Thread "On Tsung-Dao society...." in forum "Harkovast- the forum "

Posted at 2:04PM, Apr. 11, 2009

Some of the information here may have already been stated, in the topic on Tsung-Dao origins, sorry for any repeats! Also sorry for any typos, I wrote this out quick so there be the odd mistake!
Hope you enjoy learning a bit about our lizardy friends….

Tsung-Dao are a reptilian race associated with the magical elements of steel and life.
This magic manifests itself in the remarkable abilities Tsung-Dao are able to harness through meditation and martial arts (with regard to life magic,) and in the incredible swords their samuraiâs wield in battle (metal magic, obviously.)
There are physically large and strong, and have scaly skin which makes them tough to injure.
They are not actually cold blooded, but their bodies are worse at regulating their own temperature then other races, making it difficult for them to travel in very hot or very cold regions.

Tsung-Dao society is strange and baffling to outsiders.
They have no centralised government, or indeed any formalised system of government at all.
In times of peace, decisions are made by councils of local elders, those considered wise, trusted and spiritually enlightened.
Tsung-Dao do not use money, or really engage in formalised trade. Instead, their society is very communal, with the members all working towards a common purpose.
Tsung-Dao seek order above all things, both within themselves (which they try to achieve through meditation) and in the society around them. They very rarely break the rules of their society and take joy in working towards the good of the community. The minor infractions that do occur are normally dealt with by public shaming of the guilty party (who in most cases, confesses and feels great remorse for having shamed themselves.)
Due to the rareness of very serious crimes, the punishments for these are normally very draconian, death being most common.
It must be understood though that Tsung-Dao do not obey their laws out of a fear of punishment, they do so because it simply does not occur to them to do otherwise. After all, breaking rules would just make everything more chaotic, an idea that most of them find frightening in and of itself!
The Tsung-Dao enjoy routine, a day where you do the same thing as yesterday is a day well spent! Mostly this will involve working cleaning, making things or most importantly farming (either in the paddy fields to get rice or in the insect farms).
Water clocks are commonly used to regulate the time of day so meals can be taken at the same time, in large communal dinning halls.
For relaxation, Tsung-Dao enjoy meditation in search of spiritual insight, practicing various martial art disciplines and taking part in very formalised and rigidly structured plays and dances.

Outsiders will mostly notice that when you stay with the Tsung-Dao they are friendly, generous, welcoming but most of all incredibly boring!
Suggestions of deviating from the days normal activities or of rowdy behaviour will be met with blank or embarrassed looks.

This focus on order makes the Tsung-Dao society peaceful, but also rather uninspired. Though they are as clever as any other people, innovation is relatively rare and this has left them technologically somewhat backward compared to other races like the Nymus or Darsai.

In battle, the Tsung-Dao army is largely a militia, often equipped and trained especially for the battle or war they are needed for.
Fortunately due to their great strength, natural inclination towards order and martial arts training, Tsung-Dao can be adapted to fearsome soldiers relatively easily.
Many make use of iron shod staffs, spears and slings in battle.
The only full time warriors in a Tsung-Dao army are the Samurai.
These are elite warriors who act as constant protectors of the Tsung-Dao people.
They are equipped with army which, while not up the standards of Darsai plate armour, gives good protection and are also the only Tsung-Dao to carry swords (for a none samurai to use a sword would bring great shame on Tsung-Dao in question.)
These blades are light, but incredibly sharp, and combined with the samuraiâs life time of training can make short work of even heavily armoured foes.
In times of war the Samuraiâs act as generals and leaders, as well as elite shock troops and cavalry. When commanding an army of Tsung-Dao, they can always be confident of their orders being carried out!

In recent times there have been some Tsung-Dao, often younger individuals, who have become frustrated at their lot in lives, and have become dangerously rebellious. Some have even broken away, forming fierce bandit gangs, or travelling to other nations to work as mercenaries.
There is even some talk of rogue samurai (ronin) who have forsaking their sacred duties and begun using their skills for their own personal gain.
Some of the elders fear that the West may have a hand in these events, a theory that seems born out by new that The Heretic has been seen in the Tsung-Dao lands once againâ¦

(There ya go, lots of lovely lizardy information! Next I'm going to try and write something about Junlocks. Junlocks are cool….)

Posted at 5:04AM, Apr. 12, 2009

I just thought of something I forgot to include in this essay….

Laying eggs! Doh!

Yes, Tsung-Dao lay eggs, which makes giving birth a lot easier on the mothers!
They lay one egg at a time and these are then cared for by the community in special hatcheries.
When they hatch they are breast fed by their mothers and also fed chewed up food (which they can eat right away after hatching.)
Children are cared for by the community as a whole, with different people being assigned to care for them at different times.
Tsung-Dao children still know who their parents and direct family are, but consider the rest of the settlements adults to be an extended net work of teachers, uncles and aunts.
Children are encouraged to take part in group activities (meditation, formal dances, martial arts training etc) which are very formally organised and rigidly structured. Of course to a Tsung-Dao child, this type of tightly controled activity is very enjoyable.

Posted at 11:04PM, Apr. 14, 2009

Buncha commie hippies, that's what they are. Hillary Clinton would love them.

Posted at 4:04AM, Apr. 15, 2009

Its not a total love in Wordweaver!

I just remembered some other things about them I forgot to include…

They Tsung-Dao have no issue with homosexuality and consider samesex relationships just as valid as hetrosexual ones, however they are very prudish about sex.
In a society where public physical contact makes people uncomfortable, any overt display of affection would be considered to be in very poor taste.
Sex outside of marriage is a huge scandal in Tsung-Dao society and someone having an affair would leave them utterly aghast an horrified!

Posted at 8:08AM, Aug. 6, 2009

Thought I would ask some questions to clairifythe situation because you are useing cultures as an inspiration they are not as they are in history.

Since the Tsung-Dao samurai is a protector of villages and not a fuedal lord who owns the village and the land around it, does he get a portion of food based on the fact that he works as a protector?

Does a suamurai protect only one village or mulitiple villages? Are there large villages with more than one protector?

Does the samurai also justify his existance by being a trainer for the villagers?

Since the community seems to pick those who are best for the job I am guessing that the child of a samurai is not always going to follow in the footsteps of its parent. Do they do try outs to train the next generation of samurai then?

Now since the samurai in this setting are not fuedal lords who own land. Ronin, which typically means landless samurai, in this case would mean a samurai without a village or mercenary sicne he works fo hire. Am I right?

Sorry to bombard you with questions, but I would like to know more specifics. The culture seems to be a mix of feudal japan and tibetan or chinese with a little dash of modern moralities.

Posted at 1:08PM, Aug. 19, 2009

Snowhunter- yes, the Tsung-Dao are very communal so happily feed and shelter the Samurai. Sharing just comes naturally to these guys.

There would indeed be varying numbers of Samurai depending on the size of the settlement.

Xou-Sen, the town they are travelling too in the comic at the time of writing this, is protected by 3 samurai at the momment.

Samurai's do indeed provide training for villiages since they can provide an effective militia. They are the guardians of all the Tsung-Dao know-how when it comes to warfare, after all.

A Samurai warrior of appropriate skill would take on apprentices to train as new samurai from all the availiable hopefuls, so yes, a samurai tryout is an appropriate description.

Oooh you are spot on about the Ronin! A rogue samurai who doesn't defend a particular area or fights for his own reasons apart from society is indeed a Ronin (funny, I was just thinking about this today for some reason.) Some Ronin are known to be brave warriors and heroes who travel to battle evil and go where they are needed, others are honourless thugs or mercenaries seeking to make a fortune in foriegn wars.

Good questions! I think you have a pretty firm grasp of the concepts as your assumptions all seem pretty close to what I was thinking.