Life with the elves

the elves haven't really tried to oppress anybody they've just showed up and done their own thing as if there weren't any people there doing things already. which is bad enough

## elf misuse of land

elves have cut down trees and altered the muck to create waterways to carry their boats around, which has had subtle but noticeable effects on the lifecycle of the forest and its natural inhabitants. they also build elf-towns, which are even worse and which keep threatening to grow.

### legal recourse

birdfolk have a preexisting tradition of writing down contracts and other agreements and generally just To Record What Is True (they also have a matching tradition of *not* writing down fiction, which is only performed orally) - fortunately the elves can often be forced to recognize such a written record as representing some form of Prior Ownership or something. the important thing is, a lawreader can dig up an old record of a time a member of his clan hosted an elf on a fishing expedition in a specific area in this season of this year, and the elves will agree that this means that clearly his clan was in charge of that specific area at that time, and therefore his clan can now prevent the elves from knocking down the trees in that area to build a suburb for their elf-city.

the elves prefer coastal sites anyway, being a boat people, so successful bird lawsuits increasingly force them to build on stilts out into the ocean as their settlements expand

## changes in lifestyle

### migration

people used to be more migratory, shifting between a few different favored nesting areas in their territory to avoid eating too much in one specific area and exhausting the food. however, elves will tend to view you abandoning your house for a few months as you *abandoning your house*, and move in while you're gone; even forcing them out with lawsuits eats up time and it's a huge pain in the ass, so it's easier to just settle down in one place, although this means more work in managing where you send your gatherers and foragers and when to avoid overworking any specific area while still supporting everybody easily.

### housing

during the migratory days it was usual to build more temporary structures, since they only needed to last a few months at a time. floors would be woven directly between branches of trees, and curtains and screens would be mounted around as needed. settling down in one place meant replacing the floors every few months anyway as they wore out; additionally there came influence from the elves, who built sturdy houses with the wood of the trees they cut and shaped. the birdfolk's new permanent settlements began to be built with wooden frameworks and floorboards, although still with curtains and screens instead of solid walls.

### foodways

there is no farming in the swamp and there was very little gathering of wild grain to grind - the grasses that grow in the Field of Reeds aren't suited to it - so there was no flour until the elves brought in their imported elf-grain. this is the only real inroad elves have made on bird foodways tbh & although it's imported, it's imported as a staple for the elves so it's not super expensive so it has become pretty common. they don't do real baking because they don't do real ovens - they have a specific relationship with fire - but they have grown quite fond of elf-grain dough treats.

### education

the elves don't really see the birdfolk as people, but/and, apparently for funsies and/or as part of their cultural ideal of themselves as the caretakers of nature, at least a couple of elf-towns have begun to run schools for birdfolk children. they don't actually require attendance at these schools, but the birdfolk highly value literacy and education and being able to keep accurate records of things, so they send their kids off to learn elf-language more often than not, especially if they live just outside the elf-town themselves. the schools operate four days a week, and the students board overnight; over the three-day weekend, the students fly over to the bird-town, even those whose families live further away - those students will board with a local family and be a foster-fledgling during their education. local bird education is provided to the children over the weekend, to counteract some of the nonsense the elves will doubtless teach them.

#### writing

the native birdfolk language & its written expression in the sacred script of haidodoji are still very much alive. most birdfolk speak elvish, even if they weren't sent to elf-school, but a lot of them think it's funny to pretend that they don't. you do not write elvish words in haidodoji's script. you can try to write birdfolk words in elvish script but good luck with that tbqh, there are sounds you have to have a bird's head on to make *rightly* and even though the birdfolk also have a variant you can use when you have your human face on instead, there are still sounds that are hard to transliterate.

haidodoji's script is ONLY for writing 1. birdfolk words & 2. things that are true

elf writing isn't sacred so theoretically one could write things that are not true in it. coming up with fictional stories to tell aloud is fine so writing them down in elf writing is probably also fine, if you assume that haidodoji's rule is only for haidodoji's script in particular. poetry is kind of a form of truth so it might be okay to write poetry down in any form of script, although it should probably be spoken anyway

### technology and magic, but what's the difference

there are a few ways in which elf-magic or craftsmanship (but we repeat) has resulted in better technology than what birds produce themselves. for one thing, elves can make glass and metal; clear glass items are highly desirable due to being pretty and also having high potential spirit-realm power, being solidified air. there's a lot more clear glass around a birdfolk home now than there ever was before; the really nice drinkware is glassware instead of pottery cups (and the everyday drinkware is pottery cups instead of cut and plugged cane).