How people eat, dress, live, work and rest in each region of the continent. Every region derives its customs, coherently, from geography, climate and what the land gives.
I. THE CLERICAL ORDER (centre of the continent)
Aurum Romana + Vallia Sacra (the Pontifical State and the Valleys)
Food
- Breakfast: flatbread (Pane Coronato) with oil, basil and fresh white cheese. Strong dark coffee. Fresh fruit in summer.
- Supper: bread, cheese, cold cuts, a light soup. Wine from Vallia Sacra — liturgical red, cut with water.
- Feast days: Aureline pasticcio, paschal lamb, fogazza dusted with symbolic Holy Ash.
Dress
- Urban middle class: Victorian-Italian. Men: three-piece suit, frock coat, medium top hat, polished black shoes. Women: ankle-length dress, moderate corset, veiled hat.
- Workers: white shirt, dark trousers, waistcoat, flat cap.
- Clergy: black cassock and white collar for the Liturgical; red cassock for Canons; red mantle for Cardinals.
- Peasants (Vallia Sacra): plainer clothing, straw hat in summer, heavy coat in winter, practical boots.
Housing
- Aurum Roma: four- and five-storey blocks in brick and grey stone. Interior courtyards. Wood heating in winter. Gas lighting, with Hashmalite in the better streets.
- Villages of Vallia Sacra: low stone houses under red tile. Kitchen garden and hen coop. A cellar for the wine.
- Monasteries and religious houses: a central cloister, austere dormitories.
Leisure
- Sunday: morning mass, a long family lunch, a walk in the afternoon.
- Public cafés: reading the newspaper — the Gazeta Aurelina — political talk, cards.
- Theatres: opera and drama in Aureline Latin. In Aurum Roma the Teatro Coronato sets the standard.
- Sunday wine: non-negotiable.
- Feast days: procession, solemn mass, family banquet.
Ferrum Alpina + Schola Coronata + Sal Pradelica (the peripheral States)
Regional adaptations
- Schola Coronata: an in-between diet. Academic life means university refectories, student beer halls, coffee taken beside a library.
- Sal Pradelica: freshwater fish and mutton, and salt more visibly present than anywhere else. Coffee with milk and salt is a local habit.
Working life in the mines (the Broken Glass)
- Hashmalite miners work twelve-hour shifts. Company housing in mining villages. Meals on the shift. High mortality.
- Heretical resistance grows quietly. Unions are banned; meetings happen in beer halls far from the pithead.
II. KÖNIGSMARK (the north)
Cultural base: Germanic and Nordic, out of climatic necessity. Food heavy in calories against the winter; a closed, strong, martial society.
Food
- Breakfast: dark rye bread, butter, cheese, smoked sausage, boiled eggs. Strong coffee or tea.
- Lunch: a roast — pork, beef, boar in season — potato in every form, cabbage, pickles, dark bread. Dark beer or mead.
- Supper: a heavy soup of pea, lentil, mushroom or smoked fish. Cold meat, bread, beer.
- Feasts: whole lamb or boar on a spit, beer in jugs, military songs, ritual toasts.
Dress
- Junkers (the aristocracy): military uniform even at home. Long black coat of heavy wool, black boots, felt hat with a plume. In the field: a white wolfskin cloak.
- Königsburg middle class: Victorian-Prussian. Frock coat, severe top hat, cane.
- Peasants: heavy wool, coat lined with fur, fur cap in winter.
- Clergy of the Royal Church of the North: military-ecclesiastical dress. Grey coat with the Nordic double cross, wide belt, leather hat.
- Women: heavy wool dress, shawl, long mantle. The aristocracy in Prussian-Victorian style.
Housing
- Town houses: grey stone or dark brick. Steeply pitched roofs for the snow. Wood stoves. Double windows.
- Villages: low houses with a loft. A communal oven and a smokehouse for the meat.
- Junker castles: towers, battlements, a fortified enclosure. A central hall of arms. A chapel of Mikahel.
Leisure
- The hunt: an aristocratic tradition. Boar, deer, bear, wolf — the last by royal licence.
- Winter games: sledging, skating on frozen lakes, skiing.
- The beer hall: the centre of male communal life. Politics, military song, cards.
- Feast days: the winter solstice with a public bonfire.
- The Royal Church of the North: mass in Nordsprek and Ecclesial Latin. Warlike hymns.
III. VYKHRADIA (the continental east)
Cultural base: Slavic, built heavily on meat and cattle. Horse, cavalry, steppe and plateau.
Food
- Breakfast: kasha with honey or milk. Black bread and butter. Strong black tea from the samovar.
- Feasts: a whole roast suckling pig, a whole lamb, an overflowing samovar, musicians, dancing in a ring.
Dress
- Magnates: a long coat in the Polish-Hungarian manner, embroidered in gold. High black boots. Fur cap in winter. A ceremonial sabre at the belt.
- Light cavalry: riding dress — short coat, leather breeches, long boots, fur cap with a plume. Lance and sabre.
- Serf peasants: coarse cotton. A felt coat in winter, felt boots. A headscarf for women, a fur cap for men.
Housing
- Magnate castles: enormous by continental standards, with a central courtyard, chapel, stables, the great house, servants' quarters. An entire village around them.
- Vykhrad itself: mixed architecture — magnate palaces in Slavic baroque, civic buildings in an eastern Victorian style.
Leisure
- The horse: everything is done on horseback. Hunting, racing, drill.
- Drinking in company: codified, with ritual toasts.
- Big game: bear, wolf, boar, elk.
IV. BRYTONIA (the island archipelago)
Cultural base: full insular Victorian. Industrial, maritime, tea, and decadence.
Food
- Lunch: roast beef, baked potato, peas, brown gravy. Mutton with mint jelly.
- Afternoon tea: an aristocratic tradition that the middle class took up. Tea, scones, cakes, thin sandwiches.
- Typical drinks: black tea above all, bitter beer, urban gin, whisky in the Highlands.
Dress
- Rural aristocracy: tweed in the country. Frock coat and top hat in town.
- Industrial middle class: an impeccable three-piece suit. Always a top hat.
- Workers: shirt, belt, trousers and the insular flat cap.
- Aristocratic women: the full Victorian dress, corset, parasol, decorated hat.
- Solar clergy: black habit and collar.
Housing
- Town houses (Brithon, Manchaster): red-brick terraces. Three storeys plus attic and cellar. A central chimney.
- Country houses: aristocratic manors with land attached.
- Workers' tenements: five or six storeys, no air, packed.
Leisure
- The pub: male social life. A bar on every corner.
- Theatre: drama, opera, music hall.
- The decadent salon: aristocrats and intellectuals. Elegant conversation. The Dawn of the Hashmal already inside it.
V. MERIDIA (the south)
Cultural base: Mediterranean-volcanic. Southern Italian with Arab traces from an older trading substrate.
Food
- Breakfast: flatbread with oil, tomato and goat cheese. Strong espresso.
- Lunch: pasta with tomato sauce, seafood, grilled lamb, bitter greens.
- Feasts: a whole fish, lamb, and abundant wine. The Feast of the Lava in February, with a volcanic banquet.
Dress
- Merchant middle class: Italian-Victorian. Linen in summer, heavy cloth in the short winter.
- Fishermen: practical clothing, wide trousers, white shirt, headscarf.
- Peasants: cotton, sandals, straw hat.
- Clergy of the Riti Meridionali: a lighter dark cassock, collar, wide embroidered belt.
Housing
- Coastal houses: whitewashed and painted in blue, ochre and yellow. Red tile roofs. Interior courtyards with a fountain.
- Vineyards: rustic stone farmhouses with an underground cellar and an olive grove.
Leisure
- The public square: social life outdoors. Talk, coffee, music.
- Feast days and the Riti Meridionali: baroque processions, bonfires, fireworks.
- Traditional fishing: the fishing communities live by their own rhythm.
- The Carnival of Stromakra: twenty days of festival and volcanic masks.
VI. SERENISSIMA VELINIA
Food
- Breakfast: white bread, butter, coffee with milk. Sea fruit.
- Lunch: risotto — of fish, of cuttlefish ink, of shellfish. Polenta and meat. Local wine.
- Supper: pasta, fish, seafood, wine.
Dress
- The patriciate: Venetian-Victorian. Frock coat, and a mask on ceremonial occasions.
- Sailors and workers: practical, maritime.
- Carnival: the canonical masks — Plague Doctor, Bauta, Volto, Moretta.
Housing
- Palazzi: four or five storeys in pale stone, gothic arched windows, the façade turned to the canal.
- Arsenal workers' housing: modest brick.
Leisure
- The gondola: transport and promenade, and not negotiable.
- Opera at the Teatro Sereno: the high cultural life.
- Decadent salons: politics and intrigue.
- Carnival: the year's greatest feast.
VII. THE KANTONAL CONFEDERATION
Cultural base: alpine and banking. Meticulous work, quality, and a local tradition that differs from canton to canton.
Food
- Breakfast: muesli, yoghurt, fruit, bread, cheese. Coffee with milk.
- Lunch: raclette and fondue — the communal alpine meal — sausage, potato. Local wine or beer.
- Supper: soup, cheese, bread.
- Typical drinks: white alpine wine, canton beer, fruit schnapps.
Dress
- Bankers: a dark elegant suit, conservative.
- Alpine mercenaries: each regiment's own uniform, legendarily colourful — a Renaissance leftover nobody has bothered to modernise.
Housing
- Alpine chalets: wood and stone. Carved balcony. Wide roof.
- Town houses in Bernkanton: Germanic-alpine, and immaculate.
Leisure
- Mountaineering: an emerging aristocratic sport.
- Skiing: a Kantonal invention, older than the Cataclysm and popular only this century.
- Music: alpine choral traditions, and the cattle bells in the mountains at the annual feast.
VIII. THE PACT-BOUND (the Heptarchy)
Cultural base: inverted against everything above. A ritual imitation of Christian civilisation, deliberately turned over.
Food
- Meat at pact feasts: including the flesh of captives at the highest rites — very rare, and traditionally a special pact-bound slaughter.
- Black bread, the bread of the Hour.
- Bitter wine with powdered Black Mineral stirred in.
- Meat kept to the edge of rot, a delicacy in Belkar, city of Belzebar and of Gluttony.
Dress
- Dark clothing, iridescent green, ornaments of Black Mineral.
- The sigil of the patron Vice tattooed on the skin.
- Masks of captive leather at rites.
Housing
- Cities in a grand, corrupted architecture. Imitations of clerical cathedrals with the geometry inverted.
- Private houses in an aristocratic-grotesque style.
Leisure
- Pact feasts, on a calendar of their own — see The pact calendar.
- Ritual torture, and the hunting of men.
- Banquets of gluttony in Belkar.