Thoughts about Present Dridder Culture

I decided to bring this up because 1. I am doing a lot more with the dridders then originally planned and 2. I love cultures and trying to flesh out there cultural trend.

I had a few things I wanted to bring up like the true status of the Dridder Empire. As it is said the Dridder Empire has collapsed a few thousand years before the present day. My question is how bad was the collapse and how much of the past has been lost?

You see, from my studies when a culture falls, it first breaks up and then depending on the society's focus, certain abilities and knowledge could be lost. Primitive tribes are either a beginning culture or a culture that has fallen back in to it's tribal state.

A lot of tribes have been recognized in Real world by their more pack minded sense and their lack of clothing. You could almost say Naga's are either a beginning culture or a fallen culture. If the dridders are falling apart and breaking in to their clans they must not have fallen to far if they still make technology, weapons, armors, and even some dridders feel the desire to cover up.

So, my whole question comes down to: Though the dridder empire has fallen, they Dridders are still quite intelligent in almost small nations still trying to preserve what they knew of the past?

Does this make any sense?

Ah, Dridder Culture!

Ye have hit upon one of my special little Felaryan passions and my pet project.

But full credits must go to the amazing Chuck for planting the seeds of imagination.

Indeed, you have hit upon the truth. The Naga's though, never advanced as far as the Dridders did. (They actually started to but the dridders put an end to that reptilian uppityness.)

But the Dridders created an elaborate and refined culture for a large span of time.

Today, I would define Dridders as "Feral" (Or "Naga-Dridders" as their snobby cousins would call them) and "Cultural Loyalists."

Feral dridders wear no clothes, follow no customs, hold no house and act just like any other predator.

The cultural loyalists attempt to hold on as tightly as they can to their traditions, even as Felarya is a world of chaos that seems to decay civilization.

The collapse of the Dridder Empire nearly entirely obliterated their capital, which was their main and only city (Well... almost.)

However for actual dridder nations... I am not so sure. I figure there are a few dridders living in the ruins of Supprozad, existing in the shatter wreck of their capital, to stubborn to admit its gone.

As well, human sized dridders can live on the outskirts of human cities (see the Motamo Docks) and practice their culture.

At its peak, the Dridder Empire achieved levels of technology and culture roughly equal to the Industrial Age on Earth. Currently they are, at best, medieval in any sense, most often tribal. Their secrets of gunpowder and steam engines are lost to but the most dedicated archaeologists.

For more information, look at the Dridder Forest page on the wiki, my (shameless plug here) Chronology thread on this forum or try to pop into vent when Chuck or I or others are on.

Hey,

That's what I thought about them. Some of them have gone back to their tribal roots while others cling to their old ways very very tightly. I guess from looking at everything that if the Felarya wasn't as dangerous as it was, the Dridders would have been the first true culture to break out of the Industrial revolution and enter the space age if left unhindered.

Pity they fell apart. This gives me a better focus on how to write them hence my character Ishaaya is in the Dridder Forest.

Thanks!

One of the things I would bring up with dridder culture is the existence of social spiders. They have rather unique trends that I feel should be a part of their society as well, to differentiate them from human types. Social spiders entry on wikipedia.

Other Notes on Dridder Culture of the Dridder Empire

Many thanks to everyone who I talked to that gave me some of these ideas. This is all just a rough sketch.

Religion

The primary deity of the Dridders is the Widowed Mother. She is seen as the mother of the entire Dridder species and the direct ancestor of the Dridder Royal Family - thus, the current Dridder Queen can trace her ancestry back directly to the Widowed Mother.

The myths surrounding the Widowed Mother indicates she was a very powerful entity operating on Felarya, akin to a Guardian, most likely actually a Guardian. What form she had exactly is unclear - pictures of her varyingly show a humanoid female, a dridder female or even a large spider. Regardless, in any humanoid or dridder representation of her, her face is concealed by a veil - it is considered blasphemous to attempt to actually draw her features.

The common legend goes that the Widowed Mother existed at a time when there were there were other powerful entities like her. The Widowed Mother fell in love with a Guardian, married him and with him birthed the Dridder Race. However, during Alcazath's Betrayal, this Guardian was turned against his comrades and his former wife. Horrified, the Widow withdrew from the war - until her former lover threatened her children. With tears in her eyes, she engaged her corrupted husband in combat and slew him, stabbing him with her blade and drawing him close to whisper her love to him one last time.

After this, she became known as the Widowed Mother. She remained with her children, through the first three generations of Dridder Queens. After that, she is said to have vanished, her whereabouts or purpose for leaving a mystery.

The next most important deities to the Dridders are the Weavers. They are maintained to have been the first three Dridder Queens and tend to appear as an old dridder woman, a stately dridder lady and a lovely dridder maiden. They are said to have been whispered the secrets of the future by their Widowed Mother and are said to weave intricate webs all day - they know what the future holds for every Dridder, from birth to death. They spin out a dridder's particular thread in the Great Web until it grows frayed and must be cut out.

Architecture, Music, Metalworking and Clothing

Dridder architecture has, of course, varied over the long history of the race. However, certain themes and styles seem to repeat themselves. As a comparison, dridders seemed to have built Supprozad up in a particularly Gothic and Neo-Gothic style, with towering, ornate spires. The dridders are said to have even built an underground capital in this manner. The dridders enjoy details and intricacies - spider webs are a favoured motif. Excavation of Supprozad shows it to have been an amazingly precisely planned city, with public parks and elegant, intricate walkways.

Dridders considered themselves a cultured race and music was one of many pursuits they found pleasing. Dridders seem to have focused on string instruments, with particular ones comparative to human cellos, violins and guitars. The strings of these instruments seem to have been made of specially treated silk, the making of which was a secret to the dridders.

Besides the strings of instruments, dridders were astonishingly skilled tailors and seamstresses. Their clothing became more and more ornate and detailed overtime as they developed more and more skills in this area.

Metalworking was also a skill that dridders developed, much faster and better than other races who relied more on magic. Dridders, as a whole, generally are not as proficient at magic (Aside from certain noble lineage) as other race and prefer fighting prowess and craftsmanship. At their peak, dridders created amazing clockwork marvels and inventions. Even today, their blacksmiths are among the best on Felarya.

Dridder Royalty

The Dridder Royalty claims direct descent from their patron deity, claiming this grants them special powers. Wether this is true or not, it has been noted that dridders of noble descent seem to have a better grasp on magic than the rest of their magically average race.

Succession of Dridder Monarchs is mainly matriarchal. The eldest daughter of the previous ruler becomes Queen - if there are no daughters, the eldest son becomes King. If the ruler had no children, the eldest niece is sought out - if there is no niece, then a nephew is sought. This continues along more and more distant relatives. There was, and perhaps still is, an entire organization, The Keepers of Blood, who carefully maintained records to make sure that succession was not questioned. Many believe that the Dridder lineage was eradicated with the fall of Supprozad... but there are rumours that the bloodline survived and there is indeed a Dridder Queen to this day...

Smaller Dridders

Elves and Dridders are the only two species where there was extensive civilized cooperation between both large and small members of their race (not counting fairies, of course.) Supprozad was, in fact, designed to accommodate dridders of all sizes.

Although both large and small dridders worked together in harmony, there was discrepancies in the rights of both. Dridder culture valued military prowess very highly and smaller dridders, as they could simply not cause as much damage as a larger one, were often seen as a lower class. In wars they mainly played only the role of skirmishers, scouts and spies, only fighting similarly sized opponents if at all. In peace, it was very common for dridder nobles to have many small dridders as servants - it was something of a status symbol to have a skittering horde of helpers. In many regards, smaller dridders were only seen as assistants to larger ones. However, this was not always true, smaller dridders often distinguishing themselves in a variety of skills.

Values

Dridder culture placed high importance on the character of a dridder. One was said to be a "True Dridder" if they showed good character. Martial prowess was highly respected, wether it be in fencing, marksmanship or jousting. Dridders would often engage in duels not only to defend their honour but to showcase their skills. Honour was also very important to Dridders - promises were always kept, oaths always followed and insults never let go. Determination and hard work were seen as what separated the dridders from more "primitive" species - the dridders struggled and warred to build a great Empire, while other species were more concerned with chasing around silly little humans. The Dridders also were very proud of their culture - they adored their music, clothes and learning, seeing themselves as more intelligent and refined. At their worst, the Dridders were arrogant, stubborn and snobbish. At their best they were loyal, honourable and cultured.

JT, the only thing I'd dare take issue with here is the injection of the Fates. Take this or leave it because it's just personal preference, but I think you could have shown that the Dridder Queens were inspired by the Fates without calling them by the same name. Maybe you should disguise it a bit more.

It's just something that I feel could be better, not a knock against the idea.

gt500x wrote:

JT, the only thing I'd dare take issue with here is the injection of the Fates. Take this or leave it because it's just personal preference, but I think you could have shown that the Dridder Queens were inspired by the Fates without calling them by the same name. Maybe you should disguise it a bit more.

It's just something that I feel could be better, not a knock against the idea.

What would you call them?

The Fates aren't really totally my idea - I developed them talking with Asuroth.

I kind of have to go to work soon (again blarg...) but I did grin seeing you mention them in that heh. JT's version is probably a lot more subtle than mine (I only posted the idea on DA, I can transfer it here later though) but really I'm all open for changes further on the idea to make it fit in better. Really liking this development on dridder culture and making me think just where Ciel places in all of it as she seems somewhat in between tribal and this developing culture heh. Anyway I'll check back later on and see where this is going, but regardless liking it as a fan of dridders too heh.

Asuroth wrote:

I kind of have to go to work soon (again blarg...) but I did grin seeing you mention them in that heh. JT's version is probably a lot more subtle than mine (I only posted the idea on DA, I can transfer it here later though) but really I'm all open for changes further on the idea to make it fit in better. Really liking this development on dridder culture and making me think just where Ciel places in all of it as she seems somewhat in between tribal and this developing culture heh. Anyway I'll check back later on and see where this is going, but regardless liking it as a fan of dridders too heh.

Well, good to see you. Maybe we could just refer to them as "Weavers".

And this is the remnants of a culture developed and collapsed long ago...

You've pretty much got it. No drastic changes. I'm not opposed to simply calling them The Weavers, Destinies, or the Daughters of The Widowed Mother. Or even the Daughters of Dawn (if you wanted to name the Widowed Mother).

The Weavers sound pretty good, personally.

Dridder Web Heraldry

The symbol of the Web is one important to dridders, and not just because of their silk-spinning ability. It represents the interconnected threads of fate. It also represents, to some, the Dridder Empire - a series of threads forming something greater than the sum of its parts.

Dridder families commonly use the Web as a symbol. To the uneducated, they all look the same, but each noble family has a subtly different Web design. This is achieved through variation in the number of outward lines and the number of connecting lines. Varying these means that no two dridder houses have the same design. Those well versed can pick out which house the particular web represents at a glance.

Later designs added on a few features. Traditionally, the web was placed on a backdrop of black, but other colours were used (almost always dark, cool colours to make the white web marking stand out better). Some of these were quartered and halved.

Finally, some dridder families would "hang" symbols onto their webs - drawing in extra symbols onto the web design itself. These were mostly used to mark a specific achievement of that family (e.g. a family with a long military tradition might "hang" a series of swords on their web heraldry.)

Here's a little something I've been tinkering with- any ideas or suggestions towards modifying it are more than welcome of course. Any additions are also welcome to name's and their meanings, the list is brief to allow some leeway for creativity for it's uses if any choose to use a name similar in structure. Many thanks to Kai, Jaette, Aethernavale and Chuck for the help in this.


Dridder last names:

While some dridders are known to have last names bestowed from their parents, not all dridders are born with a last name. To have earned a second name is not something to be taken lightly; it often takes a great deed to earn one within their proud culture. The last name of a dridder holds a special meaning to them- similar to titles they depict qualities or traits that pertain to the one who has earned them. Being able to pass down a family name or belonging to a family owning one would be a high status symbol among their kind. Despite the years and the fall of the Dridder Kingdom, some tribes and individuals still recognize and respect what they represent. Even if a dridder does or does not have a last name, they are still able to earn a different one should they prove themselves worthy of it but must still only choose one name to be theirs to hold.

Unlike titles, a second name such as this is not addressed as something like ‘Wanelle the Cowardly’ but more just a last name- a symbol that it is inherently a part of them rather than a title. Such an example would be Nerissa Venomfang. The last name is comprised of a combination of words, each with their own meaning meant to describe the bearer of the name. Such meanings could be as follows among more-

Venom- Strength. In dridders, venom is often thought of as one of their strengths of their kind and is easily recognized for its powerful effects.

Fang- To show. A prominent feature to dridders shown publicly.

Silk- Cunning. Another defining feat of dridders is the creative uses of their silk- be it clothes, traps, and intricate webs made from it.

Eye- Simply put, an ability to see into fine detail.

Chitin- Steadfast and sturdy. A dridder’s natural impressive armor and protection.

Claw- Elegant strength. A more unusual weapon taking a certain finesse to use among dridders.

Names derived from these words are in essence not as dark or grim sounding as they can seem to an outsider to dridder culture, but instead of something more dignified. In Venomfang’s case, her name would be best described as ‘a show of strength’ depicting her strength of character and to display it in regards to upholding her beliefs of dridder culture.