Friendship in My Homebrew Setting

Sometimes an idea for my homebrew world will be so core to basic humanity that when I think to write about, I've already mistakenly thought to myself that I've written about it already. That was certainly the case for my core cultural values guide, and it's especially the case with friendship. I considered adding style of friendship to my to-write list several times but decided not to because I figured I must have already. Friendship is a basic part of life, even if not partaking in it is one's way of interacting with it. And as with differing approaches to romantic and sexual relationships, there are different approaches to friendship as well. Here's a profile on the styles of friendship of each culture in my homebrew setting.

Daltoners

Basic trust and community are not big parts of Daltoner culture, and it is rare for what others groups deem a real friendship to develop between Daltoners in a public fashion, although most Daltoners will secretly carry on a close friendship or two at a time for emotional support and camaraderie. Frequently, however, these friendships are accompanied by feelings of social or religious guilt. The most notable type of Daltoner friendship beyond the abbreviated, hidden relationships that Daltoners form out of desperate social isolation is best represented by dissident Daltoners, whose social worlds tend to be richer given their refusal to live by their society's oppressive rules. These friendships tend to be initially based on identifying with the dissident lifestyle and then deepened by personal connection.

When dissident Daltoners form friendships, there is a sense that the friends each other some grand gesture or favor--someone who can be called upon in a time of need. It is very common for Daltoner friendships to be marked by an expectation of help and a ready willingness to give help. This is, in Daltoner society, a radical departure from the tendency to think in a "survival of the fittest" manner. In some Daltoner friendships, this is abused, but in nearly all Daltoner friendships, the favors are expected often and without consequence. 

When Daltoners form friendships with people outside of their culture (a strict Daltoner taboo), they are often surprised by how light and fun friendships can be. They are used to duty, and finding that a friend can be a person with whom you share joy is transformative for Daltoners. Daltoners also struggle with their expectation of favors, which are viewed as impositions and inconsiderate by most other groups. In general, Daltoners struggle to make non-Daltoner friends due to a combination of cultural reasons including but not limited to this favor expectation struggle as well as the dominant ideology for Daltoners preaching striving as an individual and radically exclusionary practices. 

Faninites

Faninites form close bonds with people in their families and communities, and friendships amongst Faninites are marked by great mutual respect and a genuine attempt at understanding. There is little concern for things like common interests or shared life experiences in Faninite friendships--rather, those whose personal style of interaction and personal wisdom is a good match are the ideals in Faninite friendship. This means that Faninite friendships vary widely in age, walk of life, and other common uniting factors in friendship--only true interpersonal connection matters.

It is common for friendship groups to develop in Faninite society, collections of often three to six people whose collective company is especially enjoyable. In many cases, these groups are insperable and come to be known by others by a group name. There is something of a social expectation that social groups will be helpful to the community, and most friend groups are known as vibrant and helpful parts of their communities. Members of a friend group are considered close enough to be held as family members. 

When Faninites form friendships with people outside their culture, they do so after a long and careful search. Faninites often feel that other people form friendships for surface reasons like age or profession rather than seeking a more meaningful connection, and it takes finding someone with a compatible interaction style and a thirst for deep friendship for a Faninite to form a true friendship by their standards. However, this is not to say that Faninites avoid friendship for the most part; Faninites are easygoing and will accept shallow friendship without complaint. 

Dwarves

Dwarves are taught by their society that family life is to be businesslike, as is of course business; religious faith is communal and highly participatory and above all structured--one of the few places dwarves can truly relax and be themselves is in friendship. For that reason, friendship is a great focus in dwarven society. Dwarven friendship is defined by a feeling of shared identity and a sense that one is truly understood. And because dwarves so often dedicate their lives to their crafts, it is common for dwarves to befriend other dwarves who would be considered colleagues. 

There is a common dwarven saying that goes, "You work at work. You rest at home. You find peace wherever your friends are." This is generally true--while dwarves tend to have reserved family lives, their social circles tend to be rich and vibrant. This compartmentalization of lives is broadly true of dwarves, who perform duties in spaces where duty is expected, and enjoy company and camaraderie when it is socially allowed. It is broadly observed by many that dwarven friendships are among the most intense in Evanoch. 

When dwarves form friendships with people from outside their culture, they are often confronted by how others approach friendship. For many dwarves, living in an oppressive society means that the only real opportunity to be themselves is with friends, and that makes time with friends full of activity and charged with expectation; other groups' relatively more casual approach to friendship can seem confounding and be frustrating, not to mention the effect of the frustration on the other person. It can take time for dwarves to adjust to life outside of dwarven culture. 

Orcs

Orcs tend to view friendship as a deepening of an existing bond as living things, a mutual choosing to dedicate one's limited time to another. And yet, despite the deep consideration of what friendship means, orcs tend to go about making friends with a casual demeanor, even if they go about keeping friends with a fiercer commitment. For orcs, community is essential, and a friend is a member of their community with whom they can share a closer bond of trust. It is common for orcs to share a symbolic secret with a close friend as a way of indicating this level of trust. 

Orcish friendships are marked by language and treatment of family bonds. While the term "neighbor" means something substantial to orcs, calling another orc "brother" or "sister" indicates that the bond is dear and meaningful. It is not uncommon for orcs in these close friendships to develop a sibling-like dynamic complete with inside jokes, sibling rivalry, and childlike behavior. It is generally held that staying in a young state of mind like this is invaluable, and it is considered a mark of good emotional health to have at least one friend who enters this familial territory. 

When orcs form friendships with people from outside their culture, they tend to seek out people who are willing to engage in playful yet deep relationships. For orcs, community is everything, so being able to surround oneself with people who feel like family is a first priority for many orcs upon relocating to a new place. But this is not to say that orcs only seek deep relationships--they cultivate many friendships, some deeper than others, in an effort to stay connected to the community and feel surrounded by positive forces. 

Elves

Elves are a very solitary people for the most part (to the point that a social club raised eyebrows), and forming friendships is the kind of thing that elves go about cautiously. When elves do form a friendship, there is often a teacher/learner dynamic to it, in which the more experienced of the two will seek to influence a talented young mind, and the less experienced will seek advanced wisdom through the more expert. Elven friendships are marked by respect, as dictated in their social values, but also on a deeper level that indicates trust. 

Elven friendships go through periods of great intensity, with a pair of friends spending days or even weeks together without any breaks, often on projects or trips together. These spikes in friendship are called by the elves hailparin, or "home away from home." During hailparin, elves become engrossed in their friends, and elves at large respect a hailparin as a valid excuse for missing an obligation. During one of these periods, elves often become childlike and whimsical, finding in the connection something that frees them. 

When elves form friendships with people from outside their culture, they often struggle with the lengths that non-elven friends are willing to go to in the name of friendship. A last-minute trip across Evanoch brought on by a feeling of intense bonding is a beautiful gesture to an elf and an imposition or ridiculous request for many others. However, elves often do find friendship among others, especially those from whom they can embrace a teaching/learning perspective, and these relationships are frequently fruitful. 

Half-Elves

Like with their romantic relationships, half-elven friendships are based on service. A half-elf demonstrates to another person that they want to be friends by offering some small service, and established, dedicated friends will often go out of their ways to help a friend, even one who isn't seeking help. A common saying in half-elven friendship is "your needs are my needs," a way of saying that the friends involved are aligned in purpose and spirit. Half-elves do occasionally form less serious bonds than this, often with a focus on building community. 

Creativity is a great drive of half-elven society, and is is common for friends to be considered muses for creative output. Unlike in some uses of the word "muse," there is not necessarily any connotation beyond "one who inspires creativity," and so some muses are simply friends whose ideas, values, or companionship inspires another. To describe this relationship, half-elves borrow an elven term--vedapil--which literally means "the provider of life energy," a way of illustrating the specialness of the bond, changing it slightly from the religious context elves generally use it in. 

When half-elves form friendships with people outside their culture--a common circumstance given that half-elves are known as assimilators--they tend to look for individuals who make them feel something, be it contentment, peace, inspiration, or understanding. It is only after a strong relationship is developed that half-elves will attempt to heighten the relationship to a status of service or vedapil, knowing that friendship is a delicate thing which needs to be based on a strong foundation so that it can survive the great stakes of half-elven friendship. 

Gnomes

For gnomes, friendship is one of the shining joys of life. They thrive in communities of like-minded gnomes, they maintain strong social presences in society, and they believe that the greatest good one can do is help their fellow people. As a result, gnomes are very inclined toward friendship, although at a more intellectual level than an emotional one--gnomes tend to guide themselves by what they think rather than what they feel, and forming friendships is no different. It is very common in gnomish society for a gnome's friends to share a profession or hobby with, something that gives them something to discuss. 

Gnomish friendships are marked by the use of playful pranks. Gnomes show affection by staging sometimes elaborate practical jokes on their friends, sometimes through big surprises and other times through carefully-administered inside jokes. It is common in gnomish lands to witness a spectacle in public only to realize that a gnome was being treated to a large-scale prank, almost always to the gnome's delight. The belief is generally that the time and effort to fabricate a situation that gets a laugh from a friend illustrates time and attention as well as knowledge of the friend's tastes to execute correctly. 

When gnomes form friendships with people from outside their culture, they seek people who think in a similar way to how they think. This might mean finding an expert in a shared profession, a hobbyist who shares their passion, or someone whose ideas about friendship align with gnomish standards, particularly the practical jokes. Some gnomes find that friendships outside of gnomish people can be hard and often seek to stay among gnomes, but most gnomes are willing to make adjustments out of a general sociability. 

Halflings

Halflings are a curious people, prizing independence and privacy highly at the same time as they value community and cooperation. And as with their romantic relationships, there are a great many social taboos on how halflings can behave in relationships. This generally means that friendships, like romances, are undertaken by halflings purely for the sake of the relationship itself. Halflings get everything they need from their own effort and from their neighbors, so friendship among halflings is defined by a simple enjoying of the presence of the other person. 

Halfling friendships are notable in that they will go through long stages of dormancy, periods when neither friend will speak to the other, and this is considered a natural process that does not need to be counteracted; instead, halfling friends tend to come back together irregularly when their lives most call for their friendship. These periods of dormancy are called pliskint, or "steeping" as with tea. It is considered a great cruelty to deny a good friend your companionship if they are in a difficult time and need help. 

When halflings form friendships with people from outside their culture, they sometimes struggle with the ideas others bring to friendship--the idea of gaining professional insight or social power through friendship borders on the obscene for halflings, and finding someone who simply wants to enjoy company together can be trying. Many halflings find strong friendships by seeking those deeply involved in their communities, which allows them to find a comfortable and familiar space like what they are used to in halfling lands. 

There you have it--a guide to the friendship styles of my homebrew setting. I'm going to be honest here, reader: this article took it out of me. Trying to define styles of friendship seemed like an easy enough thing going in--how hard could it be to describe eight different styles of being friends? But the abstractness was a challenge, and so was being super sick while writing a lot of this, and so was some burnout, and so was life in general. These setbacks happened. I released the last article ahead of time to give myself a break from this guide, and I had to really give myself some time and space to walk away and come back to this in its proper time. That happens to all of us sometimes, and it's important to be able to give yourself the grace to take some time and come back to it. It is all for fun, after all, and that bears remembering. 

That's all for now. Coming soon: symbols of power by culture, the locations of important resources, and an account of player character changes to my homebrew setting. Until next time, happy gaming!

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