Jim Catel

13 hours ago, Jeff said:

EWF

The MSE is providing influence in Esrolia - you get rich temples hiring crafters from the MSE for technique skill. But they are super cosmopolitan. (With infinitely more nuance than that of course). And might throw in weird references from Kralorela or Fonrit or Seshnela or whatever.
So in Esrolia, you basically establish super-baroque. Great technique, lush symbolism, but very naturalistic and sensuous.
In Dragon Pass and South Peloria, it is as baroque, but less sensuous and more abstract and symbolic. Here the influence of the dragons is the greatest. 
And in Peloria, it is more austere, idealised, and formal. Also they have the Gods Wall to go back on.
With Dragon Pass in the middle, being a mixture of both, yet also adding its own draconic twist just to make things unique:

• In Esrolia, she is depicted as this lush and sensual dancing woman, surrounded by a dazzling array of flowers, grains, husband protectors, worshipers, lesser goddesses. She overwhelms with splendor to the point where your senses can't even take it all in.
• In Peloria, she is very formal and strict. She looks much like the other goddesses, just more so. Or maybe she is naked and the others are clothed.
• In Dragon Pass, she is looser than Peloria, dancing like she is in Esrolian artwork. There are still goddesses, husbands and flowers around her, but there is also other stuff. Strange runes, which almost look like hers, but aren't. The snakes around her look...odd, and not quite right. And some of the flowers do not look entirely real.

In Peloria she is very formalised.  But in Dragon Pass – it is something which anyone from around them, let alone a previous or later Age would just stare at and go "What even is going on here?"

Would Pavis have brought some of the Dragon Pass EWF architectural sensibilities with him (baroque, but less sensuous and more abstract and symbolic) when collaborating with the Dwarfs in building his city? Or, would it be more along the lines of the more technically superb/intricate decoration of the Dwarfs?

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In the later Second Age, Dragon Pass was again the center of an urbane empire, best known as the EWF. The EWF ruled much of the continent and could command masons and builders from far and wide, particularly from Dara Happa, but also from dwarf allies and subjects. Population levels recovered and many of the old cities were rebuilt, sometimes to realign with mystic experiments of the ruling EWF.

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One interesting point is that any ruins from the EWF have been destroyed for at least 500 years if not longer. Which means that they might resemble the Mycenaean and Minoan palaces as presented in Assassins Creed Odyssey (in terms of how intact they are)

Jeff - love this thread.

I'm curious, besides Dara Happan and Dwarf influences, did draconic influences also work their way into the architecture of the EWF?

I know this is more of a modern take, but I'm thinking particularly of the of ideas behind the Art Nouveau movement of being inspired by natural forms (especially curved and sinuous) and structures and transferring that into the aesthetics of architectural form.