Book of Lore: Gruegar Culture (September) (Patreon)

Hey Guys! Oscar Payn here! Sorry for the long wait for the Patreon rewards to start rolling out, but I'm hoping to get them all started in the next few weeks, starting with the early access to the Book of Lore series that's been running for several months now! You lucky few patrons get to see these posts a week earlier than anyone else, giving exclusive insight into the lore of The Aether and bragging rights ;)That said this post does come with an announcement, after this post, the Book of Lore series will shift from a weekly installment to Monthly, this is mostly so I can focus on development more while also improving the quality of the Book of Lore series as a whole. You will still be recieving these posts a week earlier than everyone else as promised, but they'll be coming out every month instead of every week (which I could never really keep up with anyway)I will ask for you guys to please not share spoilers for these Book of Lore posts to non-patrons, I trust you all to keep these a secret for the week you get to see them early.

With all that said, let's kick this off with one of my favourite topics, The Gruegar!

“The Gruegar officially operate under one nation that encompasses the entirety of the Frostpine isles, however as a culture the Gruegar are still separated into distinct tribes, each with their own unique cultures and traditions. But there are still underlying similarities that persist across all Gruegar tribes, mainly focussed around their central belief structure, the worship of the Wind Writer. 

“It is said that the Gruegar were given the ability to understand all language by their immortal, ethereal God the Wind Writer. With this unique ability the Gruegar swiftly started documenting and studying other cultures and creatures. This was until the War of Territory, where the Angel’s retaliated against the Gruegar who appeared to be invading their land and claiming territory within Southern Veradex. After the Gruegar lost this war and a peace agreement was met, the Gruegar decided that this tragedy was a sign by the Wind Writer that the Gruegar are not to interfere with the environment around them, and instead become part of it. 

“Given this new insight into their place within the world, The Gruegar decided that they needed to integrate their society with the Frostpines themselves, tending instead of taking, coexisting instead of conquering. This is the point where they split into distinct tribes, each tending to a different area of the Frostpines, maintaining the natural order while compiling documentation found both through the Wind Writer’s own pages and through observing the environment around them. 

“Another thing that unites the Gruegar tribes is their Great Libraries, giant halls filled with many tomes and novels from varying cultures and sources, all free and open to anyone who wishes to gather knowledge from within. These libraries also act as a bank of seeds for the many different types of vegetation found throughout the Aether, in an effort to preserve anything that may be destroyed by the less environmentally focussed cultures of the Aether.

“Some tribes in the more dense areas of the Frostpines take their responsibility to the natural order in a different direction to the norm. Where it is known for animals to over breed due to lack of predators or the Frostpines themselves growing too large due to lack of felling, these smaller “hunter gatherer” tribes feel it necessary to reduce the population of the flora and fauna in the area to levels where each species has a sustainable amount of food and habitat. Effectively being the curators of the natural area.

“The differences between the many tribes of Gruegar are too extensive to detail, but it should be known to any traveller that decides they wish to venture into the Frostpine Isles that many of the Tribes have varying customs and traditions, but are mostly open to questions, so it is safer to ask about their culture than to risk making a mistake.”