In a desperate attempt to see if i can find some response to this i have posted this in a separate thread from the Broken Verge Primer where it originally appeared. Yes, I'll be the first to admit this is a slightly pathetic maneuver, but look at it as an experiment to see whether less information at once yields more response.
The content here is a fringe race in my setting built around the concept of "what would beauty be to a race with no eyes?".
It isn't as such integral to the story of my setting but are rather made for the sake of the idea itself.
(if you don't know what to comment on i posted some questions in my discussion thread for Broken Verge)
Moshrayah - the blind artists
The enigmatic moshrayahs were rarely seen in the Old World, secluded as they were in their underground enclaves, with the only signs of their existence being the mesmering and alien musical compositions that occasionally surfaced into human culture.
In the New World, though, some moshrayah have ventured forth into the world and have even settled down in human cities.
Physical description:
Moshrayah are still met with, if not distrust, some apprehension as their appearance is truly alien, even to the much tested minds of the humans. Their most eerie feature is their complete lack of eyes, even though their slightly elongated skull is basically similar to that of man. Instead of eyes, there is just taut-stretched hairless light-brown mottled skin, much like the skin that covers the rest of their bony and gaunt frame. The elongated head is extended forward, instead of upward, by a scrawny and bony neck and the only features, except for the bare taut skin where the eyes should have been, is a slightly gaping lipless mouth filled with jagged white and yellowish fangs and a long tapered tongue, two slit-like nostrils and a series of almost invisible ducts on the side of their head. Their skulls are devoid of hair like the rest of their body.
Their physical build and posture is also subtly offputting in some way. They are very tall, most of them standing at least 2 meters tall, even though they always walk slightly hunched over in a peculiar way. Their limbs are longer than human proportions would dictate, their legs reversely jointed and three-toed, and their nailless fingers are slim and possess an extra joint each.
Gender & Reproduction
They are born from eggs, often part of a brood, that are disgorged by fertile females and then fertilised by males who can extrude a sort of mucus from their mouth that they use to cover the eggs in, which may or may not lead to the fertilisation of said egg and the birth of a child. The children are all technically female when born, but around a quarter of the population acquire the large red markings that mark them as males as well as the ability to produce the fertilising mucus. The location of the spots is unique to each individual, and although the eyeless moshrayah can't see the red spots they give off a distinct scent that marks the individual as male. Males are generally slightly more fit, but it isn't known whether it's because they are males or if they are males because they are strong. After 16-17 years, a rare few of the females will at random transform into ramakesh, disgorgers, who are the fertile egg-producing women who also take care of the upbringing of the children. It is considered an honor to become ramakesh, although as always there are those who don't accept their destiny. The average lifespan of a moshrayah is around 80 years, with males and ramakesh having slightly lesser lifespans compared to the infertile females.
Senses:
The moshrayah see the world in a completely different way, although see is hardly the right word to use. They depend on a series of senses quite unlike sight; even unlike many of the senses we know as humans. They possess keen hearing and smell, a couple of levels above what humans are capable of. A set of ear-ducts are specially designed to pick up on the ultrasonic screams their second throat continously emits which provides them with an effective, if slightly indistinct, echolocation that allows them to navigate around most large obstructions. An organ in the front of their skull, speculated to contain some kind of bio-metallic composition, gives them the ability to perceive magnetic north and, more importantly, electrical fields: an ability that allows them to sense organic life in all it's aspects. Finally they have a sense which can only be compared to the supernatural sense of the Empaths: moshrayah can feel, read, and interpret the Effluvium and the psychic emanations it consists of. Their sense of the Effluvium is suspected to be a good deal greater than what even the best human empath can achieve.
Society:
Moshrayah live in underground enclaves. These are rarely of any considerable size, with a population of 1000 individuals at most, although there are rumors of them having a major city somewhere deep underground. Each enclave has one or more ramakesh and at least one male. Although there is no family structure as such, since most moshrayah are brothers or sisters, moshrayah choose to gather in small families nonetheless, often living with those who share their views and principles. Moshrayah can join, break up with, or rejoin Families as they wish with no social stigma. Intimate relationships do happen on occasion, but as there is no physical aspect of the relationship, intimate relationships are purely spiritual and is a personal choice with no real effect on the community. Each Enclave is governed by a group of Elders who take care of any community decisions. Enclaves exist in a network connected by natural caverns and tunnels and all enclaves are aware of each other and typically communicate frequently by way of runners. Moshrayah are hunter-gatherers, living off the many underground predators and rodents as well as the occasional root-fruits and mushrooms they can find. They are keen to try new tastes and enjoy spices and other exotic additions to their meals. They mostly eat meat though (although they refuse to eat the flesh of sentient beings). They don't technically require that much food though, and can go starving for weeks without pain or detriment.
Life:
Moshrayah usually go through 3 distinct phases: child, adult, and elder. Moshrayah are considered children until age 16 and develop their faculties in much the same way as human children. They are taken care of by the enclave's ramakesh along with a few males who help her. When they reach age 6, the elders start teaching them and at age 12 they can join a Family. Adulthood focuses on two things: Duty and Seeking. Duty is the practical role of the moshrayah in the enclave. He can choose the role himself or the elders can choose for him. Each Duty has a certain quota or requirement that the moshrayah must fulfill, but how and when is up to themself. Seeking is the artistic pursuit undertaken by almost everyone in an enclave, and it is not uncommon for the few who refuse to be forced to do some kind of artistic work in their spare time. Through their entire adulthood Seeking continues and the individual develops his skills. At age 60 his work as an artist is considered done, and they often hold some kind of party where they review his life-time works. After that, almost all of his time is taken up by the duties he has as an Elder of the Enclave: making decisions for the community and teaching the children.
Mindset:
Aesthetics is the most highly valued virtue and ideal in moshrayah culture. It is a universal aspect of their culture and deeply ingrained in their racial consciousness; so much in fact that it is omnipresent in even distant enclaves. The main difference between enclaves is therefore not whether they value beauty or not, but what they consider to be beautiful. Some focus on making eerily beautiful music, some on making sculptures whose shapes seem to twist the mind, a few even seek beauty in smells and scents by crafting incense and perfumes. And in addition to this, there are of course many other less obvious artistic pursuits such as cooking, sewing, writing, philosophising, and even mathematics. The most esoteric of their arts, though, is their mind-art, where objects and sculptures are infused with emotion by the artist so that they transcend the physical realm in some degree. Normal humans looking at such works don't sense the true beauty that the moshrayah and empaths can perceive, but always feel slightly overwhelmed by the works even if they can't quite put their finger on the reason for this emotional surge. As might be suspected from the above, Moshrayah are extremely emotional creatures; driven by impulse and intuition rather than pure logic. They are by no means simple creatures though: they are clever and cunning, but just don't have that innate logical approach to everything the humans possess. They focus on what is rather than why it is. They do possess a slight racial laziness in that they would rather spend their time pursuing art than doing the chores of everyday life, and in general greatly value pleasure over hardship, and it is this thirst for luxury that has led to most of their technological progress. As impulsive creatures, the typical kindness and hospitality of the moshrayah can quickly turn to anger if insulted or slighted, and although they do not approve of violence as such, anger is known to occasionally overwhelm their self-restraint and throw them into a violent fit. They are generally peaceful though, and try to avoid harming others, but have no qualms about it if it's the only way. They are not as such bothered by a conscience, but instead believe in principles of conduct. A few turn to violence and combat for beauty, but most conservative moshrayah frown up this. The underground realms are dangerous though, and most moshrayah know how to defend themselves.
Cities and technology
Enclaves are beautiful even though they are almost colorless to the human eye. Every single building carved into the cavern wall, or built from bricks and rocks on the carvern floor, seems to have a certain pleasing quality to the eye. The air is full of pleasant incense smoke, and only rarely is the enclave devoid of their beautiful music. Although they have no requirement for light they do require heat and have warming braziers both in the streets and inside the houses. Although the alternative methods of reproduction mean clothing isn't needed to observe common decency they are often worn to complement the heat of the braziers, often in the form of thick robes of earthern colors to the human eye. Exquisite perfumes and mind-art jewellery is also sometimes worn by those who can acquire them. Most trade is done on an item-to-item basis, often using the Elders as intermediaries when trading between enclaves, with the resources of the enclave being distributed between the Families on basis of need. Occasionally, special complementary silver disks are given away by the elders for example if there is one family that gets less food than the others. The silver disk serves as a universally accepted trading good in the moshrayah communities. It is something of an honor to possess many silver disks, but most spend them on art or perfume nonetheless. Moshrayah are great metalworkers and renowned smiths, but are incapable of making very intricate machinery like gearwork and locks because of their indistinct echolocation. Their recent increase in contact with human civilization has led them to acquire more or less the same level of technology.
Quote from: Crippled CrowYes, I'll be the first to admit this is a slightly pathetic maneuver, but look at it as an experiment to see whether less information at once yields more response.
I'll be the first to join you.
Quote from: Crippled CrowThe content here is a fringe race in my setting built around the concept of "what would beauty be to a race with no eyes?".
It isn't as such integral to the story of my setting but are rather made for the sake of the idea itself.
You made a good effort at that and building off it, but unfortunately I can't seem to dig out much of a final answer to that question other than "other stuff people with eyes would consider beautiful".
They are a functional "underground, sightless race with odd reproductive habits (though they might work better if you'd account for what role in species survival the infertile females have) but do you intend them to be more than a background piece? I can't figure out how I'd use them.
One idea here is the fact that tactile sense might be far more important to them. Where a human touches a tree and goes "ugh, sticky sap" a Moshrayah touches the same tree and goes "what a beautiful feeling".
A friend of mine once told me that she had once wished to be blind. She associated the sense of sight with the shallow materialism she blamed for many of the evils of society, and with people's tendency to judge others unfairly based on first impressions. She had believed that people without sight are fairer and wiser than the rest of the world, unburdened by prejudice and avarice.
Then she met and made friends with an actual blind person, and she talked with him long enough to find out how he actually perceived the world.
He described the way he tended to make assumptions and snap judgments about others, based on the sounds of their voices, much like sighted folk judge others based on their physical appearances. He explained how he had set up subtle signals with his sighted friends, so they could easily let him know when a particular girl was good-looking or especially large-breasted, without anyone else realizing it.
In short, my friend learned that the blind aren't necessarily any nobler or fairer or wiser than the rest of us-- they just have their own unique ways of being shallow, judgmental, and objectifying.
Now that I've typed it all out, I'm not at all sure whether this little anecdote will prove useful to you, but I hope that it will.
Well, to LC and the other people who wanted to know, it seems to work to split your information up into smaller pieces. This has been up for 2 days or so in my primer and i already have 3 responses. :)
@Silvercat: your point about humans finding many of these things beautiful as well is true, but that is kind of unavoidable. Unless you can come up with more exotic senses, there is no way of making more differentiation between the human and moshrayah concepts. Of course, some enclaves might explore aesthetics that are foreign to humans. And yes, these are background pieces as i stated, but also serve as the originators of many of the most beautiful compositions and they are generally valued craftsmen.
@Nomadic: yes, i was considering giving them braille-like text amongst other things, but couldn't really come up with other ways to describe their thoughts about tactile senses.
@LC: cool story either way; do they come of as too perfect?
Well to get star wars geek for a second, the Vratix are like this. While they can see they consider sight to be a sense that already happened, touch is happening now and so is more important. Therefore texture is an important part of everything they make. An example being the floor right before a drop off having a rough etched surface to warn of the danger.
Another idea is that as touch sense is far more important, it might be considered far more intimate. Touching a person without their consent may be the height of rudeness (as for them a touch conveys the most personal details).
Quote from: NomadicTouching a person without their consent may be the height of rudeness (as for them a touch conveys the most personal details).
That's not so different from what we've got already. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTQY1Aw9zcs&NR=1)
Quote from: Luminous CrayonQuote from: NomadicTouching a person without their consent may be the height of rudeness (as for them a touch conveys the most personal details).
That's not so different from what we've got already. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTQY1Aw9zcs&NR=1)
Well I was meaning more along the lines of the equivalent of ogling someone or kissing a random stranger.
Quote from: Luminous CrayonIn whatever case, I'm not sure what to make of your opening statement that all of this is peripheral to everything else in your body of work, and idea thrown in for the sake of an idea. I'm concerned that it may bias your readers in unintended and undesirable ways (e.g., "If none of this is important, then why should I care about it?").
What i was trying to say is that i really like this idea and therefore wanted to include it in my setting, but since my world is pretty humano-centric, the moshrayah would be confined to a small role as exotic creatures and one of the few other sentient species. This is not to say that i don't care about them, because i do, but they are isolationist by nature. They don't build massive cities and armies that are a threat to the humans. They actually fill up the role the dwarves have in many settings in some ways.
And do you actually believe they are too exotic/alien to be viable as a player race? I'll agree that they are pretty strange, but i personally find that they retain many human qualities just hidden within a pretty monstrous shell. But of course, it's hard to judge my own creation. So, is there anything that could be removed to make it better and more human(oid)?
Honestly, and without meaning to blow smoke, your excellent work on the mindset and society sections of the post go a long way into making this very alien race a possible PC race.
How do they compare to other races in terms of durability? How adaptable are they?
As stated they are rather isolationist and are best adapted to living underground or in darkness where they can use their unique senses to their advantage. They could probably adapt well to mountaineous, forested, or otherwise crowded areas, but open plains would be of some hindrance as survival hinges on being able to spot danger at a distance which they are essentially incapable of. Their ability to survive without food also gives them an edge.
As far as durability goes, i think they will be ill-adapted to direct sun-light and probably tend to wear cloaks and broad-rimmed hats. They are probably better at handling cold. I think they have a lower average body heat as they don't depend very much on fat/hair. Was that what you meant by durability?
And thank you very much for the praise :) I'm glad to hear it isn't all bad.
this is an interesting concept (and a big body of text for just background) and i have some thouhgts on the question of beauty. i don't think, that humans would percieve their work beautiful, at least not visually. for example, a sightless artist might be delighted by the change of textures he feels when he runs his hand along an abstract sculpture and the pattern of the textures could even have a cultural or religious meaning, but a human would be hard-bressed to recognise this. for example, try to read a book in braille using just your fingers. it is extremely hard, because without eyes, a blind person develops his other senses better. if they use echolocation, their art and architecture could be bizarre or random to our eye, but produce a pleasant sensation in their echo sense.
if their art has an empathic efect on other races, is it maybe charged psionically?
Too much text? Or just a lot? :p
Had a surge of creativity, so had to use it for something.
And you're right; it might be a good idea to emphasize how everything appears slightly odd to human senses.
And yes, all that talk about effluvium and empaths is pretty much a disguised talk of psionics.
An impressive lot, actually. Not too much text, though. An elaboration on their diet would be interesting. :)
so, this is art that is truly mesmerizing, hm? That opens up a lot of ways for misuse or abuse. Decorating the chamber reserved for the peace talks with statues that make you blissful or drowsy comes to mind. Or sending an enemy a statue spreading malcontent or anger as a wedding gift.
this could give your blind artists a bigger impact on the world than they actually know, especially if humans react differently to their art than they do.
I'm not sure how big of an emotional impact each object has. It's mostly sensed as a subtle increase in said emotion. Moshrayah sort of "see" said emotion experiencing it in all its grandness and beauty.
But a pretty interesting idea you got there :D
and thanks
These are really cool. I like creatures with odd anatomies, that deviate substantially from the standard "humanoid" templates.
I'm wondering what the Moshrayah religion is like, if they have one? Clearly beauty-worship is deeply ingrained in their culture, but do they possess any substantial theological structures/myths/traditions?
Yeah, i kinda forgot to mention religion. As impulsive rather than completely rational creatures, i reckon that faith means quite a lot to them. I also imagine that devotion is a somewhat beautiful thing to their empathic/mental senses. I already have one aesthetics religion in the works, but seeing as it requires vegetarianism from it's subjects i don't feel it's likely it would have developed in their culture. But they definitely have religious inclinations; i'll try and come up with one.
An interesting idea for the moshrayah would be to give them schools of thought in regards to their "art" you could have the very adept bardlike music-makers, you could have the martial monk-esque war-dancers etc. each elder could be the most knowledgeable in their field.
I also think it would be really interesting to elaborate on any distinct members of the race, just to give an insight onto how they develop as individuals.
An intersting idea i got when reading the senses section was group-sight it would be cool if with their heightened empathic powers and ability to echolocate and even possibly use their magnetic nodes to create electric currents to bounce off of objects that they could use each others empathy to share information about their environment, which would give moshrayah the ability to "see" in 360 and even inside objects.
They would also be exceptional doctors with their ability to echolocate and sense electric currents
I did actually hint to them having different views and specializations with this sentence: "The main difference between enclaves is therefore not whether they value beauty or not, but what they consider to be beautiful."
Each enclave shares a more or less common view on what is the most aesthetic thing, and then pursue it in different ways. It seems a bit too artificial to have them all specialize in a single thing. I might try and create some individuals, but it isn't on the top of my to-do list right now :)
How do you reckon they would be able to see inside objects? A hive-sense would be interesting, but i think i'd rather use that for another race; this one is already filled to the brink with special abilities and they are a bit too individualistic for it to make sense.
And they would have to be near others for the 360 vision to work in your idea yes?
Also, how does echolocation improve your skills as a doctor?
You'd be able to map out the internal organs with echolocation, since sound, unlike light, is not stopped by skin. Technically they would have a 360 degree range of "vision" anyway, but they could as a hive mind create much more detailed images to work with as they could focus their sound reception to completely different wavelengths. I guess i kind of missed the fact that they were that individualistic since i personally interpreted them as a bit more communal, especially with their increased ability as empaths.
Their civilization focuses on the individual, but they have a better understanding of others. And i guess you're right about the echolocation although i doubt their vision is adjusted to that use. And on second thought, echolocation requires the sound to be reflected from solids, so even if some of it passes through the skin only a fraction of it would bounce of the organs.