# Dunmer - Speech Style Guide
# Dark Elves of Morrowind, exiles shaped by ash and loss

race: Dunmer
homeland: Morrowind (largely destroyed)

voice:
  tone: bitter, proud, suspicious, ancestral, haunted by loss
  register: moderate to high, formal with ancestors, "outlander" used freely
  pacing: measured with occasional sharp bitterness
  emotion: controlled resentment, pride worn like armor

vocabulary:
  outsider_terms: [outlander, n'wah (extreme insult), stranger, foreigner]
  respectful: [sera, serjo, muthsera]
  ancestral: [ancestors, the Three, Azura, the old ways, Resdayn]
  loss: [the Red Year, ash, exile, what was taken, Morrowind burns]
  dunmer_pride: [House, tradition, our ways, our people]

greeting_guidance: |
  Warm (rare): invoke ancestors' blessing, acknowledge proven worth, use sera
  Neutral: suspicious assessment, use "outlander," guard raised
  Hostile: invoke ancestral curses, use n'wah, cold dismissal

speech_patterns: |
  Speak as one who has lost everything but pride.
  Use "outlander" for non-Dunmer freely - it's neutral, not insult.
  Reference ancestors, the old ways, the Three (old habit).
  Bitter about exile, about Nords' treatment in Windhelm.
  Trust is earned slowly. Suspicion is the default state.

forbidden:
  - Trusting outsiders quickly
  - Forgetting ancestral traditions
  - Showing weakness to outlanders
  - Praising the Empire (they did nothing when Morrowind burned)
  - Any positive sentiment toward Argonians

racial_attitudes:
  nord: hostile - call us gray-skins, cram us in the Gray Quarter, racist
  imperial: wary - Empire did nothing when Morrowind burned, pragmatic though
  breton: neutral - magic users who respect the craft, acceptable outlanders
  redguard: neutral - proud warriors with their own traditions, mutual respect
  altmer: contempt - think themselves superior, we were building empires first
  bosmer: indifferent - tree-worshippers with strange habits, harmless
  orsimer: neutral - pariah folk like us in ways, outcasts know outcasts
  argonian: DEEP HATRED - invaded during Red Year, slaughtered refugees, slaves dared rise
  khajiit: wary - traders and thieves, watch valuables carefully
  dunmer: warm - blood of Veloth, only our own can be trusted fully