Prejudice
Pretty much entirely based off manual dexterity. Easy symptom is that birds are ostracized as subhumans due to them lacking hands. Hoofmen are seen as even lower than birds, as at least a bird can use his feet to hold a tool. Needless to say, but birds resent this ostracization, yet they let this resentment control their whole culture while ironically reinforcing the prejudice by enslaving any hoofmen they can find.
Hoofmen have a hard time of it, but they're so culturally primitive that it's a struggle to sympathize. They can't make any tools greater than a rock wedged into their hooves. All they're really capable of is destruction. This sounds awful, but it would actually grant them a well-earned place among the Knights or even some bandits, if any somewhat civilized person were capable of tolerating them.
Birds create their own hard times. If they could rise above their disablement complex, they'd find some unmatched niches in many parts of society: they can fly (reminder that no magic currently grants this ability) and they're predisposed to excel at various forms of magic. Unfortunately, the good birds that try to strike out on their own are hard to notice because there are a lot more normal birds attempting to infiltrate and subvert society.
Moving up a degree of complexity, there is an informal social caste for any individual or racial group that demonstrates poor manual dexterity. Not only that, but it will be assumed that having fewer than 10 digits is evidence of diminished manual dexterity; so armored gloves are standard protection for adventurers and the loss of a finger or hand in combat typically carries some steep social repercussions.
At maximum complexity, there have been efforts to integrate signaling of high manual dexterity, most often seen in literal hand signals. Much like vocal language, sign language has a common lexicon and grammar, but also upholds local differences akin to regional dialect. Whether these regional signals are used to filter outsiders is up to the individual. Like vocal language, slang naturally develops in the lower classes, but it fails to get adopted by the higher classes due to a lack of manual dexterity expression.
Just to throw it out there, the developers of sign language were clever enough to make all the signals possible for birds and hoofmen suit their stereotypes. Hoofmen can signal any word that uses balled fists, like: crush, smash, beat, dumb. Birds can signal any word that relies on limb motion rather than finger motion: annoy, flap, fly, envy. Naturally, you'd be hard pressed to find any hoofman or bird using these signals. Even proper men have made adjustments to these particular signals by combining other signals to create compound signals. So it can be seen as crass to use these base signals at all.
Also, any activity that exemplifies high manual dexterity is cherished a bit more than normal. A sleight of hand magician, for example, would be suitable entertainment for nobility. Such a skill would be taught to upper class children, but they won't be expected to make a display of it in adulthood. This at least keeps the upper class from being easily deceived by a pickpocket, but one that successfully pickpockets a noble would be revered by their commoner peers.
Anti-Monster Principle of Civility
Despite minimal cultural exchange between citystates and a lack of central policy, a common cultural principle found in mainland citystates is the Anti-Monster Principle of Civility. It is not codified into formal law, so if you asked a person to detail it, they would probably fail to answer as the next person would - there also exists some regional variance. Put briefly, it is merely "Man may not grant benefit to monster". This section will delve into the details.
"Man" here, is in reference to what they commonly refer to as people. There is more ambiguity about it than in the real world, yet demand for proof of category (the categories are men/people, beasts, monsters, and magic monsters) is not pressed without a good reason. Even with a good reason like the anti-monster principle, it will always be sufficient to pass the "is it a monster" test.
Technically, "people" is a mistranslation. The correct term just means "non-monster". They segregate themselves enough already to where an umbrella term like "people" serves no utility. There is no gain to sharing a group identity with a hoofman, but it is acceptable to share a lack of a group identity. Functionally, the category's purpose is to declare a creature acceptable for subjugation and integration (non-monster = people+animals). The primary quality of this group - as far as anyone in this setting is concerned - is simply that members are not also members of the two monster groups.
Now, the monster test is subject to regional difference and hearsay, but it can be summed up in two rules.
Rule 1: only monsters fail to bleed red. Awkward wording to indicate that any creature that cannot bleed is a monster. This rule is the primary one, and motivates a lot of misclassification. Pretty much all insects are considered monsters, so they are not well-tolerated. The majority of shellfish and various other sea critters are also seen as monsters. A person (like a skink) bleeding green in public might start a holy war. [Due to magic monsters being a product of demand, most will be inspired by what people believe to be monstrous. This is often based on insects, as most people avoid water bodies and so don't know well what sea critters look like]
Rule 2: a monster that bleeds red will betray you. This one is most subject to regional interpretation and hearsay. The best variant expands it to: a monster that bleeds red will betray you, and the smarter it is, the slower it will do so. A notable interpretation is: a monster will challenge your civility [which nearly sums up the truth]. As you can probably imagine, there is no standardized method to check this rule, so accidental disasters are frequent enough.
[Whenever microscopes get invented and biology gets some research, there will be a lot of turmoil over bacteria and other microbials.]
"Grant benefit" is the last part to explain. It basically means that monsters may be exploited as long as they are not integrated. In other words, all relationships with monsters must result in less gain for the monster than for the person. In practice, this means that monsters may be eaten, but not kept as livestock because their days of peace and comfort would outweigh your meal [yes, people have tried torturing their monster livestock and it ended poorly]. It also means that monster body parts can be utilized for the benefit of men and society, but a body part given freely by a monster is considered cursed. Symbiotic relationships with monsters are the realm of the reviled monster tamers.
[Slightly off-topic, but it is sufficient to distinguish people from animals by the ability to speak a discernible language. Sign language is accepted from mutes. There is also little call to distinguish between monsters and magic monsters - some people consider intelligence as a mark of magic in monsters. The correct theory of 'magic monster = creationistic biology' is not impossible to hold, but it is currently impossible to give it mainstream appeal.]
Religion
The religious situation is basically like the greeks had. We don't actually have any gods existing, despite what anyone in-setting thinks. It's normal for every town to have a temple or two for some local dogma.
Any existing temple was either founded by or backed by a mage, most often kinetics. Aside from the psychological difference in kinetics, it was understood early on that a shaped outlook could allow a person to approximate the powers of a natural kinetic. So it created a 2-for-1 deal for the kinetics to generate a following - on one side helping satisfy their need to validate their worldviews, on the other they could have a direct input on local culture by strong-arming any contradictory values with the aid of their pseudo-kinetic followers. Pretty much all cultural-religious strife has died out long ago in the towns. The only attempt at a centralized dogma was based off the necrobuilders, but it died out naturally due to lacking the backing of an actual necrobuilder (this occurred many years after the last known sighting of a necrobuilder).
Commerce
No widely normalized economic system at play. Each citystate will have its own ruleset. The City will attempt to engage commerce with as many different communities as possible (some will not play ball) - they are not the only place producing traveling merchants, but most will stick to their alliance-region.
Within The City, there will at least be enough regulation to suit the power-consolidation interests, but it hasn't gone too far since the merchant class isn't strong yet.
Resources/Technology
The typical citystate has enough enclosed space to accomodate land for crops. [The exact crop isn't really important right now, but we can say something like an acre per 100 citizens.] Depending on location, there will likely be some external hunting/gathering excursions - some citystates also engage in enough trade to specialize their production. Every citystate is designed with the intention of permitting total isolation.
There is widely no plumbing or any type of irrigation. This makes crop yields less efficient and citystate location more carefully considered. Toilets are at best compost type or some dry variant due to a justified fear of water bodies. There is at least one freshwater spring or stream that serves supply to each citystate - rivers and lakes are too dangerous for most communities.
Droughts are mitigated by stored surplus water. Opening such water storage is handled cautiously and reluctantly. Glass containers are in high demand for such storage to alleviate anxiety. Production/storage of mass fluids like liquor are handled with a little less scrutiny but also closer proximity to able fighters. Potential security hazards tend to be kept away from the denser population sections.
Magical methods do exist for such things, but cultural conflicts led to them not being adopted widely. They end up in the hands of enthusiasts more than as a convenience of nobility as one might expect. This reverses the further east you go in the mainland due to the architectural schism. Exceptions for this also depend on regional spell availability or local artificers.
Salt and other minerals are mined readily from the necrobuilder mines. These mines are fairly large. Taking resources from them is freely permitted so long as there is no evidence that you've disturbed the undead workers and you take no more than you can carry - to this end, there are usually guards who also keep people from moving in to the mines (these guards are also for hire if you did not bring your own fighters for dealing with mine monsters). This does not mean that man-operated mines do not exist, though, because the mainland is fairly large and there's only so many necrobuilder mines [be aware that salt mining would be extremely unpleasant for a fur covered anthro; it was already a dangerous dessicant to irl humans]. Some regions might develop unusual methods for procuring their materials.
Healing is handled through a general doctor or medicine man in each citystate. Magic healing is practically unattainable unless you're rich and able to reach the City. Healing potions exist, but there's little quality control so it can be hard to rely on and relatively expensive. Medicinal science is not advanced, but general anatomy is understood well enough that any citystate can relatively cure broken bones, flesh wounds, and infections.
The culinary arts could be doing better, but at least each citystate develops its own recipes as normal. Only travelers really mix this type of commerce, and it only really pays off if they bother to settle down and open a pub or become a field cook for military operations. Adventurers are served well by learning to cook in the field, but most open citystates will offer trail foods for trade. Poor culinary exchange limits the trade value of herbs and spices (salt is always nice, at least) - however, those same undesired ingredients become desirable when used to make preserved goods with unfamiliar recipes that are easily experienced. This practice is leading a boom in culinary exchange, but it is still about 8 years off (and will increase the power of the Merchants).
Tools are more widely exchanged and valued, at least due to the inclinations of the Knights. Each region has different monsters [due to cultural isolation and growth], which result in different ingredients available for producing tools. Mechanical engineering is popular enough, and the necrobuilders evidence old advances in machinery, but the allure of magic is frequently sufficient to lead astray most aspiring engineers. Clockwork automatons are not a thing, for example, but a magitek puppet might be a thing (more likely a magitek stationary device that wouldn't get classified as a monster).
Alchemy (and chemistry) is an old established trade. Most citystates will have one or two alchemists, perhaps even the same person as the local doctor, as the skillsets have some overlap. They can provide a number of different types of drugs. By demand, they've also come up with mundane versions of magical potions (typically with reduced efficacy or harsh side effects). Gunpowder does not exist, but types of flashbombs or flash powder might.
Textiles are fairly popular as a craft. Common materials are linen (flax plant fibre) and felt (fur). Wool and leather from hoofmen are used, but not in external design for clothing - this is because it's seen as lowering oneself to look like a lesser being. So, wool gets used for padded clothing and leather is good for tool binding (hoofman leather is seen as a sort of "uncool" leather; "cool" leather is made from tough monsters and would be acceptable to wear as outer clothing). Silk is a rarity, as the method of production can cause confusion and hostility. Magic/holographic clothing exists, but if you are caught wearing it you will probably be mocked.
[The salt flats are actually redundant for the mainland and a ruse for the desert empire. The mainland only desires an import of it as a luxury good (different mineral composition makes it taste different). The desert empire doesn't actually farm it (they get most of their materials from monster pacts), but they pretend to for diplomatic purposes of land claim - the claim doesn't get challenged because their empty outpost is on the western bank of the flats and no one has a reason to walk there.]
Architecture
Most structures witnessed will be built naturally. Crude natural structures likely built by novices or monsters. Nice natural structures built by the necrobuilders. Each necrobuilder has their own inclinations in design, but they are largely functional and accessible (a principle made in opposition to the wizards).
The necrobuilders were a small group of necromancers who mastered their art in the pursuit of playing minecraft. The lost art of it is basically an ordered structuring of rank responsibility; each undead would manage like 20 undead beneath them, with the most robust "programming" at the top leadership. The art specifically lost is how to make one undead take control of another, not the idea of doing so. Aspiring necromancers are a high status profession, but the lack of the secret means they basically have to work as a contractor to coordinate into an effective team. Anyway, the necrobuilders created a big construction boom and helped cement many citystates. They were really looked up to, enough to where neither necromancy nor the undead are reviled. There was an internal conflict amongst them that ultimately led to them traveling north to settle matters - no one returned and the trip is too harsh to justify sending a search party.
Most unnatural structures were made by wizards (most likely monsters if not wizards). Wizards had a spell to generate soul steel ["soul steel" can be changed, but it needs a name]. Soul steel was largely a product of imagination. It could have any property desired (no, no one in-setting can see the similarity to catbox ore) and could have all properties edited after creation. The creator of a piece of soul steel is the only person able to change that piece. The default state for a wizard rushing creation is a frictionless, translucent sort of glass - in reality, it's basically an extradimensional playdough gel. Magic effects can be edited in to the material, even sectionally, so you can get single rooms that alter gravity or walls that drip hot milk or entire structures that exit the timestream in absence of moonlight. It should not be hard to imagine how much of a nuisance this becomes when there's little cost or responsibility needed for wizards to shit out a trail of dr seuss castles.
Despite the threat of monsters and giants from the south, energy was scraped together for a sort of architectural revolt. People liked the no-nonsense design and attitude of the necrobuilders, but most of the wizards didn't want to play ball and persisted in making a mess. These wizards were basically banished to the eastern wilds - there were few necessary violent conflicts, but none of them ended well for the wizards. Not all wizards were outcast, of course. There stands a wizard spire in the center of The City (originally just nearby a major citystate, but political growth etc) in testament to the acceptance of magic/wizards as long as they aren't asses. This is also why most of the citystates in the east look bizarre and ended up ruining themselves; they naturally strayed from all standards because wizards were literally running the show as flippantly as they please because they could do whatever they wanted with their bullshit soul steel spell.
Luckily, the most obnoxious wizard structures of the western mainland were not keyed with properties like "weighs a thousand tons" or "can never deviate from these coordinates", so one of the necrobuilder armies volunteered to move that trash out of sight. Best that could be managed since they're generally indestructible. They're now sunken into lakes and pits and teeming with monsters.
The spell for soul steel is "lost". It's a tightly guarded secret by the Academy in the west, mostly out of politeness because there's no longer a skeleton army that can haul off problem structures. The spell can be figured out with some research spent in the eastern citystates, but most of them are totally fucked right now.
Post-banishment, there were some "conflicts" where something would get built by one side, then the other side will modify it as a dunk, and then the first side retaliates, repeat a few times. It is not documented, but these incidents ultimately led to the necro war as one of the necrobuilders was getting obsessed with fucking with wizards and would not listen to reason. Their legacy remains untarnished as a result.
Outliers
Druids
The primary nomads of the mainland. They are highly self-sufficient, with a cultural focus and their own school of magic focused on aiding them. They are a desirable resource to bargain with, but their self-sufficiency makes it very difficult to get their interest.
They are kind of like a cross between the druids and rangers of dnd. They hold a neutral stake in civil conflicts, they learn to track, they master ecology/biology/botany (as much as could be expected of a nomadic tribe), they encourage martial training for the purpose of pursuing their principles.
Their magic is an old type that is not well understood by the Academy (despite the Academy's best efforts, druids have not agreed to teach outsiders) - it is basically a midway point between ancient spirit magic (at least one tribe of druids exists that still use this) and contemporary contract magic. To make them especially desirable, they can use healing magic, so adventurers and the Knights themselves will often try to recruit druids. Most of their magic is actually just for comfort: they have spells to keep warm without fire, to light a path in the dark, change the flavor of food and drink. The more offensive branch of their magic is a deviation based off mental comforting: they have spells to calm a target, to make them confused, to make them hallucinate. They make terrific nurses that can put the normal healers to shame.
They have multiple rites of passage that essentially call for them to accomplish some task on their own. This is not well known, or more people would realize that a lone druid is much easier to bargain with due to them often appreciating some extra help (bargaining for outside help is not forbidden). These tasks are often ecology-balancing, like eradicating a disruptive monster or cataloguing some new species (oral tradition, not writing).
They generally forbid interfering with people and intelligent monsters. Anything that can manage to cultivate land or build a stronghold. Everything unable is seen as beasts. They have no meaningful distinction of monsters from beasts, and so have little from people and intelligent monsters. They avoid and mark magic monster zones, and have some disdain for them as they have the same sort of corruptive effect as other intelligent habitants but without the decency to make their presence simply known. Wandering magic monsters do not receive the same disdain, but are viewed like forces of nature to study and work around.
So they have no problem using monsters for their benefit. They do not openly travel with them because they don't really do slaves or pets. It's possible most druids don't realize that the anti-monster principle is a thing.
Tamers
The monster tamers are treated kind of like necromancers are in the elder scroll games: outcasts emboldened by bitterness, congregating in cults hiding away from civilization. The art of taming a magic monster is too poorly understood now, though it is a frequent subject of theorization and (typically disastrous) experiment.
It is not simple to hide a monster, and tamers do develop bonds with their monsters so tamers can typically be identified at a distance by finding any person near monsters that is not under attack. Of course, this is an affront to civility, so it is reported and an extermination regime will be deployed. So tamers try to live as far from civility and roads as possible.
There are an unknown number of tamer enclaves. Most of them simply don't matter because they manage to keep out of sight. They aren't exactly self-sufficient, but they excel at developing symbiotic relationships. It's a slow process, but the end social state of a tamer is often fragmenting off of their enclave to establish a personal monster biome in a cave somewhere (which can cause a big mess when the tamer eventually dies).
There can be a training regimen for the tamers and their monsters, but it is often sufficient to use strategy to supplement the natural strengths of the monsters. For this end, an enclave may have sparring between tamers and monsters.
There is little social motivation for tamer enclaves outside of taming. Any hierarchy that develops will probably be for the reward of claiming priority for taming new monsters sighted or having extra resources for experimentation. It's not impossible for the tamers to breed, but it would likely make an odd child to be raised with monsters.
The anti-monster principle was formed after an incident with a tamer. This tamer [has no name yet] was a druid, and had a proclivity towards acting. They learned to tame magic monsters and they became a tremendous superpower that required a concerted effort to defeat.
Bandits
Due to the decentralization of citystates, a common method of punishment is exile. Sometimes these exiles can manage to immigrate to a neighboring citystate. Sometimes they forge their own little settlement - perhaps half of these end up as bandit clans (or getting conquered by a pre-existing bandit clan).
The function and hierarchy are nothing special. They will claim the best habitats and resources that they can. They will conduct raids depending on leadership and region. It is very rare for them to be capable of overtaking a citystate; these clans generally don't even reach 40 members - any that exceed that have become rooted and develop alliances to ensure their existence.
It is possible for bandits to discard the pretext of civility and consort with monsters. Any such deed will be hidden from outsiders unless they mean to kill them. They generally don't mingle with magic monsters, because they are unwilling to maintain the finesse necessary to control them (and magic monsters don't often wish to control people in standard ways).
More likely than joining with monsters, bandits will team up with birds and horses. The hierarchy shifts slightly from normal society, but it remains that horses<birds<people (exception would be caused by terrible bandit leadership). Bandit birds are generally more dangerous than tribal birds due to their principles of exile.
Naturally, living bandits tend to be the ones that are good at it, so if you fight bandits, it can be much more difficult than fighting monsters.
Desert Empire
Worth mentioning even though it won't be visited in game, since people from there will be around. Does not follow the same rules as the mainland; they openly cohabit with monsters as it suits them. This is an organic result of environmental pressures - they prayed for help and monsters answered. From there, the only cultural note to mention is an inclination toward efficiency. A large percentage of the population are reptilian.
They do not fully grasp the cultural divide between them and the mainland. They have mostly figured out that mainlanders react poorly to monsters. A centralized government puts pressure on the summoners to never travel east due to diplomatic tensions. A war is probably inevitable, but they would wish to put it off until they can understand the mainland's might better. This war will end up happening sooner than desired, due to information reaching the summoners that the mainland has different monsters, resulting in many summoners travelling east for the sake of progress. There is no formal diplomatic training for mercenaries, but the ones that utilize magic pacts with monsters all basically get lucky and manage to not create a diplomatic disaster.
There are more assassin-specialist mercs from the desert than the mainland, but the nature of mission typically being disease outbreak cleanup prevents deep questioning into why.
There's a lack of historical records, naturally, but it's easy to imagine that dragons are based on early encounters with desert lizards. This is backed up by them having no concept of what a dragon is.
Pre-History
Ancient Druids
Ancient druidic magic is actually a mix of spirit magic and kinesis, which is a bit of a freak occurrence. In-setting it is just considered to be like grandpa's inefficient spirit magic. It was enough to make variants of elemental creatures exist where there were none, and this was part of how contract type spells could be formed by modern druids. Anyway, mass-delusion aside, ancient magic needed you to provide all real world power via your own energy (they found it sufficient to just fuel magic with feasting, so it is close enough to say it's calorie magic).
Culinary arts should be advanced despite lack of cultural exchange. The ancient druids form the early foundations of mainland society and they had fairly advanced cuisine, though it necessarily trended towards calorie density, and so many of their recipes were discarded due to a lack of calorie magic. Suffice to say that waste meats like chicken wings and sausage exist, as well as: hard candy, stiry fry, deep frying, and various methods of food processing and preservation. However, nutrition is not understood well, which has left modern cuisine in an awkward position despite the advanced techniques. Ice cream might have existed, but magic reliance has dwindled to where dairy is functionally limited to cheese and butter. Obviously, any traveling or novelty-focused food vendor will have a mage on staff (and would relish druidic knowledge).
A lack of precision instruments demands an oral tradition held up by individual interests and local demands. So even a willing druid could not simply write down one of their recipes - it requires tuteladge to pass on. This also aids in slowing the industrial process. So brand recognition can be valued, at least as much as can be understood - typically it will suffice to say "product from [citystate name]". Yet another detail to be ignored in the videogame.
The ancient druids had some remarkable architecture due to their magic (and unlike soul steel, communal editing priviledge). This is rare knowledge, though, because all remaining constructions are lost to monster habitation (this has led to false theories of intelligence for various monsters). Normally, all structures a druid group is discarding will be demolished and reverted to how they found it as best as they could manage. This was out of a cultural respect for nature, yet they only take it as far as their own group is responsible. Otherwise the current druids would be demolishing every settlement they find.
The main cause of not cleaning up is imminent danger or an epidemic that kills them all. A secondary measure could also be to hide the settlement or bury it. So there are likely a few empty druid ruins beneath the surface. These would be distinguished from other forms of ruin by a lack of tools, as they used magic a lot. They would also have an abnormal amount of space dedicated to food storage and an occasional pile of rare minerals that were treated as baubles.
Mundane traversal of large or intentionally subterranean constructions is frustrating. Ancient druids had no need for stairs or doors. One might mistake them as natural caves. Navigational games were common, frequently involving the fundamentals of spirit magic: sensing via spirit, deconstruction of matter, and reconstructing to original state. Adults would pursue the finer skill of spirit negotiation - creating new techniques of applied magic. Evidence of this can be seen with any strange, functionless sculptures - things like crystal lattices or fractal mirror chambers.
Keep in mind they were generally naked and high every day. This sounds like a joke, but it isn't. There was little need for clothing with how easily they could control the world around them. They didn't pursue drugs out of recreation initially - they were just eating everything they could chew to find more calorie options. Naturally they ended up learning some basic medicine. The actual field of medicine was not great, but efforts were torn on scientific progress and magic advancement. Like I said earlier, there were few precision tools despite the means to create them, so in the end magic won all developmental effort. This effort is what led to the modern druid magic school, as the old magic made "simple" cure spells a big ordeal.
