Axten
Overview
The Axten people are a heritage of elementals with their origins in the Empire of the Butterfly’s Wingbeat, where theirs was the dominant culture up until the Empire’s fall. Elementals of Axten heritage usually have tan skin, dark brown to black hair, green to brown-gold eyes, and a birth connection to Terra or Pyro.Culture
Common Dress code
Traditional Axten dress from During the Darkness includes skirts that fall past the knees, sleeveless poncho-like tops, and cloth wrapped around the limbs for warmth during colder months for all genders. Most women would also wrap their midriffs, especially during pregnancy, while most men would wrap their torsos from elbow-height up, not including the shoulders, and remaining depictions of androgynous individuals show them doing both or neither.
Art & Architecture
It was Axten elementals who first harnessed Magic to build the great step-pyramids of the Flutter Plains, designed to reach as close to the Dreamspace as possible. These pyramids are covered in blocky, thick-lined carvings of daily life, the gods, and the wilds. Though they were once painted in brilliant color, the vibrancy of most surviving art has long since faded.
Foods & Cuisine
Alongside the Mayslan, Inkal, and Attonan heritages, Axten elementals were the first to cultivate mak-ze, one of the modern world’s most essential grains, second only to riceflower. Mak-ze features prominently in Axten art that depicts cooking, usually being pounded into a coarse flour that was then mixed with water, alcohol, and honey to make a lightly leavened bread. An everyday food, this bread was usually served alongside fire-cooked poultry like wild Evermarsh cockerels or Horn geese.
Ideals
Gender Ideals
‘Gender’ in traditional Axten terms was something ordained by the Gods: it wouldn’t always match what you looked like, and surviving art supports this idea. There are carvings of partially nude priests, both male and female born, dressed in what we think are men’s and women’s clothing. It is possible that this undefined idea of gender stemmed from the Empire of the Butterfly’s Wingbeat’s belief in the Fae, a race of genderless spirits that lived in the wilds. A similarly fluid idea of gender can be found in Mayslan, Inkal, and Attonan ethnic tradition.
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