Arisari

The Arisari emerged in the past century as a quiet but powerful response to C'Naelia’s rigid class systems, magical hierarchies, and gender expectations - particularly in kingdoms like Phaedorin, A’Nota, and Treyshill, where conformity and lineage are prized above personal truth.

The Arisari are those who choose to divest themselves of prescribed identities - rejecting noble titles, expected gender roles, traditional religious obligations, and even magical destinies. They call themselves “Unbound,” believing true power lies in freedom of self.

The Arisari are a nomadic, decentralised subculture made up of:

• Former nobility who abandoned titles.
• Exiled mages who refused Council mandates.
• Disillusioned Serathi, both Valen and Kaen.
• Warriors tired of blood, and artisans seeking meaning beyond profit.
• Many gender-nonconforming individuals, who find no place in C'Naelia's binary expectations.

They are united not by ethnicity, status, or magic, but by a shared philosophy of living authentically outside the roles assigned to them.

• Identity is fluid – Names, roles, even genders may change during one’s life.
• Honour is found in honesty, not lineage or law.
• Magic is sacred when it flows freely, not when it's controlled.
• Community must be chosen, not inherited – Arisari build chosen families.
• They refuse to kneel to any god, not out of disrespect, but because they believe divinity lies in becoming.

Thread Marking:

Every Arisari weres a corded bracelet made of different coloured threads. Each colour represents a chapter of their life (birth name, important decisions, heartbreak, awakening, departure from their old life). They re-braid it every year to reflect who they are becoming.

Mask Festivals:

Once a year, Arisari enclaves hold 'The Shedding', a masked festival where participants can speak and act anonymously, free of judgement. It's a way of processing grief, desire, rage, or secrets - safely, communally. They create their masks by hand, decorating is they wish or they can be left blank. After they have spoken and released their confessions and secret thoughts , they then cast their mask into the fire. Symbolising renewal, rebirth.

Names of Becoming:

Names are never permanent among the Arisari. You earn new names through deeds, change, or spiritual revelation. A single person may have been known by a dozen different names in their lifetime.

The Unscriptures:

Instead of religious texts, the Arisari collect unscriptures—journals, personal truths, poems, and dreams - stored communally. These are regarded as sacred records of human authenticity.

Although nomadic by nature, the Arisari have semi-permanent enclaves scattered across the Southern Kingdoms.

They are hidden sanctuaries known only to members, sympathetic locals, or those who’ve been guided to them.

Enclaves are often seasonally abandoned and reclaimed, part of the Arisari belief that nothing in life is meant to remain static.

Living Spaces:

• Arisari tend to live in foldable silk-cloth tents, dyed with natural pigments and woven with Aether-thread. They’re lightweight, weatherproof, and easy to collapse.
• Some travel in brightly adorned caravans, each one a personalised mobile home painted with symbols of life’s chapters.
• Communal structures are often made from rescued or repurposed materials—stone, fallen trees, broken carts, and even cast-off noble furniture.
  

Fashion is expression, transformation, and reclamation of self.

• Common elements include: Layered robes and wraps, always asymmetrical, never constrictive.
• Fabrics dyed with natural pigments and magic-charged minerals, giving them a shimmer like memory caught in silk.
• Threadmarks are worn on wrists, ankles, or braided into hair - coloured threads representing emotional and personal milestones.
• Body paint (natural ochres, crushed petals, powdered stones) is used to mark identity or rituals, often temporary and symbolic.
• Jewellery is usually found or traded - bones, feathers, glass beads, and tarnished coins are common.

Arisari reject fashion as status. Nothing is "men's" or "women's"—clothing is a conversation with the self.

• Beauty: Radiates from authenticity. Scars, tattoos, mismatched eyes - even wild hair - are celebrated as stories worn on the body.
• Gender: Entirely fluid. Many adopt non‐binary names or pronouns; some shift presentation seasonally, marking each change with a thread‐rebraiding.

Courtship & Relationships:

• Consent is Sacred: Ritual consent questions must be answered before any intimate act.
• Chosen Bonds: Monogamy, polyamory or solitary life - all are equally valid. Couples, triads and communal nests form by mutual calling, not by ceremony alone.
• Gift of Unscriptures: Exchanging passages of one’s private writings is the highest declaration of affection.

• Feared by the Aetheri Council, who see them as dangerously unpredictable.
• Mocked by nobility as vagabonds or cowards.
• Revered in secret by those trapped in roles they didn’t choose.
• Some Serathi see them as heretics, others as lost kin.