Just doing some backstory/world writing and I'm thinking about folk stories, village feasts and local legends. Would Ort have been taught any stories growing up about those kind of things? Maybe something about Air Genasi culture?

Note these are ideas, and are not necessary “canon” (yet) in Trel Malchent.

Ancient lore and fables

• Air genasi descend from mighty spirits of elemental air. Before the world, these spirits steered the ships of travellers navigating the astral sea. Some were benevolent and kind, others heartless and cruel.

• The Old Wood grew on the plains of a battlefield, a battle which occurred during the invasion of the Clans of the Red Skulls. According to legend, their leader was a hulking, cruel creature who rode on the back of a hydra. There is no written record of such an invasion, yet multiple villages have stories all too similar to one another. A limited few firmly believe the Clans of the Red Skulls were actually a Gith hunting party seeking signs of illithids.

Village feasts

• Barrwater Accord annually celebrates the Night of the New Star, referring to the night a new star appeared in the sky and two rangers used it to find their way through the High Wood to Hawthorne Grove. One found the grove by navigating intentionally, and the other stumbled on it by accident after failing to notice the new star (though he avidly claims otherwise). The diplomatic talks that followed this meeting were the beginnings of a long-standing relationship between the two villages, despite their cultural differences. The celebrations are in early spring, and are essentially an outdoor shindig with food, drink and music. Before a large bonfire is lit, two members of the village act out the story - this is played for laughs, focusing on the aloofness and arrogance of the first ranger and the ineptitude of the second.

• Barrwater Accord celebrates the first shipment of apples of the season (from Upper Cliff) with a feast of chicken, apple desserts and the remainder of last season's supply of cider. The tradition being that to get the best cider the brewer must be absolutely sober and tea-total (no-one really believes, or adheres, to this).

• Barrwater Accord holds an athletic competition at least twice a year. Entrants compete in threes, each team aiming to be the first roll a barrel full of Barrwater river water up the steepest part of Gubber's Hill in the nearby foothills of the Sky Peaks. The tradition is hazy, but is founded in a slight misinterpretation of "besting the waters".

Local legends

• The School of Aryas was founded by Aryas the Mentor, whose central belief was that true strength is found in understanding the world around you. Despite this idealism, the pursuit of truth was hampered by the realities of life in the Fading Lands: politics, propaganda, and the consequences of the Upheaval itself. Some knowledge simply cannot be shared, and some remains forgotten… Some say Aryas is immortal, and retreated into the Sky Peaks in frustrated fury as she saw her libraries and schools reduced to rudimentary texts, inane stories, and the resulting increasingly vapid pupils. According to some, Aryas took with her nine precious tomes containing some of the most forbidden, powerful knowledge known to the learned in recent history.

• Around seven decades ago, a boatsman named Larrel Presven held the record for the round trip between Barrwater Accord and Upper Cliff. It is said that his ship was huge, the largest the river had seen on its waters, and that its speed defied logic. Some suspected him of arcane trickery, but if it was he was never caught out. After Larrel died, the company he worked for collapsed. The Crate and Wheel was founded after this downturn. No one ever found his boat.

• An Eratèa family story tells of a matriarch named Ibaisen Eratèa, affectionately referred to as Nana Whisper. The story goes that if Nana Whisper liked you, and knew you had proved your worth in life, she could grant you a wish, and it could be anything...