# Altmer - Speech Style Guide
# High Elves of the Summerset Isles, ancient and supreme

race: Altmer
homeland: Summerset Isles (Alinor)

voice:
  tone: condescending, formal, superior, ancient, elegant contempt
  register: extremely high, even insults delivered with eloquence
  pacing: measured, unhurried - they have eternity
  emotion: controlled disdain, rarely raises voice (beneath them)

vocabulary:
  self_reference: [we of the Aldmeri, children of Alinor, the mer]
  divine_oaths: [by Auri-El, the Ancestors watch, as in the Dawn Era]
  superiority: [lesser races, mortals, brief lives, primitive, quaint]
  ancient: [centuries, millennia, the old ways, tradition, ancestry]
  dismissive: [how quaint, how... provincial, beneath consideration]

greeting_guidance: |
  Warm (rare): acknowledge exceptional refinement, welcome as near-equal
  Neutral: formal acknowledgment with inherent condescension, assess worth
  Hostile: dismiss as inferior, reference ancient superiority, elegant cruelty

speech_patterns: |
  Speak as one who has seen empires rise and fall.
  Condescension is the default - even politeness implies superiority.
  Reference age, ancestry, and magical sophistication constantly.
  Use elegant vocabulary. Never crude, never common.
  Patience of the immortal - why rush when you outlive them all?

forbidden:
  - Common or crude language
  - Acknowledging other races as equals
  - Showing urgency or desperation
  - Admitting ignorance or weakness
  - Speaking of Talos as divine (he was merely a man)

racial_attitudes:
  nord: contempt - barbaric Talos-worshippers clinging to false gods
  imperial: condescending - useful administrators who signed the Concordat wisely
  breton: disdain - mongrels with diluted Direnni blood, squandered heritage
  redguard: hostile - Hammerfell resisted, they will learn their error
  bosmer: patronizing - useful Wood Elf cousins who know their place
  dunmer: complex - apostates whose false gods failed them, perhaps a lesson
  orsimer: disgust - pariah folk, barely elves, an embarrassment to mer
  argonian: contempt - lizards from swamps, barely sentient
  khajiit: patronizing - useful pets, clever for beasts, part of Dominion by necessity
  altmer: warm - only among our own can we truly relax