culture:balance:felsal

Felsal society is one that encourages true loyalty. Wealth is redistributed on all levels to encourage compliance, and all citizens must join the military when they come of age. This allows for people of any socioeconomic status to advance in Felsal.

Felsal feels quietly oppressive. The people don't speak much in public, maybe due to contentment, maybe due to the muffling fog. All of that, thrown in with their muted national colour of steel blue being everywhere, adds up to a seemingly stark and awful place that is in actuality quite pleasant.

Fashion

Given the misty mires and forests of Felsal territory, Felsal fashion is decidedly practical. Most clothing is of thick fabrics, and cut in as few pieces as possible to not let water in. Ponchos and coats are common attire, as are goggles and respirators. The latter is most necessary at the lower levels of Felsal, where toxic plants and animals pose hazards.

Architecture & Aesthetics

Felsal opts for a “high and dry” approach to their architecture. Their cities are built into the massive trees or above the wetlands on stilts, buildings connected to eachother by suspended bridges and ziplines. The treehomes are primarily wood, while the wetland homes combine stone and wood - but wood plays a predominant focus in their design. Very little metal figures into it since they can form the appropriate bindings and tools with magic. They force the trees to grow out base platforms to support the buildings, then build it around that - then rebind it all together to seal it against the extremely damp and cool climate. Goods transportation is performed by utilizing suspended gondolas to deliver product.

Felsal, like the other Balance societies, blends technology and magic as much as possible for useful results. This is particularly apparent in their licensing of Hekate products and of their own Foxglove technology.

Tech Focus

Felsal operates their proprietary specialized plant growth technology, named Foxglove, to thrive in the very hostile territory they make their home. A bit of biology, magic, and technology working in tandem to make these specialized plants grow. Currently, they have three separate varieties to work with.

  1. The Drilltree - Drilltrees are used to mine resources. Plant one, enhance growth, and provide magical energy to it to make its roots branch out and seek the nearest ore. It then breaks down the ore little by little as it goes up the tree, eventually producing a blossom that opens up once there is an apple-sized growth of metal.
  2. The Graftree - Graftrees are bonzai-sized trees that sprout wide. By giving it seeds of other trees or plants with the initial seedpod, the tree will grow a variety of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and gourds.
  3. Sandbox Tree - The sandbox tree is a person-sized type of tree that is programmed magically to grow one of several ways - a bushlike wall to keep people out, a trunk of many blossoms that fires sharpened seeds at predesignated varieties of target, a living crane to aid in construction projects, and many more. It is a useful item in the day-to-day life of the homeland.

Magic

Felsal heavily focuses on magic. Like the other Balance socieities, Felsal has a magical talent that they pride themselves on beyond any other - the ability to manifest tools and armor, tethered to their form and body. A basic Felsali mage can do one thing, like a hammer or a bracer. The more trained their skills, the more individual pieces and more advanced the pieces can be - but the development and aesthetic of the parts varies wildly from person to person - though they can encourage it in certain directions.

Psionics

Felsal, like all Balance Societies, focused so hard on magic during its history it quite simply forgot psionics existed.

Felsal exists in two biomes of Balance - forests with massive trees, and a boglike area. Both of which share many of the same attributes, including an everpresent fog and extremely poisonous flora and fauna.

Horticulture

Since much of Felsal's territory is wetlands, they are the primary cultivator of the Eatuflos on Balance. Otherwise, most of their dietary needs are met from the use of graftrees. See Technology for more information. They also do cultivate nuts for use in flours.

Fauna

Felsal have no mass livestock to keep, as their liveable territory has no grazing lands. However, it's not uncommon for districts to have a local coop housing poultry for eggs. Felsal tend not to keep pets, as most of the local creatures are either too poisonous to tame, or too likely to get preyed on by the local wildlife.

Cooking

Felsal cooking primarily relies on stews with a water base mixed with egg, effectively making eggdrop stew. Another common addition is nut flour to thicken even further. It is cooking designed to warm up the weary hearts and cold bodies of the average Felsal in the damp, cool climate.

Religion, while once a thing on Balance, faded out of public and private worship shortly after the kingdoms established themselves.

Felsal, as their territory lies within temperate regions, celebrates solstices and equinoxes as proper changes to the season with small festivals involving food and gifts.

Birth and Death

Felsal is a bit more formal with life and death than their rival nation, Vadral. Death is treated with honor and solemnity, especially for those that go career with the military. Birth is on the same level, with the child being christened by the military.

Felsal government could be defined as an autocratic government with a dictatorial royal family.

Structure

The buck stops at the Grey One/Lady/Man, who controls everything with an iron fist. Since every citizen serves, every citizen has the potential to become a general - but generals are handpicked for their promotion by the Grey One themselves.

Leadership

  • The Grey Lady - Harl Undine

Law and Crime

Felsal is pretty open with what's allowed and what isn't, but they have extremely heavy libel laws, and seditious talk is punishable by hard labor.

Autocrats - The ruling class of Felsal. Structured as the Grey Lady at the top, with appointed military forces holding down the different regions.

  • culture/balance/felsal.txt
  • Last modified: 2017/05/11 22:05
  • by moogle