Tarentek found himself watching the meal Onyx was preparing more and more eagerly the closer it came to being finished. He had never been so hungry in his life as he had been for the past few days, and it certainly showed in the way his mouth watered looking at the stew. Nevertheless, he was able to stay focused enough to respond. "That is sensible. The heat of the desert is quite prohibitive to some of its creatures. Although, the colder nights can be just as hostile for us. Usually, for the non-scaled races, their bodies make heat on their own which allows them to stay active in the night, but the same is not true for us. When it is cold, our bodies become cold, so we must rely on the world around us for heat. Many of our customs relate to that need, though I suppose you would have little reason to adopt them. Well, actually, if the night became particularly cold, you might benefit from our knowledge of how to stay warm."

Pausing for a moment, Tarentek thought on what customs from Amman had originated from elsewhere. There were many to pick from, though that also meant it was more difficult to remember specifically from where they originated. "A lot of our practices were influenced by other settlements, partially or completely. The robes we wear outside have shifted in style to better keep out the wind, and are made from better materials like cotton, instead of hide. Earlier in our history, we bartered for goods and services, but from Jerusalem, we adopted their system of using coins for transactions. Their coins were fully accepted in our city, just as ours are in theirs. Some settlements sacrifice livestock to their gods, and while we have no need of that particular practice, we did learn that they tended to have surprisingly effective methods of breeding healthy animals, since many of those sacrifices require perfect animals. As for adopted practices that caused problems...oh, I can think of one. We adopted Tel Aviv's nesting habits. Our eggs have to be protected both from threats, and the cold for about three months before they hatch, which is quite similar to the Yaar, the race which controls Tel Aviv. They used a method of nest building that was surprisingly rigid and kept the eggs at the perfect temperature, which we of course adopted. The issue came with the fact that the shapes their nests form is an important symbol in their religion. Each nest becomes a sort of altar to their fertility god, so they took offense to the fact that our nests were not dedicated to their god. However, those nests allowed more eggs to survive, which meant that if we stopped using them, more of our children would die. That was something we were not willing to do."