Excellent post, I would just like to point out one thing that may or may not effect anything in your post, but you mention salt water being a problem and the To'resk thus far have been labeled as exclusively freshwater wetland dwellers.
First off, I want to point out that I love the To'resk for their playstyle/culture and splendor, and I posted it in early access as it has more to do with the nobility than the peasantry/normal player.
"...they also highly value things which are stable and consistent. As a result, the To'resk are known to impose their own sense of consistency on the world. To that end, the To'resk are a people of manners and ceremony who value highly their reputations, titles, and prestige..."
"...the To'resk value cleanliness, ornamentation, and fine things over physical appearances. They also have a strong obsession with gold, as it's not only one of the most flexible metals, but it also never rusts - a keen feature when living in the wetlands."
Note that gold is also valued because it never rusts, again it's "stable and consistent" which is valued a lot in their society.
"...*Speaking of the wealthier families, family is yet another important part of To'reshian society. As advancement for the To'resk is often done through mergers and acquisitions of neighboring lands and waterways, marriage has become the cornerstone that holds the To'resk together...... As a result, the familial bond is held sacred in To'resk society and it is not acceptable to cheat, lie, or steal from the family. The punishments for doing so are harsh. Additionally, families stay close to one another, *"
Family is one of the most sacred things to the To'resk which leads to what's bothering me, namely, Housing.
So far the To'resk build their houses on wooden stilts, and while I understand why the peasantry do so (cheap etc.) it just doesn't support anything we've read about them in their lore/culture. lumber isn't stable and consistent and above all it's rarely prestigious or posh.
When I read through the To'resk I thought that they would want to show others how prestigious their family actually is, and the most obvious thing to do that with is the house, as a house is often stable and consistent.
But as a lot of people might know, most building materials erode easily when in contact with salt water (especially most kinds of stone), so I suggest the introduction of a special kind of limestone, namely the Istrian stone
Real life properties of the Istrian stone:
As you can probably read the Istrian stone is the stone used in building Venice, and since the To'resk are all for stable, consistent and fine things, I can see no reason why they wouldn't have used this stone for building in the swamp, it's clean, consistent, stable, fine and almost ornamented as in marble. Of course the transportation of it would most likely limit it to the upper class, but it shows great wealth and prestige, everything the To'resk really like about material things.
Now you might ask; "well that's nice and all, but if you put stones down onto the wetland they'll just sink into the ground and it'll be Pisa all over again."
And so I will introduce to you how you build in wetlands with an easy to understand picture:
Wood needs both water and oxygen to rot, since they're down in the ground oxygen can't reach them, and so the bacteria and fungi (basidiomycetes) can't survive, and so they actually get harder as they are subject to the flow of mineral rich water and absorb the sediment of silt and soil of the lagoon until they sort of petrify.
The reason why you put wooden beams down into the ground is because the they hit the bedrock/caranto layer, and so a strong foundation is laid for a stone house to sit upon.
This is true for the Dras too of course, but the Dras aren't as obsessed with beautiful things as the To'resk are, so I don't have much complaint about them. (they also have the dark rock, where To'resk doesn't really have any).
But limiting the To'resk nobility to only wood houses on stilts doesn't seem right to me, maybe putting the Istrian Stone in the waerd's territory could be fun, something very much desired by the To'resk but kept by the Waerd could open for some interesting stories. But I think letting nobility (counts/dukes/kings) in the To'resk kingdom have a chance for an actual manor/castle that looks pretty and feels prestigious only lends to the Tribe's obsession with cleanliness and showing off their family's fortune.
One could even take it one step further and letting them ornament walls with gold like they did in the Baroque (though that seems less likely at launch.) 
Of course the To'resks houses wouldn't be that prestigious and posh from the get go, but giving them the choice of building in stone that isn't gone withing 10 days because of erosion is something I feel they need, because right now the only thing they got going for them is their character attributions/culture, everything else:
Some might even argument that the education is pretty bad for the To'resk as they won't be able to group together in schools, and so will be somewhat limited in terms of research.
Though the disadvantages to them isn't anything I think sounds "out of character" for the To'resk, but the housing is.
EDIT: Some people might thing this is only a "Venice" aka. European thing, but it was also done in other places, St. Petersburg for one, another example of one of those places is Chiang-nan which is a city in China.
Excellent post, I would just like to point out one thing that may or may not effect anything in your post, but you mention salt water being a problem and the To'resk thus far have been labeled as exclusively freshwater wetland dwellers.
This would be a nice turn of events for the To'Resk, medieval Venice is what popped into my head, when thinking about their cities.
Good job on the research too, I'd never heard of that stone before :)
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Two things:
EDIT: almost forgot, I do love the detail of your post! Which is why, imho, it should be in general. There is nothing in it that has a NDA on it.
Posted By Terrantal at 01:06 AM - Wed Jul 12 2017
Two things:
- Why is this in early access?
- What exactly lead you to believe the houses of Toresk are anything less but grand? There are excellent examples of quite prestigious wooden houses.
EDIT: almost forgot, I do love the detail of your post! Which is why, imho, it should be in general. There is nothing in it that has a NDA on it.
I guess it was more a suggestion towards the nobility, sure the peasantry could effort it at one point, but people who got a manor/villa and are then can't get anything that really "holds" like the other tribes, we have:
Kypiqs I still don't know how it'll work with the architecture, same can be said about the Brudvir. (But it's important to note that both these races aren't as focused on etiquette and such, and are as high on titles and hierarchy as the Neran or To'resk are.)
Then we're left with the Janoa and the To'resk who're both somewhat limited to wood. While it makes sense for the Janoa it doesn't really for the To'resk since they're all about things that can "stand the test of time" and are "consistent and stable".
Just like they like gold because it doesn't deteriorate. They would love the Istrian stone because of the same properties as gold when it comes to stability and longevity of it. (Not to mention it also checks a few of the other boxes for them like clean and fine).
While wood just isn't as much, unless it's dug into the ground so it can't rot, most wood will eventually wane away, or need a lot of care. It just isn't as stable and consistent and the Istrian stone.
Right now the only thing that really makes To'resk grand is the focus on gold (which they integrate into a lot of the things they wear etc.) as far as we've heard from the stream anyway, (same goes for gems I would presume) but I just feel like it would miss a big part of what really makes stuff grand, sure they can look grand but then they could just aswell move to a Neran settlement with grand castles. Taking 1 look at a To'resk settlement and knowing that there lives a very prestigious family just by looking at the houses/etc seem to me much more natural.
The To'resk just doesn't have many things that tie into culture and biome, where the hrothi's culture is build up around their biome I feel like the To'resk fall less than short on this front.
You can take the To'resk and it's culture and apply it everywhere and it would be the same, if not better, if we moved them to the Kypiq forest suddenly they could have silk too, or the neran with cotton. Everything "enchanting" their culture and focus with what's fine and prestigous,
The Dras's culture is build up around the swamp wetlands.
Kypiq's culture is build up around the breadleaf forests.
Same with litereally every other tribe besides the To'resk, if you took any tribe being Hrothi, Kypiq, Waerd, Brudvir and placed it in another biome suddenly some or most of their culture would need to change. With the To'resk that's not really as true, it would do the exact different, it would just infuse the culture, suddenly they can wear nicer clothes (cotton/silk) or live in grander and stable/consistent houses (stone) that can last through generations. That's what they're about and that's what I think is severely lacking. I don't mind the clothes because I see the To'resk as traders and they would def' import all kinds of fabrics from different tribes to fit with their gold.
Maybe even invent gold (surface) embroidery (which was invented in Asia) or something fancy like that. (which can't really be done on skins/plants. (or it can, but it's awfully tedious to sew in skins)
I hope most or some of that made sense :P
Not to mention, stone is:
Fully support. My biggest worry when I first read the To'resk reveal was that their culture wouldn't match their housing style. I think you touched upon that potential conflict perfectly. Whether or not they use your ideas, it is a good presentation of an issue that many of us probably thought of but wouldn't be able to present in such a credible fashion as this.
Well done.
I agree in principle with the OP. I very much like that the To'resk use wattle & daub construction, but that doesn't "feel" very grand for their nobility. When I look at the To'resk lore, I get a sense of a tribe that values stability and fine goods exactly because so much in the wetlands is transient and fleeting. Rock solid structures in a changing terrain doesn't fit that sense very well in my mind.
I also disagree that stone is required for long term structure in water. Many woods, such as alder and many tropical woods, are highly resistant to decay and biological attack. It's also not really true that stone typically decays or degrades in water. Granted that depends somewhat on the type of stone, but look at all the archeological discoverys of stone foundations, clay jugs, pottery, etc, under the ocean.
So yeah... to sum up, I agree that the To'resk architecture doesn't sound very grand, but I think that there are plenty of ways to get there without making a Swamp Venice.
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Why are you being critical of something you haven't even seen or verified? Surely the staff will have appropriately posh accommodations for the people who backed at the higher levels. While I appreciate the write-up, I think it's a tad premature and unnecessary.
Interesting ideas.
Good to see people taking the initial info and expanding on it creatively.
I honestly hadn't thought of the To'resk as Elyria's Venetians. But I can see the parallels.
I had pictured grand Asian pagodas built above the waterline. Or floating housing like the Incas.
Also could go with an Egyptian of Mesopotamian angle. Both were Bronze age societies living in flood plains.
Lots of interesting options.
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Interesting suggestion, however you are making assumptions as well. Namely that wooden stilt houses need be ramshackle pieces of architectural shite. Instead let me show you this.
Posted By kajoreh at 11:52 PM - Tue Jul 11 2017
I had pictured grand Asian pagodas built above the waterline.
Yeah...
That's exactly what first came to my mind...
A picture is worth a thousand words lol
Thanks Scylurus
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Posted By Scylurus at 06:48 AM - Wed Jul 12 2017
Interesting suggestion, however you are making assumptions as well. Namely that wooden stilt houses need be ramshackle pieces of architectural shite....
While I can't argue that the Malay houses you've linked are very fancy, there's just a big difference between houses on stilts and stone houses and one of the biggest ones is the height.
So the To'resk have family as something sacred to them, and so it just seems obvious that they'll live in big families together, and so they would want to build big and grand.
One example of this is the most important person for the majority of people in europe, not talking about the king, I'm of course talking about 
There will 100% be beautiful wooden houses on stilts, but for the nobility, especially the kings and queens, wooden stilted houses just isn't going to be near as prestigious as stone ones, neither as "clean" or as big as stone buildings tend to be able to get. (In height especially so) and I haven't been able to find any Malay houses from the middle ages, though I know it's the same technique they use it's very important to point out that the Malay houses were build to be able to be taken down again and moved, and that's not something I would consider, as the To'resk put it; "Stable and Consistent".
Edit: Stilts wouldn't be able to hold grand Asian Pagodas, and it's also worth mentioning that the oldest and tallest of the Pagodas were built of wood, but those which have endured over time have been built of brick or stone.
Among the affluent, imported hardwoods allow for more sturdy structures but, even in the absence of superior lumber, enjoy a style of parquetry and wood joint techniques that create broad and strong boards for building. It is exceptionally time consuming and takes great craftsmanship - perfect for the patient To'resk - and features mesmerizing geometric patterns as a result.
I see you missed a spot while reading.
Cheap homes are ganna look shit whatever tribe you are. This isn't going to be the case for the affluent.
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Posted By Ithikari at 10:45 AM - Wed Jul 12 2017
Among the affluent, imported hardwoods allow for more sturdy structures but, even in the absence of superior lumber, enjoy a style of parquetry and wood joint techniques that create broad and strong boards for building. It is exceptionally time consuming and takes great craftsmanship - perfect for the patient To'resk - and features mesmerizing geometric patterns as a result.
I see you missed a spot while reading.
Cheap homes are ganna look shit whatever tribe you are. This isn't going to be the case for the affluent.
I still don't think wood cuts it for the upper class, sure it can look good, but everything else about their culture screams stone (The Cleanliness of it, stability, consistent, never rusts/rots etc.)
I agree that stone does sound more like Upper class for To'resk while wood would be middle-upper.
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I agree, when reading I imagined more of the Asian architecture on stilts rather than some straw huts. I also live by the coast in Florida, there is lots of housing on stilts easily vastly more amazing looking than some of the other houses that are near by.
