The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: DrizztrocksI love this setting so much. Really, its the best one i've seen on here. But its been up for a while and there hasn't been any stats {other then the races} introduced. Tip: If you are planning on righting out the stats for the cogs, make it a template, so it can be applied to any animal or race.

Also-you mentioned that the Umbril have gills? What are they used for other then creating sounds? and if they are only used for creating sounds, why are they called gills?[/quote]
The folds that mushrooms store their spores in are called gills.  Umbril gills also store their spores, but the Umbril can also blow air through them, which they use to expel spore clouds and create speech.

[ic=Exerpt, the Mainspring Analects]Lacking roots, trunk, or leaves,
The tree is incomplete, and perishes.
Lacking pendulum, spring, or escapement,
The clock is a motionless ruin.
Lacking prod, tiller, or rack,
The crossbow is a mere cudgel.

As all these things, Society,
Which without any one component
Is disharmonious and lost.[/ic]



The Iskite philosopher Akusash once observed that the great success of the Iskites in a hostile world was due to the fact that they alone knew their place in it.  While some sentient species believe they must act in harmony with nature, the Iskites are widely known for seeking their own harmony in opposition to their surroundings: one can respect the Forest, even be awed by it, and still consider it an adversary and a rival.  It would be a mistake to define all of Iskite society based on the perceptions of outsiders and the musings of eccentric philosophers, but it can be quite informative for the initiate into Iskite culture to view it as the story of a people focused on building their own ordered reality in a place that mercilessly imposes its own wild and riotous order on all things.

[spoiler=Physiology]Iskites are tall and lithe reptiles.  They usually move as bipeds, but run fastest when on all fours.  Females are generally larger than males, though the differences between the sexes are not dramatic.  An adult female stands about seven feet tall and weighs around 200 pounds; an adult male is perhaps three inches shorter and 10-20 pounds lighter.  Despite their thin frames, they are notoriously resilient.

Iskites have scaly skin all over their bodies.  The scales on their back and legs are large and stiff, while their scales elsewhere are small and as supple as a mammal's skin.  Their scales are a pastiche of greens, ranging from very dark to very light, with no particular pattern '" this is very beneficial to them in the jungle, where they can easily hide from dangerous creatures.

Iskites are renowned for their great durability and resistance to harm.  They heal quickly, and given time and nourishment can recover from grievous injuries and even regrow limbs.  Their bodies do not scar; not even acid can permanently disfigure them (though it hurts them like any other creature).  It is virtually impossible to permanently cripple an Iskite.

Like many creatures of the understory, Iskite vision has adapted for low-light conditions, but their sight (though good) is not their strongest sense.  Their hearing is above average, and their sense of smell is extremely keen.  This is important not only to movement and detection, but also to basic communication; the Iskite language is vocal, but is also accompanied by a variety of pheromones '" undetectable to most creatures '" reflecting the Iskite's health, emotional state, and position in society.  An Iskite can discern the identity of another Iskite it has met before with a high degree of accuracy even when deaf and blind.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Language]As mentioned, Iskite language is largely verbal, but pheromones play an important role in conveying subtle shades of meaning.  An Iskite finds it difficult to convey humor, irony, sarcasm, pathos, or innuendo without these cues, which has led to the perception among other sentients that they are humorless or overly literal.  A non-Iskite can certainly learn Iskite languages and achieve a high degree of fluency, but will never approach the ability of a 'native speaker' for this reason.  Iskites have compared speaking their language without olfactory cues to speaking in an all-verbal language in a monotone.

During the Age of Prophets (usually called the Time of Luminaries by Iskites), instant magical communication between villages led to the development of a 'universal' Iskite language, known as the 'Luminous Tongue.'  Though the Tongue as such was spoken widely only by the magically-empowered elite of Iskite society, it influenced local Iskite languages to the point where, by the end of the era, most Iskite languages were really dialects of the same speech.  Some drift has occurred since then, though there is still a great deal of shared vocabulary, especially words that were common to the old scholarly elite (terms regarding magic, philosophy, mathematics, and time, among others).  Iskite leaders made a conscious effort to consolidate their worldwide culture during the Age of Prophets, and the effects of this policy remain even today, as demonstrated by their surprisingly homogenous culture (given the vast physical separation of their settlements) and the similarities in their languages.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Life Cycle]Iskites are oviparous '" they lay eggs, which hatch after six months of development.  Iskites raise their young communally.  Every village is centered around a Hatchery, where eggs are laid, stored, monitored, and eventually hatched.  These hatcheries are built with furnaces, vents, and hollow floors (which are filled with heated air) to keep the eggs warm.
 
Iskites have no concept of the 'family,' and biological heredity has no expression in their society.  Instead, an Iskite's life is rigidly controlled by the village, which sets quotas on how many eggs are to be laid, what the sex ratio should be, and how many eggs will be given to each trade and occupation.  The parentage of eggs is not recorded '" an ancient saying of the Iskites is 'Kinship is repugnant to Order' '" and no Iskite knows whom its biological parents are.  Hatchlings spend the first six years of their life in communal education, which teaches them the basics of speech and cultural mores.  At this point, the profession that they will follow for the rest of their life is chosen, based on the village quotas and supported by observations of a hatchling's likes, dislikes, character, and season of birth (certain seasons are thought to be auspicious for certain professions).  Changing professions is very rare, though not without precedent.  Young Iskites are raised by a 'Guide,' an older Iskite who shares their own profession, typically of the same sex as the child.

In Iskite society, there is no age of majority, though an Iskite is physically mature at around age 20.  Instead, 'adulthood' is defined by one's proficiency in one's own profession.  An Iskite produces a work of fine craftsmanship or great beauty (and/or utility), called a Flowerwork (alluding to the Iskite 'blooming' into adulthood), to demonstrate his/her right to be considered an adult.  If this is accepted by the other members of the Iskite's profession, the Iskite becomes an adult member of the community, ceases to have a Guide, and becomes eligible to be a Guide to another young Iskite.  Iskites do not actually use terms analogous to 'child' and 'adult,' but rather 'pupil' and 'master.'

An Iskite female who reaches adulthood gains the right to accept the duty of mating.  When the village rulers call for new eggs, she may volunteer.  This is considered to be a great honor, and various methods are used to determine who will bear the village's children.  These can range from athletic competitions to feats of memory, demonstrations of excellence in one's profession, competitions of fasting and asceticism, and even games of strategy.  Most of the time, some combination of intellectual, physical, and artistic challenges is used.  Every village has its own customs and practices for this selection.  If chosen, a volunteer has the right to mate, which she must exercise within a set period (usually several months).  She may choose her mate, though a male must also be willing.  Sometimes, a chosen female may leave the village entirely to find a mate in another community if the local males are not to her liking.  Once a chosen female mates and bears her eggs, they are surrendered to the community hatchery.  Laying eggs does not preclude a female from being chosen for mating again, so some particularly strong and intelligent females can have numerous offspring while less capable females may have few or even none.  There is strong competition among females for the privilege, and equally strong competition among males to be chosen by the fortunate females.

Eggs laid outside this communal framework are usually rejected by the village.  Such outcasts are shunned by most Iskites, and are usually never accepted as 'real' Iskites.  Raised outside the ordered Iskite community, they frequently feel little in common with their kin and may resent the Iskite people for their own rejection.  So-called 'rogue Iskites' can occasionally be found in Gheen dreys, Umbril colonies, or among a Tahr blood.

Iskites do not lose any mental acuity as they age, though they do become increasingly lethargic and slow-moving.  When they are no longer capable of performing their craft, they become Grandmasters, who preside over their fellow craftsmen in an advisory role.  Having mastered their profession, attended to their communal duties, and (hopefully) fulfilled their mating prerogative, they are happy to loaf and dispense sage wisdom between frequent naps (which become more and more frequent until their eventual death, when they fall asleep for the last time).

The oldest known Iskite was 162 years old at her death.  Typical Iskite lifespan is between 100 and 140 years for females; on average, they outlive males by about 10 years.  The lethargy begins to set in around 90 years of age, though Iskites have been known to occasionally live for decades past their centennial before retiring and becoming Grandmasters.  In general, a peaceful death after more than a century of life is considered 'natural.'  Given the dangers of disease and violent death in the jungle, however, average life expectancy is significantly less than 100.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Society]Iskite society is strictly regimented.  An Iskite's life is defined by duty to the community, and duties are dictated through a strict code of social mores and relationships.  Iskites would not call their structure hierarchical, but rather 'harmonious' '" all know their place, and each member of society is essential to its harmonious functioning.  By their very nature, Iskites seek to understand their place in any group they are in, and serve their superiors as zealously as they command their inferiors.  They are very sensitive to the cues of rank, and their culture is based around a bewildering array of gestures, vocal tones, and pheromones that convey actual and perceived status.  They reflexively expect outsiders to understand these cues and behave the way they do, and are sometimes put off when they do not '" Iskites are considered chauvinistic, arrogant, and pigheaded by those of other races.  They are, however, hard workers who judge others based on their merits and abilities.  They prize thoughtful, rational action and have a sense of loyalty to their betters and compassion towards their lessers (though this compassion is often a bit patronizing).

Status in Iskite society is generally meritocratic.  The two most important selection procedures, the selection of mating individuals and the selection of the village's elders, both rely on tests and consensus based on an individual's skill, ability, and talent.  As with most meritocracies, it is not perfectly so, and favoritism of one kind or another often rears its head.  The Iskites are unique, however, in that they have totally expunged the concepts of family, kinship, and inheritance from their culture, so nepotism and status based on lineage or family are totally nonexistent.  As a result, Iskites have difficulty understanding the logic behind such concepts as a hereditary aristocracy, and are contemptuous towards those who claim special status because of their birth.  The hereditary monarchies of the Gheen, in particular, combine the two ideas most loathed by Iskites '" heredity and nobility '" and the Iskites see them as tyrannical and repulsive political throwbacks.

What is not often said is that things have not always been the way they are now.  It is written that the Iskites once lived in family units and raised 'Blood Lords' (LT: EzajwÉ Én tzul, 'ezajwuh un tzul,' 'great (one) assigned by blood') over them as semi-divine monarchs.  It is uncertain what caused the transition, as it happened such a long time ago; some say it was a rebellion against such rule, others maintain it was a gradual transition towards a more harmonious way of life.  The title does live on, though not among the Iskites '" the despotic Gheen 'World Queen,' Auk Yrta Su'u, rules through royal relatives whose title, 'tzulyk,' is borrowed from the Iskite word for blood.

Villages are usually ruled by elder council, composed of the most revered and accomplished Grandmasters.  In times of great crisis, councils may appoint an interim lord, a sort of 'temporary dictator,' who is granted total authority for a preset period of time.  Iskites are unique in that they were the only sentient race to ever achieve something like a unified world government '" during the Time of Luminaries, there was a 'Grand Authority,' a council of Grandmasters from nearly every community that used remote communication to guide the entire race.  The actual power of this institution, however, was always largely theoretical, and even with magical communication it is doubtful if communities ever had any real loyalty to the Authority.

At any rate, the Authority is consigned to the history books now.  It lingers on only in the formal assertions of legitimacy by various elder councils, some of whom still keep weathered scrolls of official recognition given by the Authority in that bygone age.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Habitat]Iskites favor fairly simple architecture from wood and stone; they are not as austere as the Umbril, but are nowhere near the baroque ostentation of Gheen design.  Their villages are carved out of the forest, arranged in rectangular, circular, or even other polygonal shapes.  The Hatchery occupies the center of the typical village, surrounded in turn by public buildings and temples, residence blocks, and finally the village's fields.  Iskites do not separate their residence from their work, usually living in large one or two story blockhouses that combine living quarters, dining halls, and workshops.  Typically each profession has its own buildings, though some minor professions share amongst each other.

Iskites meticulously deforest their living areas.  Because the Forest grows so quickly, this is a job that must be continually performed.  During the Time of Luminaries, magic was often used to accomplish this; in the present time, work shifts are utilized.  Powerful Iskite villages often keep slaves, and clearing trees and brush is a common way to employ them.

Nearly every Iskite village also has a clock tower, sometimes as a part of the Hatchery, which Iskites use to meticulously plan their activities and give their days structure.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Warfare]Iskite villages are organized to resist attack.  Depending on the size and prosperity of the village, it may have timber palisades, stone walls, earthen ditches and embankments, and even towers with light artillery pieces atop them.  These static defenses are complimented by a warrior 'guild.'  Fighting is just another profession to the Iskites, like weaving or printing, and every village has its own 'barracks' just as other professions have their blockhouses.

Iskites are not especially strong and cannot climb trees with great nimbleness, so they stress armor and range when combat must be joined.  Iskite warriors favor heavy arbalests and metal armor of plate and scale.  In close combat, halberds are a common sight, as well as any other weapon useful in the specific situation they find themselves in.  Iskites like standardization and villages often have uniform codes for armor, clothing, and weapons, which can range from specific 'village colors' and symbols to identical sets of military regalia.

Iskite medicine and surgery are not terribly advanced, primarily because Iskites themselves are so durable.  Iskites use poisons and disease-contaminated weapons when available, taking advantage of their superior constitutions to protect them from accidents.  As Iskites can regrow limbs and rarely succumb to their wounds, they prefer to retreat rather than fight a close battle; they would rather suffer a tactical defeat with few deaths than a hard-fought victory with high losses, as even badly wounded Iskites will eventually be fit for duty again.  Though Iskite tactics tend to be straightforward and sometimes rather unimaginative, they will use trickery when the situation allows; they scoff at the idea of 'honor' in battle, as to them it is an irrational impediment in the way of the objective (destroying the enemy).[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Art and Music]The Iskite sensitivity to subtle social cues makes them very perceptive observers (or perhaps it's the other way around), and Iskites have a vast and rich artistic culture.  They are capable of appreciating the subtle gradations of color in a painting or the sublime mathematical progressions of a piece of music for hours '" but only when there's no work to be done.

Iskite art is not always very imaginative, but it is usually colorful and expertly done.  The Iskites value art that reflects order and harmoniousness, and dislike pieces that are chaotic or confusing.  Nuance is fine and appreciated; purposeful vagueness is not.  Iskites do not view art casually and like to have time to really examine and 'experience' a work of art.  Painting is the most common kind of Iskite art, and the Iskites eagerly trade with outsiders for paints and pigments that aren't normally available to them.  The Iskites find excessive displays of wealth distasteful but do like to share things they like with others, and will put up valued paintings or other pieces of art where they can be enjoyed by many.

Of all the civilized races, the Iskites have the widest variety of musical instruments.  They enjoy and will play almost anything, but are especially fond of strings and percussion.  It should not come as any surprise that Iskites prefer their music to be ordered and harmonious.  Their desire for harmony, however, should not be interpreted as a desire for simplicity; the Iskites greatly enjoy complex art and music and aren't afraid to challenge themselves.  The Iskites use multiple tonal scales and complex polyphonies, and utilize a system of written musical notation distinct from their alphabet.  They usually enjoy music in stillness, but some villages have dances with defined, ordered steps to be performed with musical accompaniment.  Some dances are bipedal, some are quadrupedal, and some alternate between the two "stances."

To an Iskite, fine smells are also an art, and they can enjoy tastefully crafted incenses like others enjoy a melodious song.  Males and females both use perfumes and like to accent particular rooms, objects, or spaces with scents they deem appropriate.  Smells they deem rich and complex are usually thought of as overwhelming by others, for though their sense of smell is very keen, they also have a very high threshold of what they consider to be 'too strong.'[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Food]Iskites grow most of their food.  The chief staple is sallowroot (similar to cassava), which is used rather like potatoes.  Other staples include pipevine (ground to make flour), sugar cane, and bask melon (a pulpy, slightly sour multipurpose fruit).  This is supplemented by a wide array of fruit, nuts, and herbs.  Iskites greatly enjoy complex aromas, and consider spices to be staples, not luxuries.  Iskite food is heavily spiced, to the point where other races tend to find it oppressively strong or even inedible.  The Iskites themselves are quick to point out that there is a difference between a properly spiced dish and one carelessly enhanced, but that only they can appreciate the difference.  Iskites tend to find foreign food bland.

Iskites supplement their diets with wild game, as well as the meat and eggs of a domesticated flightless bird called a Saszih (LT: (s')aszI, derived from (s')ass, meaning 'feather').  Hunting expeditions are carried out by a village's warriors when they are not otherwise engaged.

The Iskites consider excessive drinking to be a vice, but as long as alcohol does not obstruct one's communal duties it is permitted.  One of the most well-known Iskite products is 'Iskite Rum' (also called 'spice rum' or 'pepperwine'), a strong beverage distilled from sugar cane and '" as one might expect from the Iskites '" heavily spiced.  It is not the only strong drink made by Iskite villages, but it is the most common, widespread, and well known.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Recreation]Laziness is anathema to the Iskites, and they have a culturally inculcated aversion to idleness.  They approach their recreation like they do their profession, with dedication and a desire for excellence.  Many Iskites learn to master an instrument (or more than one), and play with others during their free time or on days of worship or celebration.

The Iskites do play games of strategy, and such games sometimes form part of their process of mating selection.  The origins of many of these games can be traced to the Umbril, though Iskites prefer to play games in serious, focused silence (unlike the Umbril practice of ruthlessly mocking one's opponent).  Games are only considered worthwhile if they demonstrate some skill of cunning or intellect; otherwise, they are just a waste of time '" though some still indulge in idle games of chance, especially older Iskites, who tend to have a more flexible view of what is 'worthwhile' as they approach the end of their lives.  Grandmasters in particular, having retired from their profession, are permitted to do many things that society would frown upon a mere Master (or pupil) doing.

Many Iskites also enjoy tinkering with technology in their free time, even if they aren't atillators or clockmakers by trade.  Iskites have embraced technology and actively seek to promote the efficiency of their village through its use.

The Iskites invented the printing press and they remain its most common users, though the majority of writing is still done by hand.  The Iskites enjoy the highest rate of literacy of any race, and may print notices and thought-provoking excerpts from their greatest works of philosophy to circulate among a village's population.  Most villages keep small libraries of poetry, speeches, and philosophic texts for general perusal.

An Iskite may occasionally use drugs, but the Iskite world view is generally that harmony is to be found in the real world, not in transcending the real or achieving a higher state of consciousness.  Again, this is something that is more common among Grandmasters than among younger Iskites.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Religion]The Iskites approach religion in a practical manner '" they expect reciprocity from their gods, and look for omens to ascertain whether their gods are favoring them.  If a village feels that its patrons do not bestow their power in exchange for the rites and offerings they are due, they often will switch to other powers or pantheons.  The Iskite culture generally leaves the question of 'How should I live?' to philosophy rather than religion, which deals with the ritual acquisition of supernatural power for the community.  There is no 'Iskite Pantheon,' and Iskite villages tend to fall under a wide and diverse array of cults, monster-worship, and even the worship of other races' deities '" after all, if the god makes the harvest good, who cares where it's from?

The priesthood is a respected Iskite profession, but Iskite priests are 'priests of the village' rather than priests of a specific god or power.  They act as intermediaries between the divine and the village, as a sort of 'sacred negotiating team' that lets the rest of the village know what rites, sacrifices, rituals, feasts, and so on should be conducted to ensure the village's prosperity and strength.  Participation in these rituals is a civic obligation, as failure to do so endangers the livelihood of the village.  Those that refuse to take part in the exercise of civil religion are branded as apostates and usually exiled.

The worship of Ishengetz (LT: IshEngetz, 'ISH-eng-ayts,' 'the one who will know') was once extremely widespread throughout the Iskite world.  As the goddess of time, divination, rulership, foresight, and planning, she was the principal deity of Iskite diviners and a much admired and respected figure among Iskites throughout the known world.  The Orange Strife annihilated her following, with the ruling classes being slain or driven insane and the rest of the Iskite people abandoning her worship afterwards.  Some maintain that she was a puppet of the Peril all along, or even a face of the Peril itself.  Most Iskites do not speak of her any more.[/spoiler]
[note=Adventurers]I thought it would be useful to add an "adventurers" section to give possible origins and backstories for PCs; after all, different races may come by the adventuring lifestyle in different ways.[/note]
[spoiler=Adventurers]Iskite communities frown on their members striking out on their own.  The village is a finely-balanced machine, and the loss of any component may adversely affect everyone.

The elders attempt to keep the population of the village to manageable levels, but a crop blight or disaster can easily threaten the village's food supply.  In such cases, sometimes a group of Iskites volunteers (or, failing that, is selected) to leave the village and find their fortunes elsewhere.  This is always a hard decision to make, but those who volunteer to leave are honored as heroes of the community.  They are welcome to come back once the situation has stabilized, usually in a few years, but some choose to stay out in the Jungle or visit other lands.

Though the Iskites are naturally inclined towards order, they are not drones and have varying levels of commitment to their society and its rules.  Some simply find their communities too stifling, and may decide to leave despite the stigma given to those who abandon their villages.  They will likely not be allowed to return.

Finally, some Iskite adventurers are proper 'rogue Iskites,' those who were born outside the normal mating structure and the sanction of the elders.  They are not welcome in their communities and, if they survive, often find another people to live among, or become wanderers.  They may take a rather dim view of Iskite society.  Rogue Iskites are not very common, but one tends to remember them.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Relations]The Iskites have a rather paradoxical view of others.  On the one hand, they view themselves as superior beings with a uniquely enlightened culture; on the other, they are strongly inclined towards practical and level-headed judgment, and a desire to measure others by their worth.  They prefer to keep other peoples at arm's length, fearing that they could become corrupted by the chaos and barbarity of other societies, but deal openly and honestly with those that wish to trade with them.

The Iskites find in the Gheen much that they despise, and treat the race as a whole with scorn even if they see some worth in individual Gheen.  The aesthetics, politics, society, and personality of the Gheen offend them on a visceral level.  It would be impossible to list all the ways in which the Iskite and Gheen ways of life are antithetical to each other.  Though they often engage in trade with the Gheen, they see this as a regrettable necessity, and would prefer to never see them again.  Except for the material goods they offer, most Iskites see nothing valuable or worth preserving in Gheen culture, and see the Gheen themselves as little more than shiftless primitives whose 'civilization' is a pretentious façade over fundamental barbarism.  Often the Iskites will admit only grudgingly that the khauta was a Gheen invention.  Iskite-Gheen wars are the most common flavor of inter-species conflicts in the Clockwork Jungle (keeping in mind that wars in general are fairly rare), especially those between the World-Queen and the various Iskite leagues that opposed or continue to oppose her.

The Iskites view the Umbril with some suspicion; they respect their culture and its noted similarities to their own, but think of the Umbril and their civilization as inherently corrupted by the chaotic taint of the Forest in which they dwell.  The Iskites find the Umbril to be conniving, greedy, grasping, and deceitful, constantly desirous of whatever they don't have and retaining few scruples when it comes to getting it.  The Iskites have confidence in their ability to restrain these unfortunate aspects when dealing with them, however, and often maintain good trading relations with Umbril colonies.  The Fishers (see 'Ussik,' below) are especially close with the Umbril colonies of the Wash, and the region has resisted the armies of the World-Queen in large part because of an enduring Umbril-Ussik military alliance called the League of the Waterfall.  Only in Netai, home of the more expansionist Evne-Umbril, do the Iskites and Umbril come into regular armed conflict.  Rogue Iskites seem to prefer to join Umbril colonies over dreys or bloods.

The Iskites are rather dismissive of the Tahro; they do not find their culture offensive as they do the Gheen, but do not consider them to have a 'civilization' as such '" to the Iskites, civilization means sedentary settlement and life in opposition to nature, the victory of reason and technology over instinct and environment.  The Tahro seek to live in the Forest rather than against it, which leads the Iskites to conclude that they are either weak-willed or simply not that smart (or both).  The Iskites are happy to trade with Tahr bloods that roam near their villages, but the two races sometimes come into conflict when the Iskites settle inadvertently upon a blood's seasonal camp.  What the Iskites call 'settling' the Tahro call 'destroying,' and wars have erupted as a result.  The Iskites argue that no land can said to be truly owned if the owner only camps there temporarily, and in any case believe that they make more 'use' of the land than the Tahro do, which entitles them to it as a matter of course.  Some Iskite villages, finding Tahr slaves to be particularly valuable, raid bloods for captives.  Where such conflicts are avoided, the two races usually coexist peaceably and bother each other very little.

As their society even throws out native-born Iskites who were born outside the traditions of the village, it is totally unheard of for an outsider to ever be accepted into Iskite society.  Occasionally an exiled Umbril or wandering Tahr will be allowed to settle in a village, but they are expected to provide for themselves and are treated like permanent guests rather than a part of the village.  Iskites are not unkind to their guests, but they are always suspicious that outsiders are only interested in leeching off the village's prosperity.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Varieties]The Iskites differ slightly in coloration and stature depending on what region they are from, but in general they are a rather homogenous people.

The 'Ussik' (LT: ÉssIkIszkÉs', 'Ussik-iskites,' literally 'tail Iskites,' but also called s'wEjÉ, 'S'wejuh,' meaning 'fishers'), are a semi-aquatic branch of the Iskite race substantially different from the rest of their kinsmen.  The Fishers have a more brownish-green coloration and have longer, more powerful tails with a flat, paddle-like 'fin' on the end, and slight webbing between their digits.  They are not amphibians and cannot breathe water, but they practice intensive fishing and aquaculture rather than agriculture.  They are almost entirely restricted to the Wash.  The Ussik share the Iskite love of order but never abandoned heredity, and organize their society in extended families.  They raise children communally at first, but then return them to their families for vocational training rather than using the Iskite system of guides.  'Proper' Iskites treat them like primitives, which they greatly resent, and as a result the Fishers tend to get along better with their Umbril neighbors.  They are more tolerant of individuals striking out on their own, and Ussik are over-represented among Iskite adventurers and explorers.

Though everyone knows about 'rogue Iskites,' there are rumors of bands or even entire villages of Iskite exiles who live in forgotten ruins or isolated mountain ranges, far from their common kinsmen, with societies radically different from the Iskite norm.  The Iskites prefer to believe that such rumors are just nonsense or lies spread by outsiders to make them look bad.[/spoiler]

I love the detail you've given to the Iskites. I like how you've seemingly taken a very simple, almost D&D-tropish concept - "Lawful-aligned lizardfolk" - and fleshed it out into a living, breathing and above all unique people without a trace of gimmickery to their individuality.

[ic=The Cave of Song]Ketzaj forced back a howl of anguish.  Pain is the refuge of the undisciplined mind, she thought, the words of the Analects coming back to her unbidden, impressed upon her mind before she had even left the shell.

'Pain'¦' She inhaled sharply, and spouted the rest of the line through clenched teeth.  ''¦is the refuge of the undisciplined mind.  The Masterful One sheds pain like old scales.'  She repeated it under her breath, over and over, as if the mere words were a balm.

She forced her eyes to open.  She was in a dark and unfamiliar place, and her eyes only slowly began to peel back the shadows as they grew accustomed to the sudden change.  A moment before, she had been walking on the surface, and it had been morning.  Then, there was a sudden fall, and '" I've fallen into a pit, she thought.  She reached out and gingerly touched her right leg, then recoiled abruptly, pain shooting up her thigh.  I've fallen into a pit, and my leg is broken.

Yet as her surroundings slowly revealed themselves to her, it became clear that this was no mere pit.  She was in a proper cavern, a natural one by the look of it.  It was only dimly illuminated by the hole in the ceiling that had brought her here, but she could still make out the gleaming formations of the cave.  Limestone shields dripping with delicate stalactites jutted up from the smooth, pearly floors.  Water softly trickled down the near wall, which looked like a frothing waterfall that had been frozen into place in an instant.  The water in the cave all collected near the center, and from there ran in a wide and shallow ribbon into the deeper reaches of the cave, where even her now-accustomed eyes saw only blackness.  She reflexively looked up at the ceiling, shielding her eyes with her tail '" Kuens lived in caves like these.  But none of those 'Night Terrors' hung from the irregular cave ceiling, nor any bats at all.  In the meantime, at least, she seemed to be out of danger.

But there was the long term to consider.  Her leg would eventually heal, but she would certainly starve down here before then.  If this was a pit, she would likely be doomed, but a cave might have other entrances, places where she could crawl out even with her leg the way it was.  It occurred to her that any cave with such an entrance would probably already be inhabited.  Eternal eye bless me, she thought, hoping for a sliver of divine favor.

As she considered how best to construct a splint from her supplies, her mind abruptly turned to food.  This puzzled Ketzaj; she had eaten only an hour ago.  She did not feel hungry now, yet the thought was impossible to dismiss.  It grew more insistent '" not a need for nourishment, but a strange desire to eat, to tear into a carcass, blood streaming down moist skin and mingling with the cave waters, each drop resonating as it fell upon the limestone, her fellows gathered about to share in the '"

She inhaled with a hiss and felt her chest tighten, too shocked to exhale.  Shapes '" long and glistening '" materialized out of the darkness.  They crawled close to the ground, the cave-dwellers, and as they moved into the half-light she could see the muscles moving beneath their membranous skin.  Their bodies were pinkish and pale, the only details being darkish spots where eyes had every right to be, and dark purple frills behind their head that twisted and wiggled of their own accord.

Ketzaj cried out, her face contorted in unreasoning horror.  Images filled her mind, fell waking dreams of consuming herself, in which she was both devourer and devoured.  She could feel their hunger and taste her own flesh in her mouth.  Her scales crawled with the sensation of her own warm blood flowing freely from her gnashing teeth.  The Analects were forgotten as their thoughts invaded her mind.  Her cry turned to a hoarse croak, and an intense feeling of claustrophobia seized her.  The walls were closing in.  Her body, stained with the illusory taint of self-cannibalism, felt as heavy as stone.  Life fell away, reason fell away, hope suffocated within the constricting cavern.  There was nothing left but a pitiful scaled creature, curled into a ball, shivering in abject despair.  She did nothing as a dozen of the creatures closed around her, bone-white tongues flicking in and out of mouths ringed with tiny, sharp teeth.

A thought entered her mind, as if by sudden inspiration, but it was not her thought.

It is a lightling.

The creatures were silent, but their whole conversation sprouted in her mind as if born there.

A scaled lightling.  A metal-wearer.

It is alone.

It is alone.  Food.

The images of self-devouring filled her head again, and she let out an involuntary whine, ignored by the creatures around her.

Food.

Food.

No.  The songs of the metal-wearers.

Songs'¦

Abruptly, the nightmare of despair and vile hunger vanished like dew on a wyrm's wings.  Instead, she heard music, deep drums and warbling flutes, in a cacophonous tangle.  It was not one tune or another that entered her mind; it was music, the idea itself, the desire for sound and rhythm.  It was a thousand ages of singers and musicians, their tones warped by rock and earth, heard in the skin and the bone.

Songs.  Music.

Music pleases me.

The song pleases me.

The music.

The scaled lightling will play for us.

Slowly, painfully, Ketzaj lifted her head and met their eyeless gaze.  Her voice was thin and shaky, but the creatures answered her before she even finished speaking.

'You'¦ you want me to pl-'

Play the music.

Sing the song.

It pleases us.  The scaled lightling will play for us.

Ketzaj swallowed, thinking of songs she knew, remembering the gourd-bow in her pack.

The lightling has a music-maker!

Their excitement became her excitement, and it dulled the pain in her leg and the fear she still had of these creatures and their dark domain.  What should she play?

A song of the World of Light.[/ic]


Over time, I hope to introduce the other denizens of the Clockwork Jungle.  Some are just as intelligent (or more so) than the four civilized races, though for varying reasons, they have not developed what we would recognize as civilization, or simply have environments or minds to alien to truly be compatible with the 'protagonists' of the campaign world.  A few of them, including the Golhai (who you have just met) are described in brief below.

Golha

The Golhai ('cave dwellers' in Marou Tahr) are intelligent stygobites (aquatic cave creatures) who rule in the darkest places of all, far from the realms of the other civilized races.  They resemble five foot long olms, with characteristic translucent, pinkish-beige skin.  They live most of their lives underground within the cave-riddled karst regions of the Forest, devouring cave fish and insects, as well as any other hapless creature that slips into their domain.  They rarely venture forth into the 'World of Light,' as they call it, unless food is scarce in their own domain.  Their eyes are nearly vestigial and not good for much, but they can pinpoint the location of a small insect with their supremely keen hearing.  The only sounds they make are rasping hisses, but they are also 'thought projectors.'  This is distinguished from telepathy in that their thoughts are not 'targeted' towards a single person; rather, they 'blast' their thoughts in such a way that all nearby can 'hear' them.  They are skilled readers of thoughts as well, and as a result conversations with them are unnerving, to say the least.  Such abilities are nearly unheard of among other races, even through magic, and because of this the Golhai are objects of fear and misunderstanding.  The Umbril especially are terrified of the Golhai, believing that when a Golha reads your mind, it steals part of your soul as well.  There are many wild rumors about the Golhai and their mental abilities, most of which are completely false.

The Golhai are quite intelligent and clearly have a society of their own, but it is too alien and remote to be comprehensible to others.  Other creatures rarely venture into the 'Worlds of Darkness' that the Golhai rule, and the Golhai in turn prefer to stay away from groups of 'lightlings.'  They are non-technological, using only simple (but well-crafted) bone tools and hunting weapons.  They are consummate carnivores and will devour nearly any animal that finds its way into their clutches, but they value music very highly and will usually spare a creature that plays for them (unless they are starving '" then they will probably devour the creature after the music is done).  Little of their culture is known, though it is said that they ritually devour the corpses of other Golhai and make their skin into drums.  One of the most eerie experiences a surface traveler can have is to hear the faint rumblings of the 'deep drums' as they pass over a cave-riddled landscape.  Nobody really knows what this drumming is meant to signal, if it has any meaning at all.  The Golhai want very little from lightlings and have little to offer in return, and in general make very little impression in the history of the surface.  They are most usually encountered alone while swimming up and down surface rivers, as this is the only way for them to get from one of their cave complexes to another.

Asheater

Asheaters are intelligent hexapedal animals that live exclusively within the High Plain.  The size of a water buffalo and (reputedly) ten times as strong, Asheaters would be the undisputed rulers of the Obsidian Plain if they had any desire to be.  They seem to lack even a modicum of aggression or ambition, and despite their apparent intelligence they desire nothing more than to wallow in searing hot springs or mudpots and contemplate their own thoughts.  Asheaters are exceptionally resilient, apparently unaffected by the smoke and poisonous gases of their home and covered in pebbly coal-colored hide that is impervious to most weapons and can even temporarily resist lava.  Asheaters consume only minerals; they lack a jaw, but instead have a prehensile, rasping tongue that secretes an extremely strong acid, dissolving choice minerals and allowing the Asheater to lap up the acid-mineral mixture.  This acid can dissolve most known substances, though the Asheaters themselves are unaffected by it.

Asheaters have a society, but not much is known about it.  Most simply ignore other creatures entirely, and can afford to since it is nearly impossible to hurt them.  They seem to roam over the landscape in small groups, and their only permanent colony is within the Blood Cauldrons, where between one and two hundred of them can be found at any one time.  They often make low, rumbling noises or sharp hissing sounds that might be speech, but nobody has ever decoded it.  When they wish to speak with other creatures (which is not common), they use their acid tongues to etch letters into the ground with surprising speed and accuracy.  They do not seem to have their own written language, but use a rather old-fashioned Yitati Gheen dialect (apparently because it is 'their favorite' of the languages they have encountered, though they have not said exactly why).  Asheaters simply do not answer questions that they do not care to answer, as they have no sense of 'rudeness' as it is understood by other races.  Nothing is known about their life cycle; their genders are unknown, they have never been observed mating, and no young Asheaters have ever been seen.  Asheaters will aid a sentient being in their presence in immediate peril, but will not go out of their way to help others.  They tend to wax philosophical about this, saying (or rather, writing), that all must die in their time.  Asheaters say they have names but that they are 'untranslatable.'

Kaerling

Kaerlings are vicious and loathsome carnivores who exist only to consume.  Their appearance is difficult to describe, but is best summarized as that of a somewhat pudgy, wingless bat standing about three feet at the shoulder.  They are possessed of an all-consuming hunger and will eat any living thing they can kill; if prey is unavailable, they will feast on carrion, and if that too is in short supply they will eat each other.  They have been known to occasionally break off an attack in order to devour their own wounded.  Kaerlings are only moderately dangerous as individuals, for though they possess very sharp claws and teeth, they are small and not especially strong.  When prey is found, however, they are usually quick to stop killing each other and cooperate to bring down the quarry (though once it is dead, they may come to blows again over the spoils).  Kaerling populations in an area frequently explode and then fall precipitously as travelers avoid the area and the Kaerlings butcher each other into near-oblivion.  Kaerlings have mediocre eyesight and rely heavily on smell and their excellent senses of hearing, which they exploit by ambushing prey at night or in other low-vision conditions.  They are possessed of a rudimentary intelligence and some degree of cunning, and communicate with a gibbering chatter of squeaks and trills.  They create nothing and use no weapons or tools.

It is uncertain how the species survives given their predilection for cannibalism.  If they have genders, it is not evident.  Kaerlings are often seen issuing forth from caves or empty lava tubes, leading many to suspect that they live at least part of their lives as cave-dwellers and reproduce there.  Little is known about them because few explorers are suicidal enough to go poking around in Kaerling warrens.  Others tell stories of monstrous Kaerling 'Queens' that live deep below the earth, and say that common Kaerlings are merely drones, like ants or bees.  Tales about their origin and purpose are legion in the communities that ring the Obsidian Plain.

It is not known why Kaerlings restrict themselves to the Plain.  Part of it may be because they are not socially stable on long journeys and do not last long before the group collapses into a cannibalistic frenzy.

Aras Tay

Denizens of other planes may be familiar with the 'usual' character of fey and nature spirits '" secretive, but beautiful and sublime, and often good (if slow to trust).  If a traveler to the Clockwork Jungle makes the mistake of thinking the Forest's fey are kind and gentle or merry pranksters, like nymphs and pixies, it may be the last mistake he makes.

The Aras Tay are the Clockwork Jungle's equivalent of fey, but they represent a different facet of nature.  They are spirits of the wilderness, 'red of tooth and claw,' embodying the savage ferocity and pitiless amorality of the natural world.  Nature is often unkind and always fickle, and they are no exception.  Aras Tay are universally quite intelligent, but communication with them is difficult.  They do not possess speech, and even if telepathy is used, their minds are quite alien to the average sentient creature '" they are quite single-minded, do not understand the emotions of most sentients, and do not understand the concepts of '˜right,' '˜wrong,' '˜good,' or '˜evil.'  One is born, eats, sleeps, and dies '" despite their intelligence, Aras Tay do not ascribe any higher moral purpose to life or existence.  Some say they are not really individual creatures at all, just pseudo-independent manifestations of the will of the Forest itself.

Aras Tay are divided into two broad categories, 'lesser' and 'greater.'  Greater Aras Tay are distinct individual entities; they have no types or races, as each one has its own unique form and abilities.  Some greater Aras Tay are powerful to the point where they are worshipped as gods.  They are not described here.  Instead, the bestiary lists a few of the more well-known lesser Aras Tay, who belong to one of several archetypes, much like a species of animal or plant.

Vangan
The 'Horned Spirits' of the Aras Tay can be found in nearly any part of the Forest.  They are graceful, yet muscular quadrupeds, with long forearms and short, thick back legs.  Their hide is like wooly tree-bark, and is studded with stubby horns.  Atop their plated necks are their fearsome heads, which look rather like a cross between a bear and a horse, but without any eyes or any trace of eye sockets.  Their heads are crowned with four broad antlers shaped like spiky-edged leaves.  Vangans are extremely dangerous creatures, as they will eat any living creature (or plant) and possess no fear of death.  Every Vangan has an acorn-like 'heart' the size of a human head within its chest; when it dies, this heart sinks into the Forest's fertile soil and grows a new Vangan underground, like a tuber.  Initially, its antlers are broad leaves, the only part of its body visible above the ground until it springs forth, fully grown, from the earth.  Vangans are known to travel in herds, and make their presence known by eerily harmonious baying that is audible for miles, as even the birds stop singing when the Horned Spirits begin their songs.  They are worshipped by the Tahro but do not seem to care; they do not seem to be concerned with other creatures unless they are hungry or their territory is entered.  Fiercely territorial, they will attack any creature they perceive as a threat (that is to say, most creatures larger than a rodent).

Axolt
'Axolt' (Ah-zolt)  means 'corpse-eater' in Holao Tahr.  Axolts are 'Decay Spirits,' embodying the process by which all things are eventually reclaimed by the Forest.  They look like corpulent, snaking grubs ringed with mottled brownish-black chitin.  Despite their pudgy, grotesque appearance, they are extremely quick and agile on their twenty-four three-toed insectile legs.  They are capable of climbing trees, though they prefer the thick decaying matter of the forest floor.  Axolts are voracious eaters who will consume anything dead with their powerful mandibles and toothy maw.  They will gladly dig up graves and feast on the contents, and the Umbril consider them dangerous pests (as Umbril also favor decaying food).  In part, their hunger is driven by their passengers '" an Axolt's insides are filled with millions of insects in permanent residence, which the Axolt expels in a stinging, choking cloud when threatened (or if their skin is pierced).  Axolts never stop growing until dead, and there are reports of mighty Decay Spirits the size of Crash Wyrms.  Despite their (deserved) reputation for filth, they are cherished by many sentient residents.  The Iskites value their excrement, which is a fertilizer of supernatural caliber, and the Gheen love to feast on the insects they inevitably carry with them.  Axolts (even the large ones) are naturally quite cowardly, and unless food is involved their first instinct is to flee from danger.  They do not distinguish between the dead and the undead, and perform a valuable service by attacking and consuming stray undead and the Abominations of the Saffron Moss (the Peril cannot affect them or any other Aras Tay).

Kuen
Kuens, also called 'Night Terrors' or 'Stalking Spirits,' are fearsome predators whose existences revolve around the hunt.  They somewhat resemble giant bats, but their bodies are nearly hairless and their blood-red faces are unearthly and terrifying, with five enormous, pupil-less eyes set around their powerful jaws.  They have multiple rows of sharp teeth, like a shark.  Kuens are active only at night, and during the day they wrap themselves in their wings and hang on large branches in secluded groves or caverns.  When night falls, they devote themselves entirely to the hunt.  A group of Kuens (for they always hunt in small groups) will select their prey and hunt it, night after night, until either the prey is killed or they are.  They are single-minded but intelligent, and have infinite patience '" they do not seem to need food regularly to survive.  They enjoy the chase more than the kill itself, and purposefully frighten and torment their prey for days or even weeks before finally killing it with a crushing bite that can easily shatter bone.  They cannot actually fly, but glide silently from tree to tree.  Their only utterance is a echoing, piercing screech that causes most creatures to feel nausea and physical pain.  Unless one is selected as prey, one has little to fear from these creatures, who will ignore anything that does not get between them and their quarry.  It is not known how or why they pick the prey they do, but they seem to usually pick intelligent creatures '" perhaps because intelligent creatures have more complex feelings of terror and fright.  The only way to escape their hunt is to kill the entire group; more commonly, sentient beings pursued by these horrors simply commit suicide rather than live in abject terror until the inevitable end.

I will post some more thorough comments later, but I must just say that I love the Bestiary - wonderfully bizarre and inventive.  I really think this is what world-building should be about, what fantasy should be about: not clinging to the comfy tropes of a nostalgic medieval past but boldly shattered, reinventing, and just plain ignoring those tropes in favor of fresh ideas.

The Ghola are really poignant and strikingly original.  The only comparison my incessantly comparison-making brain can come up with is the vortigaunts from Half-Life 2, not to say you even had those in mind at all when you created the Ghola, just that they remind me of the vorts in some ways.  I also am really impressed by the Axolt, to the point of jealousy that I didn't think of something like them first.

I've decided that further progression is going to be difficult without some kind of geographical frame of reference.  I had an idea in my head where everything is, but it's always better and more interesting when put to paper.  I banged this out quickly for your (and my own) benefit.  I usually polish my maps a lot more, but this is just for reference and is likely to change in the future.



A few notes:

The two Low Plain circles represent the minimum and maximum extent of the Low Plain.  The light gray area is always Low Plain; the striped area may or may not be depending on how long ago lava flowed there.  It doesn't mean that every area in the striped area has been part of the Low Plain before, only that lava flows have been that far from the High Plain in the past.  The actual border of the Obsidian Plain fluctuates somewhere in that striped zone.*The regions are merely geographical, not cultural or national.  They are broad, somewhat ill-defined areas that share a similar biome or geography.  Nobody would call themselves a "Red Depth-ian" or anything like that.*The outside circle is rather arbitrary.  It does not indicate the end of the world, or even of the Forest.  There's far more beyond that, but I've chosen to exclude it for now as I focus on the "Inner Forest."  I haven't precisely determined a scale for this map, but I've left a line in to indicate the halfway point between the Grandmother Mountain (at the center) and the arbitrary border.*For those of you who've been reading along, the Netai Confederation is in the Sea of Indigo region.  The heart of the World-Queen's domain is the Feathervale, but it extends into a large part of the Red Depths and into the edges of the Wash and the Sea of Marching Stones.

Quote from: SteerpikeThe Ghola are really poignant and strikingly original. The only comparison my incessantly comparison-making brain can come up with is the vortigaunts from Half-Life 2, not to say you even had those in mind at all when you created the Ghola, just that they remind me of the vorts in some ways.

olm-men[/i] in underground rivers.  The Golhai are just my idea of what "olm-men" would be like, if they'd also developed a sixth sense (their mental powers) to make up for their lack of sight and inability to speak.  Like the Asheaters, they fulfill a "niche role" of an intelligent race that isn't a PC race, which I think is an important distinction to make.  Intelligence shouldn't automatically be taken to mean cultural or physical viability as an adventuring race.  I like the "monster PC" as much as the next player, but I think if the line becomes too blurred, monsters (especially the intelligent ones) become too familiar and "standard" instead of unearthly and interesting.

As an example, D&D has undergone "dragon creep" since the early days, where a creature that is supposed to be legendary by default (a dragon) becomes so diluted into the player base (half-dragons in CoW 2nd ed, "dragon blood" sorcerers in 3rd, and finally dragonborn as a standard PC race in 4th) that dragons and their relations seem rather pedestrian, and more extreme foes are needed to maintain "awesomeness."  I like my monster races to be conserved as long as possible.

I have nothing constructive to add except to say, I love this setting. :)

I cannot get over the original awesomeness of the Bestiary...its all so cool. I love this setting, and it was actually the first setting I looked at when I came to the site.

Alright, First thing I wish to say is that I love how indepth you went with the navigation and such, the base seven was a nice touch. Asking the third is probably the best thing ever too :D

The Peril adds a nice element of fear, a sorta ultimate evil it seems. However it does remind me of something called The Balrog, a red moss that infests humans and gives them supernatural powers, the moss is a hivemind that can communicate over any distance (this is from a scifi book, so think multiple light years) and is a ascended being. I forget the name of the series where this is, but it was a really good series :P

Anyway, the Peril seems almost like a disembodied great evil, maybe without the that much mythological baggage, sorta like if Sauron just popped up one day on Middle earth.

For Dendronautics, have any Cogs been involved? Flying Cogs? Or perhaps instead of a manual propeller, a clockwork propeller, this would greatly increase the power of such a propeller, without the need for a large crew. The Iskites in general seems like they could manage a partly automated clockwork khauta to greatly increase range and/or speed. Also, if reliable clockwork khautas were developed this would help the forming of nations/empires, since the weeks to journey between towns would be condensed to days.

The Black Circle is a fantastic idea, clever really. Although it doesn't seem like fun, sitting in an updraft of smoke/hot air/sulfurous air :p

I like the symbolism of the Obsidian Plain, not a evil place no matter how hellish it seems.

The Umbril are assuredly anti-myconid :p Like everyone says your racial layout is fantastic and covers many different aspects.

Of the bestiary my favorite would have to be the Aras Tay. The division of Greater and Lesser is nicely defined and much appreciated.

The map I find is a huge addition to the setting, it's a great reference as you say. It also raises quite a few questions. Are the areas marked Seas all water? Islands aren't marked as far as I can tell. Also, what is the outer white ring for? The striped area is as you say the variable boundary but the white circle covering that one?

Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AeolipileAeolipile[/url] near the end of the Age of Prophets, but there are only a few of them, and they're just a curiosity.  It's likely going to be some time before that becomes viable method of turning a propeller.

A GM could certainly decide they were running a higher-tech TCJ campaign and include basic steam engines - I think it could potentially be made to fit - but that's not what I want currently.  I want to keep travel difficult and maintain some degree of isolation, and steam khautas would work against that.

QuoteThe Black Circle is a fantastic idea, clever really. Although it doesn't seem like fun, sitting in an updraft of smoke/hot air/sulfurous air :p

Of the bestiary my favorite would have to be the Aras Tay. The division of Greater and Lesser is nicely defined and much appreciated.

The map I find is a huge addition to the setting, it's a great reference as you say. It also raises quite a few questions. Are the areas marked Seas all water? Islands aren't marked as far as I can tell. Also, what is the outer white ring for? The striped area is as you say the variable boundary but the white circle covering that one?[/quote]
The line outside the striped area is actually just a halfway point between the center of the map and the outer rim.  It's just a distance line on a map, it doesn't represent anything.

The "Seas" are not all water.  Think of it like the Mediterranean - you could draw a big circle around the Mediterranean and all the lands that border it and call it the "Mediterranean region."

The Sea of Ink is actually not a sea at all, but a high forest region home to trees that have very dark green leaves, to the point where they look nearly black.  The name was given to it by khauta flyers, to whom the whole region out from the Wyrmcrown just looked like one enormous black ocean.

Additionally, there are inland seas and sizeable lakes that are in other regions not called "seas."  Chokereed has a whole series of lakes, and the Maw has a pretty sizeable one too.  It can't be emphasized enough that these are just maps of "regions" and aren't meant for navigation or precise delineation of features; they just indicate areas in the same way we would use "Mediterranean," "Horn of Africa," "Arabia," "Amazon Jungle," or "Tibetan Plateau."

Thanks for the comments and questions, I appreciate it all.

[ic=Songs of the Gheen]Carry the gods upon your shoulders,
Daughters of Yryma, sing and dance!
But not for them, the blood is flowing,
The spirit is safe in the hearts of kin.

Ai!  Ai!  Praise for the mistress,
She who laughs in the graven face!
- Exerpt, traditional coronation song from the Red Depths[/ic]




The Gheen are some of the least imposing animals in the Forest.  They protect themselves through their agility and cunning, but in the end they know their civilization is eternally stalked by death, caught between the cats of the ground and the wyrms of the sky.  They confront this reality in a way that is characteristically their own '" cherishing experience and emotion while life lasts, and trusting in the supreme immortality of blood and family when it fails.  They are often dismissed by outsiders as superficial or callow, but nothing could be further from the truth.  They are dedicated to their traditions and family, and believe that only the arrogant dismiss what life has to offer in its brief span - the ascetic is merely a coward.  All must be embraced and experienced for the benefit of one's own spirit and the prosperity of the eternal kinship.

[spoiler=Physiology]Gheen are small furred mammals.  Gheen are very lightweight, and despite their height (three to three and a half feet, not including their three-foot tails), their adult weight is seldom much more than thirty pounds.  Gheen are neither strong nor tough, but are extremely flexible and have lightning reflexes.

The Gheen resemble large mustelids; this is especially evident in their long necks and weasel-like faces.  Their fur color ranges from dark brown to red or even gold, and some have streaks or large splotches of multiple colors.  Only their hands, feet, and faces have no fur.  They have a stretchy membrane spanning from their wrists to their ankles like a flying squirrel, and have prehensile tails reminiscent of monkeys.  Their skin is rather loose like a cat's, and predators taking a bite of them often find they've only grabbed skin and caused a flesh wound instead of a killing blow.

With these features and their surprisingly powerful back legs, they make the perfect canopy-dwellers.  They cannot actually fly, but are powerful jumpers and can glide for long distances.  Their stubby claws and light frames allow them to scramble up tree trunks with impressive speed, or they can simply jump from branch to branch.  Their sense of balance is extremely fine compared to most other creatures, and they live fearlessly in dwellings others would consider lethally precarious.

Gheen eyesight is particularly keen, but unlike the sight of the surface-dwelling races, it is not as well adapted for darkness.  Their amber-colored eyes are able to perceive far more color gradations than those of other species, and their vision extends into the ultraviolet spectrum.  Their other senses are fairly standard; their claim to have superior 'taste' is an aesthetic judgment, not a sensory one.[/spoiler]
[note=Drey]I use the word 'drey' to refer to Gheen treetop settlements.  This isn't their word; 'drey' is the English name for a squirrel's nest, and I use it here in the same way I use 'village' for Iskites and 'colony' for Umbril.[/note]
[spoiler=Language]The Gheen languages are composed of rather high-pitched sounds, including chirps, trills, and clicks.  The Umbril find this particularly difficult to emulate, but the Iskites and Tahro can learn it quite readily if they're willing to spend the time.  Each 'region,' defined loosely as an area in which Gheen dreys have regular contact with each other, has its own language with accents particular to individual dreys.  There is no common Gheen tongue, though the 'Queen's Tongue' used in Auk Yrta Su'u's realm is quite widespread as a result of her conquests.

Gheen language is tonal, and different pronunciations and pitches of the same word will yield different meanings.  This is probably the most difficult part of their language to learn, but without it, one is only capable of spouting gibberish.  The Gheen word for 'alien,' trlak, also means 'tone deaf.'[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Life Cycle]As mammals, Gheen have live births, after a 4 month pregnancy.  They give birth in litters of 2-4 'kits,' who are able to jump and glide within two months and weaned within four.  Twins and even triplets are not uncommon.  A kit is twice as likely to be male as female, though the increased mortality rate of males reduces this sex ratio somewhat in older age groups.

Gheen society is based around large, extended family units, and children are raised within those families.  Care and early education is provided by members of the family, though not necessarily the kit's parents '" in general, a Gheen's parents are only somewhat more involved in its upbringing than other members of its family, even rather distant cousins.  A kit may spend much of its life with grandparents, cousins, uncles, and aunts, so that every Gheen knows its extended family well by the time it reaches adulthood.  It also gives the kit the opportunity to experience a wide variety of trades and crafts, so it can make an informed choice when it becomes an adult.

Between the ages of 13 and 15, depending on when sexual maturity is reached, the kit undergoes a coming of age ceremony that marks one as a full adult.  The ceremonies are entirely different for males and females.  Males undergo a ceremony called the Great Fall.  In this ceremony, the male kits receive a cut on the arm, and their blood is shed and allowed to fall to the forest floor.  Then, they are thrown from a high platform.  The kit is thus ritually 'killed,' and in his place, a full adult climbs up from the lower canopy.  Females undergo a ceremony called a Windcalling.  Their fur is painted and they must climb to the very tops of the trees and await the first bird cry they hear, at which point they are permitted to climb down and return to the drey.  The details of the ceremonies are secret, and kept even from Gheen of the opposite sex.  A Gheen who passes this ceremony adopts an 'adult name.'  Males choose their own, while females use the bird cry they heard during their Windcalling.  Both ceremonies entail some danger, and deaths '" while fairly rare overall '" do happen with some regularity.

Adult Gheen are permitted to take a mate.  In the interests of preserving a family's maternal line, males leave their families and join their mate's family, but they retain their own family name.  Gheen society permits polyandry and females may have multiple mates at the same time, but because the bride must traditionally pay a 'mate price' to the husband's family, only wealthy females engage in this practice.  Gheen are expected to be faithful to their mates, but there is no real stigma against pre-marital relations, and children born from such relations are accepted into the woman's family like any other children.  Gheen expect marriage to be life-long, and thus most Gheen explore many romantic relationships before finally settling on a lifelong mate many years after adulthood is reached.  It's considered only sensible to take plenty of time to test the waters before committing yourself.

Adults also choose a trade, and must find another adult willing to make them their apprentice.  Some trades are more prestigious than others, and a renowned craftsman or one in a particularly desirable trade must often choose between a whole host of would-be apprentices, who resort to lavish gifts and unabashed flattery to be chosen.  Those that are not so fortunate must content themselves with other trades or less well-known masters.

As Gheen age, the hair near their face (the face itself is hairless) begins to whiten, as does the fur at the end of their tails.  They retain much of their agility even in old age, but begin to weaken as they approach the end of their lives.  The oldest known Gheen was 105 years of age, but most die around 70-90 years if they survive long enough to enjoy a natural death.  Dead Gheen are placed on open platforms near the treetops, where aerial scavengers strip the bones of flesh.  The bones are then cast down from the trees save the skull, which is covered with clay or plaster until it again resembles the departed's head.  Such 'plastered skulls' are then painted and decorated with beads and shells, and placed in the family's 'skull trove' where they are available for all to admire. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Society]The Gheen value family over all else.  They believe that those who share blood also share a certain spiritual connection; a child is not just your own flesh, but your own soul as well.  They seek to work for the benefit of their family and to enhance the prosperity of their children and relations.  They believe that emotions are the purest form of vitality and expression, and the emotions engendered by one's familial ties are the most important of all.  Their culture is based around the interactions within and between families and the emotional relationships that define these interactions.  To a Gheen, life is about emotion and feeling '" they are capable of deeply caring relationships and monstrous hatreds alike, but are whimsical and fickle and can change their opinion of someone overnight. Outsiders find them to be flighty, indecisive, arbitrary, and sometimes downright annoying, but Gheen are also sensitive and empathic folk who are not afraid to show their commitment to their family and friends through great bravery and altruism.

All advancement and status in Gheen society comes from one's family.  Your family provides you with the resources and personal contacts needed to find a gainful apprenticeship, and supports you until you've become a successful tradesman of your own right and can give back to your family.  Nepotism '" that is, favoritism based on family '" is not considered a negative thing in Gheen society.  It is expected that people will attempt to prioritize the welfare of their own relations first, though this should not be taken to mean that family is the only important factor in judging another.  A Gheen is expected to return what he's been given, and afford his younger family members everything that was once afforded to him when he was young.

The family also has an important role in mate selection.  The middle-aged men of the family are expected to be on the lookout for eligible males in other families of the drey (or, if they are travelers, in other dreys) and play matchmakers for their female relatives.  This is also a deeply political act, and one of the ways in which males exercise power in the female-dominated society of the Gheen.  Among them, the 'blood of the family' flows through the female line; property is inherited by daughters, as is rulership (if the drey is monarchic).  'Who marries who' (and indeed, 'who mates with who') is of critical importance to the family's prestige and balance of power, and is determinant of who gets what when a family member dies.  A family's males exercise informal power through this matchmaker role, and act as the architects of family alliances and unions.  Many a bewildered female has been subject to the incessant cajoling and manipulation of her male relatives, who form rival factions over which mate she should take from which family.  A female must be strong-willed indeed if she wishes to have a mate she loves rather than one that has been hand picked by her uncles and cousins '" though if she's wealthy, she can have both.

A single drey is composed of anywhere from three to ten extended families.  Most decisions are made at the family level rather than the drey level, while matters that concern the entire drey are resolved through negotiations of prominent grandmothers (and great-grandmothers) of each of the constituent families.  Most dreys (perhaps 80%) are monarchies, with one 'royal family' which has the distinction of carrying the title of Queen in its bloodline.  Because few decisions are made at the drey level the Queen has only as much power as she can grasp for herself.  If she is young, she may not even be particularly influential in her own family.

The primary function of a drey Queen is not political at all, but religious; she is the spiritual head of all the families and the focal point of ceremonies and celebrations.  Some Queens spurn any pretention at political power and surround themselves in luxuries with their harem of husbands, while others actively scheme for power and attempt to consolidate more and more authority in their office.  The Gheen have scant love for tyranny and such rulers are usually foiled if their ambitions become too great '" the Queen is made to look ridiculous and, thusly chastised, reduced to ineffectiveness.  The most clever of rulers find ways to exercise power without appearing too powerful.  Umbril observers who witness Gheen politics at the royal level are often surprised to note how closely they resemble their own maneuverings, though very few Gheen would ever take politics so seriously as to consider assassination.

Many families are present in multiple dreys, and these family 'chapters' often communicate and coordinate their efforts.  Most Gheen are more loyal to their family than the drey itself, which has the positive side effect of making wars between dreys very rare.

A newcomer into Gheen society is usually overwhelmed by their apparently simpering and ingratiating nature.  The Gheen love titles almost as much as they love exaggeration, and will address a visiting merchant as 'Prince of Wealth' or 'Great Master of Material Magnificence,' or an explorer as 'Lord of the Horizon,' 'The All-Seeing Surveyor of the Universe,' or whatever other titles they've invented on the spot.  The smart visitor accepts this obvious flattery and gives some of his own back, because among the Gheen, modesty is a character flaw.  It is considered insulting to humbly deny flattery; the Gheen know very well that it isn't literally true, and to correct them on the matter insults their intelligence.  Their embellished speech is, a bit ironically, a way in which they remind each other of their fundamental limitations.  Because all their speech has flattery, they become inured to it, and so (they believe) they are able to better judge themselves realistically and avoid the pitfalls of arrogance, egotism, and self-centeredness.

The Gheen would always rather overstate something than understate it, which can make it difficult for a foreigner to gauge how serious a matter is.  They treat each other in the same manner, obsequiously praising their peers while simultaneously blowing their own horn, and flowery exaggerations adorn all their interactions with others. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Habitat]Gheen dreys are built in the middle to upper canopy, principally out of wood.  The tree trunks in the area are ringed with multiple levels of platforms, overhangs, and dens.  There are usually no stairs up a tree trunk or bridges between trees, since the Gheen do not need them, which makes travel within a drey problematic for non-Gheen.  They do maintain rope cranes with multi-pulley tackles to lift large loads between platforms, and these systems often double as 'lifts' for visitors who aren't as comfortable climbing bare tree trunks or leaping from platform to platform.  Nets are sometimes suspended below living areas with young kits, or beneath guest dens for non-Gheen visitors.

The Gheen advertise their wealth and taste to their peers by embellishing and adorning their residences with all manner of decorations.  Walls and floorboards are intricately carved, colored stones are set into handrails and doors, feathers are woven into thatched roofs and garlands of flowers drape from every prominence.  Everything that can be painted is painted, if the residents can afford it.

There are few 'common areas' in the community (though one might consider simple branches to be common roosts), but there is also very little expectation of privacy.  No such thing as 'trespassing' exists in Gheen culture, and members of one family can freely spend time on the platforms of others so long as they don't make a nuisance of themselves.  Gheen live in very close proximity to one another, and visitors are often uncomfortably cramped in quarters the Gheen would consider above average. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Warfare]The Gheen, being rather small and physically weak, have many predators.  They avoid them principally by virtue of their unique living environment.  Many ground predators simply have no way to reach the Gheen, and if one does climb up a tree all the way into the canopy, the Gheen simply glide to a nearby tree until the predator leaves.  The lower branches of a drey are festooned with bells and other noisemakers to alert the Gheen of a climbing predator, as well as less obvious traps with break-away branches or torsion mechanisms that give an intruder a face full of poisoned stakes.

Aerial predators provide a different challenge, and claim far more lives than predators from the forest floor.  Nets of giant spider silk are strung up at strategic points; they are difficult for a flying creature to see and many would-be predators stumble into them and are subsequently dispatched.  The Gheen also use 'crow's nest' type watchtowers at the very tops of trees, where camouflaged lookouts can spot talons of Storm Wyrms, their most deadly foe.  Dreys have communal bells and gongs to warn the whole community when a serious threat is approaching.

The Gheen maintain professional soldiers (always male), who are watchmen and trap-setters during times of peace.  Understandably, the Gheen shy away from melee combat and prefer blowguns, bows, bolas, rope darts, crossbows, and javelins.  Armor makes jumping and climbing difficult, so all but the lightest varieties are not usually worn.  They employ skirmishing tactics and vertical assaults, in which they try to catch their opponent off guard by climbing and attacking from above.  In the event of a serious threat, non-soldiers will assist as well, even if only by dropping heavy objects down on intruders from higher platforms.  Gheen warriors are much more feared than their stature would suggest.  Stories abound of Gheen who, berserker-like, fly into a towering rage and strike down a much larger opponent.

This heightened emotional state generally serves them well, though it can have unfortunate consequences.  The Gheen are emotionally volatile, which does not always mean love and happiness '" the Gheen have perpetrated some of the grossest crimes against their neighbors in the annals of the Forest, even if one doesn't consider the numerous atrocities of the World-Queen.  When properly whipped up into a frenzy of revenge or hatred, they can be capable of monstrous things, be it mass slaughter or wanton destruction.  It is not fair to say that all or even most Gheen have such low ethical standards as individuals, but Gheen together tend to have a mob mentality that reinforces itself and may cause them to do things in the heat of the moment that, alone and with a cooler head, any one of them would never consider.  Such events undoubtedly tarnish their image among other races, but also make others think twice about picking a fight with them.

The Iskites, Umbril, and Tahro know very well that attacking a drey is a foolhardy proposition, and they rarely try.  The Umbril especially would be laughably ineffective in the treetops considering their nauseating fear of heights.  As with predators, most armed attacks on the Gheen come from the air.

The Gheen invented the khauta and use it liberally in war, usually as a means to scout the enemy's location and to quickly mobilize other dreys in mutual defense.  Actual 'fighting skiffs' are rare, even among the Gheen.

Gheen do not wear uniforms or have any particular drey colors or designs.  Instead, soldiers paint their bodies, clothes, and shields with colors to help them blend into the forest background, one of the few times when Gheen favor more subdued shades over their usual bright choices. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Art and Music]The Gheen like flashy and colorful art that conveys emotion with riotous colors and designs.  All their art is somewhat abstracted, and even portraits and reproductions of scenes are stylized and brightly colored.  The Gheen do not consider this to be unfaithful to the original.  They argue that they simply place more emphasis on conveying the feeling of the original scene than the dry details of precisely how it looked.  Like the Iskites, painting is their favorite form of visual art, but they strongly dislike the Iskite style and label dull or overly realistic artworks 'scaly art.'

Given their tonal language, it is probably unsurprising that the Gheen consider singing to be the highest musical art.  They enjoy it greatly, and the adult Gheen knows a wide repertoire of songs, many of which are specific to his drey, or even to his family.  Songs play central roles in Gheen celebrations and rituals; there are songs for marriage, birth, death, coming of age, eating, drinking, and even war.  Some songs have different parts for different members of society '" for instance, there may be a verse or part specifically for the maternal grandfather of the bride in a Gheen marriage song.  The Gheen do not restrict themselves to songs already written, and it is considered a point of pride to be able to make up a tune with verses on the spot.  Most Gheen have perfect pitch.

The Iskite discovery of the printing press during the later Age of Prophets profoundly influenced Gheen music.  The Gheen had never before bothered to record their music on paper; songs were passed down through a family orally, given from mother to daughter and father to son.  The introduction of printed musical notation allowed the Gheen to greatly expand their musical horizons, and many dreys adopted Iskite musical notation (with their own modifications) and appropriated Iskite concepts of polyphony to their own songs.  That cultural exchange no longer exists since the Orange Strife, but the musical tradition of the Gheen is incalculably richer as a result.  Though few dreys have printing presses, they continue to copy out music by hand, and most families keep archives of important and notable songs.  Dreys with presses use them almost exclusively for musical printing.

Musical instruments are subordinated to an accompanying role.  The Gheen do not find much worthwhile in listening to music that has no lyrics, or even vocalizations of some kind '" they say it lacks the quality of emotion that only the voice can provide.  Their instruments tend to be light and fairly simple, such as hand bells, tambourines, and woodwinds. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Food]The Gheen have a diet composed of fruit, nuts, and insects.  They consider themselves to be strict vegetarians, as they do not consider insects to be 'animals,' but something closer to tree nuts on legs.  The idea of eating a thinking creature is abhorrent to them.  Though they are not otherwise very sturdy creatures, their bodies handle poisons very well, perhaps because of all the poisonous insects that they eat (or perhaps it is the other way around).  While their food is generally considered edible by the other civilized races, some of their insect dishes would seriously sicken a creature that lacked their resistance to toxins.  The Gheen do eat some varieties of tree fungus as well, though this makes up a fairly small part of their diet.  They do not cultivate any food, but because they throw all their seeds and food waste down onto the forest floor, fruit-bearing trees tend to be concentrated in the vicinity of a drey.

The Gheen enjoy alcohol but do not make much themselves, preferring to trade with others for it.  The same features that make them resistant to poisons make them good drinkers as well, and foreigners are often surprised to discover that they are as capable as a much heavier Iskite when it comes to holding their drink.  They do not exercise much self-restraint, and drinking can become problematic for those who can afford to binge. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Recreation]Food is not difficult to come by in most dreys, and so Gheen have a great deal of leisure time.  Some new observers question whether any meaningful work gets done given all the non-essential activities that go on constantly in a drey.  It would be a mistake to describe them as lazy, however '" they are very capable survivalists who do what needs to be done and then take leisure time as they can get it.  When taken by inspiration or compelled by an emergency, the Gheen are single-minded and diligent workers.

The Gheen enjoy physical recreation most of all, usually in the form of leaping and gliding within the safety of their drey.  This is an enjoyable activity for them, but it also keeps them fit and spry, qualities which they may have to rely on in the event of a sudden predator attack.

Singing, especially with others, is also a common activity, but it is not one that is restricted to recreation '" the Gheen are notorious for singing while working or even in combat.  They will sometimes spend free time pouring over written music in order to commit it to memory, so it can be sung later or taught to others.

The Gheen have little patience for the Umbril games of strategy.  They simply do not like standing still for that long, and their culture is more oriented towards heaping praise than piling on insults like the Umbril usually do when playing a game.

The Gheen build bark-walled 'sweat dens' similar to saunas where they spend some leisure time.  These dens are separated by sex, and female sweat dens are often the site of significant decision-making within a family.  Water is poured on hot stones to create the steam, though usually herbs or other aromatic plants are placed upon the stones as well.  The Gheen consider this a purifying ritual as well as a relaxing one, and try to engage in steam baths regularly.

The Gheen learned all they know about psychoactive substances from the Umbril (who know a great deal), and occasionally use them in religious ceremonies.  Unlike the Umbril, however, they recognize the idea of a 'recreational' use for such plants as well, and will sometimes add them to sweat den rocks.  There is very little social stigma attached to drug use so long as it does not compromise an individual's work and obligations.  The Umbril frown upon this use of their sacred pharmacological knowledge, but their desire to trade generally outweighs other concerns. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Religion]The Gheen believe in the sacredness of the family bloodline.  They believe the soul is literally contained in the blood and that a Gheen never truly dies as long as it has living descendents.  There are set rituals by which one can 'call forth' the souls of one's ancestors within one's own blood; the most common of these is known as a Blood Trance.  A Gheen enters the Blood Trance with the aid of a 'hemomancer,' a mystic who knows the rituals necessary to call forth the blood.  In a Blood Trance, the chosen ancestor is 'called to the surface' and speaks through the subject, imparting advice or answering the hemomancer's questions.  Rituals like the Blood Trance are extremely important in a family's decisionmaking process, and the ancestors will usually be consulted before any important event, from a battle, to a wedding, or even the construction of a new platform.  The Gheen take the words of the ancestors extremely seriously, and insulting a Gheen's ancestors, even jokingly, is taken as sacrilege.  A crude comment about a Gheen's mother often leads to violence.

For the Gheen, 'gods' fulfill a different role than they do in some other cultures.  The Gheen do not deny that divine beings exist, but question the idea that any all-powerful being not related to them by blood would genuinely be interested in their welfare.  Gheen religion is more about appeasing spirits than praising them.  The Gheen make impressive sacrifices and hold huge, gaudy celebrations and feasts.  Various gods and nature spirits are 'invited' to these events.  Gheen evokers encourage the spirits to manifest within portable idols, which are treated as full participants in the celebration.  They are given food and drink, the idea being that they will be placated '" or at least, distracted '" and thus decide to withhold their wrath and curses from the drey.  The Queen is of pivotal importance in these events, as she functions as the drey's 'host,' and is responsible for making sure the spirits are well pleased (or just sufficiently drunk).  To outside observers, it is sometimes difficult to tell that these orgies of excess are actually important religious events.

Some Gheen dreys do adopt deific patrons, and some families may turn partially or wholesale to various cults, but they are much less prone to this sort of worship than the other civilized races.  They feel that creatures should rely on 'their own kind' and are generally mistrustful of beings more powerful than themselves.

The Gheen are extremely skilled astronomers, more so than even the Iskites, and identify the stars with various deities and powers.  Their movements are carefully charted, and comets and meteor showers are portentous events that precipitate many sacrifices and feasts. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Adventurers]The Gheen are both prolific and curious, a combination that leads to a great deal of Gheen explorers, traveling merchants, mercenaries, and general adventurers.  In the annals of exploration and discovery the Gheen are overrepresented by far.

Gheen adventurers tend to be male.  Males are plentiful, and females are not usually trained for combat.  In addition, the loss of a female can jeopardize the family line of inheritance in a way that a loss of male usually cannot.  The downside of holding the formal power in Gheen society is that you are less free to leave it, and dreys generally allow males to freely come and go while placing much more of a restriction on the activities of females.  Most female Gheen adventurers tend to be on poor terms with their families, having left in secrecy or after a particularly bitter falling out. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Relations]The Gheen are innately suspicious of creatures larger than themselves, but have come to accept that none of the other civilized races want to eat them.  They are eager to open trade with other races and tend to overlook the eccentricities of aliens in order to get the goods they want.  The Gheen are volatile and quick to anger, and perceived slights can impel them to violence.  Usually, however, their anger diffuses quickly and they resume their quest for mutually beneficial terms before any flap becomes too serious.

The Gheen consider the Iskites to be onerous reprobates.  In their eyes, the Iskites subjugate everything that is natural and good '" family, birth, the Forest itself '" to their petty and wrongheaded obsessions.  The Gheen believe this is the very height of arrogance, and their beliefs are confirmed in their personal dealings with the Iskites, whom they find to be humorless and chauvinistic with heads full of sterile philosophy and dogmatic resistance to all that which makes life worth living.  To them, the much vaunted 'civilization' of the Iskites is just a hollow pretention.  Still, the Gheen appreciate some of the benefits of that civilization, and are eager to trade with Iskite villages, especially for metal goods and alcohol.  If the Iskites wish to live their meaningless and abhorrent lifestyle, after all, then far be it from the Gheen to get in their way.  As long as the Iskites don't threaten their drey, the Gheen are happy to leave them to their own devices, and restrict their relationship with them to matters of business.  Wars between them are the most common kind of inter-species war, but they are seldom settled decisively, as neither side is really capable of taking the fight to the home environment of the enemy.  The Gheen usually respond to Iskite hostility by ambushing their caravans and taking hostages until the Iskites agree to a favorable truce.

The Gheen find the Umbril to be very strange and difficult to understand, but are also rather fascinated by them.  Like the Iskites, the Umbril are strangers to family and lineage, but the Umbril are naturally that way (unlike the Iskites, who 'perverted' their society), and the Gheen appreciate the difference.  They find Umbril culture (at least, what they know of it) to be colorless and dull and don't believe the Umbril have any real aesthetic sense, but respect their intelligence and quietly admire their tenacity, as no Gheen would dare make a living on the forest floor.  They (correctly) suspect that there is far more to the fungus-people than they let on.  The Umbril are more suspicious of them then they are of the Umbril, which the Gheen feel is unfortunate.  Their rather ham-fisted attempts to ingratiate themselves with the Umbril, however, only heighten Umbril suspicions.  The Gheen have come to accept that the Umbril may just be too alien, and that common ground may simply be too elusive for their cultures to find.

The Gheen believe the Tahro to be the most like them among the civilized races.  The stoicism and seriousness of the Tahro frustrates them, and they see their glacial deliberation as sloth, but find their way of life commendable and are rather excited by the idea of nomadism even if they wouldn't want to live that way themselves.  They adapt quite readily to the Tahr custom of reciprocal gift-giving, and like to demonstrate their power and largess by bestowing great gifts upon local bloods.  Unfortunately, the Tahro frown upon ostentatious gifts that the receiver can't possibly reciprocate, and the superlative and showy generosity of the Gheen tends to do their cause more harm than good.  Still, the Tahro manage to suffer the mercurial 'tree sprites' with their usual patience, and good trading relations are typically maintained.  In some cases, Tahr bloods and Gheen dreys have formed temporary defensive arrangements (usually in wars against Iskites), and the combination of mobile Gheen skirmishers and powerful Tahr warriors is often enough to force even mighty Iskite alliances to the bargaining table.

The Gheen are willing to accept visitors into their community, even on a long term basis, but because of the cultural emphasis on family and heredity it is impossible for a non-Gheen to fully enter into their society.  The Gheen don't adopt; only relations of blood and marriage are valid to them.  While foreigners may become valued and respected members of the drey, they will always be outside the family structure, and therefore be forever outside the real channels of power and culture in the community. [/spoiler]

[spoiler=Varieties]The Gheen have superficial differences based on their extended family.  Some large families are known for specific patterns and colors to their fur, and Gheen can sometimes recognize another's family by sight if the family colors and patterns are familiar to them.  Gheen are among the most well-traveled of all the civilized races (rivaled only by the Tahro), with greater contact and intermarriage between dreys than between villages or colonies.  There are no proper 'subraces' of Gheen as a result.

The Gheen value the integrity of their bloodlines very highly, but some are tempted by the idea of introducing more 'powerful' blood into their line, and purposefully form pacts with powerful beings in the hopes of producing hybrid offspring.  There are several families of Gheen that are known to have powerful deific ancestors, the most well known of them being the House of the Secret Fire, which has the blood of the Elder Wyrm Mylsegemmen in their veins (this is not quite as bizarre as it sounds; Mylsegemmen is a shapechanger and can take any form, including a Gheen one, and has reputedly fathered children of many, many species).  'Starblood' (the general term for those with deific ancestry) Gheen may appear completely normal, or manifest certain features of their unusual ancestor depending on who exactly that ancestor was.

Starblood families are not outright shunned by 'pure' Gheen, but the practice of creating a starblood line is strongly frowned upon by most Gheen as unnatural.  Starbloods who do not have the protection of an established family may not be afforded the same grudging tolerance, and are often forced into the life of an adventurer or traveling merchant, especially if their alien ancestry is very obvious. [/spoiler]

Another beautifully realized race.  I love how distinct you`re making the four major races, and the attention you`re lavishing on them rather than spreading your efforts out across many superficially rendered species.

So far it seems that most of the communities in the Clockwork Jungle are very segregated in terms of race: while there might be a few visitors from other races, a Gheen community is 99% Gheen.

I`m wondering if you`re planning on introducing any more cosmopolitan settlements.  I realize that the idea of cities is pretty antithetical to what you`re creating, and just wouldn`t make a great deal of sense.  But what about trade-towns at the joining of rivers?  Or at the entrances to large ruins where lots of old tech can be scavenged?  Are there villages where the Gheen have treetop communities while the Umbril dwell about the roots?  I`m just thinking that more variegated settlements would breed interesting tensions and would create a feel of cultural fluidity conducive to adventuring and mercenary work in contrast with the tight-knit communities so far presented.  But perhaps you feel that mixed communities of this type just don`t have a place in the setting?

I`m interested into how all of this plays into adventure in the Clockwork Jungle.  While all of the cultures and creatures posted so far are very realistically detailed and believable, it seems that in most societies adventurers are generally outcasts or renegades.  Iskites frown on anyone leaving their community; Gheen family values are so strong that it seems that even for males the idea of traveling widely beyond their community would be very rare; I don`t know so much about Tahro or Umbril attitudes towards adventure.  Are you envisioning adventurers as very fringe, exiled types, very anomalous?  Or are they more like local troubleshooters who tend not to leave a local area?  Obviously there might be groups of both, but are there other kinds of adventuring groups you`re imagining?

This is related to Kindling`s question about what kind of adventures you`d run in the Clockwork Jungle, but it`s more 'who are the adventurers'.

The question is an important one, and it relates to how I see "adventuring" as a profession and lifestyle.  The adventuring professions are ones that take one away from family and home, even in "standard" fantasy settings - in literature, they tend to return once they're done with "the quest," but in gaming it is more of a career.  A character may never see home again, and almost certainly knows that to be a possibility when they step out the door with their spellbook and/or longsword.  It's often a selfish act, as well.  Some adventurers may go to "rescue people" or do good deeds, but unless they're orphans, they're leaving behind a community that raised them and, to at least some extent, relied on them.  The Iskites may be a particularly extreme example of this, but no culture - not even standard, medieval humans - can really embrace the idea of their children being bled away by foreign adventure, leaving their families and communities without them during harvest, or when the village is threatened.

Adventurers in the Clockwork Jungle are outsiders.  Sometimes, they are that way by choice; wanderlust, greed, curiosity, or simple dissatisfaction with their way of life causes them to leave the community and strike out on their own.  Other times, it is a way of life forced upon them - a rogue Iskite, an Umbril fleeing assassination, a Tahr exiled by the blood, or a Gheen orphan (or starblood without a family).  These individuals are forced to look outside the insular world of the community, and as a result tend to be far more willing to aid, work with, and befriend those of other races.  The Iskite of the village can indulge in a casual hatred of "Gheen" (not any particular Gheen, but "Gheen" as a concept), but the Iskite alone in the broader world has met them personally.  He knows he doesn't have the luxury of relying only on his kinsman when out in the deep jungles or in foreign lands.  Gheen may not be his favorite traveling companions, but he will do what he must to survive.  There is no hatred between the civilized races strong enough to be worse than death, and death will indeed come to the loner.

There are some "cities" in the Clockwork Jungle, though they are generally few and far between.  Netai has several island cities, and though the Umbril dominate the Confederation, it has a very considerable alien minority in its lands (around 30%, I'd imagine).  On the Black Circle, the City of Orpiment is about 40-40 Gheen and Umbril, with small but significant Iskite and Tahr minorities.  There are other, small outposts on important trade routes like the Black Circle that function as trading posts and semi-permanent social gatherings for merchants, adventurers, explorers, and the like (though these outposts are seldom at river confluences, because rivers are typically not used for trade and travel - they are usually choked with vegetation, often change course because of the Forest's movement, and tend to attract the largest and most dangerous predators).

I mentioned the phenomenon of Gheen dreys over Umbril colonies.  Though the Umbril like to be secretive, there are certainly drey/colony pairs who know of each other and are on better terms.  Iskite-Umbril pairings happen too, where the crop waste/fertilizer exchange knits a village and colony together.  Tahro frequently set up seasonal camps beneath dreys or near colonies, thus spending a part of each year in close contact with aliens.  I think such "binary" communities absolutely fit with the setting - though I don't think of them as exactly "common" - and a GM running a TCJ campaign shouldn't be afraid to push boundaries and create such locations so long as it makes some kind of sense within the game world.  The homogeneous settlements described in the "race posts" are archetypes, examples of how one race lives when left to itself.  It is not and does not need to always be the case.  In some areas, binary communities are actually the norm - the Wash is the best example of this, where Fishers (an Iskite "subrace") and Umbril commonly live in close proximity, or sometimes even in "towns" where the colony and village have merged into one settlement.

It should also be noted that there are relatively few areas dominated by a single race; the Scalemount is largely Iskite and the Halberd Spires are mostly Umbril, but aside from a few such areas most regions are speckled with settlements of several (or all) races.  As a result, a party is seldom forced to deal with only one race for a long period of time, which might give too much advantage to a single member of their party (assuming a multi-racial crew).  They are likely to deal with all of them regularly even in areas that lack cosmopolitan cities, and perhaps even end up as middlemen between them.

Settlements (meaning villages/colonies/dreys, as well as some blood camps) exist as a backdrop to the action, not its focus.  A party will likely stop at many villages in the course of their travels, and even do work for them - most settlements will welcome visitors, especially ones with wealth to spend, and care more about getting their problems fixed than who fixes them - but the adventuring life is not fulfilled in the farms of the Iskites or the orchards of the Gheen.

I could potentially see a campaign with a fairly (or totally) heterogeneous party that acts as "local troubleshooters" and has some long-term relationship with one or more local settlements, but that is not what I have in mind at present.  I don't mean to suggest that it would be "wrong;" a campaign focusing more on a single area and the relationships between the characters and those they aid, serve, and work with could be very interesting and fun.  The kind of world I'm trying to develop, however, is focused more on the eclectic band of outsiders, who find themselves ferreting out a Saffronite cult in Netai one year, thwarting the advances of the World-Queen in the Wash the next, and getting hired as Lodestone-seekers by the merchant houses of the Golden Principality the year after that, all the while confronting the problems of the various settlements they pass through and exploring strange ruins and lost cities on their way.  I hesitate to use "epic" to describe the setting, in that adventurers will not be "super-human," but I do see campaigns as being essentially epic in scope.

I think it would be wise to start campaigns in some of the specifically "multicultural" areas where the characters might remain until they have the expertise, resources, and cause to go elsewhere, and it is for that reason that I have been and will be focusing on those areas.  These are:

Greater Netai*Black Circle/City of Orpiment*Clockwise Wash/Feathervale

These areas are fairly distant from each other geographically, but all provide a locale where all four races have a visible presence and live together in some degree of proximity and/or cohabitation.  All have ongoing sources of conflict and adventure as well, whether it's the tense political situation of the Netai, the furious competition between merchants of the Circle, or the ongoing war between the World-Queen and the League of the Waterfall in the Clockwise Wash.

Great answer.

The Clockwork Jungle is only getting richer.  I really admire this setting - it's doing the things I think campaign building should be about (shattering old tropes, inventing new mythologies, evoking strong imagery, constructing an internal frame logical consistency) and it's doing them well.

Each update is worth the month-long wait.

I really enjoy your integration of the machines among the living world.  This would be a really nice setting for some sci-fi gaming.