(07-20-2013, 11:47 PM)Myxie Tryxle Wrote: I would argue that the ancient Vikings, feudal Japanese, and colonial Europeans/Americans were "sentiant, cultured, abstract-thought-and-morality-capable" people. Â Their morality simply differed from our own.
My point here is that if someone wanted to play their Seeker tribe as resembling ancient Viking or bushido morality, that would be pretty cool.
First of all, great opening post. Really informative. Even if it's not meant to be taken as lore or absolute truth, it's a really good starting point for establishing more baser emotions for your character. Culture and civilization influence who we are, but these things are not formed in spite of, but around our baser nature. There's a reason why food and shelter are considered basic human rights under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It's because these are basic biological needs.
Our societies are built around our instincts and our nature as animals. That's why we have parental leave. Because if we were emperor penguins, we could just leave our children standing on the icy shores of Antarctica for 3 months, losing up to 50% of their total body weight, while we go off fishing. We wouldn't need parental leave.
But we're primates, and our young are born early and undeveloped in comparison to most other animals. They need constant attention, and so we organize our societies around that fact.
Culture doesn't develop in a vaccuum. The social structures of any species is based around breeding. And even when you don't know the specifics of a culture, it's still important to have some sort of foundation to build it on.
Secondly, thank you for trying to be objective. Especially when it comes to matters of morality, that's a difficult thing for a lot of people to handle.
As a Swede, I do see my ancestors get a bad rap as being bloodthirsty monsters far too frequently. In reality, they just had a different culture than the Christian French and Englishmen who hated them so much. In particular, a different view of death. Not as something to be feared and avoided at all costs, but as an integral part of life, and something to embrace. If you lived honourably and died well you went to Valhalla, that was a gift. Death on the battlefield was not something to fear, it was something to look forward to. To a judeo-christian person that might be morally objectionable, but there's nothing say the judeo-christian viewpoint is correct.
And the same applies here. Just because we as humans view something as wrong, or desirable, that doesn't mean we should apply our own values and morals to the miqo'te. If all you're going to do is RP a 21st century human with cat ears, what's the point? That's not interesting.
And last but not least, I'm actually currently trying to write up some backstory and tribal structure for a northern Lynx tribe, and a lot of it is based on norse culture, because it's something I'm familiar with. I've even integrated a sort of Thing as the main governmental structure.
The harem structure could also function within a norse inspired setting, since for the norsemen, it was perfectly acceptable for a married man to sleep with other women, as long as they were of lower status than his wife, and not someone else's wife. Having bedslaves was common practice.
Now, miqo'te would naturally not be slaves, but it could open up the possibility within the tribe for allowing romantic love, while at the same time leaving room for the males to still adhere to the lore and perform their duties of breeding with multiple partners.
Another thing I've done is assign the male to a more intimate role in parenting when it comes to male children. My reasoning being that the Nunh would want his male offspring to grow up strong, so that they can have the best chance at becoming Nunh themselves. This way I can integrate males a bit more into the parenting process, which gives me more room to flesh them out as characters. They're not just that strong dude who bones everyone. They're fathers who care about their children.
