Tenh (the nh diagraph is pronounced as a voiced palatal nasal like the Spanish ñ) as the heir to the proud culture of the Flannae. Its people have managed to only partial assimilate to the culture of the Oeridians even though their ruler was forced to accept the suzerainty of the Overking.
The Tenha culture is not feudal in nature but structured around matrilineal clans. In the past, there was no organization higher than local chiefs (almost always male) who were selected by clan matriarchs, but pressure from invaders led to a more centralized structure and a Great Chief or King rose and forced all the local chiefs to swear fealty to him. The Clan Mothers still play an important role, but it is more ceremonial than in the past. The king is not appointed, but rather the title is inherited by the male child of his choosing of one his sisters, and that heir has the position of tanist conferred upon them while the king still lives.
The Tenha were nominally converted to the Church of Law, though Aerdian missionaries wisely incorporated the native Flan deity, Allitur in a prominent role. The missionaries were less successful in casting solar deity Pelor as a servant of Pholtus. Pholtan iconography, in fact, has been appropriated by the Tenha to represent their Sun God, and the festival at midsummer in his honor is still observed.
Druids are still a feature of Tenha society though they have mostly abandoned priestly duties and serve mainly as healers, diviners, and carriers of oral tradition. Druids in the modern Duchy are predominantly women.
The Oeridian term knight is used to refer to Tenha warriors who are part of a warrior society. Each society observes its own secret rituals and has special taboos. Most warrior societies are male only, though there is a group of unicorn riders which exclusively admits women. Their mounts are not the horned horses of popular imagination but rather a species of goat-antelope.
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Imagine she's on a unicorn |
6 comments:
Love these "making sense of the flanaess" posts, this one did not dissapoint
Thanks! Glad you're enjoying them.
"The missionaries were less successful in casting solar deity Pelor as a servant of Pholtus. Pholtan iconography, in fact, has been appropriated by the Tenha to represent their Sun God, and the festival at midsummer in his honor is still observed."
Heh. Only so many ways to portray the sun, right?
This is the best. Makes me think modern flan (flaña?) are the displaced distant descendants of the civilization depicted in First Fantasy Campaign . . . still accessible via machines in the City of the Gods. Aligning the map orientations reveals that the prehistoric "egg of coot" lived on an island in what might have been an enlarged Whyestil, making him or it an Iuz precursor figure.
"A species of goat-antelope" reminded me of these guys: https://greyhawk.fandom.com/wiki/Wild_elf. I never had much use for them in a world that already has flaña rover bands on one side and sylvan elves on the other but maybe these are more vestigial cultural/political distinctions from the lost pre-oerid world. Or parallel evolution, with some proto-olve groups becoming more like humans (why are "half elves" so prominent in society?) while some flaña predecessors got elfier. Only the ageless hierophant druids know for sure.
I use the Grugach name for "wood elves" in my Azurth setting. They are Elfquest type, primitive elves.
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