Waldren

Waldren is from the continent Senfara. It spoke the common tongue. It showed up and took over various places in the continent of Tirónar during a period known as the Waldren Occupation.

## History

### Origin

Waldren's culture is based on irl Europe during the age of mercantilism

Waldren originated from a country in northern Senfara. The cold, Scanindavian-esque climate of this region homeland made resources difficult to come by, and foreign goods were in high demand among the upper classes. In addition, a recent explosion of development in the region had caused large swaths of deforestation, making lumber another valuable resource.

When the Waldren Trade Enterprise built a handful of ships and sailed west through the rocky, previously uncharted islands between Senfara and Tirónar, their goal was to profit upon these two factors.

### Waldren Occupation

> *See More: Waldren Occupation*
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## Modern Day

The Waldren Trade Enterprise does sorta still exist in the Modern Era.

It’s a very limited existence, though; they aren’t anywhere close to the power they held during the Waldren Occupation. They mostly operate within a few countries in Senfara and have little influence outside of that region.

## Culture

### Magic

The people of the Waldren Trading Enterprise were very skeptical of magic. This explains why Waldren abandoned Duilintinn after taking what few mundane resources of value the land had to offer. To them, magic was not a valuable resource.

Depending on who you asked, most people who came to Duilintinn with the traders would tell you that magic was either a complete myth or a dangerous force of savagery. As the settlers left behind expanded further into Duilintinn, this belief spread even as far west as the Draoidh Valley.

As a result, mages became a cultural entity unto themselves during the Waldren Occupation. Like most minority groups in Duilintinn during the Interim Years, mages tended to stick together in isolated communities. Accidentally unlocking one’s magic in a non-magic community could mean anything from social ostracization to harmful “corrective” treatments.

(*Disclaimer: this is directly from my notes, did not edit, whoops)*

The people of Waldren didn’t believe in magic because they experienced very little of it in their homeland. While people living in Tirónar, the epicenter of the connection between the Fae Realm and the Mortal Realm, quickly discovered the concept of unlocking ones’ magic thanks to sheer magical exposure, the people of Waldren, which had almost no Fae Gardens in its homeland, did not.

Of course, strange, powerful, dangerous, inexplicable things would come up from time to time, especially from the other continents that were engaged in the tug-of-war for economic trade power that Waldren was a part of, but Waldren was very good at "othering". As in, "if we don't understand it, then it's dangerous and bad and we need to avoid it rather than admit there's something out there that we don't get/other people might have." While this perspective is very short-sighted and indeed played a significant role in how Waldren was eventually kicked out of Tirónar, it also fostered a lot of nationalism that made expensive trade ventures easy to fund, sorta like how the Cold War kicked the Space Race into gear. So when Waldren finally showed up in Tirónar, they were a nationalist, internally unified group of people who did not like accepting things outside of their control or understanding. So suddenly finding a continent full of ppl who (albeit still in extreme crisis post-dragon-war) saw magic as something as normal as the rain, though with varying perspectives about its use, makes Waldren go into denial mode.

I think if the dragon war hadn't decimated the continent and Waldren was fighting large groups of mages instead of occupying the land of already-scattered-people, things might have been different, but with how little resistance they faced until Grancinco and Haneul, it was easy enough for Waldren to just blatantly ignore/rationalize away magic by calling it superstitious nonsense or even blaming the consumption of flora found in the region, as if they were making them hallucinate or something. You'd be surprised at how easy it is to get a nationalist group of people with that sort of internal unity to just blatantly refuse to see something that's right in front of their nose. Think Harry-Potter-Ministry-of-Magic type nonsense.

This perspective slowly shifted over time as people of Waldren ancestry in Tirónar started accidentally unlocking magic, and that´s when things got complicated. After a certain point, it became less of an argument about whether or not magic is real and whether or not magic is dangerous or evil or something. Like a civilization versus nature type thing, arguing that magic shouldn't be used because it's unnatural or against order or something. Like I said, that's when that sort of stuff started getting a bit more complex and I haven't thought quite as hard as I'd have liked yet about how people perceived mages in the latter days of Waldren's rule and the Interim Years.

### Weddings and Power Structures

*Disclaimer: this bit is directly copied from my notes and not edited at all sorry*

Waldren was a bunch of control freaks with a thing for established power structures telling the people below them what to do. Arranged marriages would absolutely fit their particular gig.

Marriage ceremonies were not celebrations of the individuals getting married and a vow by the families to respect that, but a final symbolic handshake on a deal between two families that have deemed each other worthy of long-term association with each other through marriage. The individuals actually getting married had very little to do with it; they were dressed up and celebrated, of course, but more like how you dress up a horse for a fancy show, or redesign your house right before putting it on the housing market. It's showing them off as symbolic objects representing each family in a greater transaction, rather than a individual moment specifically for them.

That's not to say couples in Waldren didn't marry for love. However, families could put a stop to marriages they didn't approve of very easily, and arranged marriages were very common. However, the individuals in question were brought into this conversation. They were expected to participate in the discussion about why they believe a marriage with so-and-so would be good, practically and/or emotionally. Waldren was very bureaucratic in that way. It emphasized these powerful structures in authority, yes, but that respect and authority went all the way down the chain of command, and those in power were expected to listen to those underneath them and acknowledge their advice. In many ways, this is what Duilintinn's Noble House government system was based on.

It's not just "I'm in charge so you have to do what i say," but "I have more experience in this matter and therefore you should respect the authority that gives me." In situations where someone lower in the chain of command is recognized to have more experience in a specific matter (such as local officials knowing their constituents better than higher level politicians, or a bride-to-be knowing certain traits that would make a spouse bad for her future marriage), their opinion is very respected. The upper authorities still make the final call, but Waldren's empire would have crumbled MUCH earlier if they didn't really double-down on listening to the little guy as well. Many of Waldren's failures on the continent where the people rebelled and kicked them out, were seen as prime examples of what NOT to do in this regard.

Oh and wedding rings in waldren were a thing to represent a sort of "seal the deal" thing, like putting a fancy wax stamp on a missive or something. Divorce was NOT a thing unless you wanted the other family to be super mad at yours forever and ever.

Wedding vows were exchanged by PARENTS

### Calendar

*Disclaimer: again, this bit is directly copied from my notes and not edited at all. i got lazy. sue me. i'll fix it later.*

Waldren had its own calendar, with Year 0 counted a few centuries prior to that of the Duil calendar and including a period of documented history similar to “B.C.” By contrast, little of certainty is known about the historical period prior to the rise of Feadhainn due to the destruction of the Dragon War, so the Duil calendar doesn’t have an equivalent period of documented history.

I’m not entirely sure why the Feadhainn calendar survived to become the established calendar of Duilintinn, especially since Waldren would have tried to impose their own system upon the lands they controlled. Perhaps Haneul started using it, keeping it alive when they successfully resisted Waldren’s imperialism. Perhaps the calendar made a resurgence after the period of salutary neglect after Waldren stopped trying to profit off of the region.