Sian Ku tend to be
serious people. Not to say that they don’t have fun, but they seem more aware
that their every action is on display for the world to see than any other race.
Good and Evil are complex points, not a single yes/no answer.
In Sian Ku good people
are expected to be reverent of the kami, regardless of their standing or what
they stand for. A Kami of pain, suffering or death is just as worthy of your
respect, honour, and fear as a kami of prosperity, sunlight and hope. Both are
unknowable, powerful and able to grant boons or punishments as they seem fit. The
same applies to a Sian Ku’s ancestors. An ancestor who was a jerk and did evil
things is to be respected in death by their descendants just as much as your
ancestor who was granted the highest honours for protecting the Sian Ku nation.
Unless that family member was disowned by your family’s current leader, they
are still family, and family is everything.
The average Sian Ku
will only mention their ancestors directly (for religious reasons) during rituals,
most of which require saying their names and leaving offerings of food and
incense for them. For angry ancestors, you may place small gifts on their graves
in hopes of appeasement.
Evil is defined by bringing
dishonour to your family falling to wrath or anger and ignoring your ancestors
or the kami. Dishonour is a catch-all term. Embarrassing yourself sufficiently,
or doing something that will embarrass your family is the biggest way to bring dishonour
to you or your family. In most cases, the payment will fit the crime, though there
are always some who always pay back more than they feel the need to, or are
trying to get back more than they deserve. Most punishments are chosen by priests,
though you can allow the person you originally dishonoured to choose an appropriate
punishment if you don’t wish for the church to be involved. Anger and wrath are
seen as a loss of control and showing that side of yourself to anyone directly
outside of the immediate family is considered a high offence. You can take revenge
for a slight of any size, of course, and be angry to the point of taking down a
person’s entire family, but in Sian Ku, it’s a dish best served cold. Showing
your emotions, any emotion is considered a bit of a faux pau, but while people
will simply avert their eyes from glee, love or pleasure, showing anger, crying
out in frustration or even weeping in a public place, will lead to censure and
punishment by your family and friends.
There are a few other
rules. Talk about most bodily excretions (shit, piss, spit, sweat, farts… etc)
is taboo and all but the bawdiest of bards will avoid such talk, even to
close friends.
Another taboo is
engaging in incest. Any connection, even that of step-siblings or family by
marriage is strictly forbidden. You will never find two brothers or sisters
married into the same family; the connection is too close. In extreme cases, even the death of a spouse will not allow a new marriage into that family. For this
rule, “family” is considered to be your sisters, brothers, parents, aunts,
uncles and cousins, first and second aunts/uncles/cousins and
grandparents/grandchildren. Even in rural locations, marriages are routinely
arranged to people from different towns and cities from their birthplace and each
marriage requires a meeting with your local chronicler to make sure that the
bloodlines are diverse enough to satisfy the gods.
Eating the flesh of
any monster is to be avoided at all costs. Even if you are starving, eating
their flesh is considered to taint you, a taint which can travel through your
family ties and lines, tainting your entire family. Stringent purification
rituals are required for any who happen to take in the flesh. Strangely,
despite eating the flesh of a monster being one of the biggest taboo of the religion,
the rules are vastly less stringent about associating, befriending, copulating
or even marrying such a creature. The person who does such is still expected to
cleanse themselves and their family ties by regularly being attended by a
priest who is willing to cleanse the family and their home.
Historians will tell
you the answers lie in beguiling, intelligent monsters that once lived in peace
with the Sian Ku on their island. This does not mean that there weren't deaths on both sides or that humans and monsters did not try to cleanse the others
from their homes, but in general, meeting a monster was considered little different than
meeting with a kami or a human from a clan you didn’t know; such a meeting
could end in sadness and grief or pleasure and happiness. You never knew.
However, as humans became more and more civilized, they chased more and more of
the monsters and creatures from their shores and fell closer to the belief of the Dreven. In general, most monsters are decried as such and "good" people will either avoid them and their areas, or they will try to save others by destroying the creatures.
Well, if you made it this far, you deserve a medal for reading your way through all this. Next week may not get a blog post, unfortunately. I burned myself semi-severely on Wednesday while taking a pan out of the oven. I've ended up with a heat blister the size of a Canadian nickel on my thumb. I can write with it, but I want to give it a couple of days to heal before I start getting back to my regular schedule. While I hope that I won't have to take any time away from this blog, I just want to let you guys know in case I end up having to skip next week. Either way, keep an eye here or on Facebook. I'll make sure to keep you guys updated, most likely on Wednesday on whether you can expect my next offering on the rituals and celebrations of the Sian Ku.
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