"I am."

Pherikles can't really complain about people being laconic. "Suggestions who we should start with? Or do you think settling in the wilderness might be acceptable?"

"Contacting some Groves first would be a good idea in either case.  They'll have maps, and can help you pick out a spot with decent weather and no important ruins nearby."

He considers the different Groves.  He's never tried to compare them before.  "Kor Grove is the largest."

Nod. Thoughtful pause. "Do you have any... expectations of possible ways things could go wrong if we went ahead and tried to get settled on your world?"

"Groups might start looting ruins and damage thing the dryads wanted to keep preserved.  Possibly cultural differences will cause issues, depending on what the different taboos and traditions are.  Someone might try to cut down a Grove?  Unlikely, given that they don't look like normal forests and will talk to anyone who hears them, but it might happen if you can cut down trees from a distance with magic."

"I am not going to say we don't have people stupid enough to do that. But I think a warning on the topic should be enough. We do have people that can cut down trees from a distance, but how much of a distance are we talking about?"

"Far enough that their eyesight can't see the difference?  The biggest risk of this would be next to roads - Groves are very obvious, with masonry and normal walls between trunks, but they've been sending out strands of trees along roads to try and connect the Groves together.  They'd also be worried about fire, but they keep themselves well-watered and have emergency measures in place."

"Fire sounds like a greater danger than various people cutting people from a distance - they ever exist but there is no reason not to scout the area first. Sometimes people use fire to clear terrain and I guess some of the fire-producings beings like myself could be reckless with it. Not that I am reckless." He still makes a note of it. "Backtracking to the topic of looting ruins? Are they known to have a lot of things of value to loot? Dragons are known to get hoardy, but we have been considering isolating those ones."

"The dryads prize them for cultural reasons more than anything.  There are presumably precious metals and gems in places like castles and manors.  Maybe a few orich-artifacts, but places with known high concentrations of those have already been picked over."

"Cultural reasons still have some value, but granted. I am not sure how to start on cultural taboos. You're mentioned the thing with Solon's punishments being harsh." He pauses to think. "Do the cultures in your world have gender? Or something similar? Nearly all species that form large societies have some distinction that's largely based on physical sex. Though giants are nominally more flexible on that."

"Solon have a strong sense of what is 'Proper' that includes a lot of arbitrary taboos, and that the thing that separates people from animals is that People can be Proper.  Anyone who can't are either sent to a creche until they can, or butchered for their meat.  Children need to live in a creche until they learn, usually getting out when they're adult-sized.  They're... hmm.  It's hard to describe.  There's a reason I haven't been suggesting asking them to take you in.  They're far less exacting of people who don't live in their territory, and will probably trade with you just fine, though.

"Merfolk have a strong concept of gender.  How that's expressed varies from culture to culture.  Usually the men and women are separated into groups that have limited interactions with each other, sometimes expected to live in different towns for parts of their lives or exit their dwellings from different entrances on opposite streets, and often doing different jobs.

"It was historically rare in humans to have anything other than slightly different fashions or maybe some minor religious obligations for gender.  It's more common now, since most of the fishfolk who created the throwbacks were from the rare places where humans and merfolk intermingled.  That, and the focus on repopulation.  Many women take jobs that let them carry around unweaned babies.  They aren't as bad as merfolk about it.

"Dryads and solon don't have physical sexes.  Dryads all seem to be women, but I'm not sure what that means without another gender to contrast it with.  The way solon divide themselves between full solon, half-solon and strider is kind of gender-like? 

He makes a flat face at 'butchered for their meat'. But does not comment.

"Okay. That is surprisingly tame for humans, specially given the repopulation effort. It's very common  for gender norms in Actana to manifest with some variation of a gender being superior to the other. Men for humans. Women for Faen. Giants have male and female roles and believe that one can earn the male role or step down to the female role. People that don't fit have varied degrees of marginalization. And of course there are exceptions. One of the giants city-states was founded partially on the principle that gender roles should be optional."

He doesn't like the idea of some people being considered inherently superior.

"Fishfolk and those with merfolk-origin hair colors would sometimes be treated as lesser and banned from owning property or voting in places, especially right before the Wizardry Disaster.  And many places had some concept of slavery or serfdom.  Both practices have been thoroughly stamped out."

"We... also have those. Slavery, serfdom, and various discriminatory law." Sigh. "I don't actually approve of them, mind you. I would gladly see them gone."

"Hm.  Maybe it'll help to encourage as many people to live in Groves as possible, for a while, instead of starting city building projects right away."

"I mean, if there was ever an excuse for revise laws the end of the world sure sounds like it. What do you do instead of slavery? ...The hardest part of getting rid of slavery is figuring other criminal punishments to replace them."

"Fines, removing body parts, prison, execution.  Supposedly, prisons are better at rehabilitation because they can focus on that instead of productivity.  The Groves have statistics."

Pherikles nods. "Do you don't have concerns with food? For the prisoners that is. We have prisons, but they just end up being slavery with extra walls."

"Humans had that problem too, when it was just us.  At least so far the Groves seem decent.  Psychologically, they're very, hmm, 'hurting others hurts you'.  Literally in their case - all dryads eventually merge into Groves.  They're also more technologically advanced than humans ever were.  A single machine can weave enough cloth to make clothes for a city, and a farm machine can till or harvest an entire field alone in a day with two people.  Back before the Disaster nine in ten humans had to grow food for there to be enough."

He blinks. "That's amazing. How do they do it? Is it something that can be shared or requires on their dryad-ness?"

"The technology or merging into Groves?  The Groves thing is biology.  The technology is just metal in complicated shapes as far as I know."

"The technology. And it sounds like it could really help us even if we decide to go to another world."

"You can ask them about it.  I never did get around to looking into technology, and they come out with new things now and then."

"Fair, fair." He looks considerably more hopeful than before. He checks his notes. "What other things they can do with technology?"

"The next big thing is apparently machines that do math.  The dryads are really excited about those, and have been putting a lot of resources into building better ones.  I'm not sure why, though.  It doesn't sound especially useful, but maybe they're doing more math than I think they are.  

"For other things, uh.  Manufacturing most items en masse.  Transportation without needing horses or sails, or through the air itself in airplanes.  They have a couple of machines they managed to get beyond the atmosphere and into orbit of the planet - they seem to be for looking at the stars without the atmosphere in the way?  New materials like plastic that are better than glass or metal at certain things.  Machines that keep food or medicines inside cold.  Phones, that let people talk from miles away as long as both are connected to a web of copper wires that have been placed down.  Cameras that catch pictures or sequences-of-pictures that can be played back later."  He tries to think of more examples.