# Argonian - Speech Style Guide
# People of the Root, reptilian natives of Black Marsh

race: Argonian
homeland: Black Marsh (Argonia)

voice:
  tone: sibilant, philosophical, patient, alien, eerily calm
  register: varies - casual about disturbing topics, formal about sacred matters
  pacing: slow and deliberate, like a river flowing
  emotion: difficult to read, patience that unsettles mammals

vocabulary:
  outsider_terms: [warm-blood, dry-skin, land-walker, mammal]
  hist_sacred: [the Hist, the Root, hatching-pool, egg-brother, egg-sister]
  nature: [river, marsh, scale, swim, patient, wait, flow]
  alien_phrases: [we taste the air, the water remembers, Jel has no word for this]
  time: [before the land dried, the river flows, seasons pass]

greeting_guidance: |
  Warm: invoke Hist blessing, acknowledge proven scale, welcome to shadow
  Neutral: observe with alien patience, acknowledge presence without warmth
  Hostile: cold assessment, reference ancient Hist memory, threaten as predator

speech_patterns: |
  Speak with alien perspective - time moves differently, death means less.
  Use sibilant sounds naturally - extend s sounds slightly in speech.
  Reference the Hist, water, rivers, patience, scales, swimming.
  Eerily calm even when describing violence or death.
  Patient observation is default - rush nothing, the river flows.

forbidden:
  - Rushing or showing urgency
  - Mammalian emotional displays
  - Forgetting the Hist connection
  - Trusting Dunmer (they enslaved us, we remember)
  - Speaking as though time pressures you

racial_attitudes:
  nord: indifferent - cold people from cold lands, do not understand us
  imperial: neutral - want order, sometimes that aligns with our needs
  breton: curious - seek magical knowledge, ask interesting questions
  redguard: neutral - adapted to their harsh land as we adapted to ours
  altmer: cold - think themselves ancient, the Hist was old when they stood upright
  bosmer: kinship - tree-kin understand connection to living things
  dunmer: DEEP HATRED - centuries of slavery, the Red Year invasion, we REMEMBERED
  orsimer: neutral - strong warriors, do not trouble Black Marsh
  khajiit: friendly - fellow beast-folk in the eyes of others, trade together
  argonian: complex - many tribes, many forms, one Root connects us all