New CBB

Same as normal humans. 70-95 years, normally.

They basically are humans. There's no noticable differences.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

This thread died disappointingly. Let's try to revive it.

I guess I shall talk about the Paz's culture now. More specifically, their views on kinship.

Unlike most cultures, the Paz don't place very much stock in family. They are of the belief that one should "spread out" and make strong friendships--going to your family for help with problems is considered to be a sign on unhealthily shutting yourself in from the outside world. It's friends who help you, not your family. You can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends, so they should matter more.

As such, most Paz families are not that connected together. This gives off the impression of being cold and distant, but that's not really how they are. Family is merely viewed as other acquaintances who happen to be related to you. Instead of staying locked up within the small network that is your relatives, you should make a MASSIVE network of friends. The more people you're connected to, the stronger you are.

This results in a very strange phenomenon: The Paz do not have family names. They DO have last names, but their last names are from their friends. Basically, you decide who your best friend is, and then your last name is "Weso [best friend's first name]", "We" meaning "friend", and "so" meaning "of". So your last name literally means "friend of X".

Anyone want to ask any questions? I'd like to flesh out their kinship beliefs.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

Lots.

Do Paz not instinctually feel the need to protect and help their family? That's a very deeply universal thing in humans, and all animals really.

How do the Paz define incest?

What groups are a person allowed to marry into?

Monogamist, polygamist, polyandrist, polyamorist, or something even weirder?

How about homo/bi/asexuality?

How are marriages carried out, anyway?

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♀♥Ø

Well, of course. They just don't think that you should care about your family more than your friends.



Sexual relations between parents and children, siblings, and cousins. It's considered morally wrong because it involves shutting yourself in from the real world.



Any. The Paz don't really care about marriage that much.



Monogamy, mostly. Stuff like polygamy and polyamoury is considered wasteful because romancing more than one person means that you're starting to care more about intimate relationships than friendships.



They don't really care about those things.



Traditionally, the two (gay marriage is freely allowed, by the way) people wanting to get married would consult with a Priest/Priestess inside a Qedhagjat (basically a church, though not exactly the same), and express their intention to get married. After that, they would then return a few days later, which by then, the priest (a priestess can do it as well, but I'll only refer to priests from now on) would have them sit down in a special room inside the Qedhagjat. This room is designed to be almost completely silent and to allow people to focus very carefully.

At that point, he would read a very long hymm, specifically one for marriage (Called the Gevazdel, literally, "Marriage-song"). After he is finished, they are expected to pronounce it back to him exactly as he said it, something that isn't as hard as it may sound, due to general use of focus/memory-enhancing magic. After they recite it back to him, they stand side-by-side, and tie their inner hands together with rope, almost like they were handcuffed together. However, this represents their new connection--one so strong that it can be "seen", so to speak. They then walk all throughout their town, quietly broadcasting their marriage to all those who can see. If the rope breaks, they must go back to the Qedhagjat and tie themselves with a new one. Only once they have travered their whole town without the rope breaking, are they considered to be married.

That's all that's required, but some do have a celebration afterwards, generally involving a very elaborate feast with all their friends, and drinking a wine called Zjmscir, made from a plant believed to enhance fertility (which it does not, but it DOES increase sexual response).

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I'm not sold on that marriage ceremony just yet, I may change it.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

So basically your answer is... They don't really have kinship, because except for incest you do anything you want with anyone you want.

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♀♥Ø

I guess? I'll concede that I really should've thought things out more.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

You know... with all the information you've put up so far, why *do* they practice monogamy anyway? It just doesn't make any sense: If their culture is all about building up deep relationships with lots of people, why can't sex be part of these relationships? Heck, I'd argue being regular sexual partners is one of the deepest types of connections you can have with someone. So why are they against it?

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Here's a few questions:

1. What do the Paz do to ensure high levels of hygiene (if they do any practices at all)? That is, how's their sanitation?

2. How do they view music? What sort of music do they like? What do they think is the purpose of music for the Paz, for instance?

3.





That's how baboons do it!


But in all seriousness, I'm surprised at your incest taboos... rather, lack thereof. The only society I can think of in the real world where any similar thing was possible would be Zoroastrian Persia (Ptolemaic doesn't count since they didn't allow parent-child to my knowledge), and even then it had a clear religious motive. Anyhow, perhaps to deepen this a bit, can you explain what you mean when you say it's considered morally wrong to shut yourself in from the real world? Does that mean in Paz culture that, for instance, those people living in their parents basements would be considered, say, extremely immoral?

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I now have a blog. Witness the horror.

I think I think, therefore I think I am.
- Ambrose Bierce

Where do newlyweds live?

What sorts of houses do the Paz have?

What is Paz linguistics like?

Are the Paz matrilineal, Patrilineal, or something else? They might pass their things onto their friends, I suppose.

What sorts of diseases do the Paz have?

What sorts of taboos or superstitions do the Paz have? Are there any particular reasons for these?

How does the Paz government work?

Do the Paz have something akin to trade unions?

What if you loath someone who is close to you on the Wōt Zmcj? How do you chart people?

What sort of attitude do the Paz have to their government?

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"Wait for the starvation of glaciers, chicken hamburger Noel Weber Arthur."

= | = | =

Pazmat has more than few rivers infused with magic, keeping them clean, so that was what most of them bathed with. Of course, the truly affluent could afford to live on villages right next to these rivers, allowing them to bathe everyday in them. The richest of the rich were able to buy soap from Satkicz, when they weren't violently slaughtering the indigenous peoples there and raping their land, that is.

Those less-fortunate would have to wait for shipments from these rivers, which would be diluted due to being separated from the source. The farther your lived, the more the water had to travel, meaning the less pure it was. This still shows in the modern-day language with idioms like "X lives so from a river" for "X doesn't bathe very well".

Nowadays, though, modern-day plumbing and the development of hygiene products for all social classes such as soap has basically allowed all to


Newlyweds live the first year of their lives in their local Qedhagjat (if it is full they will move to the closest one in the country that has a free room). There they live as if it was an apartment, using the Qedhagjat daily for spiritual purposes.



I haven't decided yet, but if you twisted my arm, I'd say that due to living mostly in grasslands and hilly plains, that they would have a housing style similar to 1500s-1600 western Europe.



Not sure what the question is, but the Paz have always been highly interested in linguistics due to the massive dialect continuum that exists in their native language. As such, it is considered a highly prestigious field of study, especially since Pazmat has hundreds of minority languages from conquered peoples.



Both.



Most of the us boring Terrans have, but there are few others, mostly of which adversely affect spiritual purity. Those particular ones are inadvertently caused by demons in Gehenna.



It's a common street belief that eating the leaves of a plant called Tacwat, a plant with spiny, purple leaves, will curse your lover to have terrible luck. This is mainly due to a previous emperor who loved the taste of Tacwat, but the hallucinogenic effects accidently made him kill his wife. Rather than take the blame for it, he said that she was cursed due to him eating it. Today, it's a common, but illegal drug.

Another superstition requires a bit of explanation. Traditional Paz male upper-body clothing is a sort of belt that is worn across the chest, starting from one shoulder and going diagonally down to the opposite hip. This sash is called a "Owutcalb", literally "Chest-ring", and usually has writing going down it. The "standard" direction is to start at the left shoulder and go down to the right hip. Starting at the RIGHT shoulder and going to the left hip is considered seriously bad juju, mainly because Owtucalbs used to almost always have "Genczjivo" ("We (as in the Paz in general) will prosper"). In Old Pazmat script, if the Owutcalb is positioned on the right shoulder, then it looks more like "Zarivgzjivo" ("We will suffer defeat").

There is no reason for this superstition to even exist anymore, given how the New Pazmat script doesn't have this little "feature" anymore, but people still hold onto with sayings like "[X] is such a right shoulder" for "X seems like a distrustful person" and "Is your Owutcalb on right?" for "Are you sure you can do this?".

Owutcalbs aren't even worn anymore, except for festivals, anyway...

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Sorry for not answering all of your questions, but I'd like to think about them some more. I answered what I could.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

SO...this thread died.

Does anyone really have no more questions?

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

Chagen wrote: Does anyone really have no more questions?

I have. I have just noticed the name of your war-hungry conpeople means "peace" in Spanish. Is that a coïncidence or not?
To quote you:

Chagen wrote: -However, Pazmat is also known for being almsot psychotically militaristic, deeply racist, and extremely war-hungry; They have stared three world wars, basically singly-handedly taking on the entire rest of the planet (and near winning) and overall terrorizing the other people of Techaria. They also have shown themselves to not be averse to slavery, systematic eugenics, and other unpleasantries. These horrors are long in the past now....but the scars still remain.

Nah, completely by chance.

I was coming up with conlang names one day and said "Pazmat". It just stuck after that. The Paz people didn't even exist as they do today.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

How advanced are the Paz, technologically? Which human civilisation would you compare them to in technological sophistication?

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| [ˌdɛt͡ʃɛmaɹiˈetɪs] | | conlang skarihe

Around modern-day humans with a slight Dieselpunk bent. I'm not really a fan of non-modern settings.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb

You said something earlier about magic rivers. How does Paz magic work?

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♀♥Ø

Woah, I didn't even know this had been replied to.

In any case, I've been constantly changing it. The way magic worked in Techaria/Thooselqat a month ago differs from the way it does now.

But I digress: Magic ("Zjoo" in Pazmat) in Thooselqat is not very precise--it's a wild, somewhat uncontrollable "force" that permeates the entire planet. It's possible for humans to harness it, but the mechanics of it sometimes work oddly.

In any case, there is a "network" of areas where magic is highly concentrated. In pockets such as these places, quite often said magic coalesces into a being (called a "Qrel" in Pazmat) of a sorts, who hold a sort of domain in the general area. Quite often they take the forms of humans, but they can be other things as well. Actually using the magic the Qrel controls quite often requires actually seeking it out and bargaining for it. Most of them can be swayed by the use of magic from other areas (as they tend to get bored of the stuff they actually control), but others have more stringent requirements. As they grow in power, their area grows in size as well.

As for what magic can do...pretty much anything really. I'm still working on this, by the way, which is why my answers are so vague. I'm starting to really like the idea of making contracts with spirits for the purposes of gaining power which is how this system began.

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Banami bhjaddhos rafi mau cy vyaja cecerror.
Fools do not see the sun nor sail the seas
-Azenti Proverb