Cultures & Empires - General Information
This world is diverse, with its vast array of cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles. Throughout the world, you will find all kinds of different ways of life. Some you might agree with and others you might not. Out of all these cultures, one of them is where you lived most of your life. Cultures help make up your past, present, and future. The society that influenced your views and traditions. Your view of the world is heavily determined by your culture.
The cultures of the world have developed around the geographical challenges and the people who adapted to their environment. Every culture is unique, based on its history, geography, religion, traditions, and originators. Some cultures have spread across the land, while others have remained in their small corner of the world. Those that have spread show similar aspects within other cultures they have influenced. While the more hidden cultures are unique to themselves, but still have some connection to the rest of the world.
Nisumari has divided its cultures into those that exist as empires and those that live within empires. Some cultures exist in multiple empires, while others make up the empire entirely. See empires below for more information.Empires
Throughout Nisumari, there are many empires that provide the people with security, trade, laws, and regulations to keep the peace. Each empire rules in their own way and has their own form of law. Some empires are so intricately connected to a culture that they take on most of the cultural aspects. For example, the Vasha culture and the Ueoe Empire share nearly all the same aspects. However, empires such as the Grimslar and Umi have multiple cultures thriving within their borders and therefore, while Grimslar Empire is based on the Grimslarian culture and the Umi Empire is based on the Umite culture, they both have other cultures within their borders.
Not only are there cultures thriving within the empires, but there are also kingdoms that have their own way of ruling. The emperor makes the ultimate decisions, but kingdoms can decide how to rule as long as it follows the empire's laws. Except for the empire's capital region, the kingdoms have complete control over their territories. The emperor typically always controls and rules this region directly. However, each empire has different ways of how they rule their lands.
Imperial Alliance
There are two different alliances that make up the Surface Side Alliance. The Paru Alliance comprises the Grimslarian Empire, Umi Empire (Including the Junarite Kingdoms), Tsumeta Empire, Ellaria Empire, Hotto Empire, and Page Empire. The Tsuru Alliance comprises the Rafiate Empire, Ashera Empire, Atsui Empire, Ue Oe Empire, and Vroth Empire. Being a neutral empire, the Ty’Les Empire is not part of either, but is the founders of the Surface Side Alliance. Ty’Les united the other empires after the Great War, forming the east and west alliances and the Surface Side Alliance.
The Ukar Empire, in the Midway, refuses to join any alliance but has a peace agreement with the Surface Side Alliance. Even without the peace agreement, the Surface Side and the Ukar Empire haven’t had issues with each other and have seen only peace.
Regions of Nisumari
Its landmasses, which naturally help divide the empires into their own regions, break Nisumari up. The people named the two main landmasses Paru Nisumari (Paru for short) and Tsuru Nisumari (Tsuru for short) which mean west and east, respectively. Junarite Kingdoms, Vroth, and Samisami are the three minor landmasses. The Junar Kingdoms are known as the jungle isles and were once part of the Umi Empire. Vroth is known as the desert island and home of the Empire of Vroth. Finally, everyone knows Samisami as the unexplored colossal lands. Fear has kept most from exploring the land because of no one ever returning and the extremely large flora and fauna that call the island home.
Besides Nisumari being broken up by its landmasses, there are five major regions: Poreru (North), Sauru (South), Tsuru (East), Paru (West), and Fureta (Midway/underground).
Tsuru Nisumari (Tsuru - East) Empires
- Grimslar
- Umi
- Junarite Kingdoms
- Ty’Les
- Ba (destroyed, now known as the Barren Lands)
- Tsumeta
- Ellaria
- Hotto
- Page
Paru Nisumari (Paru - West) Empires
- Rafiate
- Ashera
- Atsui
- Ue Oe
- Vroth
Fureta Nisumari (Underground) Empires
- Ukar Empire
- Primal Tribes of the Fureta Rechi (Dark Ring)
Sauru Nisumari (South) has no empires. Only Samisami, the land of the colossal which is unexplored.
Melting Pot Empires
Within some empires, there is a melting pot of cultures. These empires do not hold to one specific culture and accept all cultures within their borders. The subtitle of “Melting Pot Empire” allows us to identify melting pot empires. These empires have their own laws, regulations, and other systems in place that the cultured people who live there must obey, along with their own cultural beliefs and rules.
Melting Pot Languages
Although each melting pot empire has a mixture of cultures within their borders, they have all adapted a single language as their native tongue. The native language listed in the melting pot empire replaces your chosen culture’s native. If the culture replaces the native language, they move it to the secondary language list, and people can choose it as their secondary language.
Aspects of Cultures & Empires
The different aspects of the cultures are unique. They each give a bit of information about the culture and how it thrives. This information should help develop your character along with helping to ease you into the immersive world. Each element gives information that can help you understand how the different areas of the world function. It allows you to decide how much of this information your character would know or understand and how they would act while in the different cultures. Not every culture will strictly have each element, as some cultures can fit within each other or simply do not have a specific element.
Cultural Masteries
Each culture provides two starting masteries. One can be any starting mastery the player chooses. The other one must relate to the chosen culture or empire. For example, if taking the Guildite, Bard School, it would fit to take the Musical Instrument mastery as it relates to the culture. Similarly, for the Hotton or Tsumeta culture, it would make sense to take a technology based starting mastery as it is heavily tied to both cultures. Each culture lists a recommended mastery based on its disciplines section. These recommended masteries are not required but are there to help give examples of masteries others within the culture might know. You can also use them for quick build characters.
Cultural masteries require a (CC) in the price to be taken. As cultural masteries are free, you ignore their price and requirements.
Disciplines
These are the bonuses you gain for having lived most of your life in the culture. Each culture is unique and offers different disciplines that you can gain. Most cultures give you a set group of bonuses, but some have subcultures for you to choose from. You can only choose one subculture or group of disciplines.
Fashion
This section describes the different way people dress in the culture. It also addresses differences in why some cultures might wear more clothing and why others might wear less.
Food & Drink
Every culture has specific delicacies that they enjoy. This section highlights a few of their most common.
Geography
This section outlines important physical locations in the culture's region.
Laws & Regulations
This is information about the laws, guidelines, and codes of conduct the culture follows. This section is important to characters who have taken traits that involve law and order, such as the city guard or diplomat. Having a position within the city allowed you to learn more about the laws, regulation, and even taboos of the culture, than a standard commoner.
Traditions
This section explains the details of any rituals or celebrations the culture has throughout the year.Languages
Languages are a major component of cultures and the game, making it too large to sum up in a simple paragraph. Click the title to learn more.
Religion
This section provides details on which religions the culture follows and the level of strictness in following them.
Living within a culture that has a strong religious following does not mean you are religious or follow your cultures religion. However, living within the culture, you would know at least the basics of the religions practiced.
Society
Society explains different aspects of the lifestyle of the culture. It shows how the class system functions (if there is one) and other forms of structure in the culture.
There are some traits that place you in different areas of the culture. For example, if you have the noble trait, then you would understand and know about how the aristocrats operate more than how a standard commoner of the culture operates.
