Selesnya Conclave Write-Up

Selesnya Initiate:

Food & Cuisine:
	Unsurprisingly, Selesnya competes with the Cult of Rakdos for the title of "best chefs," but unlike the Rakdos, they prefer a more holistic food experience. The quality of their food is top-notch, because it's all grown right there. Most Selesnyans eat with their vernadi, with someone manning the stations there at all times. Selesnyans also welcome visitors and charge them a lot of money for really good food. Generally speaking, the person in that vernadi who cooks is likely to view food as art, not as craft. A special note must be made about meat - the Conclave recognizes that some animals are prey, but animals are killed humanely, and generally done very sparingly, so Selesnyan meat is expensive but good ((very similar to real kosher or halal meat prep)).

	Alcohol is absolutely a thing in the Conclave, and perfectly acceptable, but there is a massive trend towards non-distilled drinks. Selesnayan wine and beer is, again, more expensive, but well worth the cost. The Conclave frowns on drug use, but doesn't ban it, and considers drug use to be sometimes acceptable, but generally speaking, well-meaning members will use peer pressure and constant reminders that what they're doing is unhealthy. Selesnya has no problems selling their natural drugs to Rakdos.

Leisure & Recreation:
	This one is fairly independent for each member of the Conclave and not officially mandated. That being said, Selesnya recognizes that friendly competition is good for the body and soul, and the various communities, usually divided by the vernadi participate in a lot of sports. They are surprisingly less organized than the Boros, but have teams that compete in their competitions anyway ((Selesnyans = street football/soccer, Boros = organized team play)). Much like the Boros, many people flock to watch matches between the different trees, and often even the normally calm loxodons will stamp and trumpet in excitement of the match.

	The other aspect of Selesnyan life is singing. The Song of Mat'selesnya literally flows through everyone in the Conclave. They hum when they work, they sing in the shower, they tap out a beat when they're standing in line. The phrase "music is in the air" is very literal when it comes to Selesnya. Other forms of art are considered kinda frivolous and while each vernadi is going to be different, the general attitude is that you should channel your creativity into a living song, than something made from dead paints or dead stone.

Friendship & Conflict:
	If you have a Selesnyan as your friend, they will be your true friend. Friendship and people are treasured in the Conclave, since the most important thing to them is community. Inside Selesnya itself, because of their shared spirit, everyone feels like an old friend you haven't seen in a while. It can be disconcerting to outsiders first, but they eventually get pulled in as well (and generally join the Conclave soon after). The one downside for someone from a different guild/guildless is that if you made friends with a Selesnyan, odds are you made friend with all of them, which means that the entire Conclave is now going to be friendly and try to get you to associate with them.

	Arguments are generally going to be settled by the dryad in the vernadi. Members go up and present their case and she decides. If the voda is struggling with this, she will actually reach out to the other vodas, and if it's important enough, Trostani herself. Once the voda of the vernadi makes her decision, she will then present her decision to the community, and the community decides whether that decision is fair or not, since the argument affects the entire community, not just the two parties. Note that actual conflict is rare, since generally speaking, the two conflicting parties will try to talk it out before involving the voda.

Relationships and Sexuality:
	The Selesnya Conclave is very much a matriarchy. Mat'Selesnya is female, Trostani is composed of three females, each dryad is female, and so on. That being said, because they're a community of individuals, gender roles aren't enforced, it's more that the community recognizes that men are going to be better at focusing their energy outward, while the men are going to be better at focusing it inward, as a whole. Identity is not tied to this, so if someone identifies as female, they will be treated as female.

	Relationships are very important in the Conclave. Younger Selesnyans generally believe in a kind of "free love" thing, although generally speaking there is a slight bias towards non-traditional experimentation. When members of the Conclave get older, then usually they become more traditional, and have a relationship built on having kids and/or building a family - so sometimes, a non-heterosexual family unit will raise kids rather than having them. But generally, so long as there is love between two sentients, Mat'selesnya is all for it.

Childhood & Old Age:
	Children are raised in a collective environment. Formal schooling isn't really a thing, rather the old saying of "it takes a village" to raise a child. The singers will teach the child to sing, the farmer will teach the child to grow plants, the druid will teach them about nature, the warrior about fighting, and so on. This produces surprisingly well-rounded and skilled individuals, who are devoted to the Selesnya Conclave community. Afterwards, the child is free to focus on a specific function within the vernadi, or travel to a different vernadi and put down roots there (and keeping in touch with their old one).

	Old age is fairly straightforward in Selesnya. They are wise and know what they're good at and have been members of the community for so long, they are best used as advisors and tellers of stories. The entire community will pitch in to take care for them, since they are cherished, if diminished members.

General Notes:
	The Selesnya Conclave is a cult, with both the good and bad connotations. They're all super-friendly with one another because they share a common belief, they're welcoming to outsiders because they want them to join, and they make sure that people are very unlikely to leave - not out of malice, but because they think that being in the community makes the individual happier.