CULTURE NAME
The Zizhai are an aggressive, tough people, with a love for the ocean, maritime pursuits, and war. They are located in Cradle East, hugging the edge of the Qingdao peninsula, which pokes out into what is known to them as The Laodang Sea.
Mythos: In the beginning, there was nothing, but then out of the nothing came two twin brothers, Mao and Jao, one as bright as the sun, and the other as dark as the cloudy night. Their mother, Dain'gong, the goddess of the ocean, land, and air, loved them both dearly, but she loved Mao the most, for he was as fair as the stars above. As they aged, Jao grew bitter, and one day, he had had enough. In a fit of rage, he forged a great spear out of his own hatred, and struck down Dian'gong, stealing her power to become the god of night. He cast out his brother, and assumed control.
He ruled the lands, and under him, nothing grew. Everyday, he would laugh at the empty, starless sky, and at the bleak lands and cold oceans, and crush whatever did manage to grow under his sandals. To make sure that none of the animals rose up against him while he slept, he created an army of pure darkness, soldiers who could kill the trees and animals with mere looks. For five million moons, Jao ruled over all the earth, until one day, everything changed. One day, he spied a small light, glowing defiantly against the bleak landscape he worked to fervently to maintain. Jao, being an arrogant god, decided to personally attend to this matter, and he descended from his home on the moon to see.
He found a hooded man, resting in front of a campfire outside a village, and he spoke to the man. "Why is it that you so openly defy me? Don't you know that now you will die?"said Jao, and the man pulled down his hood. Jao recoiled with horror. It was his brother, Mao, and out of his eyes, shone the light of all the stars. His trap successfully sprung, Mao raised a mighty fist, and struck Jao with a blow so mighty, it returned the stars to the sky. Jao, never one to fight with honor, summoned his army of dark warriors, and Mao brought forth an army of his own, warriors of pure light named the Zizhai. With righteous power, the Zizhai defeated the dark warriors, and Jao and his army were imprisoned on the moon, sentenced to march for all eternity. Their march can still be seen today, changing the moon over time.
Basic History: After Mao overthrew his brother, and took his place up in the sky, he took the most powerful Zizhai named Mai'dong, and made him the first king of the Zizhai. He freed the Zizhai from his control, and ordered them to build a great civilization for themselves. At first, the Zizhai were not a coastal people, and during the rather brief period where they lived in more inland areas, they struggled. It was too arid, and there was not enough rainfall. Mai'dong, claiming to have received divine instructions from Mao himself, led his people away from their ancestral home and to the east, where he promised them seas of sapphire, and fields of emerald. After a grueling year of travel and hardship, they arrived at the coast, and they knew by the lush jungles and beautiful ocean, that they had found their emeralds and sapphires. However, all was not perfect with their new home. They had neighbors, and rather bad ones at that.
THE NIGHT OF BROKEN PEARLS
For a couple years, the Zizhai prospered on the coast. their economy came mostly from the ocean, and it was as stable as could be. A wealth of pearls, dyes, and food from the ocean, and precious metals from the hills near the city made them extremely prosperous, and extremely vulnerable. One night, a night that would go down in Zizhai history under the name of The Night of Broken Pearls, a rival civilization raided them, known as the Wakzheng. Under cover of night, the Wakzheng warriors stole into Zizghong, and drove off the Zizhai, killing many of their men, women, and children, and capturing many others. Mai'dong swore vengeance as he escaped along with those who weren't killed or captured, a total of one-hundred children
THE BATTLE OF ZIZGHONG
After many more moons of living under the boots of the Wakzheng, it is said that Mai'dong returned with an army one-hundred strong. He had raised the children who had initially escaped with him to be nothing more than hate-filled killing machines, truly worthy of the name Zizhai. Ever since they had escaped with him, he had spent the better part of eighteen moons training these children as soldiers, and telling them the story of Mao, and how he banished his evil brother Jao using an army of divine warriors. With this army, he returned to Zizghong, and challenged the Wakzheng. The battle that followed is forever immortalized in song, art, and festivals. For two hours, both forces did battle, making sure no street in the young city of Zizghong was left unbloodied.
Then, when it looked like Wakzheng were about to win again, a call for the fighting to end was sounded, from Mai'dong's own mouth. Mai'dong challenged the king of the Wakzheng (a despicable man whose name is forgotten by the Zizhai) to single combat, and after a long and epic duel, it was Mai'dong who held his opponent's still bleeding head up high, for Mao to witness. It is said that on that very moment, the sun shone through the clouds, and onto mai'dong, and all the Wakzheng knew the error of their ways. They fell upon their knees, and pledged their spears and lives to Mai'dong and the Zizhai.
In honor of this battle, every Zizhai city has an elite unit of 100 soldiers, raised from birth on the values of martial prowess and religious zeal.
THE AGES OF BLOOD
The period that follows The Battle of Zizghong can be described with one word:
Violent.
Fresh from their victory over the Wakzheng, the Zizhai recovered, and then went about securing the coast of the peninsula, making sure no others could ever do to them what the Wakzheng did. The Zizhai culture began to cycle between periods of total war and periods of peace. These periods of war were called Ages of Blood, and they would last for decades upon decades. These times would be filled with bloodshed and the reaping of blood for Mao, whose power is supposedly derived from the blood of mortals. Entire civilizations would be conquered, oceans of blood would run from the tops of their pagodas from all of the captured enemies being sacrificed. These periods would give way to sudden periods of peace and prosperity, and then the cycle would repeat itself all over again. The most recent Age of Blood ended about two years ago, leaving the Zizhai borders as they appear now. The time for another Age of Blood is fast approaching, but for now, the Zizhai are at peace.
MATERIAL CULTURE
DRESS
The average men and women of the Zizhai dress rather plainly. Men wear the above garment as is in a wide variety of colors, while the women tend to wear longer, more flowing versions of this same dress. Both genders can be found wearing rather simple jewelry made of coral or commonly found turquoise rocks.
The higher up in the social strata you are the more extravagant the clothing gets. Nobility or successful merchants can be spotted with golden piercings, fine garments with precious stones set into them, and exquisitely designed headdresses.
MILITARY CULTURE
Being a civilization that goes on bloody crusades every decade or so to appease its benevolent sun god, the military has become somewhat of an entirely different element of culture by itself, and as such, is noticeably (if only by a small margin). As warriors of the Zizhai, soldiers are encouraged to dress in a way that appeases not only Mao, but the soul of Mai'dong as well, who is always watching over the Zizhai. Soldiers are not only warriors, but in religious celebrations, they work directly with the priesthood, and are almost honorary clergymen themselves. Soldiers are held in high regards, and are constantly encouraged to aspire to live up to the high expectations put against them.
FOOD
Food in Zizhai varies somewhat between cities (as the kinds of fish available varies with location), but it all follows the same theme everywhere else. The people of Zizhai subsist on an almost completely mariculture diet. Fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and even some plants from the ocean are all consumed in a grand variety of ways. This is also supplemented by some agriculture to produce things that the ocean can't provide, like berries or other farmables. Livestock is rare, relative to the time period, and products like milk and meat are often reserved for the elite.
THE ARTS
Music in Zizhai is a complicated affair, and varies widely among cities, since a majority of them were conquered from previous cultures. A prevalent element is massive varieties of drums, some small enough to be held under an arm and played with the opposite hand, and others so large they need to be laid on their side and played with leather-wrapped rods of wood. The drums are powerful, and can be heard for very long distances. One knows when the Zizhai are celebrating, and one knows when they're invading, for these drums are also brought with armies.
Zizhai art usually takes the form of copper or bronze statuettes, or vibrantly painted stone jugs. Occasionally, one can spot a wall mural, painted by hand.
Religious celebrations in Zizhai cities happen occasionally, with the greatest concentration of them happening during Ages of Blood. During an Age of Blood, prisoners of war are sacrificed on a weekly basis to Mao, their blood poured into a large basin where the high priests and soldiers all dip their index fingers in and draw a notch on their faces. It is a common sight around the end of an Age of Blood to see priests and soldiers walking around with their faces completely red and the tips of their fingers stained red.
Apart from blood sacrifices to Mao, religious celebrations can also take the form of more general celebrations, like feasts that are open to the general public, fertility festivals, and also seasonal change celebrations
SOCIETY
Society is very cut and dried, with nothing really left to the imagination. The gap between the wealthy and the general population is more than visible, but there is none of the inherent classism involved. The elite are all part of the merchant, artisan, and clerical castes, so their success depends entirely on the non-elite any citizen with artistic talent or a knack for trading can rocket up the rungs to elite-hood. Under the elite, there's everyone else. fishermen, builders, craftsmen, farmers, all of those people.
GENDER
Gender lines in Zizhai culture are mostly blurred in most places, and sometimes nonexistent in others. The Zizhai didn't get to where they were now by keeping their women in homes while the other half of the population worked and fought. Women can be found working in all facets of society, with very little restrictions placed on them. The only time a woman loses her total independence is once she becomes married, and she becomes the sole property of her husband. With her husband's permission, however a woman can continue to work until she begins to bear children, which she must dedicate her total attention to.
In the military, it is not uncommon to find female warriors fighting alongside their male counterparts, although women are rare in frontline combat, given the need to produce specially shaped armor to accommodate their physiologies. More often than not, women in the Zizhai military often become ranged skirmishers of all kinds of sorts, from thrown spears to slings.
THE MILITARY
The Zizhai military is a complicated affair. Given the urban nature of their society, something more than somewhat coherent mobs of armed men is a necessity, as it's a nightmare to coordinate warriors who are all dressed an equipped differently. To this end, the Zizhai military is relatively organized, with more or less standardized equipment, and even a primitive kind of uniform. All warriors have bright red clothing as a sort of civilian dress, but their battle uniforms consist of thickly layered clothing padded with woven grass and painted a dark, bloody shade of red.
The average gear of a Zizhai soldier consists of a spear with a point on both ends, a weapon which all warriors are more or less trained to use, and the aforementioned padded armor. True armor is a rarity, and only leaders can be regularly found wearing it. True armor is a primitive affair, with small stone plates attached to one another with strings or sinews.
Geography: The Zizhai's cities are almost exclusively coastal, so their cities are almost always surrounded by the moderately lush forests that dominate their peninsula. The ground is mostly hilly, and most of the coasts that their cities lie on are rocky.
Local Influences: The Zizhai are known in their region for their cycles of peace and war, but also for the wealth they pull up from the sea with nets and spears. During times of peace, the Zizhai are avid traders, setting off to trade in the very same ships they used to raid coastal cities, the holds filled with cargo rather than religious warriors.