Cultures

A culture is the way of life of a town. It shapes how its people are named, what they wear, what their town and its government are called, and how they talk to each other.

Cultures come from culture packs. Without a culture pack, villagers have no culture and are named by their region, as in MCA. The game shows them as “Village Common”.

What You Notice

• Names. People of a culture get names from its tradition. Some cultures pass down family names, and some build them from a parent’s name, such as “Sigurdsson”.
• Town and faction names. A town founded by a culture gets a name in its style, and so does its government.
• Clothes. Each culture prefers some clothes and materials. A town that has not proclaimed a livery uses the livery of its culture.
• Speech. With a culture voice, villagers use their culture’s own greetings and words in conversations. See Conversations & Dialogue.

Where Culture Comes From

A culture belongs to a community, not to a species. An elf raised in a fishing town of the fisherfolk is one of the fisherfolk.

• A child takes the culture of their parents.
• A newcomer takes the culture of the town they settle in.
• A town takes the culture of the first people who settle it, or of the founding profile it starts with.

Cultures Change Over Time

People slowly take on the culture of the people around them: their town, their partner and close friends, and, for children, their parents. An adult who moves to a town of another culture takes on most of it in about three years. Children change faster.

A person can carry more than one culture. A villager raised by parents of two different cultures can speak and dress a little like both.

A town also shapes its people through what it builds. Some cultures have peoples within them, such as merchant houses and knightly courts. A town full of markets and docks draws its people toward the merchant ways. Its people keep their culture.

Settings

In the Switchboard, Systems > Cultures turns cultures on or off for the world. With the Peoples dial at Roots and Cultures, the Cultures tab chooses which cultures new founders can be raised in, and how often.

For Pack Authors

Cultures, names, subcultures and clothing are data. See How Cultures Work.