Zαrγiδvεn culture

The Zαrγiδvεn culture is a culture which was come up with for the purpose of exemplifying The Culture Creator for the second year it was run. It was designed entirely by MUNOCC Advisor George Sakr. The culture as such is quite basic. George Sacre 11:21, 21 October 2012 (EDT)

Name of culture and ethymology
The Zαrγiδvεn culture was named so after the the Zαrγiδvεn versions of its creator's family name (Zαr) and the word "kid" (γiδ). Its pronounciation is: z-aa-r-gh-i-dh-v-è-n (in Chatting, za3r8idhvèn).

The Zαrγiδvεn Language
The Zαrγiδvεn language comes from an elaborate mixture of English, French, Italian, German, Arabic, Japanese, Latin and Greek, with a slight influence from Irish, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and Indian.

The importance of crab
The ancestors of the Zαrγiδvεnen originally landed on the island they would later call Zαrlande, on which they had to get rid of quite a large amount of crabs. Naturally, they thought better than to just kill the crabs and throw them into the sea surrounding; they immediately got to work on breeding them for food. In the small, southern, coastal Zαrγiδvεn town of Krappoθen (the name comes from "Krapottεn" as much as from "Krαb" (crab); the Zαrγiδvεn word Krapotεn is an expression of joy, and also translates to "Goal!" for sports), even today, lies a great crab farm (which raises nothing but crabs). The Krappoθen Krαberz Fεman (Crab farm of Krappoθen) provides the south of the island with all the crab it needs and the north of the island with 70% of its need in crab (there is a smaller crab farm in the northern town of Bαχe), all year long.

Varieties of crab
The southern crab (mainly the variety raised in Krappoθen) is called Krappoθiern Krαbern; the northern crab (the variety raised in Bαχe) is called Bαχeiern Krαbern. The main difference between them is that the Krappoθiern Krαbern comes in shades of blue to green, has very tender meat, and is preferred raw or fried, while the Bαχeiern Krαbern comes in shades of red to magenta, has a very hard meat, and is preferred steamed.

Crab for lunch
The Zαrγiδvεnen are heavy-duty eaters. They believe that eating is the purpose of life (as opposed to what is usually admitted). The excess of crab on Zαrlande lead to a tradition of crab eating. Although a traditional Zαrγiδvεn breakfast (and sometimes a Zαrγiδvεn dinner) is/are entirely crab-free, however, a traditional Zαrγiδvεn lunch consists of a six-course meal entirely axed around crabs.
 * Appetizer: Krαb Kωkerz (= "crab cookies"). Crab-based cookies (mainly fried crab strips lightly fried in a special concoction, stuffed with a rice-and-lettuce preparation). Best made from Krappoθiern Krαbern.
 * Side-dish 1: Sεsam Pαn vez Krαb Stuffern Bein (= "Sesame Bread with Crab stuffed within"). Made from fried bread, ground crab meat, and sesame seeds.
 * Main dish: Slωt Krαb (= "slut crab"). A whole boiled crab without the inedible parts (sometimes more than just one), adorned with deep-fried cheese sticks and laying on a bed of red algae. Occasionally served with mushrooms, shrimps, or calamari rings. The inedible parts may be left about for decoration. Best made from Krappoθiern Krαbern.
 * Salad: Salαte de Krαb (= "crab salad"). An elaborate mix of crab strips, mushrooms, palmito hearts and tuna sometimes. The whole thing swims in a delectable dressing mainly made from mustard and lemon.
 * Side-dish 2: Beluθ Krab (= "lost crab"). A soup, traditionally made from bits of crab and molten cheese. It is very spicy, yet not spicy enough to pass off as "hot".
 * Dessert: Volantiern Krαbern (= "Crab from Volanti"). An old woman from the now-historic southern city of Volanti (some called her a chemist and some a witch) found a concoction with which she treated crab meat (chemist theories say, "by osmosis") to get rid of all the salts within it and replace every ounce of salt by two ounces of fruit sugar (fructose). The concoction's original recipe now lays at the Volantiern Storiern Mωsem (= "Historic Museum of Volanti") in the city of Maεlande. The (rather zealous and overly protective) museum curator made and keeps making copies of the recipe and distributing it, and chemist analyses are still puzzled at how it works. But what is sure is that Volantiern Krαbern is one of the sweetest substances in Zαrlande, and that it is adored in the form of sweetcrab sticks and sweetcrab cubes. It is eaten raw.

The downside of so much crab
"The crab itself contains some cholesterol. The amount is not enough to classify crab as a high-cholesterol food or to categorize crab legs as bad for your cholesterol levels, as long as you do not eat fatty accompaniments with the seafood. [...] Crab legs are cracked open to reach the meat inside, which contains chemicals known as sterols. That chemical group includes cholesterol, notes Mary Calvagna of the Swedish Medical Center, which at one time caused the amount of cholesterol in crab meat to be overestimated. Crab legs actually contain the same amount of cholesterol or less than beef or poultry. [...] Crab legs become a high-cholesterol food when served with common accompaniments, like fatty sauces and melted butter." http://www.livestrong.com/article/478552-crab-legs-and-cholesterol Add to all this that most people on the Zαrlande like crab fried, and you get a serious cholesterol problem on the entire island. This has caused some people to denounce having crab as often and instead of having crab five days a week, they have it three. The other two, they have the same dishes using crab substitute (a tofu-like substance) or potatoes (although neither of the dishes previously mentioned tastes as good when it is made from substitute or potatoes).

Zαrγiδvεn Kαlenδen (dating system)
The Zαrγiδvεn Kαlenδen (the word roughly translates to "calendar") considers the day the Zαrγiδvεnens' ancestors crashed on planet Rafa Rafa (February 29th, 2012) day 1 of their history. Their five months are, in order: Each week is five days long, and those are Δagεn, Δagδε, Δagtja, Δagγatt and Δagpεnδ. Each month is fifty days long (ten weeks long); the year is therefore 250 days long (or five months long, or fifty weeks long).
 * Εn (One)
 * Δε (Two)
 * Tjα (Three)
 * Γatt (Four)
 * Pεnδ (Five)

The Origins of Pentacentricism
The ancestors of the Zαrγiδvεnen were namely Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Wiccans and Atheists. The word "Pentacentricism" itself comes from the greek pende (meaning five), in relation to the five religions whence Pentacentricism comes. The practitioners of Atheism, albeit dominant among the Zαrγiδvεnen, did not consider their faith a "Religion", and therefore it was not considered in the number that brought forth Pentacentricism.

Binomial Law of Pentacentricism
"Every single unit in the Whole cannot be without its having an exact opposite."

The Unity
According to Pentacentricism, the whole universe (the Whole, or Ωllεn) is run by a single figure belonging to that Whole, the "One God" or "Unity" (Ωn). The Unity is in fact the unity of all of natural emotions (love, friendship, hatred...) and is at the base of all things. People pray by getting in contact with their inner self (through meditation, for example). A person only feels well when that person is one with the universe around him.

The Other
Following the Binomial Law of Pentacentricism, the Unity (as part of the Whole) has an antithesis, the Other (Nω) or Antithesis. Albeit not considered a deity, the Other is the personification of disorder. Whenever someone is not one with the Whole, that person is under the Other's influence.

The Pentagram
Inherited from Wiccanism, the Pentagram (or five-point-star) represents, in Pentacentricism, the union of the five elements from which the universe comes traditionally: Fire (Fωγεn), Water (Waθεn), Air (Vαintεn), Earth (Εrδεn), Spirit (Xpεn). Establishing the Pentagram originated problems with the Muslim ancestors of the Zαrγiδvεnen, because the Pentagram was conceptually the representation of the entity they considered to be their God.

The Vαerεrz
The Vαerεrz are the personifications of the five heads of the Pentagram; they were eventually removed from Pentacentricism in most of its manifestations because they were later deemed useless. They were each named after their element, and invoked at the beginning of Meditative Rituals. They still are, for the sole purpose of having a united faith (because one of Pentacentricism's Maδaεbrz did not accept to remove them).

The Maδaεbrz
Pentacentricism has six Maδaεbrz (the word roughly translates to "Sects"). Even within the unity of Pentacentricism, people had different opinions (related to their original faiths). Over the latest twenty-some years, a new form of Pentacentricism has been surfacing among the new generation: it has begun to liberate itself from the ancestral creeds and is very liberated: Pentαerz Pentacenθerz.
 * Originally Christian Pentacentricists (Χristerz Pentacenθerz) refuse to admit the existance of the Other;
 * Originally Muslim Pentacentricists (Islαmristerz Pentacenθerz) refuse to use the Pentagram, and some of the oldest call the Unity "Allah";
 * Originally Jewish Pentacentricists (Yαvisterz Pentacenθerz) refuse Meditation as a form of prayer and some still call the Unity "Yahwe", and/or fear to name it;
 * Originally Buddhist Pentacentricists (Buδαsterz Pentacenθerz) hold on to the idea of reincarnation (while the other Maδaεbrz refuse it);
 * Originally Wiccan Pentacentricists (Wiχerz Pentacenθerz) refuse to remove Vαerεrz;
 * Originally Atheist Pentacentricists (Αθisterz Pentacenθerz) consider the Unity as more of "what is" than "what originated what is".

Festivals
Seeing the importance of all five elements, one can easily comprehend the cult of each one of them to the Zαrγiδvεnen. Each of them was celebrated in a seasonal festival: Water in winter, Air in Autumn, Fire in Summer and Earth in Spring. Each was associated with specific events, situations, and the daily occupations of life.

The importance of terracotta
The most widespread form of manual work was by far terracotta work, among the first Zαrγiδvεnen. It was used to create utensils similar to the ones on Earth originally, then it was replaced by metals when the Zαrγiδvεnen learnt how to use them. The one thing the Zαrγiδvεnen also used terracotta for, which remained long after they discovered how to work metals, was terracotta statue-making (Stαma). One of the most characteristic pieces of Zαrγiδvεn terracotta statues is the Ma Εrδεn ("She, the Earth"), a religious piece dating back to the first century of the Zαrγiδvεn Kαlenδen (see dating system for more information). This being considered, we will go over the characteristic bits of Zαrγiδvεn Stαma using the Ma Εrδεn as a reference.

A delicate art with an ugly face
Zαrγiδvεn Stαma focuses on several details but draws the attention from the face of the statue (the face of the statue is voluntarily made ugly, unrealistic, or both). In the case of the Ma Εrδεn, the statue itself represents the Earth in three of its Pentacentristic roles:
 * Χanγen (it changes): it is Εrδεn's job to switch seasons.
 * Lokalεren (it localises): it is Εrδεn's job to ensure that people never get lost, although the Earth itself may change.
 * Nωεren (it feeds): it is Εrδεn's produce that humans eat to live.