Ardenai (Player-Created Lore)

A repository for various Ardenai player headcanons or observations about the culture.

Government

• The ruler of House Ardenai, currently King Eamon Ardenai as of 5122, is also referred to by tradition as "The Briar Crown," ruling over "The Evergreen Court" which moves each season, hosted by different powerful families who vie for the honor through exhibitions of grandeur.

• The nobility of Ta'Ardenai is composed of several families whose lineages can purportedly be traced to the time of Sharyth Ardenai. Among these are the ruling families of the Northern villages, traditionally loyal bannermen due to ancient oaths sworn to Sharyth Ardenai by their ancestors.

• In modern times a steadily increasing number of merchants, bankers, and other individuals prominent in the field of commerce have been elevated to noble status. This has earned the ire of many of the traditional nobility, especially those of the North.

Customs and Traditions

• The villages dotting the harsh hinterlands of the Darkling Wood all the way to the northern shores are populated by elves who adhere to what they call the "Old Ways." They generally swear allegiance to House Ardenai but are a wild, almost savage people possessed of a close spiritual connection with the primal energies of their homeland.

• Coinciding with the Eve of the Reunion, the northern Ardenai celebrate a holiday they call Draekreyn or "Dark Rain". It marks the end of harvest and any animals not expected to survive through the winter are butchered and made into sausage or dried for the winter stores. It is also a time of revelry, celebrated with old tales honoring those who have lived and died before. The mead flows freely, and what mead is not drunk by the rowdy elves is saved to mix with beer for the winter braggot.

• Similarly, there exists a Midsummer Festival. This is also marked by heavily consumption of mead, which seems to be a common theme.

• The Winter Solstice is marked by a multi-day event called Hiemaltide which celebrates the cycle of life and the return of light after the long polar night.

• The family unit seems to take a distinct interest in Ardenai marriages. Not unlike the Vaalor in their involvement. This is perhaps due to the dichotomy of old and new present in Ta'Ardenai.

• Among many of the northern villages, it is customary for both the bride and the groom to build a home. Both the bride and the groom have agency over their destiny.

• Another tradition among the Ardenai seems to be a pilgrimage undertaken during the autumn to visit a certain tree reported to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest, in the Darkling Wood. Visitors tend to its roots, helping to protect it for the coming winter, and often take leaves as souvenirs to preserve them in glass or vaalin and put them up in their homes.

• Weaving is a skill for which the Ardenai are renowned, especially tapestries. For the Northern Ardenai, everything has a practical purpose unless you are wealthy. Tapestries are beyond a document of lore or a work of art, they also provide warmth and insulation. Often during the winter months tapestries are draped along low ceiling beams to help keep the heat from rising up into the conical and vaulted ceilings of the homes. Prior to the warmer weather months, the tapestries are raised up to flush against the ceiling and often this is a signal of the arrival of summer and a celebration all its own. Heads of clans have metallic threading used frequently on their tapestries.

• There are many bards, battle chanters and lyricists in the north but another kind of storyteller are the Weftmasters. They pull skeins of magic from nothing or use physical threads as conduits to keep the lore and history of their people. Once a piece of artwork has been finished a Weftmaster can channel the emotional and mental energy from that moment and harness it to cause great fear in an enemy or rally a kinsman in battle.

• Some among the Ardenai rely on stylized botanical or scientific plant and animal names to denote lineage upon a grand family tree. Their surnames may employ phylum, class, clade, order, family, subfamily, tribe, genus, species, variety, and cultivar; some also utilize this method for given names. Whether families are named after the organism or it named for them, is a matter of debate the further back in time one delves upon their grand tree. Analysis of these trees or taxonomies may lead to surprising discoveries about one's lineage.

For example:

• Albana, Miyabe, Insi, Cathayan, Celtia, Rubran, and Trilo Morus Ardenai come from the Moracea family who are descended from the Rosales, Rosidan and Eudicorts before them. Their distant cousins could include branches such as Ficusa (fig and banyan), Artocarus (jackfruit), and Maclura (hedge apple).
• Pyrena, Alba, Vera, and Sarah are progeny of Angust Lavandula Ardenai, and they are descended from the Ocime, Nepetos, Lamiace, Lamiale, Asterid, and Eudicort lines. Their grandfather was nicknamed Offinius and he had siblings and cousins including Stoech, Fabricia, Styphonia, Chaetost, Sabaud, Plectran, and Isinia.
• Cypria Sidertis Ardenai's cousin is Orvala Lamium; they may trace their lineage to Verbenace Lamoia who is many generations removed from Asterid Ardenai and the eponymous Eudicort Ardenai even further back.
• Chlorana Ardenai's descendants are few, but can be traced through her daughter Chlorantha, a grandson Sarcan, and perhaps a great-great granddaughter who styled herself formally as Glabriella Sarcandra Chloranthace Ardenai. Glabriella's siblings or cousins might be named Haina, Brachys, Montanus, and last but not least: Ceylanicus, who is not to be confused with Ceylanicus Pandanus of the Monocot, the latter of which is named for one Monoryth Ardenai.
• Olivia Certhide can trace her lineage through the Thraup family to the Passerins, Eupasere, and Avesa beyond. Of the Passerin, there were three siblings: Tyrann, Passery and Acanthis. Olivia belongs to the Passery line. In her research, she discovered that a distant aunt named Euphonia was not actually a Thraup, but instead a Fringilla, though the revelation still suggests Passerin origins. Acanthis's descendants include a woman known as Lyalla, who bore no children.
• Cerro Hemion has a few siblings, including Auritus and Pusilleucera. They hail from the Odocoilein and distantly, Artios. Research suggests Cerro and his best friend Brock Mazama may be distantly related.
• The Ardennais horse breed, lost in the Horse War, may (or may not) have been named for the Ardenai house itself.

Spiritual Beliefs

• While House Ardenai's official Patrons are well known by most, the Northerners who adhere to the Old Ways have a more primal outlook. The fiery sun that lights the sky and grants reprieve from the harsh winter come spring; the wind that bears their ships when trading season begins; the forest that teems with life and provides nigh-limitless bounty to those who treat it with respect; the ice and snow which are a danger to be respected in winter but whose melting eventually helps to nurture new life. The strength of the bear, the cunning of the leopard, the rut of the elk--all of these, instead of any humanoid representation of a deity, are celebrated and sought to be exemplified by the hardy people of the North. There is a very real, primal energy that is felt by all and channeled by those who practice magic.

• Sorcerers are viewed with grim respect by most living in the North for their ability to meld the primal elements and the spiritual realm. They see nothing unnatural about the concept of rot or decay, seeing it as but one part of the life and death cycle to which all are beholden.

• When a loved one dies, one tradition common to the Ardenai is they take some of that loved one's clothing to turn into a mourning sash that they wear about the neck. They tether charms or keepsakes symbolic of that person and wear it for the duration of their mourning, which varies depending upon the nature of their relationship.