So, in my head, Nick isn't much on speaking terms with anyone after Blue Rose. He's still sulky, particularly since so many of the drabble prompts I'm procrastinating on are about him and Skoros. But I've figured out some of the details of his family/the Ishkhahareni/Akvaria.
Ishkhahar is one of the more popular fertility deities, though she's most popular along the coast and in Akvaria. She's got a decent Rothcaran following, but she is most closely associated with the Akvarian highlands. The Ishkhahareni are her most devoted followers- those who choose to be married in her name. Isshkhaharet Akvaria is a matriarchal, polygamous society that takes all of its traditions- especially the pre-fourth era ones- very seriously.
Marriage is a huge thing for Ishkhahar's followers, though it's taken to extremes in Akvaria. Rothcar and Ikatia are the only other provinces that really make allowances for extremist Ishkhahareni and other polygamous deities. The practice is largely frowned upon in Dzyrach and Tarmish. (Someday I'll draw a map.) Akvaria is loosely (very loosely) based off of a romanticized version of Muslim Spain (I'm not gonna lie, it's totally Rozarria). This means that the native language is a combination of Toggleverse-Spanish and Toggleverse-Arabic, and that all of the natives have incredibly ridiculous names.
It suits, though, because so many families are polygamous monstrosities, and the easiest way to make sure you're not marrying your sister is to check your last names. Nick's full name (since I now know that "Zanadreth" was just a place holder) is Vanick de Bayez Viudo y Zabalmedina Cruzado. And yes, that's largely just a combination of a bunch of Spanish words whose meanings I found to be hilarious and/or appropriate. And according to proper naming conventions, I'm misusing those conjunctions horribly, but they suit my purposes well enough.
I'll probably have to tweak the naming a bit more, since the Ishkhahareni are equal opportunity polygamists- Nick is the younger son of his father's second wife; his father is the first husband of their clan's matriarch, whose primary surname is Zabalmedina. Because he belongs to a clan- and clan isn't quite the right word for it, but the implications are mostly correct- he gets the "y stuff" tacked on to his name. He isn't one of the matriarch's children, so that denotes him as a secondary member of the family.
Mireia Zabalmedina Cruzado is the matriarch of the family; she inherited a great deal of land from her parent-clan, and she married Nick's father (Dario Viudo Anastasis) despite his unlucky surname, and has three children with him. Dario then married Nick's mother (Zahra Bayez Mendoza) and they have two kids- Nick, and his older brother. Mireia has two other husbands, and five other children (eight total). Dario has three wives, and a total of eight children; Mireia's second husband has a second wife (who happens to be Mireia's sister, actually) and a total of three children, and her third husband, who is something like fifteen years younger than her, is otherwise unmarried and has no children. There are rules as to how many spouses you can have depending on whether or not you're someone's primary and how many children there are and how much anyone stands to inherit.
Thus, the people Nick considers to be his parents are as follows:
Mireia (matriarch), Dario (father), Zahra (mother), Alara (father's second wife), Orsino (Mireia's second husband), Silvalia (Orsino's second wife (and also Mireia's sister, but that's irrelevant), and Stefan (Mireia's third husband). Though only Mireia, Dario, and Zahra are legally responsible for him, and in a less close-knit family, only Dario, Zahra, and Alara would be at all involved in raising him.
He has an older brother, six half-sisters, two matriarchal brothers, and one matriarchal sister. So, eleven children, broken up between seven parents. I'm still working out how the ages fall; some of the children are older than some of the lesser spouses.
Family systems of the size and scale of the Zabalmedina's are rare. Most people just have one spouse, because that's all they can afford. Mireia's mother only had one husband, but her husband had a second wife, and Mireia has several brothers and sisters.
Adultery is a capital crime, and will get you stoned quite thoroughly by anyone in the area. That said, it isn't adultery if your primary spouse has given you permission, or if you intend to marry. Marriage is not an easy way out of an adultery charge, however, since you still need the permission of your other spouses, and you get judged by the priests of Ishkhahar during the ceremony. There's magic involved, and if they decide the marriage isn't a "true" marriage, you get stoned anyway. (A "true" marriage is one in which the involved parties are getting married out of actual affection for one another, and not political or monetary reasons. The magic involved is simple tactile empathy on the part of the priest, who is usually a leechmage.)
Same sex marriages are out of the question in Akvaria, though they do happen occasionally among the Ishkhahareni of Rothcar and Murundcar. (Rothcar, in general, has a much more liberal attitude towards these things, given how many of their important historical figures have been flamingly gay. (Oh, Siegfried. *shakes head* I'M NEVER WRITING THE THIRD ERA.) Murundcar...that's a post all to itself, really. There are lots of elves in Murundcar. It's a weird place.) There's a willingness to look the other way in the case of same sex relationships between married people, particulary women, but among the unwed over the age of twenty, it's considered an ostracizeable offense. (So is divorce- if a couple simply grows apart, they remain married. But if a divorce is necessary, the case goes to an impartial committee to decide where the fault lies, and the person at fault is cast out of the family. It's a messy business, and not one that happens often.)
Nick is a happy hypocrite in that he'll cheerfully fantasize about Liall and Aya, but being within fifty feet of Silverlock makes him want to punch someone in the face. (In Silverlock's case its as much the fact that he was a prostitute for so much of his life as the gender of the people he sleeps with. Though, to be fair, he does sleep with more women, on average, than men.) He's not actually as straight as he'd like to pretend, but he is too closeted to even acknowledge that fact to himself. Liall only teases him in Blue Rose-verse; she's a bit more sensitive in her original incarnation, and he's a bit more inclined to be an asshole when he's provoked.
I've been working on family trees, which means coming up with names for all of the children and parents. Things tend to get a bit...hyphenated. XD
Nick's parents are pretty cool, though- as far as his immediate family members go, he's closest to his half sisters from his father's third wife, and one of his satellite fathers- Mireia's second husband is the one who taught him to ride.
I need to start making little posts again; these long, worldbuilding things are fun and interesting for me, but they take forever to finish, and I'm pretty sure no one else gives a damn.
Ah, well. I'm probably going to focus on Orrin for my next lengthy babble.
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