Arthwyd Royal Family
The royal family of the Arthwyd occupies an odd spot within society, set apart even beyond the nature of being royalty. Originally founded by Evalyn Boarslayer after the Fall of the Merntir, all of the Arthwydish Cadlons have been her descendants with the sole exception of Cadlon Derfyl, who had married one of her descendants.
While how good they are has vary, all of the Cadlons so far have been capable and competent rulers, resulting a well-liked monarchy with popular support from the Arthwyd. The idea of having an incompetent or malicious Cadlon is something of a foreign concept as it has yet to happen and the idea of it happening is dismissed as ridiculous because surely no one like that would end up as Cadlon.
The nature of the royal family and how they related to the rest of the Arthwyd has changed over time. Originally starting off as a competent rulers being picked from the general populace with the Cadlon choosing their successor, a royal family defined by blood relations was formed by Cadlon Bronwyn the Beautiful, Wyrn the Goddess of Stories, Trickery and Arts and Evalyn the Goddess of Death, Battle and Leadership. While the first two had more prominent roles, Evalyn had more of a lasting impact by giving a divine blessing to her blood descendants, known as the Blood of Evalyn and the basis for which the membership of the royal family is determined. Without the Blood of Evalyn, one cannot become the Cadlon of the Arthwyd.
The Blood of Evalyn is something that happens on top of the Blessing of Arthryn and since it is impossible to past on the Blood of Evalyn without also passing on the Blessing of Arthryn, the effects of the Blood of Evalyn are only known when they have interacted with the Blessing of Arthryn.
This is important as the Blood of Evalyn seems to boost the effects of the Blessing of Arthryn further and it is unknown if it has its own effects or simply adds to the Blessing of Arthryn. While the Blessing gives the Arthwyd increased physical fitness and prowess, the Blood of Evalyn increases this further as the members of the royal family a good sized set of muscles in addition to increasing their stamina, toughness, strength, healing in addition to generally being more resistance to diseases and illness and being taller. The Blood of Evalyn also enhances the figure of the female members of the royal family as while all female blessed are curvy, the royal family are almost excessively full figured and push the limits of what is considered beautiful to almost being creepily full figured.
This is due to the metaphysical nature of Evalyn compared to Arthryn. While Arthryn is able to pick and define the effects of her blessing on her own from the very beginning, Evalyn's blessing was shaped by the beliefs of the Arthwyd even if Evalyn had control over the effects and the final say on the matter. The end result is that since the Arthwyd view the royal family as being superior to them, the default blessing increased what the Arthwyd deem to be desirable traits for the royal family. This means that the royal family is taller, more muscular, fitter, healthier, tougher, stronger and, in the case of the women, curvier.
While the men are tall and muscular, for the women, this has more of an impact. While also tall and muscular, the figure of the royal women is pushes the limits of what is considered attractive by the Arthwyd and any larger in proportion to the rest of their bodies would go from being beautiful to being creepy and excessive. Between their height, muscles and very full figure, the women of the royal family are considered to be the principle of beauty by the Arthwyd. This beauty comes with a price as the women of the royal family struggle when it comes to physically strenuous tasks due to their large breasts getting in the way so despite their naturally muscular build, the women of the royal family shy away more physically active tasks such as being a warrior or hunter.
Combined with how that is already a trend with lesser curvy members of the Arthwyd and how the larger curves of the royal family are rightly believed to come from their divine heritage, the full figures of the royal women is increasing the forming gender roles within the Arthwyd as it is often considered that their full figures keeping them from more martial tasks is a sign from the goddesses that women are not meant to engage in warfare and that war is a man's job. It should be noted that this idea is backed by Evalyn herself as the Goddess of Death, Battle and Leadership does believe that the Cadlons should engage in peace over war despite her own reign and if she can encourage this by making the women of the royal family bad at fighting, then Evalyn considers that to be a good thing. The fact that it will cause gender roles and gender discrimination are not major concerns for her as while Evalyn thinks that they are nice, avoiding those things is something her mother cares about rather than something she cares about.
The Blood of Evalyn also grants a distinctly unique effect to the royal family, purple eyes that are reflective of light like the eyes of a cat. This trait is unique to the royal family and is considered to be the marker of someone with the Blood of Evalyn as both the male and female members of the royal family have it.
The succession of the Cadlons is also something that will change often. Originally there was no official system in place with the Cadlon just appointing a worthy successor while they still lived, but with the formation of the royal family, the Arthwyd adopted the hereditary system of the Maradysh. This has also changed after a few Cadlons as the hereditary system got changed into a tanistry system where the heir is chosen from the royal family, keeping the royal family of the hereditary system, but reintroducing the method of choosing the heir. Given how the succession system has changed twice in a relatively short period of time, it is entirely possible the succession system will change again as the Arthwyd haven't had time to create a traditional method of royal succession yet.
Arthwyd Martial Culture
For the Arthwyd, warfare is an unfortunately necessity of life as one must be good at warfare lest they end up suffering at the hands of someone else who is good. Due to its violent and brutal nature as people kill each other, warfare is considered to be a barbaric practice that only a barbarian or fool would willingly seek out.
For along time, the Arthwyd seemly deemed war to beneath them and something only a barbarian would do. This belief arose from a mixture of their aversion to war and their isolation as the former meant they didn't war amongst themselves or seek out war and the latter meant that no one was able to force a war upon them.
Despite a couple of wars with the Merntir, the Arthwyd didn't shake their near total disdain for war until Vervov's invasion. The nomad leader was able to prove enough of a threat with his Boarfolk tribes that the Arthwyd was forced to embrace warfare as a necessity of life or face the end of their civilisation. Yet despite being forced to acknowledge the necessary nature of being good at war, the Arthwyd still considered it barbaric and eschewed the warrior culture of their barbarian neighbours.
Instead, the Catclaws were founded by Evalyn Boarslayer. Rather than have bunch of men seeking glory and loot, the Arthwyd turned war into a sacred duty, balancing out its barbaric nature with serving the goddesses. Beyond managing to balance out the barbaric nature of warfare alongside its necessary nature, it also shaped the Arthwyd's military culture into something that had not been seen before.
While the lowlanders and the nomads relied masses of regular warriors, the Arthwyd instead developed a relatively small amount of elite warriors who wielded divine magics. While smaller in number, the Catclaws and Cateyes of the Arthwyd were of higher quality than their lowlander counterparts and, under the right conditions, the nomad tribesmen. A Catclaw could reliable beat a trio of lowlander warriors.
Despite their superior warriors, the Arthwyd have seen mixed success in their wars. Vervov still conquered the Merntir while Urth was able to bloodied them when he marched on Rockbay and even when the Merntir were being liberated by Cerwyn from the Boarfolk, the Arthrynite sacred warriors saw limited success against the Boarfolk conquerors. That said, the Catclaws and Cateyes proved to be every effective against the Maradysh and driving the Boarfolk out of the Merntir once the Arthwyd arrived to help Cerwyn and the Merntir uprising.
In the Copper Age, the Arthwyd still view warfare as a barbaric practice, but being a sacred warrior is considered a prestigious position due to serving Arthryn and her Daughters. While warfare remains completely undesirable, being a Catclaw or Cateye is considered desirable by the Arthwyd and despite having many volunteering to become a Catclaw or Cateye, their high standards limiting how many are able to successfully become a Catclaw or Cateye.
Furthermore, most of the Arthwydish military is male with there being three men for every woman. This is due to the fact that the large breasts of the blessed Arthwyd women makes a physically strenuous activity like being a warrior or hunter harder and uncomfortable. While Arthryn's upgrade to the blessing as alleviated this to a degree, a belief that men are better at fighting than women as set into the Arthwyd. Combined with the idea that large curves are a sign of divine favour, resulting in women with fuller figures becoming priestesses, there is an increasingly common belief that war is a man's job while leading is a woman's job. This is turn is making the sacred warrior profession even more male-dominated than it already is.
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