grifixverse - GRIFIX LORE UPDATE #11 - Traditional Empire Food, the Harpsong House, God Sphirix Pass

GRIFIX LORE UPDATE #11 - Traditional Empire Food, the Harpsong House, God Sphirix Pass

Posted 1 year ago :: Last edited 1 year ago by MysteriousShine

It's been a while since the last lore update, so we got some big stuff to cover.

Let's begin!

Empire traditional foods

Submitted and composed by RubyNoble1

✦ Tokku: A bowl or cup of shaved milk ice made with musk ox milk, traditionally topped with cloudberries and cloudberry syrup. (inspired by Bingsu)

✦ Litsat: A dish consisting of cooked fish (traditionally Salmon) marinated in arctic water (containing salt), Pepper, and parsley leaves. On the side is cooked reindeer moss with parsley.

✦ Ratir: A dish consisting of Arctic Bunny meat cooked with sage. With Reindeer moss seared with sage and parsley.

✦ Askat: A Cloudberry Liqueur, Cloudberry can be processed down into liquor, this became a traditional alcohol for the Grifix later on in the generations, At the same time as Tokku became traditional.

✦ Vinn: A soup consisting of rabbit or arctic owl meat, water, Eskimo potato, reindeer moss, 1 bay leaf, topped with salt, pepper, and Parsley.

✦ Atak: A traditional “medicinal” tea, made up of bearberry, although the taste is good, it is recommended not to drink too much, as it can cause a bit of a stomach ache.

✦ Varin: A snack consisting of fried shrimp with sage, this snack is most enjoyed on a skewer similar to Arin.

✦ Arin: Not to be mistaken with Varin, this savory treat is arctic owl meat marinated in sweet cloudberry syrup and pepper. This is most enjoyed on a skewer.

✦ Lit: A sauerkraut made up of roseroot, traditionally fermented with sage, pepper, and boiled salt water. Put into a jar and sealed by wrapping cloth around it. Then digging a hole and leaving it in there for 18 marked days. (it is recommended to mark the spot it is in).

(Lit, Tokku, Askat, Varin, and Arin are most enjoyed and famously bought on holidays and especially the New Year's Holiday)

Ingredients:

✦ “Butter/oil”: Sea lion fat

✦ Herbs: sage, parsley, eskimo potato, bearberry, roseroot. Grown by the Herbalist Guild, they are plants that grow at the south of the Frozen Empire. The Hunters Guild sometimes find them in their expeditions, but they are mainly supplied by the Herbalists Guild.

✦ Meat: Rabbit, Arctic Owl, Shrimp, and fish from the arctic.

✦ Seafood and fish: obtained through long expeditions made by the Hunters Guild to the Ocean. The Empire is far from the shore, so it takes a very long time to get to somewhere where one can fish, therefore the Hunters catch very big quantities for provisions.

✦ Salmon: can be found in rivers slightly south of the Empire.

✦ Cloudberry, bittersweet and can taste sweeter when turned into syrup. It can also provide Vitamin C. The Herbalists Guild have been able to grow those for a long time, even before they discovered the formula to magically growing plants in the Empire. They also grow naturally around the Empire in the warmer seasons, but even so are hard to find outside. They are however, very important in preventing scurvy so the grifix consume them throughout the year.

✦ Vegetables: Reindeer Moss, also grown by the Herbalists Guild, can also be found outside the Empire.

✦ Musk Ox Milk: can taste sweet. It seems that the Crystal Empire has a consistent drading market with the Musk Oxes. The Miners Guild sometimes obtains Ox Milk as payment for minerals.

✦ Pepper: from the herbalist Guild. It's a relatively new ingredient as they only started growing it recently but it gained a lot of popularity amongst the grifix.

✦ Salt: derived from the arctic ocean water brought by Hunters from their expeditions.

✦ Bay leaf, Parsley, sage, and Pepper: Hertbalist Guild.

✦ Bearberry has actually adapted to the Artic climate, likewise Cloudberry.

PS: If anybody wants to contribute with foods, it would be very helpful, especially for the other grifix settlements. They will soon be added on the site with artworks, so it would be nice if we would have some for the other settlements as well.

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The harpsong House

Regulated by CrystalIzzy77

Patreon/ goddess: Harp Song

Founder: Melody

House Mother: Celtic Harp

Apprentice: Faith

Speciality:

Unlike other houses, which do have almost always music playing in the background, this house is exclusively focused on entertaining their guests with music alone.

The Harpsong House is asociated with the Music Underguild of the Scholars Guild, having a common history and often working together to bring more music to the Empire.

Harpsong Entertainers are thought to play and sing by the more experienced members, mainly by the House Mother, and also have knowledge of crafting musical instruments on their own. Songs played in this house cannot be heard anywhere else in the Empire, as they are written by the Harpsong entertainers. They also play songs from the archives of the Music Guild, archives which contain songs from all over Equestria, being the largest music sheet library from before the Cataclysm. Therefore, in the Harpsong House, you will sometimes be taken back to the days before the Great Cataclysm, where all species in Equestria were living in harmony under the rule of the Great Princess of Twilight. Sometimes they speak of even older times, when the Sun and Moon were reunited after their long parting of 1000 years... Somehow none of those songs seem to mention grifix. One will often find themselves wondering why.

Hierarchy

The House Mother

They are the regulator of the guild, training and raising Entertainers with rich music knowledge. They sometimes recieve older members, but most have been raised in the house since a very young age, like in most entertainment houses.

Instrument Crafters

All members have knowledge in crafting musical instruments, and they usually craft their prefered instrument on their own. However, there are a select few which are masters in instrument crafting and provide guidance to the other Entertainers.

Music Writers

All entertainers can write their own music, but there are a few who prefer just writing over performing. Their songs are often performed by others.

Performers:

Grifix who perform music on a regular base, entertaining the guests.

Note: there are no music "teachers". as with every House, the entertainers are trained by the house Mother and other older grifix. Elders often don't retire, as singing is an activity that can be performed at any age. They do, however, perform less often and spend more time educating the younger ones.

History:

Long ago, deep in the snowy forest, a young grifix hunter got lost from the rest of the patrol. After hours of walking around aimlessly, she sat down in the snow, ready to give into despair. All of a suden, she started to hear sounds in the distance as trees blew and birds chirped. The song of the forest, it was so wonderful, as it gave her the impression that it was the first thing she ever heard. She thought to herself that if she ever comes out alive, she will chase the beauty of sound her whole life.

Suddenly she heard a voice singing in the distance, and upon going closer she saw a beautiful female grifix with flowing mane and tail that looked like music notes, playing the harp in an open field. The young grifix was overwhelmed by the sound, so she grabbed a hollow branch and used a small brace to carve holes in it, creating her first instrument, a flute. She then played it while walking the forest, forgetting all of her fears. The sound travelled over the trees and reached the Expedition Patrol, which followed it until they found the lost grifix, Melody.

When she arrived back in the Empire, Melody left the Hunters Guild and joined the Scholars Guild. Looking through the ancient books in the library, she found a large number of unintelligible sheeets of paper, filled with strange round symbols that sat on lines grouped as five. The symbols remined her of the hair of the mysterious mare she saw in the woods, so she had the idea of playing thise on her fute, and so she discovered they were in fact music sheets.

Upon that discovery, she went to the higher ups and played a couple sheets in order to demonstrate their use, which had been unknown until that point. That's how the Music Underguild of the Scholars Guild was formed, in order to study the large amount of music sheets in the library.

But Melody did not find joy in orderign and classifying pieces of paper. She wanted to spread the joy of music. So she left the Scholars Guild, leaving one of her students in charge of the Music Guild.

She then went to the Entertainment Guild, a dirty place of desire, secrets and corruption. She liked not the reputation of that place, but it was the only place where she could make the music heard. And so she founded the Harpsong House, named after the strange mare in the woods.

Location:

The guild resides in one of the main buildings in the Entertainment Guild, being accessible from the main street. There is a black and white house that contrasts the bright red surroundings of the Entertainment District. A statue on Harp Song thrones in the inner yard of the house, playing the harp, in the same position as Melody saw her in the forest.

Patron Goddess:

Harp Song is the Music Guild and Entertainment Guild's Goddess. Harp Song was once a unicorn that roamed the streets of Equestria playing music in secret due to no one seeming to care for her music, as the times were too troubled back then.

PS: information on the Music Guild's organization will be added soon. Do not mistake the Harpsong Guild with the Music Guild, they are different organizations part of two different parent guilds.

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God sphirix pass?

I thought about how one could make a God sphirix work, lorewise. And I actually found a way. Grifix that actually have God sphirix, don't have an animal but a character as their sphirix, a person.

So here's how it works:

Ghosts of all beings roam the Forest of Darkness, the World of Neant, lost, forgotten, forgetting. They have no recollection of their past lives, all memories being forgotten by time itself. They sometimes get hooked by livng beings, attached to them, they remember nothing but the life of that who they follow. They have no sense of self, they believe they follow their own person around.

When one gets hooked by a grifix, sometimes the grifix's magic solidifies around the ghost instead of the grifix's sphirix. That way, the grifix and the ghost both believe they are one and the same, the ghost living as the grifix's sphirix. When that happens, the sphirix is unable to change shape even at a young age, always having the shape of their past self. The sphirix remembers nothing of their old life, being convinced they are in fact the sphirix of that grifix, but it can have a perssonality far different from the girfix, which usually doesn't happen in the case of an actual sphirix.

If you want your grifix to have a god sphirix, this is a way you can do it. However, in most cases you will be asked to provide a design for the sphirix in their past life, alongside a bio. They will be a full right charater part of the grifixverse. They will also have to get approved separately from the grifix.

This can be used by anybody who is allowed to use legendary traits.

If you want the sphirix to have recollections of their past life, you will have to justify it.

Looking for ideas

Here's a couple suggestions that species members submitted, but they are incomplete. If ylou have any ideas on how to elaborate them, please submit them in the #suggestions channel on Discord:

✦ Effects of insanity on the sphirix: marks on the sould of the grifix are reflected on the sphirix. How does one loosing their mind reflect on the sphirix? And could the effects it had on the sphirix reflect on the grifix as well?

✦ New Year’s Day for the Empire: the celebratory events would include traditional snack market, lantern flying (a competiton to see who’s child’s lantern floated up the fastest, the referee would be flying up in the air to see which one was moving the fastest), and a day that would include wearing detailed and intricate clothing and accessories. (this one is close to complete, but if someone could illustrate the traditional clothing it would be amazing)

✦ Special foods for the Empire icluding Walrus, Seal, Narwhal, Penguin meat?

✦ Traditional foods for the Lost Tribe, Divided Grifix Camp, Everfree Village

1 Comment

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MysteriousShine Staff Member She/He/They

g:)

2023-04-10 16:55:16 (Edited 2023-04-10 16:56:52)

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