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Nobody really likes pants unless they have that magical 3% spandex that prevent them performing a haphazard lap belting when I bend over to tie my shoes.
101 obnoxious cultural traits
- Thread starter Shipyard Locked
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Giganotosaurus
Dreaming of Electric Sheep
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We need to go back in time and prevent the collapse of Rome. Then it would be toga time all the time.
Ravenswing
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Up to 94 ... hm. I bet I can think of some others, given enough time.
95) Lying is a serious sin in this culture, and on the one hand that's a good thing. But the flip side is that people are seriously gullible, and will swallow the most bizarre delusions, if delivered earnestly enough. These are the people who believe in Pizzagate, the Piltdown Man, blood libels, Satanic ritual abuse, evil clowns, that the presence of wizards in neighborhoods cause people to become sterile, that the world will end on Kelusse 15 at two hours to sunsdown, and that the Martian War Machines will be responsible. They're altogether too easy to cheat or scam ... and altogether too willing to tear suspected cheaters and scammers to pieces, if the bastards are outed.
96) Religion is omnipresent to an overbearing degree. Prayer is a part of all business. Attending daily services is a must, and the truly pious squeeze more in. No home is without a niche to the gods/ancestors/spirits, and the poor beggar themselves for candles and offerings. Incredibly arcane -- and near-trivial -- facets of the faith are exhaustively contentious and continually debated, and riots have started over whether their god has two natures but only one will, or two wills and only one nature. (That particular riot ended when the two sides joined forces to attack the faction holding that the god had an equally balanced number of wills and natures.) An economically draining and disproportionate number are in the clergy. They're aware that outlanders hold to different faiths, and don't harass them for it, but it's all very tiresome.
96b) Come to that, take just about any aspect of life -- sports, politics, literature, leisure pastimes -- and apply the same treatment. Everyone reads all the time, no one's considered educated or a grown-up without being familiar with the entirety of the culture's literary canon, constant debates over New Works vs Traditional Works, fist fights over whether the newest translation was botched, people who can't whip out quotes at the drop of a pin derided for being bumpkins, society coming to a screeching halt when the Greatest Living Author comes out with a new book. Etc.
97) The society's pretty straightlaced, nose to the grindstone, work work work. But at quitting time on Friday (or the equivalent thereof), all hell breaks loose. Everyone gets hammered, everyone gets laid, everyone dives into a completely over the top bacchanal. Kick the gendarmes in the jimmies, smash windows and furniture in the ensuing drunken stupor, empty your gun into the ceiling, throw up on your boss after pointing at her husband's crotch and laughing, it's all laughed off: "Whiskey, eh." At dawn the party stops, the cleanup begins, and everyone makes a point of not mentioning it.
95) Lying is a serious sin in this culture, and on the one hand that's a good thing. But the flip side is that people are seriously gullible, and will swallow the most bizarre delusions, if delivered earnestly enough. These are the people who believe in Pizzagate, the Piltdown Man, blood libels, Satanic ritual abuse, evil clowns, that the presence of wizards in neighborhoods cause people to become sterile, that the world will end on Kelusse 15 at two hours to sunsdown, and that the Martian War Machines will be responsible. They're altogether too easy to cheat or scam ... and altogether too willing to tear suspected cheaters and scammers to pieces, if the bastards are outed.
96) Religion is omnipresent to an overbearing degree. Prayer is a part of all business. Attending daily services is a must, and the truly pious squeeze more in. No home is without a niche to the gods/ancestors/spirits, and the poor beggar themselves for candles and offerings. Incredibly arcane -- and near-trivial -- facets of the faith are exhaustively contentious and continually debated, and riots have started over whether their god has two natures but only one will, or two wills and only one nature. (That particular riot ended when the two sides joined forces to attack the faction holding that the god had an equally balanced number of wills and natures.) An economically draining and disproportionate number are in the clergy. They're aware that outlanders hold to different faiths, and don't harass them for it, but it's all very tiresome.
96b) Come to that, take just about any aspect of life -- sports, politics, literature, leisure pastimes -- and apply the same treatment. Everyone reads all the time, no one's considered educated or a grown-up without being familiar with the entirety of the culture's literary canon, constant debates over New Works vs Traditional Works, fist fights over whether the newest translation was botched, people who can't whip out quotes at the drop of a pin derided for being bumpkins, society coming to a screeching halt when the Greatest Living Author comes out with a new book. Etc.
97) The society's pretty straightlaced, nose to the grindstone, work work work. But at quitting time on Friday (or the equivalent thereof), all hell breaks loose. Everyone gets hammered, everyone gets laid, everyone dives into a completely over the top bacchanal. Kick the gendarmes in the jimmies, smash windows and furniture in the ensuing drunken stupor, empty your gun into the ceiling, throw up on your boss after pointing at her husband's crotch and laughing, it's all laughed off: "Whiskey, eh." At dawn the party stops, the cleanup begins, and everyone makes a point of not mentioning it.
Shipyard Locked
How long do I have?
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Their social gatherings have a strict "no politics" rule, but the definition of what is 'political' is confusingly vague, leaving helpless outlanders to frequently make faux pas. Attendees will constantly make direct or barely veiled references to well-known hot-button issues or fraught factions and when asked about the inconsistency will insist, "Well I never, THAT issue is self-evidently settled, no reasonable person could debate about it, and thus it is not political. Are you sure YOU are a reasonable person? I think you are the one bringing politics into this." To make matters worse, there will usually be someone at the gathering who will say basically the same thing, but for the opposing position. 
Ladybird
RIV
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Be the chaos you want to see in the world.
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Commital to any one outcome is considered to be simpleminded ignorance or maliciously self serving. Trying to get a straight answer is like trying to pin down an politican and giving a straight yes or no is considered the act of an idiot, narcissist or sociopath.
Ravenswing
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100) The society highly values the ability to withstand pain. Ordeals are rites of passage, and torture the answer to just about everything. Showing fear under threat is shameful, keeping silent under torture is what separates persons from non-persons, and only silent deaths are considered honorable.
101) The culture's never shaken its nomadic roots. Buildings -- and they're never more than two stories -- are constructed with only three walls; the fourth is invariably of heavy canvas, leather, wicker or some other impermanent substance ... wattle-and-daub at the utmost. It's considered decadent to own more than you can carry in a wagon, or any one object too heavy to put in a packsaddle. The mark of how close your folk adhere to cultural purity is whether or not you go through with burning down your entire city once every twelve years -- as was done in the old days -- and rebuild it a mile thataway. Large-scale industry is disparaged in favor of handicrafts.
101) The culture's never shaken its nomadic roots. Buildings -- and they're never more than two stories -- are constructed with only three walls; the fourth is invariably of heavy canvas, leather, wicker or some other impermanent substance ... wattle-and-daub at the utmost. It's considered decadent to own more than you can carry in a wagon, or any one object too heavy to put in a packsaddle. The mark of how close your folk adhere to cultural purity is whether or not you go through with burning down your entire city once every twelve years -- as was done in the old days -- and rebuild it a mile thataway. Large-scale industry is disparaged in favor of handicrafts.
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Shipyard Locked
How long do I have?
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101) They use the vandalized art of conquered cultures as their battle standards.
AsenRG
#FuckWotC #PlayNonDnDGames
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So, Twitter State
?And sometimes without
!So, the educated society in Ancient China
?Do they make an exception for "fuck yo momma" last words
?
Giganotosaurus
Dreaming of Electric Sheep
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I'd love to but the local health department would take exception.
