.
Dwarven recreation, as mentioned before, consists largely of socializing with others who share an interest in your urtodispol (trade groups etc.) or simply spending time with other dwarves at exhibitions of skill in various areas. While each dwarf focuses on his urtodispal, once the initial mania has passed in ten or twenty years, they will begin to express curiosity about and interest in many other pursuits.
Dwarves love to relax with family and friends, with a particular favorite spot being the �Opresh�; a sprawling hotsprings/bath in most dwarven communities where dwarves gather to talk.
Dwarven warriors fight in closely knit groups of infantry, about 6 to a unit, who in turn will coordinate with one another. They call this the �grinding gears� strategy. Two or more of these units will work together to break up a unified force, and once the force is broken up, they will repeatedly �pincer� portions of that force until the entire force is defeated.
The major weakness of the dwarves is their poor mobility, between their short legs and affection for heavy armor. They overcome this by steam-powered �battle wagons� which can transport 3 to 8 �gears� of dwarves. In the past there were steam-powered automatons which were actually able to fight, as well as vehicles, but that technology has been lost.
For now. Dwarves also enjoy using crossbows to reduce their mobility disadvantage. Dwarvish accuracy is by no means on par with the elves, but when your bolts can fire THROUGH 2� of tree, pinpoint accuracy becomes less important.
Dwarves are 3ft 6in to 4ft for females and 3ft 9in. to 4ft. 4in for males. The masses range between 120 and 170lbs for both genders. Dwarves live for 80 years before their bodies begin to fail, and then another 20 to 30 before their minds go and bodies collapse.
Elven Society
The elves share the dwarven longevity but beyond that are like a counterpoint to the dwarves.
Elves are the ultimate dilettantes and sensualists. In elven society it is perfectly acceptable to spend a year drinking dreamtime and painting your visions. Elves are the living embodiment of the phrase �It takes a village to raise a child�. As soon as elven children are old enough to move around, they are parented by all of the members of the community. This creates elven communities that are both very tight-nit and very fractious, like any family. Elven children mature at about the same rate as humans for their first 5 years, and then after that, the process begins to slow at a gradually lengthening rate. They reach adolescence (eq to age 11 or 12) after 20 to 24 years. The elven �teens� last until age 50. Elven lifespan averages 250 years. This gives elves an attitude of �manana�. Nothing is considered pressing or important, until it is an emergency. They live lives of relative leisure. Their wealth is their kinship with plants and trees. It allows them to farm and garden on land that couldn�t support ten carrots for humans. Elves have been cultivating, shaping, and growing plants for 3 millenia. By now they have many hardy varieties which they use for food, building, and structural materials. Some (like the archer bushes and fencer vines) are less than successful experiments. But others have been tremendously successful. This is a list of the most common:
Cottage trees- like giant baobab trees, only coniferous, they provide housing for many elves. They take 20 or 30 years to grow to a usable size (usually a 3 to 5 room �treehouse�) but can live for three or even five hundred years, at which point they may have a hundred rooms and cover 10 acres.
Tent vines- for shorter term dwellings, these vines grow like kudzu for 3 years and then die. They can cover hundreds of square feet.
Nectarfruit- peaches the size of a mans head.
Heartroot- high protein yam-like root, with a pleasant honey flavor
Soylent Greens- leafy vegetable like kale, but with a smokey pork flavor.
Yenish Pogal- a fruit that comes in pink to purple bunches, with hard pits. Used to make wine by elves.
Dreamtime- a kind of tea which causes hallucinogenic disconnection from this reality and possibly ability to see into the future or other planes.
Bladeboo- hard, teak-like growths of very straight shrubs with straight, trimmable outgrowths. Used to make spears, arrows, pole arms, and staves. Can be easily trimmed to a needle-sharp point.
Steelwood- very strong, flexible wood which is used for much of elven construction.
Young elves are raised around plants and have an early knowledge of horticulture.
Raising plants is not a very time intensive task for the elves. They devote themselves to many other pastimes. Both men and women find swordsmanship and archery to be popular sports, as are riding, running, and wrestling. Many elves find themselves drawn to the arcane arts. And others enjoy woodcraft. With their lifespans, a young elf can have two human lifetimes of practice in a skill.
The elves fatal flaw is their lack of focus. If dwarves are prone to focusing on one thing, elves are emminently distractable, rarely finishing a task or a journey if something more interesting crops up. Many have some small skill in combat or magic, but they do not pursue it in the majority of cases, preferring to relax.
Every evening in elven towns is a party. They dance, drink, carouse, and socialize their lives away. They spend a few days a week �working� on cultivating crops or building or other jobs.
Elves would have been wiped out by humans and dwarves were it not for an approximately 25% minority who do not share these values. These elves work relatively hard all of the time. And they frequently are able to drive the other elves to work harder. Also, these attitudes disappear when life becomes hard. During times of war or hardship, the elves are able to focus much better, causing the 25% to swell to 90%. It is a an old elven expression �You do not know which seeds will sprout mighty trees until the first frost has cracked the pods�. Which means that even the most impulsive and irresponsible elf can be changed by hardship.
Most elves spend their time somewhere between a total life of leisure and a life of continuous strife. And elves change. An elf can start out as a hard driver and after ten or twenty years fall into a a life of sculpting or horticulture, or an elf can coast along for one hundred years, and then shift into high gear. Most elves have some useful skills.
Elven rule is through a series of royal families. Each of the twelve royal families has a seat on the elven High council. Every ten years they choose a Hierophant, who directs the high council. There is a great deal of jockeying for position within the council, any councilmember who allows the needs and interests of their family to be ignored or is ineffectual in negotiating for the meeting of those needs, is replaced, sometimes with violence. Within each family there is usually a fair amount of politics, as the different members jockey for position. Because of the unique nature of elven longevity, it is possible to have parents, children, grandparents, and grandchildren all vying for the family�s council seat (as determined by a vote within the family). Any member who is too willing to harm the family to achieve the council will never get a seat. So the politics is bloodless to the family members themselves, but can erupt into violence from their power bases. The families are as follows:
Sherigal - control farming, fur trade, and weaponsmaking
Torical- control enchantment magic, music, shipping
Cir Pel- control textiles, horses, some fur trade, spices
Lomarth- control summoning magic, metal and gem import from dwarven connections, farming
Har Miluth- control erisnai mercenaries and soldiers, horses, �construction�
Mox Guir- companies of erisnai archers, fishing, shipping along the coast
Je Pelut- elven battle cats, horses, farming, erisnai mercenaries
Velducar- divinatory magic, banking, shipping, �construction�
Horu Bal- textiles, fishing, narcotics, farming
Jonal- control musical instruments and the two biggest bard colleges, espionage, protective magic, and papermaking
The current Hierophant is a Torical named Potas. She is not terribly firmly established at this time, with the consular elections only three years away, but she is better positioned than any of the others. Mostly. For now.
The elves spend much of their time on arts and entertainment like dance, music, painting, and weaving, as well as ornate gardens. But as always, �much of their time� may still leave forty or fifty years of productivity. One method elves have found is animal servants. The erisnai oversee them, and the elves themselves train them. Even the poorest elf may have a horse and an erisnai servant with which to till the fields. Or a hunting cat and a fine long bow to hunt. Or a share in a ship to sail and transport materials or fish in the ocean.
Elves love their leisure, and will work like dogs to sustain it. One of the human poets, Irgos, said during the first centuries of the human�s captivity:
�Laziness is born to the elf,
Lassitude is in his soul,
And softness in his marrow.
Until his ease is threatened.
Then the sun and moon are restful by comparison,
And teak is soft.�
The strength of the elven race is that, given time to steel themselves, elves can become truly formidable in pursuit of their goals. The elves themselves are aware of this. Most have some method of forcing their young to establish their own legacy. These methods vary from being cast out of their town until they can buy their way back in. Or being granted a portion of the family wealth with no more to come, ever. To being �apprenticed� to a master until their abilities equal the master�s. But the elves themselves have learned the hard way the truth of their proverb:
�Ursol jek mentras vel,
Mugh lab cutsos woxos�
Life is in the enjoyment,
Work to give yourself a life to enjoy.
Elves field formidable military forces of erisnai, elven warriors, elven and erisnai mages, battle cats, and other magical creatures generated by elven wizardry over the millenia. Not all of their creations are plants, nor ended as badly as the Murani.
Each Elven House is resposible for providing the council with a police force for their areas. In addition, each House maintains an additional military force which is allied only to the House. Usually this force is made up of veterans of the Consular police.
Most elves have no relation to the great houses, though many swear allegiance to one of them. They are ambivialent about the elven aristocracy, and there are mid-sized houses that dream of becoming one of the twelve, and a few mid-sized houses that wait for their chance to regain that status.
Human Society
The humans are in many ways the weakest of the races. They are the shortest lived, they lack the natural advantages of the other races, and on top of that, they tend to try to kill each other.
The major advantages of the humans are that they reproduce about 5 times as fast as the dwarves and elves, and that while their society may appear to be fractitious and prone to strife, this is actually competition.
The humans of kalioka are maximal competitors. They each have one area that they try and be the best at, or if not the best, working on it.
There is love in Human society, but it is love in an objectifying sort of way. I love you because you are my posession, and the better you are, the better you reflect on me. This flows up and down families from spouse to spouse, parent to child AND child to parent. The families of successful people are quick to claim them. Unsuccessful people are "Ontreg Makmorb", or Failure Orphans. This also works from friend to friend. This creates a level of self-fulfilling prophecy, where if people percieve you as a winner, they will rally to you, if they percieve you as a loser, you will never be so alone again.
Competitions of all sorts are an integral part of human society. Races, combat, crafts, magic. A very high praise is loren, meaning, "First", while uloren, revosa, and merevosa meaning "Just behind", "Last Place" and "The worst". Parents begin training their children at very early ages, if a spark of excellence is found, it is cultivated. Combat and magic are two of the areas that almost all children push their children towards (though only if the aptitude is there in the 2nd case) but aptitudes in artisanship, music, husbandry, farming, or other skills are given some recognition. Loren ru wexdal bon uloren jos, "First at a little thing is better than just behind in everything." Money and martial prowess are neck and neck for importance in Imperial society.
Any grouping of humans will immediately degenerate into competitions, be it gambling, armwrestling, Jodi (a mancala type game) or staged combats. Blooduels were common until the god of swordplay and the steel mother both stepped in and put a stop to them. Lakisa is the driving force behind this competitiveness. By pushing the competitiveness as hard as possible, she hopes to have the best people leading the society. It is she who chooses the emperor every ten years, with her own hand. It is also Lakisa, however, who introduced the concept of Tarloren or "We First". That team and group victories were as important as individual victories. This concept is difficult for many humans to fully embrace, so it is continually belabored by the priests and priestesses of Lakisa, and the military leaders, that competition is good, but cooperation is the key to survival. This is an idea which is still very spotty in its implementation. Lakisans are willing to compete against one another in groups, and to take pride in the success of the group, but 'Stars' and 'Ballhogs' are very common problems. And the biggest problem is individuals who sabotage their percieved competition within the group so that the group is weakened, but they look better.
There are many historical cases of how the humans were crippled by internal dissent, allowing their enemies to defeat them.
These attitudes have made the humans very liberal in the sense of being open to ANY idea which would allow them to succeed. This has stopped them from establishing a full theocracy. While Lakisa is the state Goddess, and official religion, other religions are accepted if they help a person succeed. With the exception of Tain, who is outlawed on pain of death by flaying.
The Humans are ruled by a combination of the Emperor and his appointed Governors. Each area of the empire, or Satrap, elects 5 Senators to the capital city, Kaloun. This election is done by those people who are wealthy enough in land or other resources to participate (Usually about 10% of the population). These Senators advise the Emperor, and from them he chooses one to be governor of that Satrap. The governor has limited power, he maintains a police force within the Satrap, maintains roads, dams, fortifications, etc. The emperor is in charge of maintaining a military, which patrols the areas that are mostly uninhabited and protecting against marauding forces. Usually the military pays more poorly than the police forces, so the governors recruit police members from those who have completed their military service with distinction. In addition to the military, the emperor maintains the Bloodsinger schools and the Colleges Of The Arcane, as well as upkeep on the temples to Lakisa and some shrines to Shule and Phimara.
All citizens (IE non-slaves or other undesirables) of the empire are required to serve 4 years of their life in the service of the empire, starting no later than their 18th birthday (30th for half elves, 45th for gnomes, etc). Areas of service are determined by a rigorous series of tests given every winter, which identify competence. Those who excel in certain areas are offered positions in those areas. The areas of service, in order of difficulty of entrance and approximate stature: Magical service (3yrs training, 4 years service, 4%), Military service (1yr training, 3 years service, 25%), Priestly service (Trained by temple for a year, 5 years service, 6%), Messenger service (No training, 4 yrs service, 8%), Construction service (2 years training, 3 years service, 6%), Smithing (2 years training, 3 years service, 3%), Record-keeping service (3 months training, 4 years service, 20%), Agricultural (No training, 4 years service, 28%). Much of the gruntwork in the empire is done by prisoners. Private slavery was abolished by the Dwarves about 500 years ago and never reestablished, but about 5% of the imperial population is imprisoned at any given time, and these prisoners labor in mines, construction, and agriculture.