#ysgal

I've gotten real curious the more I look at them... Like is there a heart in both the torso and and horso? (horse torso) Gotta be right? How would just human heart be strong enough for that much mass? I guess I could see just horse heart, but then like, what is the ribcage up there protecting, just lungs? But then how are the horse lungs getting enough oxygen? Are there horse lungs? Gotttttta be for that much mass again, but how is the upper torso sucking in enough air for human lungs AND horse lungs ?????

Also, If stomach and digestive system in upper torso what the hell would be in the horso??? (horse torso) cause if main torso breaks down the food then horso (horse torso) wouldn't get any nutrients! So like, CAN'T be a digestive system in upper torso, RIGHT??? But some of the taurs have visible bellies, so I'm like, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU HAVE IN THERE???

I'm struggling to rate how much I want to fuck these taurs because I am plagued by questions.

I'm not really sure, to be honest. I think this is something I just play by rule of cool unless I'm explicitly doing specbio. Like, in my Ysgal setting, there's lungs in both torsos with the major heart in the horse body and a minor heart in the upper torso to facilitate better circulation. Does it make sense? No. But it works.

YSGALIN HATSUNE MIKU IS COMPLETE

Ysgal is a country in my worldbuilding project that is inhabited by a genetically distinct offshoot of humans, homo ludens. The people of Ysgal, Ysgalin, comprise of both humans and centaurs who live together, work together, build families together, and have since the start of their people.

Ysgalin Miku here has the body of a dun kiso horse and is in the common attire of traditional Ysgalin fashion. Her garden apron is embroidered in the ancient traditional Caerfelltian style with an amateur's hand; she would have taken a couple of classes in the capital to reach this level of skill and likely is practicing familiar scenes on her apron to strengthen the skill.

The patterns here are freehanded: the Ysgallen [Ysgal giant thistle] motif from the country's flag, a small scene of her family Jionncwyn [jionn hound, a dog domesticated from the semiaquatic wolves native to Ysgal] swimming among her favorite dinner fish, and the minke whales her village primarily whales for food and resources. I've included a version without dirt on her apron so you can really see her designs.

local man just remembers he has a whole ass Ysgalin funerary shanty he can post

This is a shanty that would be during a burial at sea of a fellow whaler, or sung on the first trip out after they lost their fellow whaler. It is both a work shanty and a farewell and mourning ritual in its use and function.

The raw text lyrics will be below the cut, but for ease of comparing the two side by side I've formatted this slide for you.

One thing of note: "storm" is left as the english "storm" in the Ysgalin version. This is due to the fact that Ysgalin would rarely, if ever, use their own languiage to speak about or mention storms, for fear that it might summon one. Instead, they used the language of offlander enemies, with the sentiment that by using their language, the storm might mistakenly target the offlanders instead.

In Ysgalin culture, salt is viewed in a similar light to an aspect of death. Not villainized or feared, but a fact that lifesource waters become deadly waters when salt is present- mers in the sea, jionnaen on the coast, the inedibility of salt water, the dangers of whaling; it all comes together to give salt the connotation of a herald of death.

A common refrain among seafaring workers is "karthu rys", or "salt has taken". Karthu is an archaic way of referring to salt, as opposed to halen which refers to sea salt, with the connotation of a reaper or undertaker, a shepherd to escort the fallen. No Ysgalin will ever blame the sea for a death, but instead on the salt and brine of it. Their way of life comes from the sea, and they don't take that for granted.

Another prominent motif in folklore and folklorist art is a bridge of salt across the sea to the landmass of Ysgal, a ghostly, gritty anchor to the home all whalers come home to, whether alive or in memory.

The bridge of Halen a Esgyrn, translated here as

Remember me, when I fall down, the sea carries my name, salt upon my lips, and bones dancing alive.

Is commonly inscribed on memorials for whalers who've died at sea, or for loved ones or individuals respected by and embraced by the whalers they had known in life.

In Ysgalin culture, the turn of phrase "fall down" is more accurately described as "remember me when I've casted/when I am cast", as in being stuck lying with no way of getting back to one's feet, a ubiquitous warning sign of incoming weakness, illness, or death. In whaler history, a cast whaler is nearly guaranteed to die, and those who aren't would rather it anyway; a whaler who casts is one who is likely to do so again in that period of time and the superstition remains to this day.

AUGH i'd love to talk about it!

Ysgal [or the offlander name for it Ysgalon, improperly transcribed from the Ysgalin word "ysgallen", which refers to either their national plant or the king of Ysgal] is an island nation comprised of a people who are kind of their own genetically distinct race of humans- homo ludens- that comprises of centaurs and humans alike.

Their culture is built on mounted centaur sports and honoring the culture that could have been lost during the Offlander War, wherein hostile offlanders invaded in an attempt to seize resources and commandeer the centaur Ysgalin. The greatest king of their time was king Cariad [in english, Ysgalin would use 'Cariad Ysgallen'], a female centaur who had lost her father during the war and led her people out of it in her stead. She was a beloved woman and was known for her love of pursuit hunting, where a centaur and possibly a mounted partner drove a moose until it could be slain, and equally known for her distaste of doing the killing. Amateur historians often claim that she had seen enough of slaying, though the timeline doesn't hold up to the theory.

Ysgal's primary foodsource is whaling- when a creature as big as a centaur grows as fast as a human, nutritionally dense food in large portion is critically important, and whalers in and of themselves are a cornerstone of Ysgalin clture. A blacksmith not only acts as a farrier for the centaur Ysgalin, but makes and maintains the whaling lances of traditional whalers. The children of whalers often come into the Ysgal version of the delinquent and punk subcultures- ropeburns, Ysgalin youth who often maintain the spirit into their adult lives who take old discarded gear from the leather shed and don the leathers and carry old, or occasionally secondhand, lances around.

The national plant of Ysgal is the Ysgallen, the Ysgal Giant Thistle. Ysgalin giant thistle is abundant and hardy across the island. Due to its hardy and prolific nature, it is forbidden to remove live plants or seeds from the island to prevent it become invasive elsewhere. Any responsible Ysgalin on the island is more than welcome to take a sickle and a bucket to forage for Ysgalin thistle, as it is a good source of ingredients and traditional medicine.

The plant grows up to four feet tall at the tip of a flower, with supple, fleshy stems up to two to three inches wide at the thickest part. Giant thistle resembles star thistle, though with much more dense and numerous petals. Ysgalon giant thistle flowers can be white, blue, or pink. The thick stems are filled with a generous quantity of milky white fluid which is sweet in flavor and has a mild anesthetic quality to it. Freezing for a few weeks kills the anesthetic qualities, while it can be distilled via boiling and heating to amplify the anesthetic qualities to create a potent anesthetic paste.

Traditional Ysgalin alcohol is often brewed from giant thistle or tomakin, a peppery spicy allium that is also abundant on Ysgal, and thistle spirits retain varying levels of the anesthetic pulp of the plant. Ceremonial spirits will contain such a potent dosage that they are only served in small amounts.

There's so much density to Ysgal that it's hard to talk about it without more specific direction but I think this is a great primer!

Made a Ysgalin generator mainly for my own use so I don't have to waist hours making up canon compliant names, but it's a great tool for OCs and I want nothing more than to encourage OCs as much as I can!

Find it here!