>>536236647
You don’t really need alien aliens to make a world feel rich or different, you need to establish history and relationships and M:R does that well enough. Like there's this subtle (or sometimes not-so-subtle) distrust or fear/hate/phobia of the Elda. What’s interesting is that it doesn’t come across as simple prejudice, like how some tribes treat the Paripus or call them dirty or filthy, instead, Elda are seen as a “bad omen,” which feels more cultural or symbolic. I haven’t seen a clear reason given for this yet (maybe I missed it or again just overthink it all again), but that little detail could be expanded into something bigger. It’s the kind of nuance that makes the cultural "world building", I fucking hate this term, feel real.
Also, chasing the idea of truly alien, abstract cultural morality usually leads to cthulhu which isn’t great if you're trying to explore grounded cultural differences.