The Culture Column
The Military
Every adult Arwad Lartvon is a member of the military, regardless of gender. Young men and women are eligible to join and fulfill a two-year length of active service at the age of seventeen. Only people who served this term are considered to be full adults, and all political appointments require prior military service, which is not something that one truly ever leaves: anyone who has given military service must regularly exercise their skills, take part in mock formations, and the like, and may be called back into active service at any point until the age of fifty should it be ordered by the arrar or one of his duly-appointed representatives (a governor could call up troops located in his particular province for example).
Most citizens are members of the military even though there are only a few concrete disadvantages built into the system for those who aren't. The social pressure is enough, just like if you're a Protestant in Vatican City. It provides many opportunities as well however, including what is possibly the greatest opportunity of all: even the lowest-born Arward Lartvon can rise through the ranks and become a noble if he displays sufficient tactical brilliance and courage on the battlefield.
Class Structure
Class is something you are (usually) born into and which you inherit from your mother (possibly as a result of the peculiarities of the inheritance of the position of arrar, although both practices have been in existence for so long that it's impossible to tell for sure). Each class is associated with a particular metal (with which that class shares its name) and only members of that class are allowed to use it (although members of other classes may, in certain situations, handle it).
The altlaore class forms the top of Arward Lartvoni society. These are the nobility, and only they are allowed to use steel- superior to iron in every way and used principally by the altlaorea for weapons, the substance is surprisingly difficult to forge and so every object made of it is a work of art like no other. They are, also, the only class to make extensive use of their associated metal, from steel weapons to steel tools to steel cups.
Err, or gold, is as a sort of promissory note when supplies are requisitioned. It can only be used in exchanges with the government or other authorized parties (such as especially large and government-sponsored merchant groups) and is effectively valueless to anyone who values their current status of not being imprisoned for illegal gold trading. It is used exclusively by the erra and only government officials are allowed to so much as handle it. Erra are craftsmen and other manufacturers, transporters, miners, and others who deal with the production and distribution of goods. They occupy the place below the altlaorea due to the importance of these goods. There are four subgroups of this class which lie on the threshold between this and another class, considered to be part of both so that they can prepare the metal of that class. They are called by the name of both. For example, there are smiths who are in charge of forging objects of silver make; these are considered to be nobles in their own right and are called erra-altlaorea, and are the ones who are responsible for forge steel. The erra-kodra craft with copper and the erra-darda with jade. Only the darena deal with their metal, however, in just one of the ways that they stand slightly outside the system.
The kodra are the copper-class, principally farmers but also comprising numerous other occupations, pretty much anything not covered by the others, filling the ranks of priests, doctors, and others. Most of their experience with smiths comes from the erra-kodra since nearly every village has at least one. As a matter of longstanding tradition, any arrowheads which a kodr uses will be made from copper, which is used primarily for other special tasks. Most tools are instead made out of iron.
The darda are a sort of pseudo-class, membership in which is earned rather than inherited from one's mother. This is the class of jade (which is considered to be a metal by the Arwad Lartvona, who forego the tactic of "classifying substances as metals if they're actually metals" in favor of the decidedly less scientific method of "classifying substances as metals if they're actually metals, or at least the restricted material for a social class"), which is used mainly to create the signet ring which serves to authenticate a dardi's identity. Darda are government officials, from clerks to food storage overseers to governors' aides (governors themselves are part of the nobility). No matter how low or menial the position it requires prior military service, and while bottom of the dard class is side-by-side with the kodra, it offers the opportunity to rise above all that and, with luck, skill, and determination, occupy that small area of prestige which lies between the erra and the altlaorea.
The darena claim a matrilineal line of descent from the brother of the very first king in Arwad Lartvoni history and occupy a special place because of it. According to legend that king was once the target of an assassin who would have succeeded in his plot had the king's brother not discovered it and poisoned the man. Arsenic is the metal of this class, which has several special duties including foreign relations (only a daren can be an ambassador), assassination, and the physical handling of the king, something which will be elaborated on later.
Finally, the word for iron is derdon, and this is also the word for "adult" or "citizen." Only people who have joined the military are able to use it. Young men and women currently serving their first period of service aldi derdon datarako or "temporary adults" so that they can wield the iron weapons which most of the army uses, but will lose this status when either they desert or fulfill their period of service. One of the most common tools of the darena is the loolon or poison drink and every daren is expertly schooled in the knowledge of poisons. Many have more medical knowledge than all but the finest of kodri doctors.
The King and God
In the early days of Arwad Lartvona's history there was a conflict between the king, called the arrar, and the nobles, the latter of whom were beginning to chafe under the absolute power which the arrar held. Rather than establishing an equivalent to the Magna Carta in order to restrict his powers (something which they wouldn't have easily accomplished anyway since the arrar was not quite so vulnerable as his English counterpart) they struck upon a different solution: instead of choosing his heir from among his sons, the arrar would in his latter years examine the ranks of the nobility and choose from them a promising young man who he would formally adopt into his family in a process called adolloo. In this way every noble family (or arovtokrat) would have a shot at putting one of their own on the throne and the chances of getting a competent arrar were much higher.
The arrar's reign or raonado is not considered to be official until he is crowned, and this cannot occur except on the day after he has achieved a military victory. After the death of each arrar, then, his successor launches an attack against a neighboring power, usually seizing only a small town or other thing which is not so important that the target nation will take on itself Arwad Lartvona's wrath by retaliating in great force. Thus, the country's borders expand just a little bit more each time that the crown is passed down. The emphasis is not on killing however and in both Arward Lartvon and neighboring nations battles begin in the afternoon to allow the worse-off army to retreat under the cover of darkness, giving to the other side the victory which would have come anyway while preserving many lives.
Even before adolloo was put in place the firstborn son of the arrar was never in the line of succession, in order to protect him from assassination attempts (there was little reason to kill him when he wasn't going to be king anyway). Called the lashananro, he was instead given other duties such as the position of arragi-atjako waosu, or master of the royal household (nearly as prestigious as the arrar), arwadaki shandoko (high general of the armies), or governorship over one of the provinces. Nowadays every child of the arrar is a lashananro.
The name of the god of the Arward Lartvona is ARNAV, which is also their word for "breath." There is no difference between the two; ARNAV is omnipresent in the world and is contained in the vital force which animates all living things, and in this way is all living forces. ARNAV is in every arnav, every breath, is arnav. Wind instruments are holy for this reason, since they are logically perceived as making music through directing ARNAV through them. Engaging in exhausting activity until one can hardly breathe is a devotion unto ARNAV, a temporary expulsion of the god for a brief moment through which one is cleansed and rendered worthier to act as a vessel for ARNAV's presence.
Oddly, given the usual doctrine that ARNAV is all things and in all things, is the belief that the arrar is in some manner specially touched by ARNAV. Though everyone contains ARNAV in their bodies the arrar is singled out and given a sacred nature due to this, and this may predate belief in the god's omnipresence. Because of the arrar's sanctity it is sacrilege for anyone to touch the king, with two exceptions. In the first case, and the only one with official standing, the darena have the right to touch the arrar's body by dint of their claim to sharing the blood of the first arrar- and by extension the first man to be made sacred by ARNAV's presence in his body. The darena give the arrar medical care when he is alive and take care of funerary matters once he has died.
The second case is never spoken about plainly but is still recognized as being in effect: it is quite impossible for a woman to have children if she is unable to touch her husband (she is also liable to be frustrated as well). So long as any touching is done out of sight, where its occurrence can be denied, children are explained as being the result of divine interaction. This emphasis on appearances rather than substance crops up in other social concerns as well. Virginity is highly prized, for example, and the presenting of the bloody sheets is an old tradition, but it is customary for the husband to cut himself and wipe some of his blood on the sheet if it isn't bloodied naturally. The woman will be inspected for any self-inflicted cuts but her new spouse is very pointedly spared from any of this examination. So long as nothing is public, spouses are generally permissive to one degree or another about infidelity (there are more than a few cases of "divine intervention" besides the arrar-wife's).
God is breath, and being run ragged until deep breathing from exhaustion is a devotion (and also a means of exorcism). Soul is contained in one's possessions. They are gotten rid of after the person's death, so that he will not come back to haunt the living, and this is helped by the fact that so few possessions would be had. Virginity is at once highly prized and not terribly important; it all depends on appearances. If a woman is not a virgin or otherwise does not bleed on the wedding night it is customary for the husband to cut himself and wipe some of his blood on the sheet so that, publicly, it appears that the matter has been resolved appropriately. So long as nothing is public, infidelity is permitted.
The Backbone of Civilization
Arward Lartvon is a very large country but it has managed to remain tightly-knit despite this for three main reasons: dataroa (drums), wajua (way-stations), and duan arralodak (the grand highway). A complicated code of drumbeats has been in use for centuries, and drummers are placed closely enough together that they can hear the beats coming from other nearby drums, which include not only the message but periodic intermissions noting the origin of the message and its destination and intended recipient. Through the dataroa, a message can travel one hundred miles in under two hours.
On a "strong march" through the mountainous terrain of Arward Lartvon, an army, merchant company, or other group will generally make a distance of fifty miles in a day and wherever one is in Arward Lartvoni territory there is a waju within twenty miles. These are largish structures guarded by actively-serving soldiers and filled with enough supplies to last a few hundred men for a week. The country puts much emphasis on storage, and there are even larger structures for the purpose of storing yet more food (almost any food which the Arward Lartvona make is capable of being preserved for long periods of time). At any given time, the country has enough food stored to last for five to ten years of famine, something which is helped in no small degree by the heavy taxation on crops. These dudanaja are often located within fortresses called lelo-an, or dig-ins, which are built so heavily into the mountain that oftentimes the only visible trace of a lelo-an large enough to hold five hundred soldiers and a couple of years of food and other supplies, will a few entrances and many cunningly-disguised ventilation shafts.
Every town, city, waju, and dudanaj is connected by duan arralodak, the grand highway, a vast system of roads which is constantly being repaired and expanded. A soldier in active service spends just as much time performing upkeep on duan arralodak as she does in more obviously military affairs like training, guard duty, or raiding.
Next Month: We finish the Arwad Lartvona, discussing their diet (such a surprise by now that we'll be talking about their food, isn't it?), social organization, marriage practices, and other things.
