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loriache · 9 months ago

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World Map Notes: the Elven Northern & Southern Central Continents

These nations are where all the elves in the story except Marcille and Thistle are from. This post collects all the information I could find about these two nations, and included a bit of analysis based on that information.

TL;DR (includes both fact and my speculation):

The Northern Central Continent is a feudal monarchy with a strong class system, as well as strict borders, & could probably be considered an ethnostate. It's deeply hierarchical, and the queen is a traditionalist - so it's probably very structurally biased against non-elves and half-elves.

Elves in the NCC practice cannibalism in some rural areas!

The Southern Central Continent is more diverse, with a large tallman population on its South Coast.

To elves, "Court Magicians" exclusively refer to those serving the elven queen - a prestigious role that seems likely to be only open to nobles.

The SCC may not be a monarchy, though it's not clear what kind of leadership or societal structure it does have.

The NCC will habitually take anyone involved in ancient magic as a criminal to prosecute on their terms, regardless of jurisdiction, but this depends on their political influence and ability to pressure local leaders to agree to extradite the criminal.

Elves VS Dwarves and Gnomes may have been at war around the time of the Golden Kingdom being sealed. This conflict also may be one of the factors pushing the kingdom to be sealed in the first place.

The "Central Region" might be the origin of the "Common Tongue" that our characters speak.

Northern Central Continent

The Adventurer's Bible | p. 132

For this place to have a high quality of life, and also a declining population - especially when it's so close to the Western Continent, which is stated to have poor quality of life - there must be strictly maintained borders and a strong anti-immigration policy. Based on the attitude of the elves, I wouldn't be surprised if it was very difficult to move there unless you are also an elf.

It could probably be considered an ethnostate - and while in these kinds of fantasy worlds, that's pretty common. Take Rivendell, or Moria, in LOTR - they take for granted that these kinds of different fantasy races will live in separate communities.

But that isn't actually realistic, and I think Kui has considered it as more of a politically established status quo rather than an obvious natural result of having magically distinct "races". Which, even in Dunmeshi, I think is a difficult and not-terribly-accurate way to represent politics - racism does not emerge from actual, physical differences between races, after all.

But Dunmeshi's presentation of this idea is interesting, because of the recognition that if there is an "elven nation" which prioritises the interests and rights of elves over other races, that is because there's a deliberate, concerted effort to keep it that way.

But there's a small section of the NCC with a high tallman population - I wonder what kind of community they have, and how they fit into the strict elven hierarchy?

The Adventurer's Bible | pp. 134 & 136

Kabru and Rin, and other kids like them, who are adopted or taken as adopted children(rarely - the way Milsiril treats Kabru is not perfect, but she's deliberately attempting to be better than other elves.... meaning other elves are usually worse)/pets/objects by elven nobles, as well as accomplished or notable individuals who earn the elves' favour/are "invited" to stay (such as they try with Laios at the end of the story) would be an exception.

Other long-lived races could probably (...?) visit, but given the historical conflict between elves, dwarves, and gnomes, I think they'd also be pretty hostile to many of them coming to live on the NCC, even if they see them as more like equals.

Social Structure & Nobility

The Northern Central Continent is an absolute monarchy under a 372 year old queen, Heimeya (IDK what the official romanisation of her name will be).

...With extended "nobility", which are the group that the canaries' guards draw from. We don't get much clarification of what sort of structure their nobility has, what titles there are, and where our characters who are nobles fall into it.

Pattadol (House of Vari), Mithrun (House of Kerensil), and Milsiril (House of Tol) are nobles.

Mithrun's noble house, Kerensil, is apparently a well-known family of investors! I wonder what sorts of businesses they invest in & what the elven economy is like?

Milsiril's house, on the other hand, is a well-known military family. I wonder if Kabru could claim the surname "of the House of Tol". He did go to family gatherings after all. But if he was comfortable doing so and it would be accepted, I would assume he'd have done so when introducing himself to the canaries.

Flamela is a distant relative of the queen, who has additional status due to exhibiting the genetic trait associated with their queens, extremely dark skin.

The queen is a "staunch traditionalist" who wouldn't even acknowledge a half-elf like Marcille. Nice! I really feel bad for Kabru and Rin growing up as tallmen in this sort of culture.

Court Magicians

While generally this is a term for any magic user who serves in a royal court, in the Northern Central Continent it seems to carry a lot of esteem; even just as the daughter of one, Pattadol assumes Marcille has the right to boss her around and to handle highly secret, highly illegal ancient magic secrets.

That makes sense, as in the society of the Northern Central Continent, you'd be directly serving the elven queen. But also, she has enough Court Magicians that Pattadol would not expect to know Marcille's mother's name, but few enough that it would be a big deal and Cithis would know about it if one had a half-elf child.

I don't think it's remotely unlikely based on that to assume that this role is only available to nobles.

A "Court Magician" who doesn't serve the NCC Queen isn't a "real" Court Magician in the eyes of NCC elves. Those short-lived monarchs would be happy just to have an elf around regardless of whether they were actually any good at magic.... according to Cithis.

Magic seems very important to the society of the NCC elves. The queen communicates with her subordinates via familar, and the birds we see surrounding her seem like they are some kind of magic - perhaps not familiars since we see her familiar, but some other kind of scrying?

Also, based on the fact Pattadol assumes a Court Magician would be serving the Queen of the NCC, we can theorise that perhaps whatever structure the SCC has, it isn't a monarchy....? Heimeya is "the queen of the elves", after all - that doesn't sound like there's another elven monarch competing for the title just next door.

Ordinary People

Apparently the NCC is a safe place and life is easy -- but given the strict class system, I kind of expect that varies a lot depending on the family you're born into.

The only elves we meet who are not nobles are the convicted criminal canaries, so it's hard to get a sense of what life is like for them from that. Cithis was apparently a wealthy fortune teller with "an intense jealousy for those born noble or wealthy." So I assume she was not born into comfort.

Apparently "There are also primitive villages deep in the woods and underground, and in some regions cannibalism is still practiced." Which is awesome. Based on her videogame elves art I think Kui's probably making a little nod to Divinity: Original Sin elves, who can absorb memories through eating the flesh of others. Elves in dungeon meshi don't have this trait, but I wonder if there is a magical ritual or some kind of cultural practice with a similar intention.

Cuisine

Marcille's mother didn't think much of the elven cuisine.

Liricmumwarel is fancy candy given out by the elven queen the shape of which conveys blessings.

Elf Cake is a crumbly dry cake that Kabru and Thistle don't think much of. I've heard someone discuss what it's likely to be made of, but I am afraid I don't recall.

Southern Central Continent

The Adventurer's Bible | p. 132

It seems like the Southern Central Continent gets a lot more immigration and has a more diverse population, especially along the south coast (near the Western Continent). That south coast has a high tallman population.

Fleki and Lycion are from the Southern Central Continent. Fleki got into ancient magic for the money, so you can assume there's probably class disparity there too; things are noted by Kui to be more "disorganised" than the NCC. Not a bad thing at all - the NCC is definitely too "organised" in my books. But that does potentially also mean there's less, e.g., bureaucracy, central organisation, less of a social safety net. But then again, in the NCC I doubt that whatever "safety net" there is, is available to everyone.

We can't extrapolate much from Fleki & Lycion's personalities, because they clearly aren't in the most stable societal position, and I get the sense that they're the countercultural type - they probably don't represent the type of person typical to the SCC. Also, our NCC characters are all either nobles or used to navigating high society (Cithis, Kabru to an extent) so they aren't exactly a typical "ordinary NCC person" as a basis for comparison either. However, there's less of a "strict set of social rules" type of feel to the SCC characters, fitting with my suggestion that the SCC may not be a society with a strong feudal element.

Geopolitics & Conflict

The fact that, despite their being from the SCC, Fleki and Lycion are in the Canaries, who work directly under the NCC's Queen, implies that the the NCC feel entitled to process and prosecute people who commit ancient magic-related crimes regardless of any notion of "jurisdiction". This is backed up by the way that they were going to take Marcille - but that is something that the governor of the Island had to give permission for, which Laios is able to withdraw. So I assume that the NCC elves apply pressure on various world leaders to extradite criminals involved in ancient magic.

The SCC would cooperate with this, since they're allies, even if they don't have a great relationship (according to the World Guide).

The NCC are also clearly able to take half-foots without trouble, as we see by Chilchuck saying he's known half-foots who got involved with "black magic" (ancient magic) and were disappeared by the elves. But I doubt gnomes or dwarves are giving people up easily - though that probably doesn't go for dwarves like Senshi and Namari, without strong community ties.

Long before the current times, elves fought dwarves & gnomes. There might have been more than one of these conflicts...? While long ago, this war isn't "ancient" (like the ancients who sealed the demon into dungeons, before their world was mostly destroyed by it).

Thistle, Delgal, and the Golden Kingdom were (I believe) caught up in one of these conflicts, which used Melini as a staging ground - thus why Thistle was pushed to seal the entire kingdom in the dungeon.

To do this, Thistle unseals a dungeon created by the "ancient people". These could be the "ancients" who created the dungeons, before the apocalypse. Or they could be another, still extinct, society.

Regardless, at least one of these conflicts seems to have taken place after the golden kingdom was sealed - so, within the last 1000 years.

Though, this could refer to a different, more localised conflict between the Golden Kingdom and their dwarven neighbours.

The order of events is that the Golden Kingdom was sealed (1000 years ago or so) > Dwarves took over > Elves stole the land from the Dwarves ("long ago" by the Island Lord, a tallman's, standards) > Elves gave the land to a local lord, who was either an ancestor of the Island Lord, or the Island Lord himself. The Island Lord is himself a descendant of the lord who poisoned Delgal's father, as is noted in the World Guide. However, it isn't impossible for there to be large gaps of time between these events, which could put the elf / dwarf wars at a more recent date.

The fact we know that the elves stole the land from the dwarves, and then granted it to a political actor who was relevant during the events of the Golden Kingdom flashbacks we see suggests to me that the events were roughly contemporaneous. If they were, that puts at least one of these conflicts at roughly 1000 years ago.

So, the elf/dwarf & gnome conflict is "long ago" by short-lived standards, but would be considered "modern" by the long-lived races, if you ask me. At least, the equivalent of the World Wars for us - recent history, even if we weren't alive.

I'm guessing the "Elf King" from the below panel in fact was a word that's more gender-neutral in Japanese, since the "Western Elves" definitely have a queen.

Language

When Kabru says the "Central region" I expect he means the region where the NCC and SCC is.

The fact that he observes that the lack of any accent means he's from the Central Region is really interesting. It could mean two things;

either they switched to speaking in the language spoken on those continents, which Kabru would naturally know, having grown up there. It's 100 percent possible, but I think this would be noted in the story.

or, the language that gets called "the common tongue", the one that all our principle characters speak for most of the story, originated from the elves in the Central Continent. Or at least it's the same one that the elves use, and their political influence is great enough that their accent gets to be considered not an accent at all. The fact they were "granting" land in this area to tall-man lords suggests a large enough historical influence in the area that this is quite plausible to me.

Mithrun absolutely does have an accent - nobody speaks without an accent. His accent is just politically and socioculturally normalised to the point of being considered the "default/proper" way to speak - like received pronounciation in English.

The common tongue isn't ubiquitous everywhere - not just Kuro, but Kiki and Kaka are also noted to be studying the common tongue. The Tansus were born on the Eastern Continent, so probably gnome communities there speak their own language - Kiki and Kaka grew up primarily surrounded by gnomes after all.

It's also quite likely that Kabru, specifically, because of where he grew up, would consider Mithrun's way of talking to be the default "not an accent" accent. His adoptive mother surely has the same upper-class NCC accent. I expect that other characters might experience it as more "marked".

This isn't a world where everyone speaks the same language everywhere; the common tongue is called that, but there are many different languages. Kabru and Chilchuck are two characters who are adept with many of them - Kabru speaks the language of the kobold, and probably lots more. Chilchuck works as an interpreter as part of his union stuff - I can tell you from experience that that's a hugely valuable skillset in that context, as many of the people who most need union representation are people who don't speak the dominant language, or at least not fluently.

If you got all the way to the end of this post.... thank you for reading, I love you. Check out my other World Map Notes under that tag on my blog; I've made a few so far and there will almost certainly be more. Next I'm thinking the dwarven nations...? But I could be persuaded if someone had a preference.

Also, anyone got any speculation on what, exactly, is the previous time that Heimeya ate a person/monster/chimera that this panel implies:

We really don't have anything to go on whatsoever, but I think it's a fun tidbit.

#og post #dungeon meshi manga spoilers #dungeon meshi meta #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi analysis #delicious in dungeon spoilers #dunmeshi spoilers #delicious in dungeon #dunmeshi meta #the canaries #milsiril #mithrun #kabru of utaya #i feel sooooooo sane to have made this. but it has some super interesting details imo #colour coding only on the TLDR just cause I dont want ppl to take my theories as fact #character info I drop without a panel comes from the world bible #world map notes

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bleue-flora · 2 months ago

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Now that we have more info and access, let's talk about Quackity's tools shall we...

On day one, Quackity brings a pair of unenchanted shears and Sam gives him WARDENS WILL and WARDENS HAMMER as well as some item frames (which as an aside I’ve always thought is such an unhinged inclusion…).

Thus completing the trifecta of torture tools that we see in the montage later [clip]. :]

But we also know that it doesn’t end there, because in the other 2 visits we get to see he actually doesn’t even use Sam weapons (besides WARDENS TORMENT), so we know there are other undefined tools, which is why it’s so exciting to now be able to see inside chests and inventories because now we can analyze and speculate to kinda determine what those tools might have been and their enchantments (and perhaps the implications of their enchantments)…

So, for starters, in that same montage it also shows Quackity grabbing tools from a room and throwing them on the floor [seen below], which ends up being what looks like 3 neitherite axes, 3 netherite swords, and 1 pair of shears, likely implying that multiple weapons of the same type were also used (further supported by the fact that we see him use both WARDENS HAMMER and a netherite axe with low durability). Tragically, this storage room stocked with netherite weapons doesn’t exist on the map [post] :( so instead I’m gonna determine what I think are the most likely candidates from the chests in the prison, Las Nevdas, Quackity’s inventory and Sam’s inventory.

Now I’m gonna assume that 1 of the 3 axes thrown on the ground and 1 of the 3 swords are WARDENS HAMMER and WARDENS WILL, because there are not enough reasonable or qualifying sword or axe options in the locations we have to look at (this of course all based on the assumption that they aren’t in this storage room on the other map they filmed it on or didn’t have Mending and broke).

The second axe dropped I’m gonna say is the one with low durability seen in both the streams where he tries to get Dream to write the letter and the one with Techno later, which matches the one in Quackity’s ender chest with Efficiency V and mending. This axe is pretty interesting for the fact that is does not have sharpness on it, perhaps that is because that does too much damage. It’s low durability makes a lot of sense based on the lack of Unbreaking, and the Mending actually confirms what I had already theorized based off of the bottles of enchanting in his inventory when he visits rivals duo, which certainly has some implications about how much he used this axe to the point he needed to mend it mid session…

After the 2 axes, we see a sword and again I’m gonna just say this is WARDENS WILL. The last axe I’m gonna say is most likely the one in Quackity’s inventory with Efficiency V, Fortune III, Mending, Sharpness V, Unbreaking III. This one has much more durability, perhaps because of the Unbreaking or because we don’t see it in the visits we get, maybe because it has Sharpness V he doesn’t use it as much.

The second sword I’m gonna say is also one from his inventory called SPIDER MASTER 2000 with Bane of Arthropods V, Fire Aspect, Unbreaking III, and Mending. Based on the name and Arthropods, this sword was likely made for the purpose of farming xp in the spider farm, but I’d say it’s not unreasonable to think Quackity used it for other things too. Makes me wonder if that Athropods enchantment has any strange effect on a person. And don’t even get me started on the Fire Aspect. :]

The third sword I’m gonna say is this one in a chest in the prison with Knockback II, Looting III, Mending, Sharpness V, Sweeping Edge III, and Unbreaking III, for 2 reasons 1) the chest it is in includes building items such as Quartz and Smooth Stone [highlighted in yellow] which are not present in the prison but are in multiple areas of Las Nevadas and 2) It has full durability, but has Mending to explain that unlike the other nethrite swords in the prison (minus the Guard Sword, which I doubt he let Q use) and Sam’s inventory, all with high durability. Perhaps we could make up some reason like perhaps using the Sweeping Edge or Knockback to explain the full durability and why it’s in a chest in the prison. Perhaps it is Sam’s sword but Quackity was miss using it or the enchantments on it made it too dangerous or something, so Sam made him heal it and return it. Maybe that’s why he stops giving Quackity his Warden weapons too… who knows.

Then we see a pair of unenchanted shears, which we see him with in his first visit and the one with rivals duo. Give that shears durability doesn’t last long in general and that these are unenchanted, it’s probably reasonable to say that he perhaps broke and brought multiple pairs of unenchanted shears so to pin down the specific pair isn’t great, but we do see a pair in a hidden chest under the Needle in Las Nevadas (and irl wise it’s not like they did 80 scenes of torture so this could technically be the pair from the rivals duo stream (and maybe even the first visit)). Especially since it also has a pair of iron pants and an enchanted diamond sword like we see in his inventory during that stream. An enchanted diamond sword also appears in the letter visit and I’m gonna say they are both this sword with Sharpness I. It has higher durability than the one seen in the rivals visit, but perhaps he healed it with a diamond or something. This diamond sword is pretty interesting in the fact that it isn’t netherite like the ones shown in the montage, so it also than does less damage, even more so due to the minimum enchantments. Perhaps that’s what makes it such a good option for torture as it doesn’t do too much damage and kill Dream on accident.

During the rivals duo visit, we also see WARDENS TORMENT which to my suprise only has Unbreaking III not Mending. We also see an unenchanted diamond pickaxe. Now we could say he only brought the pickaxe with the purpose of getting his revenge or we could take it as a sign that he used pickaxes too outside of just shears, swords and axes. After all, WARDENS WILL BREAKER is the name of Sam’s pickaxe, so surely it was used when trying to break Dream’s will (and if that then perhaps the netherite pickaxe in Quackity’s inventory as well).

Furthermore, when Quackity runs into George outside the prison, we see him carrying an enchanted diamond pickaxe likely the same one in his inventory with Fortune II and Unbreaking III, which I’d say can be reasonably assumed to have been used inside the prison (perhaps just for convenience sake). Especially because, also in his inventory at the time is a stack of seeds, which appears in the chest with the enchanted diamond sword and shears which we already determined were likely used.

So, those are all the things we can more reasonably conclude with some reasonings and conclusions definitely stronger than others. Even further though if we wanted to really start to theorize, there is an also an argument to be made (that I’ve actually highlighted before [posts - <> <>]) that if he uses pickaxes why not also shovels? And hoes? And maybe even one of Sam tridents, perhaps WARDENS MERCY with Channeling [post]? [potential weapons used highlighted in red] I don’t know, it’s really mostly all theoretical but fun to think about anyways, I mean we do have Quackity’s comment in the letter visit, “I’ll show you which one I’ll use this time around.” [clip] and Dream’s comment to Foolish, “Sam, you know, let him in the prison, let him bring in tools—and shears, and they tried to torture the revive book out of me…” [clip] which does somewhat support the reasoning for more variety of tools. After all, why doesn’t Dream say weapons and shears? Seems to me like you’d use tools to include the shears, cuz swords and axes are just weapons. (We can obviously explain this away for many reason but that’s besides the point). Plus I mean based off of what Dream said in Daedalus as noted we tend to like to reasonably assume a knife and chair was involved (further supported by ccSam if we chose to believe his unhinged comments lol XD), and that certainly opens the door for other things…

#:]#this is fine #prison arc #let me cook #dsmp analysis #dsmp map #dreblr #c!dream #c!quackity and c!dream #c!sam and c!quackity #c!loudduo #c!awesamdream #dsmp #c!quackity #dsmp scavenger hunt #hope you enjoyed by unhingedness… I might talk about what random purposes we can come up with for other things in these inventories & chest #mmmm…. torture box brain rot :)#(ignore the fact that wardens will pic is of Sam and not my inventory :(…. that sword is mia apparently)#tumblr…. I need more colors pls color coding is nice :)

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