Misc Elf info

High elves all bow before entering an establishment or house or major building, to pay respect to the master craftsmen who worked on it. Some possible food: Cidy (sai-dee) smoked or roasted or some kind of cooked bird wrapped in pastry. Extremely popular snack is candies flowers. Lasts a year (or more with magic and high elven cuisine) and often brought on travels. Lam’basé – words for a common table wine/sweet wine.

There is a major food festival in early summer every other year or so, which lasts a week where basically everyone who makes food competes to show how great their particular product is vs everyone else, it’s extremely competitive and rivalries have been fought for centuries over whose cheese is better, which recipes for smoked quail is the juiciest, etc etc. school reputations can live and die by how well they do in the festival.

The House of Summers Bitter Flight is a micro climate controlled “retreat” (very high end tavern and brothel) which is constantly set to mid autumn weather. It’s renowned for their clientele as much as the service. There is one school which has several branches all dedicated to just mending broken magical items. Just magical items. It’s basically a company and a school all rolled into one. Tell me to move this to a different conversation if it gets too much, but you did say I could~

The reason why elves have rococo hair – because they have elves who are dedicated to hair styling and care, to the point where it’s expected to have long hair for them to work on. The most extreme styles can never leave bel’shannar, because they would collapse without carefully controlled climates.

To not show respect to a craftsman’s work, or to not thank them for it or to haggle to fiercely is seen as an extreme sign of disrespect to that person, and possibly their school or academy from which they trained. It essentially says, your work is not worthy of my regard, nor regard from your school. There have been blood feuds started over this. No warrior school will send out a student without proper payment, because the customer is paying for the schools name, as well as the student. To haggle with a company or academy too much is to insult the entire company and all its members (which can be deadly if it’s a mercenary company or the like)

Up until a work or craft is produced, published, or is actually created, it can still be stolen, copied or ripped off legally.

If you are caught forging something, illegally copying someone’s else’s work and claim it as your own after they have already made the thing, you are deep deep trouble – your school may be disgraced, and you may exiled or executed in worse case scenarios. It will ruin your reputation for at least a few hundred years.

Since their fancy/traditional writing style is so complex – there are only some combined words that are still in use. It’s the equivalent of using & for and. Or the very common ‘the’ Thank you dean for those reference pictures. They have been very helpful.

Most tavern/brothel/retreat type places see themselves as places of respite, relaxation and healing (like very fancy spas) rather than straight up brothels or taverns. There is an entire offshoot of a monk school dedicated to massage, acupuncture and the manipulation of deep tissue in only holistic practices, never using it for combat, but for relaxation and healing.

They are not very common though.

There is an apothecary on the far southern side of bel’shanaar that has Specialised in just the production of scented oils for nearly 1000 years (rumor has it they do a roaring trade in poisons and hallucinogens, but there’s no proof amongst the common populace). This apothecary regularly sends out an apprentice or two to gather rare and fine scented herbs and plants from all over the land for use in oil production, and often recruit those with the most delicate of senses and deftest hands to make their products, as too much of anything can be dangerous, or worse, unpopular with clients.

Monks in High elf society tend to be the most reclusive and secretive of all, with their monasteries and sanctuaries being far away and well hidden even from other elves. Just getting to a monastery is half the test of being accepted. It is in these sanctuaries that the monks will dedicate decades, even centuries to mastering the secrets of their sects. Above many other possible professions or occupations, most monks are required to show the deepest and utmost devotion to their chosen path, with few internal diversions encouraged. Though there are always exceptions.

Amongst high elves, the only crime greater than stealing the work of another and passing it off as your own, is that of teacher or student stealing the others work. The bond between student and teacher, master and apprentice, is practically sacred, and to betray that is an extreme crime, which can bring shame upon you, your guild, your family – parents, partners and descendants alike and potentially your students too. Plagiarism is serious business in Bel’Shanaar and is grounds for banishment from the city, but not from elvish territory (they don’t want anyone to find out that they have these sorts of people in bel’shanaar.) usually these sorts will be banished to a very inaccessible mountain peak or even the forests not to return for a set period of time, if ever.

Some will still attempt to learn form them, if they are great masters, but it is forbidden and frowned upon to even talk about them. There are folk tales of demons, monsters and bad luck plaguing teachers who pass their students work off as their own, or of students who steal their teachers and are killed horribly or punished in some terrible way when they can not recreate or show those skills.

An example of high elf art – the type that would be seen on nice book or important contract.