#clawtact

LANGUAGE DOC: GAANEUII // VOSSIELANG <- English equivalent language (widespread trade language spoken by the spacefarers to make contact with other sophonts, DEFINITELY not the only language spoken by vossies. other popular languages spoken by spacefaring vossies specifically include yosazewa, ausetsmeu, and tsyaggac.)

Pack predators, largely carnivorous, eating a wide variety of land animals, bird-esque things, and fish. Sleep schedules vary wildly and just kind of depend on lifestyle, but the ‘default’ is crepuscular.

Desert animals, raptorially stanced bipedal frames. Not quite fluffy as they are feathery, big frills on the neck and end of tail. Their first few front teeth stick out of their mouths and look like a beak when their mouth is closed- these teeth move and are used in facial expressions.

(see diagram.)

The vossie homeplanet is about one and a half times larger than Earth and has a pangea style megacontinent going on.

(this map is a little outdated but that’s ok). Several cultures (the Greatest Bay, in blue in the center + Northchannel, in pink) are based almost exclusively on sailing and fishing, while the Northmanor (in purple) and Eastmanor (dark green, bottom right), while also being extremely into sailing since they’re right next to the northern and southern continental seas have more terrestrial pursuits.

Vossies are cosexual (like some kinds of snail) and do not particularly have a concept of gender or modesty. Clothes are still commonplace for display and protection purposes, and a lot of vossie cultures around the globe independently kind of happened upon the idea of signing personal accomplishments / events / stories / names on their clothes or with various trinkets. beaded artwork is common!

Vossies reproduce by cracking open an egg and spilling its (haploid) yolk onto other eggs. Sometimes this happens in ornamental yolk basins and sometimes it’s just a bowl. Vossies are extremely small and grody when they’re newborn babies, just like birds, so anything that’ll fit the eggs and keep the yolk from spilling everywhere will do. Vossies lay eggs seasonally once they’re old enough, and individuals who don’t want to deal with raising kids can smash the eggs or cook them for a variety of fun seasonal meals.

Omnivorous, bipedal, vaguely mammalian, diet mostly consists of carrion and fish but can and does eat a lot of various plant matters (like fruits!) and breads. Originally evolved from scavengers, recent ancestors were omnivorous little piranha monkeys, slowly moving back to carnivory

Evolved in something like a mangrove swamp, bipedal like humans are but with a tail also. Really long necks, big scary mandril teeth. Their hands and feet are constructed identically, with thumbs more in the middle and further back than on human hands. Their nasal crest evolved for rooting around in logs and such for bugs.

Overcomplicated ‘gendering’ system tied specifically to assumed job roles, as in waders of X gender also do X role Always and have really specific dress practices to make it obvious which role a specific wader is. Listed in order of population, highest to lowest:

Tea (tadò) ~ Construction workers, artists, weavers, factory workers. Wide range of roles here. Low-class tea waders (the workers) are specifically tadàt and higher-class Tea are tadòt. In terms of human gender, tea waders are typically generically assigned the English pronoun ‘she’.

Dus (duussá) ~ Farmers, workers with agriculture, oftentimes marketplace sellers. People who handle produce. Often also cooks. Akin to tea waders, low-class are specifically duushá and high-class are duussó, with an extra variant specifically for fishers or din waders. (dussà). Typically English-gendered as ‘he’.

Fen (phudó) ~ Rangers, ranchers, hunters, and butchers, while additionally often doctors. People who work with meat and care for livestock and people. High-class fen are exclusively doctors or phudót. Typically English-gendered as ‘they’. Named for animals.

Maw (phà) ~ Police, warriors, millitary, security. That kind of thing.  Distinctly higher-class than tea, dus, and fen waders, serving directly under the nobility. Low-class security workers are phò, considered an insult. Since wader society was introduced to spacefaring, a separate class of ‘pilot’ maw, romanized as min waders (or vhà) was constructed to defend against alien threats. Such threats are nonexistent. Typically English-gendered as ‘he’. Named for actions, min waders usually for violence specifically (Ex: Pursue, Bite, Sing, Wail)

Trai (tavhuù) ~ Overseers, bosses, consultants, directors. Arbitrarily designated nobility. Oversee role designation for wader children and very rarely allow children of non-trai into being trai to preserve their control. Typically English-gendered as ‘they.’

Tea, dus, and fen waders are all in the menial underclass, then maw as the police force, then trai as the ruling class, with variations in those based on personal role (ie artist vs construction in tea etc.)

Wader role-genders are differentiated by neck attire, as seen above. Mostly the bandages are just plain off-white but occasionally have prayers or other long documents inscribed on them, common to formal & ceremonial garb.