Ask me anything about the Icastrians

[Colonel Cathcart]

I enjoyed Ossicone's thread about the Amjati and the Inyauk, and I thought it seemed like a good way to share and flesh out my conculture. This conworld is an alt-earth in which the Indo-Europeans either never existed or were assimilated or wiped out early on. The technology level is comparable to Western Europe and North America around the interwar period (1920s-1930s), but the world, metaphorically speaking, is much smaller: the Americas, the Far East, and sub-Saharan Africa are known to Europeans, but largely unexplored and uncolonized.

Icastrians!

The Icastrians (ikaistarifion, sg. ikaistari) are the people of Icastria (Ikaistar [ˈɪkaʃtar]), which in our world corresponds geographically to England, Wales, and the Scottish Lowlands. The Icastrian Empire (Ikaistara izarmasta) encompasses the British Isles; Brittany, Normandy and the Low Countries; and Denmark and southern Scandinavia. Outside of Icastria proper, ethnic Icastrians constitute the élite colonial minority. The ancient imperial capital is Arbanafh ([ˈarβɐnɐv] in the local dialect), which in our world would be near Newport in Wales. Along with the Ottoman Empire and the Carthaginian League, the Icastrian Empire is one of the great cultural, economic, and military powers of Europe.

The Icastrian language (ikaistari or ikaistara izker), the sole surviving member of the Insular Icastric branch of the Icastric language family, is used as a trade language and lingua franca throughout northern and central Europe, though it does not enjoy the cultural and scientific prestige of Etruscan and Classical Punic (these languages being this world's analogues of Latin and ancient Greek; neither are living languages, but their modern descendants are spoken in Italy and the western Mediterranean respectively). The Icastric language family displays a degree of diversity comparable to the Afro-Asiatic languages, with the distance between Icastrian and the Continental languages comparable to the distance between Arabic and the Cushitic, Omotic, and Chadic languages.

Politics

For more than a thousand years, Icastria has been ruled by an emperor (izar). In theory the emperor was an absolute monarch, though in practice decisions were always made under consultation with the Imperial Council (izari gelja), a standing advisory body of representatives of the Empire's wealthiest and most powerful noble families as well as the dozen or so Ancient Priesthoods. Twenty years ago Icastria's first elected parliament, the Diet of the Realm (ryfna hátos) was established under pressure from communist and anarchist revolutionary groups. The Diet remains weak, as the complicated electoral system ensures that the conservative monarchist bloc is always in the majority, but nevertheless it acts as a sort of pressure release valve for the radical republican element within Icastrian society.

Outside of Icastria proper, the Empire is organized into seven provinces, each of which is subdivided further into counties, marches, hundreds, and city-states. Each province is overseen by an Icastrian-appointed governor; each governor assembles a Provincial Council, mirroring the Imperial Council, to represent the Icastrian colonial élites in the province. The provinces of the Empire are (I haven't named most of them yet): The Pale (the Scottish Highlands), Province A (Ireland), Province B (Brittany and Normandy), Province C (Belgium and the Netherlands), Province D (Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein), Iljamaa (southern Sweden), and Turomaa (western Norway). Provinces A through D are populated primarily by Icastric peoples. There are Vasconic minorities in the west of Province B and Finnic minorities in Province D; Iljamaa and Turomaa are homogenously Finnic. The Pale is home to the Kutak, an indigenous people even older than the Icastrians, who practice a strange and mysterious culture and speak a language isolate.

Religion

The Icastrian traditional religion is a stew of polytheistic, deistic, shamanistic, and ancestor-worshipping beliefs and cult practices. The exact pantheon, practices and customs depend on geography, social class, family history, and even one's profession (for example, fishermen and whalers consider sharks to be minor sacred animals to be appeased, while navy sailors consider them demons and bad omens to be warded off). The result is that no two Icastrians practice exactly the same religion.

Icastrians traditionally referred to their gods by epithets, as their true names were considered too sacred to be spoken aloud; eventually these names were lost to the ages, so the gods are now referred to only by their epithets. The exact number of gods is in the dozens or hundreds depending on things like geography (for example, Icastrians in the eastern part of the empire frequently worship local Finnic deities); the principal pantheon, consisting of the gods worshipped by virtually all Icastrians, numbers around seventeen to twenty.

Generally speaking, the three most important gods are:
- The Great Architect, the Great Engineer, the Observer, etc.: the creator of the universe, a non-interventionist watchmaker type god. Icastrians don't worship him directly because he doesn't care what humans do, and wouldn't intercede even if he did; nevertheless it is culturally important for Icastrians to venerate the Architect indirectly through their respect for the intricate machinery of creation.
- The Celestial Physician: the custodian of the twin forces comprising the Icastrian conception of the soul, Spirit (the force of consciousness whose corporeal vehicle is the living body) and Breath (the force that animates the body so as to accomodate Spirit).
- The Heron King or the Governor of Heaven: a half-human, half-bird deity associated with the harmonious functioning of political, legal, and social institutions.

Icastria has a sort of inverted theocracy: instead of laws being used to enforce religious morality, in the Icastrian tradition fulfilling one's civic duty is considered a primary religious virtue. So the government doesn't care if you think the gods are a bunch of cunts, but the gods will be miffed if you call the government a bunch of cunts. There are some traditionally theocratic elements: outside of Icastria proper, provincial subjects (especially the notoriously uppity Finnic peoples of the Eastern Provinces), while for the most part allowed to keep their ancient religious traditions, are compelled to pay homage to the Heron King and the deified Emperor. Again, however, this isn't about morality so much as it is about the political unity of the Empire.

Immigrants from other pagan nations typically blend their native belief systems and pantheons with those of the Icastrians. The most visible religious minorities are Christians (estimated at around 5% of the population, including syncretic forms) and Jews (less than 1% of the population). Islam is represented in Icastria mostly by diplomats and traders from the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate. Hinduism, Buddhism, and New World traditions are more or less unknown except to anthropologists, explorers, and religious scholars.

-----

Ask away. About anything, not just the subjects I've covered here.

[Keenir]

I like this...from what I can see, its an interesting beginning to the exploration of a possible world...

Politics

For more than a thousand years, Icastria has been ruled by an emperor (izar). In theory the emperor was an absolute monarch, though in practice decisions were always made under consultation with the Imperial Council (izari gelja), a standing advisory body of representatives of the Empire's wealthiest and most powerful noble families as well as the dozen or so Ancient Priesthoods. Twenty years ago Icastria's first elected parliament, the Diet of the Realm (ryfna hátos) was established under pressure from communist and anarchist revolutionary groups. The Diet remains weak, as the complicated electoral system ensures that the conservative monarchist bloc is always in the majority, but nevertheless it acts as a sort of pressure release valve for the radical republican element within Icastrian society.

The Icastrian traditional religion is a stew of polytheistic, deistic, shamanistic, and ancestor-worshipping beliefs and cult practices. The exact pantheon, practices and customs depend on geography, social class, family history, and even one's profession (for example, fishermen and whalers consider sharks to be minor sacred animals to be appeased, while navy sailors consider them demons and bad omens to be warded off). The result is that no two Icastrians practice exactly the same religion.

that must make oaths, promises, and swearing difficult...does it?

Immigrants from other pagan nations typically blend their native belief systems and pantheons with those of the Icastrians. The most visible religious minorities are Christians (estimated at around 5% of the population, including syncretic forms) and Jews (less than 1% of the population). Islam is represented in Icastria mostly by diplomats and traders from the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate. Hinduism, Buddhism, and New World traditions are more or less unknown except to anthropologists, explorers, and religious scholars.

Ask away. About anything, not just the subjects I've covered here.

How do the Ottomans still have an empire? (in our history, they spent some time in the employ of the Byzantines)

and without Latin, wouldn't Christianity (and by extention Islam, given Roman activities in and around Arabia) be unrecognizable?

(i may withdraw that comment - you've got communist groups too)

[Colonel Cathcart]

that must make oaths, promises, and swearing difficult...does it?

Not really. Like I said, there's a number of gods pretty much everyone has in common, including civic deities like the Heron King and the deified emperor, for whom refusing to worship them is (at least symbolically) like renouncing one's citizenship. Plus there's always stuff like "I swear on the bones of my ancestors," which is nice because monotheists and foreigners (and atheists, for that matter) won't have a problem with it.

How do the Ottomans still have an empire? (in our history, they spent some time in the employ of the Byzantines)

and without Latin, wouldn't Christianity (and by extention Islam, given Roman activities in and around Arabia) be unrecognizable?

(i may withdraw that comment - you've got communist groups too)

That was something I'd thought about briefly. The Christianity of this world is more pluralistic, more prone to offshoots and heterodoxies and heresies, but at the same time the relative lack of institutional pressures has allowed it to retain a greater degree of orthodoxy or at least originalism. Basically it more closely resembles early (pre-Nicaea) Christianity than it does the modern Christianity of our world. Islam I'm not sure about; I don't know enough about its history to say anything.

As for the Ottomans, I think the basic idea is since pagans would be less reluctant to accept Islamic rule and/or convert to Islam than Christians would (cf. this thread over at the ZBB), the Balkans wouldn't be such a huge centuries-long money pit since they wouldn't have to constantly be putting down uprisings and stuff. (WWI not happening also helps.) But I'll think about it and see if I can come up with something better.

[Keenir]

thank you for clearing this up.

that must make oaths, promises, and swearing difficult...does it?

Not really. Like I said, there's a number of gods pretty much everyone has in common, including civic deities like the Heron King and the deified emperor, for whom refusing to worship them is (at least symbolically) like renouncing one's citizenship. Plus there's always stuff like "I swear on the bones of my ancestors," which is nice because monotheists and foreigners (and atheists, for that matter) won't have a problem with it.

okay...I was worried about something like this -

A: "I swear by Loki!" (and A comes from a land where Loki is a paragon of honesty)
B: "Then I can't do business with you." (because B comes from a land where Loki is a conniving trickster)

How do the Ottomans still have an empire? (in our history, they spent some time in the employ of the Byzantines)
and without Latin, wouldn't Christianity (and by extention Islam, given Roman activities in and around Arabia) be unrecognizable?
(i may withdraw that comment - you've got communist groups too)

That was something I'd thought about briefly.

in fairness, there was a communist-like group in medieval Anatolia for a while...they tried to take over a few times (which was helped by a 15-year-long Ottoman Civil War after Timur Lenk passed through in 1402.

The Christianity of this world is more pluralistic, more prone to offshoots and heterodoxies and heresies, but at the same time the relative lack of institutional pressures has allowed it to retain a greater degree of orthodoxy or at least originalism.

I'd have to re-read that book about heresies, but I think you'd have more heterodoxies, but fewer heresies.

not sure what you mean by "originalism"...it might be (and this is your call) that the greater degree of leeway granted, could mean that the few heresies are punished far more severely. (ie, there's more syncreticness between the Trinity and local deities, and "the church" has no problem with that...but "the church" puts to death anyone who equates Jesus with a demonic figure)

Basically it more closely resembles early (pre-Nicaea) Christianity than it does the modern Christianity of our world. Islam I'm not sure about; I don't know enough about its history to say anything.

one option would be to say the butterfly effect prevented its rise, or limited it to Arabia and that area. (if Byzantium and Persia hadn't both been exhausted by war, that would have been the outcome in our history as well)

As for the Ottomans, I think the basic idea is since pagans would be less reluctant to accept Islamic rule and/or convert to Islam than Christians would

eh, there's always Indonesia as a counterexample to the Balkans; but, your world, your decision.

), the Balkans wouldn't be such a huge centuries-long money pit since they wouldn't have to constantly be putting down uprisings and stuff.

oh, Christian Byzantium also had a lot of uprisings in the Balkans to deal with...so it may be more that the area's terrain promotes independent power bases.

But I'll think about it and see if I can come up with something better.

[Ossicone]

Okay so I'm just going to say TL;DR to the first post and hope these questions weren't discussed there.

1. Coffee? Delicious or devilry?

2. What kinds of occupations are considered prestigious?

3. A sickly person is lying in the street. What should be done?

[Colonel Cathcart]

Okay so I'm just going to say TL;DR to the first post and hope these questions weren't discussed there.

Nope!

1. Coffee? Delicious or devilry?

Delicious but prohibitively expensive. Globalization is not yet on the rise, so there's much less trade with the coffee-producing regions of Africa and Asia than in our world, and little coffee reaches Icastria. Additionally, since the Empire is mercantilist in nature and economic populism is on the rise among the working classes, free trade mania has not taken hold in Europe; protectionism is the prevailing sentiment, and tariffs and import restrictions remain high. The end result is that coffee is hard to find and expensive in Icastria, and is enjoyed as a luxury primarily by the aristocracy.

2. What kinds of occupations are considered prestigious?

Prestige is relative. The common people have the most respect for the professions with the greatest religious significance, and especially the occupations associated with the Big Three deities. These include:
- The Architect: natural scientists and mathematicians, engineers, architects
- The Physician: doctors and nurses, teachers and academics, philosophers and social scientists
- The Heron King: civil servants, lawyers, police

Additionally, most of the major priesthoods are held in extremely high regard, though a few have bad reputations for being corrupt, exploitative, or even criminal.

For the rich, on the other hand, prestige is defined as wealth, so strictly speaking the most prestigious occupation is no occupation at all: the titular aristocracy enjoy the highest status in Icastrian society. If you're not born into old money, the next best thing is to become new money. For the rich, the most prestigious occupations are the bourgeois occupations: industrialists, bankers, business executives, and anyone who might be described as a mogul or a magnate. The common people hold such professions in very low esteem, and stigmatize those among them who aspire to such status.

3. A sickly person is lying in the street. What should be done?

A moral exemplar would find a phone box and phone the nearest temple to let them know. Priests and priestesses of the Physician, the Vernal Maiden, and a few other deities have a religious obligation to take in the homeless to feed or shelter them, or take them to a hospital if they're sick. However, people have things to do and places to go; most passersby will just ignore the sick man under the tacit assumption that a priest is bound to happen by sooner or later. At best they might offer a few pennies out of sympathy.

[masako]

I am curious about the general cuisine...what are the more common dishes, how are they made, what are the ingredients...etc.

[Ossicone]

Tell me more of this Heron king. Also, does he walk awkwardly as a real heron?

What are some common past times? Are most people literate?

[Colonel Cathcart]

(I'll get back to the cuisine and pastime/literacy questions in a bit; I just wanted to do this one first, since clearly the religion is the thing I've worked on the most.)

Tell me more of this Heron king. Also, does he walk awkwardly as a real heron?

The Heron King's other epithets include the Governor of Heaven, the Celestial Parliamentarian, the Judge of Man, the Great Economist, Governance, and Justice. His worldly dominion is the harmonious functioning of political, legal, and social institutions; he is the patron god of (among others) civil servants and government employees, lawyers, jurors, police officers, economists, and political and legal scholars. In the spirit realm, he is the ruler of the afterlife and the judge of the dead. In art, the Heron King is most commonly depicted as a man with the head and wings of a heron, dressed in judge's robes and carrying a book of laws in one hand and a scepter in the other. He may also be depicted as an unusually large or beautiful but otherwise ordinary looking heron. His most recognizable allegorical symbol is a shining city on a hill.

Icastrians believe that when an Icastrian dies, her Spirit (force of consciousness) leaves her body and enters the Ethereal Court, sometimes called the Liminal Court, where the Heron King sits as judge. He consults the deceased's Book of Life, which is compiled by three lesser goddesses known as the Clerks. The book has three sections; each Clerk is responsible for one section. The first section details every good/selfless deed, pious act, and material sacrifice ever offered by the deceased, and the second section every bad/selfish deed and sin. The third is a sort of amicus curiae section in which the surviving family, friends, and colleagues of the deceased can testify to assist the Heron King in his decision. The ritual of Testimony is thus the most important in the Icastrian funerary tradition.

If the Heron King judges the deceased to have led a worthy existence, she is granted entry to the afterlife; if she is unworthy, she is cast out of the universe and into the Abyss (i.e. nonexistence). No sin is categorically unforgivable, and the Heron King is sensitive to technicalities and mitigating circumstances; if the deceased is judged not good enough to get into the afterlife but not evil enough to be wiped from existence, she might receive a lesser sentence like a set time period to wander the earth as a ghost. When the sentence has been served she returns to the Ethereal Court; if the Heron King judges her to have atoned she'll go to the afterlife, but if she remains unrepentant she'll be cast out of the universe.

[Lambuzhao]

How about musical styles, instrumentation?

I think the Heron-King is magnificent!
Not enough Herons out there! - Kudos

Here's an offering to the Heron-King:
Maximal Magistrate of the Liminal Court,
Write me in Thy Ledger with thy Great Blue Quill
May sweet meats and fish-rissoles rain down continuously from
that Shining City on the Hill both day and night
in Thy Honor.

Cast me not into the Abyss of sharkish teeth,
Judge me properly, O Thou Pinnatifid
Celestial Parliamentarian,
With Hirquitallient Fraunking
Bring Thou Thy Right Deeming,
O Governor of Heaven
And I will offer you both cookies and cupcakes
Throughout the Ages.
Under Thy wing may I ever find Thy Justice

So mote it be!

*fraunk - onomatopoeic word for heron's sound/noise

Kewl

[Colonel Cathcart]

How about musical styles, instrumentation?

I think the Heron-King is magnificent!
Not enough Herons out there! - Kudos

Here's an offering to the Heron-King:
Maximal Magistrate of the Liminal Court,
Write me in Thy Ledger with thy Great Blue Quill
May sweet meats and fish-rissoles rain down continuously from
that Shining City on the Hill both day and night
in Thy Honor.

Cast me not into the Abyss of sharkish teeth,
Judge me properly, O Thou Pinnatifid
Celestial Parliamentarian,
With Hirquitallient Fraunking
Bring Thou Thy Right Deeming,
O Governor of Heaven
And I will offer you both cookies and cupcakes
Throughout the Ages.
Under Thy wing may I ever find Thy Justice

So mote it be!

*fraunk - onomatopoeic word for heron's sound/noise

Kewl

I love this, you, and everything. The Clerk of Virtues will note this pious act in your Book of Life. It'll be easily enough to make up for a murder if, y'know, you have any enemies.

[Colonel Cathcart]

Question time!

I am curious about the general cuisine...what are the more common dishes, how are they made, what are the ingredients...etc.

Icastrian cuisine is typically Northern European and characteristic of a late-industrial mode of production. Icastrians eat a lot of seafood (fish, crab, lobster, and shrimp), poultry, pork, mutton, beef, bread, pasta (introduced to Icastria by Carthaginian traders in the 9th century), potatoes, salad, and dairy. Most of the food Icastrians eat is produced domestically, but much of the seafood eaten in Icastria comes from the Eastern Provinces. Sweets are typically made with beet sugar, as cane sugar must be imported and is therefore expensive. Spices from Asia are precious; only the aristocracy can afford to eat them regularly, but commoners do get a bit every once in a while. The national dish is orlakais [ˈɔrlakaʃ], a rich casserole of pasta, beef (usually), and sometimes egg and/or cheese in a cream sauce.

What are some common past times? Are most people literate?

Icastrians love reading books and magazines, listening to music and radio dramas, and going to the cinema (silent movies). Theatre is considered high-brow entertainment. The most popular form of literature is called tabasághalamasot [ˈtabasaːgˌhalamasot], literally "alley stories."

Tabasághalamasot is Icastrian pulp fiction. Tabasághalamaion consist of short anthologies or serials of (typically) gritty, lurid mysteries and sensational adventure stories, printed on cheap paper and available for the equivalent of a few pennies. In recent decades radio dramas and the cinema have taken the place of tabasághalamasot as Icastria's favourite entertainment, but it remains hugely popular among children and adolescents, particularly working-class boys.

Most people in metropolitan Icastria are literate; for the most part only the poorest of the poor and the most isolated rural-dwellers cannot read. Literacy is slightly lower in the Inner Provinces and lowest in the Eastern Provinces; in Turomaa and Iljamaa, where education among the local populations is largely informal and rudimentary at best, as many as a third may be functionally illiterate. Ethnic Icastrians form the upper class of provincial society and are invariably well-educated.

(Note that the provinces aren't provinces like Canadian provinces; strictly speaking they're colonies.)

How about musical styles, instrumentation?

Currently in fashion are big band, swing, and jazz. It's kind of a dieselpunk world.

[Lambuzhao]

Not a problem, Colonel.

And may the The Clerk of Virtues note your name in His Liminal Ledger with his Great Blue Quill unto the Ages of Ages.