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Tulnar Culture
Nerror
Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
I already have some hopes for where they are taking Tulnar culture in the game, so this thread is mostly just for discussion and further inspiration.
Disclaimer: People can obviously roleplay their Tulnar however they want, or not at all. This is just for fun and lore.
1. What we know
To get the full picture of what we know, read the wiki on the Tulnar, but to list a few pertinent points:
2. Random Speculation
Like I wrote in my Artistic Influence of the Tulnar thread over a year ago, I don't really have a clue if they are making up something completely new, or if the Tulnar are inspired by some existing real world culture like the other 8 races are, even if they won't directly say it. From the wiki:
The caste system immediately makes me think India, Nepal, Sri Lanka. Hinduism is a very polytheistic religion, which makes a TON of sense for the Tulnar with all the different races being forced together in a big underground melting pot. I wouldn't be surprised if Intrepid is inspired by that, consciously or subconsciously. Check out some pictures of Ganesha for example.
Just like Sanctus was cut off from the Essence, I speculate that the sealed underrealm pocket for the Tulnar was also cut off. My guess is the reasons are two-fold: 1. Corruption can't spread if there is no Essence, and 2. since souls act as conduits of the Essence, any use of magic can be tracked by The Others and The Ancients, and they would be able to direct any Ancients already on Verra to where the Tulnar are hiding. In other words, I think Tulnar society has also been completely magic free, similar to life on Sanctus.
3. The Caste System
Based on real world caste systems, I think the following isn't far fetched for Tulnar society:
4. My personal hopes
I would really like to see a sharp contrast between the brutish and bestial looks of the Tulnar and their culture. I don't want a primitive tribal culture, I want a structured and sophisticated culture, with a focus on learning and philosophy and combining that with the more martial side of things. Scholarly warrior poets, if you will, where they also enjoy doing things like tending to glowy mushroom gardens and making art simply because it's pretty and inspiring.
I hope the caste system isn't too hierarchical. I hope it's a culture where they understand the importance of the interdependence of the different castes, where they can work together and even interact socially, even if they mainly stick to marrying within their caste.
Disclaimer: People can obviously roleplay their Tulnar however they want, or not at all. This is just for fun and lore.
1. What we know
To get the full picture of what we know, read the wiki on the Tulnar, but to list a few pertinent points:
- The Tulnar is a combination of four major races and many minor races that were left behind on Verra after the apocalypse.
- The Tulnar religion is a combination of religious beliefs of the major races as well as pagan beliefs of the minor races that evolved over time as they coexisted together in the Underrealm.
- The Tulnar society has more of a caste like system, where based on what physical features you show, based on where your ancestry and lineage lie between the races that came together to make the Tulnar, kind of determines your order in that caste system to a degree.
- There are three main themes to Tulnar appearance: Simian, Bestial/Feline, and Reptilian
- The Tulnar have lived and evolved in a sealed pocket of the Underrealm for thousands of years.
2. Random Speculation
Like I wrote in my Artistic Influence of the Tulnar thread over a year ago, I don't really have a clue if they are making up something completely new, or if the Tulnar are inspired by some existing real world culture like the other 8 races are, even if they won't directly say it. From the wiki:
But in a similar fashion, their cultural markers are also going to be a culmination of different influences, so they're very differently constructed culture than what is found in the other eight races.
The caste system immediately makes me think India, Nepal, Sri Lanka. Hinduism is a very polytheistic religion, which makes a TON of sense for the Tulnar with all the different races being forced together in a big underground melting pot. I wouldn't be surprised if Intrepid is inspired by that, consciously or subconsciously. Check out some pictures of Ganesha for example.
Just like Sanctus was cut off from the Essence, I speculate that the sealed underrealm pocket for the Tulnar was also cut off. My guess is the reasons are two-fold: 1. Corruption can't spread if there is no Essence, and 2. since souls act as conduits of the Essence, any use of magic can be tracked by The Others and The Ancients, and they would be able to direct any Ancients already on Verra to where the Tulnar are hiding. In other words, I think Tulnar society has also been completely magic free, similar to life on Sanctus.
3. The Caste System
Based on real world caste systems, I think the following isn't far fetched for Tulnar society:
- Social stratification: Castes are divided into ranked categories, and individuals are born into and remain within their caste, especially since it's based on ancestry and lineage.
- Hierarchy: Castes are ranked, and members of higher castes have higher social status and more privileges than those in lower castes. We might even see ranks within the castes, based on ancestry and lineage.
- Endogamy: Marriages and social interactions are restricted within one's own caste. Personally I hope they deviate a little from this, but it also makes sense to include it.
- Occupational specialization: Castes often have specific occupations that are traditional and hereditary. I am not sure exactly how I would want this structured though. It could be broad groups like military, artisans, and priests/scholars for example.
- Discrimination: I hope they skip some of the discrimination we see prevalent in real world caste systems. It makes total sense that lower castes face social, economic, and political discrimination from higher castes, I would just rather not see too much of it in the game.
4. My personal hopes
I would really like to see a sharp contrast between the brutish and bestial looks of the Tulnar and their culture. I don't want a primitive tribal culture, I want a structured and sophisticated culture, with a focus on learning and philosophy and combining that with the more martial side of things. Scholarly warrior poets, if you will, where they also enjoy doing things like tending to glowy mushroom gardens and making art simply because it's pretty and inspiring.
I hope the caste system isn't too hierarchical. I hope it's a culture where they understand the importance of the interdependence of the different castes, where they can work together and even interact socially, even if they mainly stick to marrying within their caste.
4
Comments
I agree with you here. I can see the Simian-themed Tulnar being a bit like Beast from X-Men. Smart, sophisticated and articulate beings that can be raging, brutal warriors when needs must.
I like the idea of using Indian and central Asian cultural design languages. They fit the amalgamated ancient nature of the Tulnar well and there are so many cool Indian Architectural influences and places to pull inspiration from.
Especially Pig Tulnar. Uncultured swine...
I really hope Tulnar are spiritual with an incredible respect to nature (Verra), but they're delved way more into the sciences and the alchemy as a whole. I picture Gothic style architecture, but when googling ancient Indian Temples, those two mixed with some Japanese shinto design and some Voodoo would be cool too.
I picture Tulnar as artificers, alchemists, engineers etc.
The lore will be interesting since we'll all be apart of it.
Some of them are fluffy...
They are locked in a place with luminescent lights and magic shrooms. Add some bards, and we have a medieval rave going on.
To put it bluntly, I don't think the gods were involved, I just think they did a lot of crazy, drugged up orgies and they weren't too particular about minor details like what appendage went into which species.
The idea of the Tulnar being a result of immaculate conception is also fun to ponder though.
Au contraire!
What do you do when you have to evacuate? You let the weak leave first: Children, the elderly, the sick, etc.
The strong stay for as long as possible to ensure the others make it safely out of there, and if need be they stay behind. That's what happened to those who eventually became the Tulnar. The gods saw they were the strongest and the best of Verra. They then spent millenia breeding out any left over weakness of the Tulnar, so when the weaklings from Sanctus returned to Verra they'd have some strong protectors to safeguard them again.
They have the most genetic variance and drift out of all the races?
Prime example of what centuries of inbreeding has done to their mental faculties. It'll be a mercy when the Society For A Cleaner Verra puts them all down!
Pure races are closer to being inbred friend.
Oh! Good job with this! I love seeing all this information for tulnar. It'll be interesting see what the full customization of them will be. It will also be interesting to see their architecture whenever that happens.
Come check us out!
I like your thoughts about Tulnar is “a sharp contrast between the brutish and bestial looks of the Tulnar and their culture.” and “a structured and sophisticated culture, with a focus on learning and philosophy and combining that with the more martial side of things. Scholarly warrior poets, if you will, where they also enjoy doing things like tending to glowy mushroom gardens and making art simply because it's pretty and inspiring.”.
But I hope Tulnar is not a caste society like what we know in real world or any kind of caste society.
I picture that Tulnars are different groups of survivors that co-op, co-exist and live together very tightly. Like a simian Tulnar can marry with a reptilian Tulnar and have children that has possibility to be mammalian or reptilian or mixed blood, means that Tulnar doesn't divided by the blood or appearance because of they all not pure blood of any race. But their works/jobs are divided by what they good at with their talents, for example: simian Tulnar maybe good at making tools or doing research, feline Tulnar maybe good at hunting, reptilian Tulnar maybe have the third eye that able to sense things other Tulnars can’t notice, they all do their best on what they good at for their own and others to make sure Tulnar as a whole able to survive. They know they need every thing and every one to survive, so they develop to a society that has a common philosophy close to ‘The Book o The Way(Dao De Jing)’ and highly open minded and forgiving when contact to different culture in their young generation.
↓Good youtube channel to learn things about creating games.↓
Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv1DvRY5PyHHt3KN9ghunuw
I really really appreciate this writeup! Now this said, i've seen enough of the negative impacts of this sort of hierarchy in real life and have zero interest in playing a character that is subjected to one in a game. I think it might be too selfish of me to play an individual constantly fighting that system -- which is the only thing that might convince me to do it.
Ooh, but so looking forward to crafting story in this milieu! The lore folk are doing amazing work and the community forming around this is inspiring!