Being a member of both groups depending on the weather, this is another great resource for me to peruse during downtime or PC interactions.

There are seven categories of cultural polarity that I know of. The first is how direct or indirect their words (or context of their words) is. To an American it may seem most East Indians speak in riddles, because Americans (direct) say things like ‘it’s raining’ and an East Indian (suggestive) might reply, ‘become like a sheep’ assuming I was complaining about the rain in a roundabout way rather than just directly stating what I’m looking at.

In some cultures, silence means acceptance. In others, it means disagreement. In still others, silence means nothing at all, and is simply situationally polite.

The second category is how open the culture’s most influential members at-large are to the idea of outside influence. Do the greedy tradesman class of Autvain want to conquer with their artistic pride or perhaps gain some of Ch’melta’s bananas so beloved by their wealthy, or are they xenophobic because of historical influences or lack thereof, and build a military to establish their dominance in all trade arrangements? What percentage of the population deals with foreigners?

The third category is…. well I don’t want to bore anyone who has the idea. Wikipedia has a more succinct illustration of the idea of cultural interactions (something that can only really be observed by comparison rather than in a vacuum or case-by-case). Really fascinating stuff, and it sorta belongs here since you’ve started building the skeleton for a process for world building.

Great article JD, love the site.