Pabappa wrote: ↑27 Feb 2018 05:17
Entleis sounds like an interesting place
...
I'm interested to hear more about them and their society. What are dé & shó, for example?
So, Entleis.
Entleis is a nation on an archipelago eat of Porran, on the western side of the Great Ocean (that doesn't have a better name yet). If you look at the map I shared early on, they're the E. They're also oldest continuous civilization on the planet, having been the Queendom of Entleis (in various incarnations of names) since the Unification War, which is where pretty much where the modern era starts. (Arguably, since the Unification War was a multi-year campaign to conquer the archipelago and bring it all under one rule, Entleis the political entity is older, but that's moot).
They are the chosen of Anadiel, but because I'm still working out the relationships of people to their deities and so on, I'll leave that bit alone.
Their navy is the best in the world (though word is Hîgara is catching up).
They were also the first to discover magic (courtesy Anadiel) and have been the undisputed leaders in its study and application since the Unification War (which was partly won because of their magical superiority). By and large, the terms for various things in science/magic in other languages are imports of Entleisian words. (I realize, of course, that this continued dominance is unrealistic, and the reality is probably a bit more complicated; but they've never been far from the top spot).
They are a matriarchy, with a heavy cultural preference for women over men, and the people in power are almost all women (a few men have been making some inroads, but they face an uphill battle of sexism and ridicule, because how could a man ever have the temperament to lead?).
They've gotten very good at cosmetology, the branch of science/magic that concerns itself with modifying living things, and use it heavily. There's a very distinctive look (in terms of ethnicity) they all have as a result, though I'm still working on the details (aside from the fact that they have six fingers on each hand). But it also has extended the lifespans of the women heavily—it's not unusual for women to live two or three hundred years, and it's been that way for a while.
As a result, birth rates are generally kept low, and people go through phases of their life.
Marriages, such as they are, therefore tend to be kept shorter, on more of a contract basis. Men are considered not to have the temperament for long-term relationships, so they're kept short, like in the 20–30 year range, and are usually focused on child-rearing. That's not to say that longer relationships aren't known; love does still exist, and some women choose to keep their man around a lot longer, rather than send him to his mother/sister/daughter.
The dé/shó relationships is a mentorship sort of relationship between an older woman and an pubescent girl (shades of pederasty from our own world); the dé is the older, the shó is the younger (side note: the official name of their senate is the shotlet, which has the same root). It's generally considered deeper and more firm than transient things like marriage, and showcases the abiding relationship and intimacy between women. However, it's much less frequent in the modern era partly because it derived from a military tradition (and the military's become less important as there hasn't been any big war in a long while) and also because of the vagaries of how culture changes. That said, it's more common among the aristocracy and royalty because of status and such; discussions are underway to find a dé for Princess Arithe, for instance.
I admit there's a lot of details I'm still fuzzy on; I've mostly focused on broad strokes rather than deeper details (especially as I keep having existential crises related to the composition/history of Mto in general), but there's also a lot of little things I happen to know but haven't written down.