Endless Blue - Week 42 - Garment Couture: The Fashion Aesthetic

Sociology

Garment Couture: The Fashion Aesthetic

Elquan fashions favor the simple over the complex.  While craftsmen are more than capable of (and do) producing the most intricate of work, the tendency of water to obscure light and detail means such astounding detail is lost.  Clothing and jewelery with fine detailing can only be appreciated in the Shore areas, where light can most easily penetrate the water's natural absorption.  As a result, many refer to those that wear detailed clothing and finery as "wanting to be deep fish in the shallows", referring to the vain desire to appear imposing in one's small area of influence.

Textiles

Fabric is a well known technology beneath the waters of Elqua, with records of woven fabrics dating back to the Bronze Epoch.  While cloth of that time originally had only the natural coloration of the plant or animal material from which it was derived, eventually dyeing became possible with mated containers.

All cloth is made on machines called looms, a moving interleave of thread that meshes together to form a continuous plain of fabric.  Thread itself is an extension of the creation of rope, refined and reduced to a more manipulative state.  Thread is comprised of the fibers of plant matter and/or the hairs of hairy aquatic mammals*, spun around each other to form a contiguous length of string.  The thread is then loaded into the loom which forms a criss-crossing lattice of interwoven threads.  The product is cloth.

A variety of cloth (and supple leathers) are used in Elquan fashion.  Indeed, cloth weaving is not limited to just organic materials.  Lamé -- a fabric made with a metallic weft --  uses a thin metallic yarn that is wrapped in a metallic wire or ribbon.  So fine and skillfully spun is this mineral thread that is becomes nearly as ductile as cloth without loosing the luster of precious metal.

Hides and skins of sea fauna are also used in the fabrication of clothing as it is in the creation of nautiluses, but where the latter uses tanning methodology that produces stiffer material, the former concentrates on softening the skins.  Fish skin comes in a wide variety of natural coloration and scale composition, and these gradations are used by seamstresses to produce incredible works.

Articles of Clothing

Clothing is the shaping of fabric into objects that can be worn on the piscean body.  Not every species in the oceans is equipped to survive in varying temperatures, and as such sometimes need extra protection to shield them from the elements.  Over successive generations clothing has evolved from just being "shelter that is worn" into an expression of art, tradition, culture, and personality.

Cap-- This is a generic catch-all term for anything worn essentially on the top of the head.  They can be kept in place by any manner of means, be it a tight headband, pinning in the hair, or strapped under the chin, jaw, or ears.

Choker -- A choker is like a necklace, but instead of hanging loosely down from the neck and shoulders, it is more snugly around the throat (but not too tight as to constrict breathing or swallowing.  It can serve the same role as a belt and can be what keeps the chemise (below) in place, but is differentiated by the need to keep the weight demands low as to prevent choking.

Chemise-- A chemise is an article of clothing that covers the torso of a piscean.  They may be as form fitting or formless as desired, and they need not include sleeves -- but may have them at various lengths, also either tight against the arms or more loosely draped as taste dictates.  The creation of chemises always needs to keep in mind the location of the picean gills along the lower ribs, and must keep that area free of obstruction lest they endanger the wearer with strangulation.

Glove -- The piscean glove is a bit more complicated than the gloves of our world.  Most pisceans have varying lengths of webbing between their digits, and natural ungues at their tips.  While this stretch of skin aids in swimming, it makes tailoring gloves more difficult.  A slit is cut in the fabric of the gloves where each finger connects to the hand and is extended outward to the second or third knuckle.  A piece of cloth is then folded over and sewn into the hem of the slit, and the seem is reinforced with stiffer materials to keep the glove form fitting.

Belt --  A loop around the major axis of the piscean body, belts are perhaps the most varied of all the articles of clothing.  They can vary in ever conceivable way -- thickness, width, tightness, color, even the method of wear is exceedingly flexible.  While traditionally worn perpendicular to the central anteroposterior axis, belts can be jauntily skewed over the hip, across the chest like a bandoleer, or even interlocked like a harness.  They are the most functional part of Elquan dress and the most universally utilized in every way of life.

Ephod -- The ephod is the article of clothing that covers the main trunk of the tail.  Like the shirt, it can be as basic as a cloth hanging from the waist to as complicated a network of interwoven fibers enshrouding the tail.

Caudalet -- Much like the choker, a caudalet is worn around the end of the tail right before the tail fins spread out from the piscean form.  Also like a choker, a caudalet can be used as the connective part of the lower end of an ephod or to anchor tail flippers (see below).

Flipper -- The lower counterpart of the glove, flippers are pieces of clothing worn over the pelvic and/or tail fins.  They are usually made of sterner stuff than gloves, as they must endure the constant wear of continual swimming.

Accessories

Accessories are differentiated from clothing in that they are usually comprised of harder materials than fabric, usually metal.  This material would be uncomfortable, even detrimental to the wearer is used like cloth.  They are instead used to accentuate and supplement the garments worn by a piscean.  Common forms of accessories take the form of jewelery such as earrings, torcs, bracelets, and rings.  Elquan tailors have taken to incorporating jewelery into their garment designs, making buttons, clasps, and buckles decorative as well as functional.  Other materials used in Elquan jewelery is abalone, crystal, gemstone, sea shell, and perhaps the most pervasive accoutrement of all, pearl.

Fashion by Historical Culture

Culture enforces as much influence on fashion as whimsy does.  Areas of high ethnic concentration will contain greater numbers of  traditionalists, whom bring the "old ways" of dress with them.  Part of being accepted into a society is the adoption of their customs, and adopting the apparel of the local populace is the primary visual means of integration.

The Yaun-Teel maintain a practice among their orthodox members of keeping their bodies fully clothed as much as possible.  This sets them apart from their slaves, whom are usually divested of all clothing early on in a method meant to humiliate and break the will of their "indentured servants".

With their culture very much entrenched in the martial tradition, it is unsurprising to find that the Orcans in a martial fashion, incorporating nautiluses into a style of dress that expects the struggle for life and death to erupt at any moment.

In many ways, the amount and intricacy of clothing worn by the Chelon is an indication of their social standing, with the more powerful and affulent affording complex outfits that fly in the face of function.

The Ceph both eschew clothing and are rebuked by it.  Their non-piscean forms make many of the articles of clothing useless to them, which is just as well as it would interfere with their natural camouflage abilities.  Ceph clothing must be specially made for them, usually consisting of a huge glove with eight fingers on it, caps, and belts.

Locanth and Sahaguin, cultures diametrically opposite oceanographically as well as philosophically, strangely share a common aesthetic when it comes to clothing.  They will dress pragmatically, opting for clothing that is functional for an intended purpose.

The strange Lumulus connect their clothing directly to their chitinous exoskeletons, anchoring them with piercings in the hardened plates.  Their quizzical clothing incorporates the unique metals that their culture is renown for into a way of dress that is both clothing and jewelery simultaneously.

The Mer are the most mercurial when it comes to clothing, as they are a species fascinated by fashion.  Fads come and go across all of the Mer currents quicker than a Kouton hides a secret, and they take their inspiration from whatever aspect of the mode of dress from other cultures strikes their fancy.  What is chic one day is dull the next, and whatever little feature of culture that captured their attention at one moment could cause social expulsion by the time you learned of it.

Speaking of the Kouton, they prefer to wear loose fitting robes and cowls that cover most of the body, obliterating any distinguishing features that may betray knowledge to others.

"Clothes make the Mer, so long as other make the clothes..."
- a snide comment on the way Mer reputation for dress.

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* -- Despite being referred to as "mammals", these animals do not require air to breathe.  Like the cetaceans and dolphinidae of the setting, aquatic mammals have gills and never developed the blow hole, nostrils, or any other form of in taking the atmosphere into their bodies.

Endless Blue - Week 36.1 - The Undertow: Under the Rock Under the Sea

Geography

Under the Rock Under the Sea

Everyone has secrets, be they tiny embarrassments of everyday living, to the soul corrupting shame that ruins everything around you.  They are kept by individuals, families, and organizations, but none more so than governments.  Whether such practiced deceit it is for the lauded benefit of their constituents or the puerile reward of their own self interest, every government has things to hide.  In the Known World, secrets abound like lamprey, sucking sustenance from the secluded nooks and crannies where they hide.  One such secret is the Undertow.

Those given to flights of fanciful delusion tend to find depth of conspiracy in even the smallest inconsistency, and the Prime Meridian is a prime example.  Cartography and navigation were demonstrably the creations of the early Chelon thinkers. and while most every aspect of their ingenious system is poetry except for the glaring inconsistency of the Prime Meridian.  For all the sensible reasoning for latitude and longitude, degrees and poles, there seems to be no eminent logic behind the choice of where to position the first line of longitude, 0 degrees.

The official reason espoused by the governing Chelon is that it marks the deepest spot in Elqua's oceans, a point in the Cetecean Ocean's floor submerged by a brine lake.  For the longest time, that assertion was taken as gospel by the less than educated masses.  But as time passed, education became more accessible to the lower class and as a result more of once was mystery about the waterworld has become fascinating but mundane fact.  Individuals began to question the assessment of the Chelon scholars that appointed the Prime Meridian's status, and then flatly challenged it -- most notably by their own people.  In an effort fueled by patriotism, an expedition of Chelon measured a remote area of their homesea called The Abyss and while unable to dive to its lowest depths, incontrovertibly prove that it was significantly deeper that the cetacean plain.

The expedition brought acclaim and fame to the explorers, and raised some controversy that the primary method of navigation was flawed and needed to be corrected.  In response, the Chelon have offered excuse after excuse as to this discrepancy, from the weak challenge that the expedition did not take into account the depth of the brine lake to the blatant ridiculous claim that sea level over the Chelon Seas is higher than elsewhere.  Detractors began to vocally deride the government for its falsehood, and even go so far as to charge that it has led a conspiratorial campaign at discrediting as many participants of the expedition as possible.  Why is there such a narrow-minded, focused refusal by the Chelon government to ignore the Abyss?

The real truth is that the Chelon government has no idea.  It is simply continuing the tradition that was started so very long ago in the Golden Epoch.  At its very heart, it was decreed that the Abyss was to be marginalized.  Why has never been stated, and those in the government that have dared to speak the question have found their political careers stillborn overnight.

There is a reason, and it is all because of a simple bubble.  But not a bubble in water, like the innocuous but embarrassing side effect that comes from respiration underwater.  No, this is a bubble in stone, the very foundation bedrock that comprises the tectonic plate of Elqua's geologic crust.  Located beneath Abyss in the Chelon Sea lurks a massive sink hole, a spot of crumbled rock opening into a vast airy cavern that could very well threaten the stability of the sea bed above it.

The Abyss is a desolate portion of the Chelon Sea, its depth hostile to the native pisceans and its isolation of no strategic import.  As such, it is rare for anyone to pass by the area, let alone investigate deeply enough to find the faint but definitely perceptible vortex of swirling currents cycling around each other as the waters drain into the cavern below.  This is the Undertow, and to speak its name is tantamount to treason.

But what the Chelon government does not know is that through that gyre is not just the emptiness of a cavern, but the ancient beginning of a whole second world beneath the waves, one beneath the rock.  And its genesis began back in the Golden Epoch from which the Chelonite policy was first drawn.

It was a time of war and suffering, with the Cetacean Barbarians invading the highseas that would one day become the Mer currents.  The hordes began a swath of attacks to the southwest of the Mer homesea and curved northward, in effect creating a hook into Mer territory as the spearhead encroached on the Chelon Sea.  The tactic isolated one of the Mer ethnicities early in its development and began carving it from the greater whole.  Retreating from an overpowering enemy they could not defeat, they retreated into Chelon territory.  To save themselves for ensured destruction, the Mer tribe fled blindly, with the ravening horde of Cetaceans right behind them.  Just as the predatory barbarians caught up to the fleeing Mer, the gyer of the Undertow caught the two forces unaware and mercilessly dragged them down into the depths -- a massive sinkhole that would be dubbed "The Bubble Below".

The Bubble Below is a massive cavern system under the silt sea bed that underlies the Known World, so massive in fact it's farthest borders reach under practically all the Fluid Nations.  The initial plunge from the entrance of the Undertow to the midnight waters below is a nearly 1000 foot drop straight down with nothing but stagnant air all around.  The suddenness of the gyre's pull and the lengthy drop before hitting the surface of the sinkhole's waters killed hundreds on both sides when they slammed into the seaweed encrusted surface of the falls' run off.  It is another 500 feet below the level of the Bubble's sea level before the averaged sea bed is encountered.

Stunned by the impact, drained from the flight/chase, the pisceans were ripe pickings for the native denizens of the sinkhole.  The first few years of their entrapment  in the bowels of the earth were savage and desperate, with both races suffering unimaginable casualties.  In the face of the overtly hostile environment, the two combatants put aside their established roles and worked out an accord of mutual beneficence so both could survive together where neither could alone.

Once the new alliance was forged, the Mer/Cetacean survivors became settlers, slowly learning the ways of the everdark and taming it to serve them.  The explored the myriad tendrils of cave systems and underground rivers and were surprised by their expansiveness.  The traced back their tragic path as much as they could until they saw the falls that spilled into the empty bubble, the echoing roar of plunging water so deafening that listening to it unprotected can even destroy the melon of a Cetacean.  But even if the falls had been silent, the half-mile distance straight up to the mouth of the Undertow was an unreachable goal as if they could reach up and catch the moons.  The Falls aerate the saltwater that pours down from the Undertow, and as it flows outward throughout the subterranean ocean it pushes the staler water through tiny rock fissures back into Elqua's surface oceans.  Entry through the Undertow is a one-way trip: there exists no magic to fly, and nothing can swim against the current falling down from the opening (not to mention swimming against the pull of gravity).  With any hopes of returning to the surface seas unattainable, the survivors turned their attentions to colonizing the darkness around them.

As time passed, other races suffered the same cruel plight of the Mer-Cetaceans.  In small numbers, the migrating families of Kouton and Locanth have been claimed by the Undertow, entire squads of Chelon and Lumulus combatants in the Shellback Wars were caught and dragged under, even a few Sahaguin have been lost to the sucking pull of the Bubble Below, eventually trapping enough of each race to barely sustain the gene pools.  Only the Ceph and the Yaun-Teel are unaccounted for in the Undertow, most likely due to the fact their races did not evolve until relatively recently in evolutionary standards.

Evolution has not left the trapped pisceans untouched, however.  Without the light of the sun to shine, coloration of the races has faded away, and now the races have all become albino, their soft rubbery skin a pink-tinged pallor and their scales a translucent milky white.  Like ghostly apparitions, each race is now a banshee-like shadow of their former vibrancy.  But perhaps the most unsettling was the speed in which evolution threw aside the development of eyes, fusing the eyelids over the useless sockets, sealing over the small orbs so they could begin metamorphosing into the most sensitive melons in the case of the other races, but into hyper-acute melons in the cetaceans capable of passive echolocation (using the reverberating drone of the Undertow's falls as a sound source, which carry throughout the Bubble Below as a faint but noticeable rumbles).  These new Cetaceans, calling themselves the Beluga, gave up their violent, expansionist ways and took up the mantle of protector of the "helpless", those that cannot see without making sound.

And protection they needed.  Just like the Vastness above the surface of Elquas waters, the empty but deafening air of the Bubble Below became dangerous.  An undead sargasso began to grow, a festering blanket of twisted vines and limbs, blighted seaweed and flesh, writhing and groping at any spark of life it can reach in a vainglorious need to consume light.  The Beluga formed a paladin-hood dedicated to the destruction of the vile aberrations that sometimes break free of the floating morass that now covers all of the seas below.  The Lumulus have also changed greatly over the generations, having through sheer necessity shed their xenophobia like they shed their glassy exoskeletons.

Here the pisceans have led relatively fulfilling lives, forming communities and families that in many ways have escaped the butchery and treachery that the brethren the left behind had to endure.  It has not been without its difficulties, with roaming undead, their own threat from the Indigo, and possibly the blubbery, bloated lone Kraken that still exists in the world to contend with.  There are also the wonders to discover in the pitch black.

Endless Blue - Week 10 - Species of the Endless Blue

Biology

Species of the Endless Blue
Scholars divide the races of Elqua into the civilized and primitive nations.  Claiming enlightened criteria, this dichotomy forced on intelligent species in actuality is an arbitrary and elitist separation based on homeogenic qualities that the societies among the Periphery and Crèche of Civilization share in common: namely a non-representative alphabet, an educational system, a lack of ethnic diversity, and an abandonment of Pantheon worship.  Some hypocrisy remains in this division of higher evolved grouping, as two of the four Civilized races still reproduce oviparously (via egg production) instead of viviparously (live birth); conversely, two of the primitive races carry their children to term.

Civilized Races of the Periphery

Chelon [kappa sapien] – The Chelon are a race in decline, having long ago reached their nation’s height of power and now suffer through the long, agonized slide into obscurity.  Chelon live to great age, but for far too long their birth rate has been outstripped by their natural death rate.  So old is the race that whatever ethnological variation they may have had homogenized into the sole race known of today.   Aristocratic in nature, they gave the Known World many of its inventions, and the Chelon Sea is believed to be the birthplace of magic.  They have chevron-shaped heads with a flat cranium, with small, inset eyes on either side of beaked mouth and a weak chin under that.  They possess a shell from their stooped shoulders that covers their back and most of their notably short tail.  Their skin, while not a bony as the shell on their back, is toughened with calluses.  Along with Lumulus, they are sometimes referred to collectively as “Shellbacks”, and the on-again/off-again war between the two distant nations has been coined after that appellation.
Pl. Chelon; adj. Chelonite

Lumulus [rakovica sapien] – Xenophobic and withdrawn, the Lumulus are the most alien of all the sentient races of Elqua’s Known World.  Masters of heat and the rare metals and glass of the ocean societies, these beings from the Lumulus Basin participate in a detached yet heavy commerce with the other bodies of water.  They possess a haunched, banded exoskeletal shell that they must shed yearly to grow.  Lumulus never stop growing, but only the rarest specimen has ever grown nearly as large as a Mer.  They have two main arms that end with three fingered hands that are heavily yet naturally armored, and a series of three “digits” interspersed between their gill slits.  Their eyes are completely black, and they possess long, fine, wiry hairs from their upper lip.  Perhaps the most notable feature of the Lumulus is their blue blood.  Their society is broken down into eight forgeclans, with their three ethnicities (rakova, jastog, and morski) freely intermixed.   Even though they are separated on either ends of the Known World, the Lumulus and Chelon nations have engaged in hostilities for most of their history.
Pl. Lumulus; adj. Lumulan

Mer [piscean sapien] – A race in ascendance despite some truly tragic self-induced calamities, the Mer are coming into their own.  Half-mammalian and half Piscean, the Mer were the most varied in appearance and were organized into thirteen tribes called “currents”.  These currents each form their own autonomous yet interdependent state under the banner of the Mer species.  At the present time, only eight of those original ethnicities still exist.  Despite this seeming turn toward extinction, the remaining currents are thriving, and now consider their expanse of the known world to be claustrophobic and have begun to look outward for more breathing room.  The Merfolk are perhaps the most diverse coloration (which determines in which current they belong), with a myriad of patterning that varies from family to family.
Pl. Mer, Merfolk (antiquated); adj. Mer

Orcan [cetacean sapien] – Considering themselves to be the first race of Elqua, the Orcans are warrior poets descended from the once marauding Cetacean barbarians.  Their skin is smooth, yet thick, with a rubbery texture that belies the practiced lethality of their martial history.  Ridged folds of skin contract from their where their lower lip would be down over their broad, barrel chests to their solar plexus. Strict vegetarians, this ruffled skin expands on their distendable jaws to swallow massive volumes of water, and the plates hanging from the back of the throat strain the great amounts tiny plankton they need each day to survive.  This does not mean the race is toothless, as they posses a series of similarly spaced out, pointed incisors that can inflict a vicious bite.  Indeed, one of their two subraces – the Narwahl – still feature the pair of dental tusks that jut from the upper lip which the Cetacean Barbarians were so well reknown.
Pl. Orcans, Cetacean (antiquated); adj. Orcan

Ceph [vulgaris sapien] – These are the degenerate descendants of the dominating Kraken.  Considered lower than the Primitive races of the Hinterseas, yet found collectively among even the most effluent societies, the Ceph have proven they are survivors, if anything.  They fill any niche they can, desperately trying to eek out a living in the face of the bigotry leveled against them.  Heightening this estrangement is the curious fact they are the sole intelligent race that does not share the torso/tail morphology common to the sapient races, and instead appear as larger, more advanced octopi capable of speech.  They also posses three subspecies, differentiated by the ridge patterns formed on their foreheads by their cuttle bones.  They all posses the eight limbed form and strange “w”-shaped pupil form of their forefathers, but at a greatly reduced stature.  Ceph do have an interesting natural camouflage ability that helps them hide even in the brightest lit waters of the Shore.
Pl. Ceph; adj. Cephic

Primitive Races of the Hinterseas

Kuoton [kaeru sapien] – The Kuoton are an old race that has harassed the other intelligent races for millennia, using many forgotten secrets of dangerous evils that dwell in the oceans beyond the Known World.  Their form is roughly amphibian, resembling a frog, with slimy skin hanging loose around inflatable jowls and a mouth filled with tiny, needle shaped teeth, giving the species an appearance of having it face smashed flat.  Their blunt snouted head is diminutive in proportion to their bulging, wide-spaced eyes that each posses a sideways nictitating eyelid.  Their arms and tail are thin, but strong, and their hands appear webbed like their tail flukes.  Over all, their oily bodies are reedy except for a paunch around their pelvic flukes.
Pl. Kouton; adj Koutonese

Locanth [peixe sapien] – The Locanth are still a nomadic race, just as their ancient forefathers were, migrating around the Gulf of Locanth in pursuit of their traditional meals.  They have dim, oval eyes on either side of the skull like herbivores, yet they maintain a mostly carnivorous diet.  Since their gaping mouths lack any teeth, and their slender fingered hands do not end with claws, the species on the whole are not aggressive and tend to distrust outsiders.  Large fins sprouting from their arms and sides of their tail work in conjuction with their pelvic fins, making Locanths perhaps the fastest intelligent race on Elqua.  There is little to tell the difference between the male and female of the species other than the dark markings around the female’s egg sacs.
Pl. Locanths; adj. Locanthic

Sahaguin [vis sapien] – Sahaguin are a primitive race, larger than any other of the Known World races save the Cetaceans.  They also have extended fins along their arms and tail like the Locanth, but the more predatory eyes and mouth like the Kouton.  There is little to no fat on the body of a Sahaguin, and the muscles underneath their heavily scaled skin are visibly rippled, like coils traveling from the head down to the tip of their tail.   Over all, they are superbly fit for their predatory lifestyle, and their aggressiveness knows little restraint.  They have maintained a constant animosity to the Mer to such an extent that the two cannot co-exist in the same living area for long before hostilities break out.  They are deathly secretive about their children, and any inquiry about their noted absence results in violence.
Pl. Sahaguin; adj. Sahaguani

Yaun-Teel [anguiliformes sapien] – Originally thought to be an offshoot of the Mer, the Yaun-Teel will usually be mistaken for Mer with a casual glance.  However, upon closer inspection, their subtle eel-like features betray their origins.  Their bodies are lithe and agile, with slender necks and tapered fingers.  Perhaps the most telling feature of their form is that their eyes never blink.  They are a guileful and manipulative race, believing without exception in the superiority of their bloodline.  As such, any adept race other than themselves is considered fair game for slavery, including their close cousins, the Mer.
Pl. Yaun-Til, adj, Yaun-Til

Keep in mind, while these are the races of the Endless Blue setting, they do not define the nationalities beyond the area of the Known World the races first began.  Outside of physical limitations (i.e., the Shelf of the Cetacean Oceans) and national dogma (the xenophobic Lumulus Basin), there are cross border bloodlines: Mer that have lived in the Chelon Seas since the original thirteen currents, or Narwhal in the Sahaguin Lagoons, and the Ceph in nearly every body of water.  Individuals of these multicultural upbringings will have mixed their biological heritage with their societal surroundings to form towns, even metropolises, of unique character and vision.