Welcome to Gaia! ::

My conworld, Ejþna, is a world rich in culture, languages, weirdness, languages and languages. 3nodding

Of my four conlangs, Aquenandi, Lyenlwa, and Mazdrivonian are spoken there, along with others (some related, some not) that I've yet to flesh out. I'll post a map here sometime.:O

Eithna is a fantasy world, and thus there is magic; but only immortals can use magic.

My magic system is simple yet hilarious. Basically, it only works for immortals (and thus, the Lisfirim; I'll get into that later), because the elements figure that mortals will have to stop bugging them eventually, but immortals can bother them until the cows come home (no, I do not know the origin of that idiom). So the elements give in right away when immortals ask them to do stuff because they just want to be left alone.

The Lisfirim are immortal because basically, they used to live in the northern isles (the majour island is about the size of France, in a similar location to Greenland) but got sick of the climate and sailed south. There were quite a few; at least ten thousand. They landed in the port of Yarda (and completely filled the place and then some), the capital city of Prut. They weren't very polite to the natives (and they were hungry) and it wasn't long until a war broke out. They had never been particularly friendly to each other, so they were all fairly good at fighting.

But the gods (which are a whole different story and not really gods at all) hadn't expected the whole climate thing and they had had something really important planned for humanity; sort of a Jesus-plot thing. But in this war, a very essential figure to that got killed, and the gods realised that before things could be set right, humanity would destroy itself.

So they went to the Lisfirim and told them that it was all their fault and thus they were going to be punished; they made them immortal and charged them with the task of protecting humanity until the whole thing had been fixed.

But, of course, by then everyone hated the Lisfirim and didn't take too kindly to the claim that they were their protectors. So the Lisfirim all fled to a tiny island off of the Mazdrivon peninsula and waited for people to simmer down a bit. But quite some time after that the people were all still hostile about it all, and they had realised that they could do magic. So they all disguised themselves and spread around the world, and are rumoured to be no more than myth. Every once in a while, they're discovered doing magic or changing their appearance to move to a new town (when one person stays the same age for two hundred years and stays in the same place, people get suspicious).

They are not mentally equipped for immortality, and they've all gone slightly wonky. A mild sort of schizophrenia runs rampant among them, as do other psychological disorders. They tend to be extremely cynical. They refuse to help people unless said people are in danger of dying; it annoys them greatly to have to use magic because it would give them away, several religions have orders to their citizens to kill them on sight, which, of course, doesn't work very well, but most of the Lisfirim don't particularly like dying and showing up somewhere else later.

More history to come later.

The countries

You had two months to do it. So, now I can say: show us something!!!! xd xd xd

Use Gimp. Or Photofiltre. And I'm also asking for some written thingies!!!! razz mrgreen

Wow, that seems a lot more thought-out than Nio. sweatdrop Cool, nonetheless. whee
---------------
And I beleive the cow idiom refers to when farmers would send the cows out to graze all day and they wouldn't come home 'till nightfall... but I'm not 100% sure on that. 3nodding

xD Oh, well I guess that makes more sense, doesn't it? ^_^

Oh dear, that's not good! xD

BIRTHDAY TRADITIONS

The Lisfirim completely ignore their birthdays and a lot of them don't even remember what they are. I won't get into them.

Mainstream Mazdrivonians, on the other hand, have some very interesting and very silly birthday customs. The birthday isn't considered to be a positive thing.

First thing in the morning, friends and relatives swarm the birthday-person (referred to from hereafter as the Birthdayee) and cart them to the nearest lake. They bring said person out into the lake in a wooden boat and throw them in the lake. The Birthdayee must swim to shore.

They believe that water refreshes the spirit for the coming year. The wood signifies trees, which are held in high regard in the culture and are believed to signify grace, longevity and beauty.

As soon as they reach dry ground, an adult (14+) must dress in a heavy black robe (black signifies agelessness) and children must dress in a blue robe (means responsibility).

The Birthdayers then proceed to shout. With adults they demand that time go easy on said person and bring him or her a long and prosperous life. With children, they yell for maturity and responsibility along with the long and prosperous life stuff. The Birthdayee must remain absolutely quiet through the yelling. They then present the person with a special bead for the necklace that each person has. These necklaces have many purposes, and I won't get into those here. xD

Naturally, they don't chuck all people into the lake. xD With the old and the particularly young, the Birthdayers instead bring buckets of cold water to dump on the Birthdayee. The rest of the procedure is the same.

In some cases, there is a feast after this is all done. The surrounding cultures think that all of the Mazdrivonians are completely batty. xD

The Pruts have a related tradition, but it just involves a cold bath and wearing black for the rest of the day.