101 obnoxious cultural traits

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Hey folks, how about a big shared list thread of traits you can give a fictional culture to make them subtly or extremely unsympathetic to the average player? I'll go first:

- Due to an obscure superstitious event in their cultural memory, they are violently opposed to the use of marble in architecture. They consider it such bad luck that they'll flip out if they get 'tainted' by its proximity and will take out their frustration on the closest person who is most responsible for the taboo construction, even while abroad.
 
They think everybody should speak their language, and get offended when repeating what they just said loudly and slowly doesn't make them any easier to understand.

They take over all the deck chairs at the local hotel by placing their towel on the chair at 7:00 in the morning.

Queuing is a national pastime, and they get all passive-aggressive at anyone they perceive as queue jumpers.

They're all taught a nearly incomprehensible variant of High Elvish at school (badly), and if they meet anybody of Elvish descent they insist on trying to practice their elvish on you.

Spitting in the street, or on the floor is considered perfectly acceptable in their society.

If you invite one of them to stay in their home, half a dozen of their friends will show up with backpacks and crash on your floor.

Flatulence is a major taboo for them, and they will look physically ill if they hear or smell someone cracking off a fart in a public place.

Being armed is a status symbol for free men of their society and they insist on wearing a traditional dagger or short sword in the most inappropriate of places. They will resist violently if an attempt is made to disarm them.

They wear elaborate facial tattoos as a record of their geneaology and social status. Many other cultures find this intimidating.

Hackey-sack is a national pastime, and groups of them will take one out and start playing it in really inappropriate places.

A common gesture of assent in mainstream society actually implies something quite insulting about their sexuality (such as a preference for sheep) to someone from this culture.

Merchants from this culture will find it insulting if you don't try to bargain with them. They are physically difficult to distinguish from a neighbouring society in which bargaining an usury are proscribed by religious doctrine.

Their society observes frequent religious festivals (every couple of months) by taking hallucinogenic mushrooms. On these festivals their entire expat population takes to wandering about town tripping and making a nuisance of themselves.

Free love cults are common in this society, and middle-aged, overweight men from their expat communities are often found making inappropriate propositions to locals. This often causes fights to break out.

They are renowned for their terrible poetry, and insist on reciting it at any event they are invited to as guests.
 
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Nobby-W said:
They think everybody should speak their language, and get offended when repeating what they just said loudly and slowly doesn't make them any easier to understand.

Queuing is a national pastime, and they get all passive-aggressive at anyone they perceive as queue jumpers.
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I feel personally attacked by this post.
 
- They consider names with less than two syllables unlucky, and anyone who has one is a dangerous jinx who must be shunned.
 
They are prone to start generations-long vendettas between families over long-forgotten wrongs. Particuarly zealous family scions may consider business associates of their enemies to be fair game.

Their culture reveres crafts, particularly of items touched by magic, and have a peculiar view of ownership. All magic or otherwise qualifying items are considered to belong to their creator, who may effectively loan or lease them to other parties, although the transaction is indistinguishable from a gift or sale to outside parties. Generally it is customary to return such items upon the death of the giftee, if not to the creator then to their family. If items are lost and then found later (even centuries later) the family will want to reclaim the item and refusal to return it will anger them, possibly to the point of the family using subterfuge or force to retrieve the item.

A shaven head is the mark of a slave, and anybody without at least shoulder length hair will be presumed to be of an inferior cast. Lice and lice-born typhus are endemic to the area, although the locals have built up a racial immunity to the disease.

Expat communities of the culture tend to be very insular, and organised crime syndicates often form within their enclaves, giving them a reputation as thieves.

Like gypsies, their culture is nomadic, and they often settle down transiently in an area, stealing crops and other items (they regard this as foraging). This often brings them into conflict with locals, possibly generating adventures to retrieve items from them, or requests to drive them off. Making an enemy of one extended family tends to generate gossip within the clans, and will often generate emnity within the entire clan. Likewise, becoming known as a friend of one family will propogate to the entire clan. However, being seen to associate with this culture may carry a stigma in mainstream society.
 
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They have a naming hierarchy where ones importance is based on the number of names one has. They cannot accept that others do not follow this practice and will treat others based on the number of names they have (or how many they introduce themselves by).

It is considered a great dishonor not to be addressed using their entire name at all times and under all circumstances regardless of how impractical.

Steven Chuck Segal Norris Bruce Schwarzenegger Willis Jean Arnold Van Damme Lee LOOK OUT FOR THAT ORC!!!!!!!! Too late, so sad.
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Due to some ancient superstition, bathing is considered taboo and, although they habitually cover it up with scent, they tend to have terrible body odour. If this is pointed out to them, they will have no idea what you are talking about.

Brave foes are revered, and the culture practices ritual cannibalism in the belief that eating some of the brave enemy you have just slain will transfer some of their bravery and prowess to you. Adherents to more extreme versions of this doctrine actively go out and hunt for particularly strong foes and try to best them in combat.

The society is led by a religious caste and has many religious rituals that involve human sacrifice conducted by an insular priesthood, on a rather large scale (one per regional temple per festival). However, a growing, educated middle class has become rather secular and resistant to the notion of having their children sacrificed to what they perceive to be false or uncaring gods. Not wishing to alienate their remaining supporters in the rural and lower classes, the priesthood have taken to sending raiding parties into neighbouring lands to capture foreigners to feed their voracious requirement for several hundred human sacrifices each year. Unfortunately their standing army is large enough that the surrounding kingdoms do not have the resources to invade, or even effectively defend against their raiding parties.

Men of high social standing consider handling money to be beneath them, and will be insulted by any attempt to buy, sell or otherwise negotiate a deal with them. Money and commercial matters are almost exclusively handled by women.
 
N: Believe that unarmed judicial combat is the best way to resolve judicial disputes. Members of this sophont race are upwards of 200 kgs on average, and a lot of it is muscle.
 
I'm going to necro this thread because I've been amusing myself thinking about it lately.

They ritually and festively deposit huge piles of refuse on the other side of their borders with neighboring countries. They got a cheerful song for it and everything.

They build baby cribs out of the bones of babies taken from other cultures. This is supposed to bestow good luck on the newborn.

The warriors magically/scientifically steal the muscles/fingers/eyes/mouths/other features from prisoners and functionally add them to their own bodies. Prisoners are then kept alive for a while to wallow in the degradation.

They forbid the color blue, even (especially) in eyes. Gouging out the offending orbs is not unheard of.

Adoption is banned. Children who lose their parents are considered unlucky and sent down the river in a sealed barrel.

This one is courtesy of Ian M. Banks: They've magically/scientifically engineered one sex in their population to feel more pain during copulation.

Their preferred method for executing foreigners is to have each member of the village take a turn flensing one strip off of the victim with a potato peeler. Yes, even the gentlest child will get involved because "foreigners aren't really people".

Prisoners are often condemned to be used by all and sundry as 'human napkins'.

That scene involving the brain in the movie Hannibal is considered an acceptable culinary experience on special occasions.

Bonsai kittens*, for real.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonsai_Kitten
 
Ornamental hats are sacred objects and letting one's hat fall to the ground is blasphemy. Many of the hats are so tall and wide they don't fit through doors without removal.

The attributes of the chicken are considered most sexually enticing and all the women wear their hair cut to resemble a chicken's backside. The men wear weird chicken foot boots and frequently engage in cock fights.

Mentioning pests and vermin is socially verboten. As a result their habitats are overrun with mice and bugs but any mention of it will be met with unbelief and denial.

Religious time books based on the rotation of an entirely different planet are used to determine when deliberate traffic blockades are required to prevent off worlders from violating sacred observances involving the activation of vehicular claxons and loud shouting.

All medicine and medical practice is regarded as a criminal conspiracy, if the six eyed and tentacled one had intended us to be whole they would not have created disease and injury in the first place.

The race loves to litter and sees littering as a fundamental proof of their dominion over nature. They discard half eaten food, wrappers, and still burning ceremonial toasting sticks everywhere they go and become violently offended if confronted. They are also offended by others picking up their garbage. Their dwellings are spotless, after all, that's why windows open.
 
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Eh, it's a good necro! These for openers:

* They are relentless exceptionalists. Their culture/nation is just superior. Everything they do is better. Every institution they have is superior. Their blood is purer. Their crops are taller, their livestock is bigger, their hats are wider, their music is louder, their sports are more "manly." It isn't even as if they feel they're in a competition: they think they already won them all a long time ago. Any evidence to the contrary is just white noise, and met with bemused, patronizing smiles.

* As a variant of the above, they feel their culture is the center of the universe. Everyone else is a barbarian, and they just can't wrap their heads around dealing with outsiders except on terms of supplicants kowtowing to their masters. They're always right, everyone else is always wrong.

* They are rabid libertarians. The notion of a "common good" is sneered at, never mind sacrificing to achieve it. Any hint at restraining their "freedom" must be the result of malice, a vile conspiracy or enemy action. (Somewhat more obnoxiously, their notion of "freedom" suddenly comes to a screeching halt when it comes to how YOU act towards THEM.)

* They loathe and despise another major culture/nation. Nothing from that culture can be any good. No one from that culture is any good. Having so much of an ancestor of that culture defiles you irrevocably. The laws notwithstanding, crimes committed against people from that culture are no more credited by the authorities than crimes committed against a cockroach. That other culture/nation is plainly out to do them down, and must be opposed at all times and at all hazards, reflexively.

* Their notion of driving comes, one might joke, from demolition derbies. They hurl their vehicles forward at reckless speeds. Traffic laws, driving lanes, curbsides, these are designed to be flouted. Other vehicles, obstacles, buildings, these are expected to yield or vanish at their approach. Their attitude towards pedestrians is apparently that they collect points for mowing them down, like a pinball game. Being a passenger in their vehicles feels very much like you're on the wrong end of a cavalry charge.

* Their notion of formal courtesy is staggeringly complex, and lacks any sense of a guiding principle: there are just rules upon rules upon rules. There aren't merely a few forms of address; there are hundreds. It's not that the rules themselves are incomprehensible, it's that there are so damn many. Failure to conform with each and every one of them tags you, irrevocably, as a barbarian.

* Likewise, they have a complex code of behavior based around clothing, jewelry, face painting and/or tattoos. Where and whether you wear a stud of a red stone in a gold setting, versus wearing a blue stone in a silver setting, announces that you're in a committed monogamous relationship, versus being up for one-off sexual encounters with strangers in the nearest convenient alley. (Or so it would seem.) This code signifies area of birth, political or religious affiliation, the whole works. Wearing the items the "wrong" way is Not Done. They all reflexively assume outsiders are familiar with the code, are conforming to it, and act very wrongfooted if this isn't the case.

* Some common terms in their language are vile obscenities in yours, or vice versa. "Good morning, how are you faring?" is their standard greeting, and the words in your language imply that the speaker personally facilitated your spouse becoming a diseased prostitute.
 
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Gringnr said:
They communicate entirely through dance
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So I asked the shopkeep for a...

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But unfortunately he told me...

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So as you can imagine, when I got home my wife hit me with...

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A few more:

* They are a homogeneous society, exclusively of an insular ethnic group. They will learn the language of another culture only grudgingly, and practice elements of that culture in like fashion, like someone scrunching up their faces and holding their noses. They are intolerant of immigrants, and outsiders in their homeland are stigmatized and relegated to menial or dangerous professions. Marrying outside their culture is unthinkable.

* In a more extreme fashion (tip of the cap to Prof. Barker!) the culture is downright xenophobic. Foreigners had better stay in their insular cantonments after business hours (and will be cheated and derided during them), or risk running into gangs whose idea of fun is impaling them.

* They just don't get the practices of other cultures. They're not unduly mean or rude about it, nor are they haughty over the correctness of their own culture, but they can't comprehend deviations from their own practices, no matter how often displayed or repeated.

* They're inveterate and reflexive duelists. They're touchy about a lot of things, and an insult can only be wiped out in blood: there's pretty much a duel going on all the time in any city (and they're outright spectator sports). Declining a duel provokes the same horrified reactions as urinating on an altar during a religious service might.

* Speaking of which ... they don't have much body consciousness regarding evacuation. Publicly urinating or defecating is the norm. Dropping trou to wipe their genitals with a cloth -- oh, hey, your handkerchief will do, much thanks! -- is common.

* They are extreme xenophiles. Everything other cultures do is Neat! and Cool! They're passionately interested in every difference, and regard every manifestation or behavior you might make as potentially some new Neat! and Cool! practice. They want to know All About It! Why is it you rub your chin like that? Did you get that from your parents? Is that a religious thing? Neat!

* They have an extensive caste system, and everyone has their place within it. The system's very rigid, and there rules governing how you treat people at every rung; violating these rules isn't merely a social offense but a religious one as well. They seek to fit you into a slot, and however much they grudgingly recognize that other cultures don't play by their rules, it's hard for them to deal with and it shows.

* The culture is just reflexively and mindlessly cruel, compared to yours. People think nothing of lashing lower-status folk with barbed quirts or whips, mutilating servants, putting animals to painful deaths just for the heck of it. Outright executions take hours, and are spectator sports, with families bringing lunch baskets to the party, and the executioners taking payments to cut off this part or that. How much am I bid for a finger? C'mon, you can do better than that! What's that you say, you call dibs on the left testicle? And so on and so forth.
 
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72) There's a staple livestock (treated routinely as food in YOUR culture) that's regarded as sacred. The animals are inviolate, allowed to wander around as they please, breeding and eating as they will. Just touching them is suspect. Molesting or impeding them will earn you a beating at best. Actually harming one will subject the perp to a gruesome death; being burned alive is standard. Eating the animal's flesh (or using its byproducts) is considered cannibalism and sacrilegious, and being known to be from a culture where that happens marks you as suspect. Accusations are routine: you'd better not sport a feather in your hat, if you don't want someone to scream that you plucked it from a sacred chicken ...

73) Some common practice is fetishized to the extreme. Let's take the color yellow, for example. Everyone wears it. No one's seen without it. Great care is taken to keep those yellow articles of clothing spotless and pristine. Spitting on something that's colored yellow is a near-sacrilegious act. Insulting the color absolutely is. People will stop and pray for a minute before whipping an egg yolk. "Sash-smearer" is their worst insult (referring to those unutterable louts who spill sauces on their yellow sashes). Even down to everyone daily consuming enough of a certain herb to ensure that they don't disrespect the revered color through urination. Pardon me, sir (delivered in a chilly tone), why aren't you eating your mlekil-root? What does its taste have to do with it?

74) It's an equestrian culture. Possession of a riding animal is a prerequisite to being treated as a real person, and one's skill at riding is paramount in determining status. All art and architecture is suffused with references to riding. Combat solely takes place mounted, and being dismounted or having your mount killed automatically means you yield/surrender. People would rather ride twenty miles than walk one. The very word for "human" in their language is literally "one who rides," and someone unable to ride (through inexperience, no talent, disability or age) is no longer treated as an adult.

75) No negotiation, no business dealing can be concluded before several rounds of their bitter, foul-tasting, very heavily alcoholic national drink. Wincing, flinching, or gagging means you're less than a real person. Never mind -- the gods forbid! -- declining, which marks you as someone who is NOT to be trusted.

76) Insults are the common way of treating other people. Greeting your best friend or spouse with "How goes it, you ugly goatfucker?" is considered a basic sign of affection. By contrast, treating someone with formal courtesy is considered insulting.

77) All foods must be prepared in a certain way (particular to each food or dish), and only in that way. You can only eat omelets; scrambled eggs are taboo. You can only eat broiled steaks; panfried or steak stir fry is right out. You can only find skim milk; whole fat milk doesn't exist. Etcetera.

EDIT: Numbering them as per the actual number of submissions, to see how close we were coming to 101.
 
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That reminds me of a couple from Traveller 4's Alien Archive:

The Han Saka are a rubbery race with tentacles for arms. Their racial greeting is a hug. They hug everyone and they don't smell very good.

The Denaar are able to down load their intellect into the host bodies and they travel with a small herd of them. This means they are generally surrounded by half a dozen non-sentient livestock animals which look just like them. Their ability to die physically and carry on makes them insane daredevils by any other standard. They will try it and they won't even ask you to hold their beer first.
 
A generation or two ago, the society went through a revolutionary period of severe anti-intellectualism and anti-bourgeoise sentiment. In order not to be singled out and persecuted, people got into the habit of affecting loud, boorish sentiment. This somehow got steeped into the culture where people now act ignorant and boorish out of convention, and from there into social norms. This spills over into expats and tourists from this nation, who have a ferociously terrible reputation overseas. It doesn't help that the government still pushes exceptionalism in its state propaganda.

Popular culture in the nation pushes a trope that women from a certain region are loose and promiscuous. Women who appear to be from that region will often be subjected to sexual harassment such as groping or lewd propositions.
 
People of a certain caste are not allowed to touch the ground. They are carried everywhere in palanquins and use slaves as step-tools and furniture. They are terrified of pollution by the ground-born and are enormously superior about their status.

Visiting is a cultural touchtone. Making plans, however, is not, and you have people randomly walking through your door whenever they feel like it. This is paired with a hefty set of cultural prescriptions about hospitality and a penchant for knife duels when insulted.

No one wears pants. Pants are for heretics. Demons, you see, have no genitals. So if everyone wore pants then demons could walk among us with no one the wiser. The wearing of pants is punishable by death, just on general principle.
 
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85) The culture has no sense of privacy. Everyone's in everyone else's business, all the time. It's only mildly suspect to come home to find a neighbor rifling through your papers and cabinets. Evasive or non-answers invariably provoke a startled "Whaddaya got to hide?"

86) The culture has a fetish for divination. Everyone looks for omens for everything. The bones are cast, or the cards are read, or the entrails are examined for auspicious days to begin any significant undertaking. You might have to dodge passersby on the streets who are staring straight up, trying to discern patterns in the clouds or the flight of birds. No one will conclude serious business with you before consulting their fortuneteller, or asking you your birthday so they can have their neighborhood astrologer cast your horoscope.

87) Steel is sacred. Steel is holy. You proudly display your weapons, that all may honor them. You care for your knives like you would for your young. Better than. A rust spot on your blade, a notch, a pit ... and you have insulted Steel itself; you are not fit to live! (And you must die by stoning -- no steel must be sullied with your polluted blood.) A man whose weapon breaks is as good as emasculated. Your wealth must be spent on the finest scabbards, silver wire for the hilts, beautiful gems for the pommels. Only the best whetstones will do. Master armourers are the leaders and arbiters of society. Hail to Sacred Steel!

... stranger, where are your blades? (narrow stare)
 
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They think the 'correct' way to play stringed instruments is to make them shriek as much as possible.

Diarrhea is considered an oracular gift from the gods, best examined by a village committee.

If three of their women accuse you of something, you are automatically considered guilty unless you can get nine of their women to affirm your innocence. However, those nine can be overturned by 27 more women, and so on, multiplying by three each time.

Bags, boxes, scabbards, harnesses, pockets, pack animals, and wagons are forbidden for everything except foodstuff and raw materials. Everything else must be transported by hand.

They consider dentistry a spectator sport, and unfortunately for the patient every dentist wants to put on a spectacular show...
 
Fenris-77 said:
No one wears pants. Pants are for heretics. Demons, you see, have no genitals. So if everyone wore pants then demons could walk among us with no one the wiser. The wearing of pants is punishable by death, just on general principle.
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You joke, but according to a horrible dry book on the traditional magic practices of the Maluku Islands stated that this is how you drive away a Suanggi. Because your soul is located in your nether regions, and it glows in the spirit world, Suanggi will mistaken your genitalia for the glowing face of another Suanggi. It's been a while since I've read the book so I might be wrong.
 
The entire species is made up of genetically identical clones. Each member has special tattoos that identify individuals, but they're in a color spectrum you can't see.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
You joke, but according to a horrible dry book on the traditional magic practices of the Maluku Islands stated that this is how you drive away a Suanggi. Because your soul is located in your nether regions, and it glows in the spirit world, Suanggi will mistaken your genitalia for the glowing face of another Suanggi. It's been a while since I've read the book so I might be wrong.
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My joke was actually based on some very cogent historical elements. Not the one you mention, but there you are.
 
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