#cerest

First up is Sunless, a melanistic Sundyne who used to be the favorite novelty of a particular clan until some jealous members beat the everloving shit out of xer and they kicked xer out because xe wasn't the strange beauty anymore. Went through a huge period of depression and existential terror before finding a group of other "Defective Cerest" and settling in with them. Due to her overpigmentation and missing antenna and Anxiety, she has trouble communicating with most people, but Sign and speech implants help. She now makes a living doing freelance translation work, since xenolinguistics was her passion during the time she had nothing to do except be pretty.

Next are the Gay Boys. Rudo was an engineer who had a pretty charmed life as Dorest go--until he started being Weird/acting too much like a Rox: protective and aggressive where he should have been quiet and submissive. He's a tech guy and a Dorest; why should he be so loud about protecting other adult Dorest and even Rox? Inappropriate. Banished

Fridu was a farmer, content with xis quiet life. Not sure yet what got xim banished beyond maybe getting caught smooching another Dorest? Xe's the most calm and level-headed of the group, and also the most buff (Farm Lyfe ftw).

Prax was a decorated soldier until their autoimmune disorder made itself known, and they were kicked out. Small for a Rox and sickly-looking, with sunken eyes and pale flesh and scales, they didn't know what to do with themself for a while, but now they help take care of their group and also try very hard to befriend birds.

Sohrab is the only one of the group who was born outside the Empire, a Muttreazik with a very bright and lively personality. She was thrilled to meet another Rox who didn't fit the ideal image, unaware that that was a very sore spot for Prax. She is naive about a lot of Empire-flavored things, but she means well, and is very open to learning and correction.

Jora was a respected religious leader with years of experience who had begun to question the doctrine. They're outwardly a shine, but seem to be intersex, or at least have some kind of hormonal abnormality that causes their horns to split. It was easy enough to hide everything before, but things seem to have fallen apart all at once: their religious doubts strengthening, their horns outing them as Different, and them getting caught being cozy with a Drecu (arguably very innocent, but far too close than any Sundyne "should be" to any Drecu). Xe feels lucky to have just been banished; xe doesn't know what became of the other person.

Some simple human face expressions and how they’re commonly (mis) interpreted by the other guys. I haven’t drawn in a while so the faces are ehhh imo but it’s fine.

This human is a splice, featuring some broken skin pattern and ear hair mods.

Obviously, the aliens can use other context clues to figure out what the expression means, but the original misinterpretations can lead to lasting confusion/mistakes (such as wondering why that human is so mad at you when they’ve just been smiling.)

I’m working on the expression sheets for the other species, so we’ll be able to see what I’m taking about with their equivalents.

Up in the corner there: Everyone's favorite AI, the Geomorphic, Educational, Interspecies Arbiter (or GEIA!!) All "living" AI are copies of her made for specific purposes (er, when theyre copied on purpose, at least.), and while they technically have their own unique experiences, memories, and personalities, they're all stuck pretending they're one overarching AI who's in control of a bunch of different stuff (the government has decided it's better to say "look, this is our Friend GEIA with a different hat on" rather than say "this is a copy of a person that we made so that the original doesnt go insane from the vast workload we have her under. It became it's own person and we don't actually know of it'll act like her and it might kill people"). She is showing off the latest iteration of her avatar, a winking three-armed humanoid with a "hat" that resembles the rings of Nea Arxi, the planet she helps manage to keep the other sophonts alive.

Rossetians: A scaulos jack (green and black outfit) and a bict roe (yellow dress). They're giving each other a friendly greeting with their tongues (the jack a little more enthusiastically) and politely avoiding direct eye contact with anyone in particular. Both have their fore-torsos lifted from the ground, front pair of arms folded. Unlike the prectikar next to them, they can lower their front half to use these forelimbs to carry them in a hexapedal gait (which neither is likely to do at the moment, they arent wearing gloves). The modesty divide between the two genders and cultures is portrayed here; the roe is clothed to xer neck with most of xer horn covered, while the jack shows some of xis arms, tail, and horn.

Prectikar: An older drah hokar (lip piercing and tusk caps) and a younger jell kar (the shorter, paler-furred one with a nose ring) stand next to each other, the kar looking to the hokar while xe places a reassuring hand on xis shoulder. The two expose their bottom incisors with pursed lips. Combined with their lidded eyes and dilated pupils, they're giving the audience a calm expression. Both have piercings on their vocal nostrils to help them pronounce tooth and tongue consonants. It is the off-season, so the two do not show any dimorphic traits and are wearing standard clothing for warm weather, with their fore-chest wattles covered.

Muttreazik: Two human-host individuals, their outward appearance a protective shell over the inorganic worm-like intelligence that pilots the body. The muttreazik themself, pictured in the circle by the species label, looks out at the viewer and flexes their graspers, showing off the many fine roots that anchor them in place in the flesh and allow them to transmit signals to their meat suit in place of nerves. They couldn't do this in reality, being outside of their body would kill them shortly and they aren't able to actually move these graspers much (it would likely kill their body anyway, so this is a good thing). This is who replaced a human brain and modified a human body in-embryo to produce the black-furred person standing before you, but them and the body are widely considered one entity. The only hint of the inner workings (outside the bits that obviously dont look like a human) is a slit in their forehead, where a closed lid feathered with lashes protcts a third eye organ that the muttreazik uses to interact with the world around them. The sitting one shows a more noticable difference in body plan, being a quadruped with a snout (far removed from the flat-faced bipeds to their right). They are also like most muttreazik, a Null, with completely grey eyes. The other retains a bipedal resemblance to their host species, albeit with some differences. This one is also a mancer in the process of developing from a Red to an Orange, seen in their vibrant, mismatched eye color. The sitting one wears a completely custom wardrobe, since nothing human-made would fit them very well. They look to the side and sign something with their hand, parting their lips slightly without actually trying to speak (they can't mimic human language very well due to their mouth shape). The mancer, requiring special pants and shoes to accomodate their tail and digitigrade feet, rubs the back of their neck apprehensivly, staring directly out at the viewer.

Humans: A Splice woman stretches, showing off her inherited stripe and ear mod. The other human is an Av man, having fewer to no mods present or presenting. Genetic modifications to change human features are a relic of the past, now only hanging around if they could be passed down naturally (slowly excluding some of the more drastic modifications that required lab intervention. Now, the most complex modding is done by the muttreazik standing behind them!!) The splice woman wears brightly colored polyester pants, a modern novelty now that technology has been built back up enough to put plastic back on shelves. The av man wears clothing that exposes his legs, long, straight, and plantigrade, a key feature that supports his species' unique bipedal stance alongside his near-vertical hips and spine. He gives a thumbs-up gesture and pulls his lips back to the molars, a human expression of ease or enjoyment.

Kixeli: Two 'nomadic' Kel (below) and an Arasit (gliding down from above). One kel, a Stripe, stands while the Spot to xer right sits. They hold arms on instinct, unconsciously aware that there are only two of them posing here (a frighteningly low number). The stripe angles xer eyes, mounted on the side of xer head, too look curiously at xer surroundings. The Spot raises xis head fin in tandem with opening and closing xis mouth, colorful tongue held up to convey excitement and interest. They wear matching colors and symbols representing their shared community. The dark bands on both their arms (and unseen around their chests) are heating pads, often necessary for their ectothermic bodies that evolved on a much warmer planet. Otherwise, they are wearing little other clothing to allow their skin to breathe (literally). The Arasit above them has xis colorful gliding membranes extended, held open by a derived pinky finger and a cartilaginous elbow hinge. Alongside that obvious difference, xe is also differentiated from Kel adults by xis large cartilage head crest and slightly elongated limbs. A small hole is pierced into the membrane to thread clothing through, though like the Kel xe is only wearing enough to cover xis cloacal opening. Xe isn't built for true flight, but can get pretty far by gliding like this. Some of the colors on xis head scarf match those of the kel, so their community may be along the circuit that this wanderer travels.

Cerest (Drecu): The two Drecu biotypes, a Dorest (the smaller blue one) and a Rox (the larger red one), stand next to each other. Both bear Ret class tattoos, the two rectangles denoting Secondary rank (a step above the lowest Tertiary class). The Dorest has xeir arms unfolded, one two-fingered hand bent in towards xenself, perhaps ready to sign. Xie wear the Dorest-appropriate light grays and whites, most of xeir scales covered aside for their face, neck, and a sliver of xeir tail. Xeir eyes are not fully open, but xeir antenna are up and alert behind xeir head, angled towards the Rox, who in turn bends one of xeir own antenna inwards. The pheremone signals they exchange are unknowable to other sophonts. Having a completely different facial and body structure, the Rox hardly looks like the individual beside them. Yet, the two are the same species, their appearance polarized by "role" in the colony. The Rox's powerful quilled arms are folded, xeir back and tail quills at ease. Xie wear darker grays and a longer skirt, which works with xeir prominent cheek disks and dark coloration to signal xeir status as an Arch. Xei raise one leg to adjust their standing position to move further in front of the Dorest, unintentionally baring a sharp toe claw that is pointedly unenclosed by xeir shoes, another natural weapon that defines xen as the "soldier" biotype.

Compared to everyone else human households have fairly few people, but that’s a sweeping generalization made because I’m drawing pretty small family structures here for comparison with each other. Humans live with their grandparents, aunts, and uncles etc all the time, but the western structure with more distant extended family still persists. Having extended family be a part of the household is not the legally-bound default like it is for Rossetians and Cerest, and even with extended family a human household is going to be much smaller than a Kar or a Kixeli one, so I figured I could show our weird little nuclear family extreme for contrast to how differently some humans could grow up (in the other species, a family this small would get absorbed into larger households in most cases unless they were just very financially well off) It mostly just depends on the culture and their financial situation. Human households tend to be composed of parents and their children, though single caretakers, unrelated/adoptive caretakers, or other combinations are also more common for us than some other species. Because humans only produce one child at a time, siblings basically always have an age difference. Humans usually grow up with their parents, who provide resources, before leaving to live on their own, live with roommates, or form a new family with its own autonomy. Property/inheritance is not legally exclusive to either sex and just depends on who the parents choose, who you trace your lineage through depends (matriline, patriline).

Rossetian households are usually composed of a Head House (the oldest parent household) and connected Faction Houses (comprised of the married children of the Heads). Even in very small Houses, the Heads and your siblings are a part of it, you can’t easily just live alone or just with your spouse like a human can (the closest is staff housing, which is a bunch of unrelated people who work in the same area and live in housing provided by that job). The House is a big building with the separate components physically connected by tunnels or within a short travel time of each other. Children are cared for by their blood parents (the roe specifically), unmarried family members (again, normally roes), and/or staff depending on the size and wealth of the House. Once children in a Faction house get married, they either leave to live with their husband (roe) or expand the household/build a new wing to accommodate their wife and kids (Jack). Unmarried children of the Heads live between faction houses, doing childcare and other domestic labor tasks so the married ones can work more. Unrelated/adoptive caretakers are very common. Siblings from the same litter don’t have an age gap, but there can be different aged children in a faction house due to the multigenerational/marriage additions to the house. The Head house (specifically the Jack patriarch) has legal authority over all their children even into adulthood, influencing where they live and what jobs they take. Approval from them is ultimately needed for most important decisions. Single caretakers or people living alone is very uncommon, most are part of a House either by being married in or working as staff. Property/inheritance/lineage is traced through jacks and legally tied to males.

Small Sundyne clans operate similarly to Drecu, but have different divisions for their children and workers. The Crown and Prongs, together known as the Leads, are the only ones having children in the clan (again, strictly enforced). The Crown is the reproductive male leader of the family, and like the Arch manages most of the clan's politics and resources. Xe has legal decision-making power over members of the clan and is the constant/central force in the family. The crown's group of suitors, the Prongs, are less constant and often move between clans due to personal dynamics or politics after they've had kids with the Crown (many sundyne dont know their mom/xe isnt living in the same clan anymore). Monogamy is more common for them than it is for Drecu, but having multiple prongs at the same time is the case sometimes. Attitudes towards it have shifted thanks to monogamous humans, where it’s being seen as more acceptable/favorable to avoid being made fun of (smaller husbant and his giant angry wives). Larger clans, the Emperor clan especially, are structured very differently than this, among other things having fewer prongs to avoid conflict between them for favor (imperial clan strcuture would need to be its own post idk). Childcare falls to the Crown's sons or worker shines, depending on the clan. Prongs help provide security against rival clan sights trying to come in/overall handle disputes on behalf of their Crown. They also help their Crown by carrying out xis orders/going out and about to manage things (especially the other sights). As for the other members of the clan, they're separated between children of the Leads and work-married members. Sight children are mostly there as a way to marry in shines from other clans; multiple worker shines can be bound to them and they act as overseers for the worker shine group, enforcers of the lead shine and the Crown's orders. They also escort the shines around when outside the clan for work. Daughters of the leads ideally stay, but there are usually fewer sights in a clan as it's a very competitive position; you're either a favored Prong who is competing to stay in the Crown's circle or a Sight that is useful enough to stay there as muscle/management. Most daughters that cant make it are work-married in elsewhere as soldiers, retainers of other sights, or as attendants to shines sons-of-Leads in larger clans. They cant move up to prong position unless a Crown chooses to marry them into their clan as such. A clan is mostly male, but only one has reproductive rights and its uncommon for xis sons to stay. Shine children that stay in the clan are few since they pose a threat to their father (they have the right to usurp crowns and "reshuffle" the clan, removing the previous prongs and other children and taking over the clan) Mostly, they are driven out once they come of age or are non-threatening enough to pass initiation and become permanent members, slightly above a worker shine since they perform management tasks to help their father or do ambassador work between clans. Shines that left still aid the clan by work-marrying into other clans, allowing for potential to share resources and land . Most of the clan is work-married shines, who run the everyday tasks of the clan (cooking, cleaning, laundry), perform childcare and so other domestic tasks like teaching or entertaining children. Work-married sights attend to shines (accompanying them to work, running errands, doing other tasks for them) and may perform harder/more physically demanding labor or, if the clan needs it, security/combat to drive off other clans. Still a work in progress lol.

A Kixeli community is made up of mostly unrelated individuals who cooperate to gather resources and maintain their living space. The general population of a community can be separated into permanent members and temporary members. Arasit are temporary by default, it’s uncommon for them to build strong connections to any one community they visit or stay in one place for long (even if they wanted to, cultural pressure usually means they are met with people keeping them at a distance because they’re supposed to leave anyway). All members work to provide resources for the community through different roles. During their spawn season, all individuals who paired up work to raise eggs and children (while those who didn’t pair fill other roles/help pick up the slack. Partners often switch between seasons)There arent eggs or young children in the community for most of the year, and the decision to pair up is influenced by whether or not you want to have to care for many eggs/kids or whether your community can support it. Their season means that like Prectikar, a lot of members in a community can have the same birthday since their eggs were all laid and hatched at the same time. Children are raised by these caretakers until they’re old enough to start working themselves, and often don’t know their blood parents unless they ask for the records. They are free to leave or stay in their birth community and many travel between nearby communities before choosing to settle or continue traveling (which is more uncommon for Kel). Community decisions are made in a council format of all members. Community size fluctuates but generally depends on available resources (can reach over 50 individuals). Living alone is basically unheard of and caring for eggs/children alone is very unusual, but vlood relation has badically nothing to do with childcare as every sex-haver is expected to raise the kids. Kixeli community land is shared, but they may have to name a specific person to own it due to outside pressures.

Muttreazik live in whatever family structure they were born into from their host, though the relationship with the host-parents is often strained or distant. Many end up living on their own or in groups of other muttreazik, which are strcutured as described in the above image. I kind of wrote what I wanted to for muttreazik in the image but yeah, they didn't exactly evolve naturally and whatevers going on with how they're set up is a mystery, an echo of whatever they used to be doing before they got stuck having to use organics for their bodies. In case you're wondering, Other colors like Rinshi elicit a brief but very noticeable unpleasant head sensation in their fellow muttreazik since they aren't supposed to exist. Rinshi especially because they're extra freaky, an Other variant of the Green Type (which, brief lore drop, were the enforcers meant to keep their once basically immortal population size under control and trim any variants. Now that theres none of them left theres a lottt more variants: Others and worse things).

Prectikar households are almost always made up of several generations of adults and their children. People living alone, living with unrelated people and/or people of the same sex (called a Band), or living in a just parents/children format (or worse, single parent) is widely associated with outcasts, unruly youth, or criminals. Tribes are formed of many intermarried families who over time have come to share language and culture distinct from other families. Most families are technically a part of a very wide tribe category (such as Drah or Leki) but most only consider their tribe to be the 3-4 families that their family is directly married with rather than others who technically also share some of their same cultural traits. Living outside a tribe is, again, very difficult and unusual. Extended family from all connected families in a tribe is very close and frequently live together/live between each others housing. Children are often raised by their blood parents, but childcare is also put onto the elders and older siblings/cousins as well since they tend to have more time on their hands. The Elders are the founding members of the family, with most older adults in the group being their children (depending on family size/whose elders are living with who, this can be a lot of people. The elder’s children move up to become elders themselves once the originals pass, and their children move upwards into their previous role and have children of their own, etc). The elders, specifically the hokar, have the authority to appoint the family’s leaders (the matron specifically) and overall provide experienced advice and guidance for the family. The Matron is the leader of the family (the elder’s first three daughters are eligible to be matron, only one is chosen). The matron oversees other members and performs the economic, domestic, and internal legal/governance duties (such as managing inheritance and appointing family positions/jobs/land). Xer husband also has authority, but in the religious and political sphere (they are out there giving more direct orders, are the main speakers between tribes, and have a lot of say in times of combat, but it is on their wife’s behalf. kar can’t appoint leaders and aren’t the ultimate say in a matter, they need hokar input of some kind to be credible). While who has kids isn’t as restricted as it is for Cerest, the Matron is normally the one who has the most due to the three daughters thing: Someone else with daughters could create a succession crisis when they’re all older and the original elders pass away, as they could try and have their daughters become matron rather than the matron’s daughters. Thus, Matron+Elder approval is needed during the season for new partners in the tribe to be chosen. During the season, families and different tribes mingle to try and find new members. Again, sex isn’t restricted like it is for Cerest but conception without approval is a problem-causer (hokar have a lot of uhh anatomical control over whether they get pregnant, so as long as you’re careful and have approval non-matron partners in a family can still go at it). Non-related members living in a family household/as part of the tribe who aren’t partners with an in-group member are rare. Property/inheritance/lineage is passed through the hokar/tied to female members in the family.

Permanent tattoos are pretty much only a human and Cerest thing. It irritates Kixeli skin too much, Rossetians are actually able to get the pigment out of their dermis (so it won’t stay for long) and their thick skin makes it hard to get in there and hard to see anyway, and Prectikar don’t have much exposed skin (and in the areas they do, the skin is super tough/almost scaly and super pigmented, so not a great canvas). Kind of the same with dyes, it’s harmful to Kar hair/feather pigments and doesn’t work for rossetians or Kixeli either (no hair lol, and Kixeli are too sensitive to it in most areas)

The stuff I drew is mostly just examples that range from being somewhat accepted in their societies to being more counter-culture and extreme. Some of it needs a trained specialized professional to do, such as membrane cutting for Arasit or the ear stretching/carving for Rossetians.

The pain of getting it/the impracticality and weird radical look is part of the appeal and statement of those ones.

The color-changing pigment cells in Cerest are in the second layer of skin under their scales. The scales are more translucent in the important communication areas to show more of the skin underneath/make the color change more pronounced. It’s the scale layer+first dead skin layer that gets dyed, and when the layer+scales shed the dyed bits come off with it.

Only some areas on Prectikar retained the more feather-like structures they used to have (having a somewhat stiff core with branching fibers coming off of it), those areas being the some of the face, back of the neck, forearm, spine, and thigh/butt area. The rest of it is very fur-like or sort-of branched feather-looking fibers without a very stiff core. Idk.

Just a refresher, jack means male Rossetian, dot/stripe is used for Kel male/female genders, kar are male Prectikar while hokar are female, shine is a male Sundyne, crown is a reproductive male Sundyne, and Sight/prong refers to female Sundyne