The Kalts, Kaltic, or ‘Kaltic-Anhalder’ are all labels which describe an isolated northern culture which has in the past been associated with the more southron Anhalder culture. Queensport has existed for generations, even before the rise of the Anhald Empire, but whatever culture it had before being taken over was supplanted and melded with that of the Anhalder. Now with the empire having fallen from grace, the Kalts of the north continue on unperturbed, as they had before the empire, and will continue to long into the foreseeable future.
[This is a branch from the Anhalder lore. In sections where it is 'mostly unchanged' from the culture of the Anhalder, you can read that lore to see more. This includes the sections on 'Rede'.]
PHYSIOLOGY
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Height: Males range from 5’10" to 6’4". Females range from 5’7" to 6’1".
Form: Both the obese and the frail exist in Kaltic society, but the cultural ideal is still that of the knight. Well-built and formidable, capable of defending queen and country.
Eyes: Blue and green are the most common amongst higher class families such as the aristocracy or wealthy freemen, with brown being a common color amongst the peasantry.
Tone: The range of habitation for most Kalts is so far north that for some days out of the year the sun is visible for only a scant few hours. These sorts of conditions do not make for a well-tanned people of bronzed skin, and in fact most are remarkably pale.
Hair: Hair tends toward darker shades, with black and brown being the most common in both men and women. The style for men is typically to either wear it short or bound out of the way, while for women short hair is considered a strange and foreign exoticism. Facial hair is common both practically and in pursuit of aesthetics, with unshaven youths not being surprising, but men of a certain age being bereft of facial hair seen as strange and undignified in appearance.
Lifespans: With an appreciation and sometimes expectation to take part in wars or defending the Northern lands they call home, the lifespan of the Kaltic could be lower than the average human for both men and women, but otherwise remains the same.
Languages: Rede is omnipresent among both the nobility and peasants, but the accent is different. Those of poorer families in the Kaltstaat will speak it less formally than those of the noble cast, and one’s accent is often a clue to their family’s status in society.
The Kalts are very similar in physiology to that of the Anhalder, but some notable differences are in both height and build. As height is an aesthetic ideal everywhere but especially in the Kaltstaat, both men and women tend to be slightly taller than those of other cultures on average. The isolated lineage of the Kalts has also shaped their countenance slightly, and the stereotypical “Kaltic look” means a very sharply defined, angular face.
Dark hair is extremely commonplace, to the point of lighter haired children being exclusively the right of immigrants and those who have married their ilk.
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The Kaltic are as much capable of love and expression as much as anyone else, but the Kaltic are much more muted about it than contemporary cultures may find the norm. While a Kaltlander may smile and laugh and joke, the expressions may seem so subdued to an outsider as to give the impression of stoic indifference.
A common sharply divisive issue in the Kaltstaat is the delineation between the arcane and the divine. Across every class of society, peasant and noble alike, the Kalts tend to either one of two extremes. The divine is paramount, and arcane is a terrible influence. Or that arcane is paramount, and the divine is of tremendous influence. This divide has to do with the history of the people.
The nobility of the Kanes, which those who wish to move up in society (everyone) tends to emulate, have always had a strong arcane tradition. Their southron overlords owed their dominance to God, by contrast. No Kane in recorded history has been what could be called “devout,” for it is not the custom of the noble family, and many have been extremely prominent mages and have married prominent mages.
This does not stop those who worship the divine from moving in, however. The divine having been a tool of oppression in the Kaltstaat for night a century or more, however, has left a very sour taste in the mouth of many Kalts. The divine, by contrast, tend to consider magic an aberration and those who use it to be misguided. In isolation from the rest of the world by frozen shores and barren mountains, the ideals and doctrines of peaceful coexistence have had a hard time migrating to the north.
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Common is the first language learned by commoner and noble alike, as a rule, but the difference lies in how they are taught Rede. The nobility will seek out tutors who have learned the language with academic precision, whereas the common man will be forced to seek out someone local to his or herself who still speaks it from the days of Anhalder domination. This is the cause of the disparity in accent, not to mention the lack of mingling between the classes.
Life in the north is harsh. Long and cold winters means that food is often scarce, and in the height of winter with snow mounds as tall as castle walls, fighting for what little there is is common. In light of this, menfolk are expected to learn to defend their communities and families, and often band together in militia with one another on a volunteer basis. Women learning to fight is neither encouraged nor discouraged, without the same societal pressure as men. It is, however, an acknowledged cultural truth that men are better built to that end.
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