Francis / 27

this is my art + worldbuilding writing blog (@taraxippos for reblogs)

Mostly my worldbuilding project "Blightseed" and its primary story The White Calf, occasional other stuff

Semi-frequent untagged nudity warning

A pair of chul.

Finally pulled the plug on my long-debated 'are there any suids in this setting or just the entelodonts' issue. There are no pigs, but some of the domesticated entelodonts play similar roles.

Nechoi are a broad clade of ungulates. Most are medium-sized generalist omnivores, though a minority are very large and predominantly herbivorous (an even smaller minority are bear-sized and occupy similar niches).

One species of nechoi has been domesticated and is widely utilized as livestock, which I'll be referring to as chul (this is the Burri language word for these animals, and is the common term in the part of the setting I do most writing in).

Chul have four toes per foot, but two of these are entirely vestigial nubs of bone only visible as a small bump. They lack the tusks of some of their wild cousins, though the upper cuspids of boars are still somewhat exaggerated in length as a display feature. Most morphs have floppy ears, and virtually all have full-body fur cover. As an ancestral trait, boars develop huge cheek flanges and a fatty back hump, which primarily serve to display fitness to prospective mates and intimidate rivals (the flanges may also provide a degree of protection to the face and neck during fights). Some domestic morphs have lost this trait, but it is very often preserved for its utility as a source of oil or calorie-dense meat.

As livestock, their main utility is for meat and hides. They do not provide many resources while alive (save for manure and perhaps blood), so they are rarely central to the subsistence of people who tend them. Sows well-accommodated to human handling may allow themselves to be milked, but their milk output is low and the flavor is notably gamey, and no domestic populations exhibit selection for milk production. What makes them most valuable as livestock is their generalist diets. They can eat almost anything, are not dependent on seasonal growth, and are low maintenance and do not have to be moved between different pastures. Chul can essentially be fed on garbage, and transform this into a large meaty carcass and good hides.

They primarily eat nuts + seeds + tubers + fruits + leaves + invertebrates, and will opportunistically predate on small vertebrates. They readily consume carrion, and their powerful jaws and large molars are capable of crushing bone. Their heads are not as adapted for digging as pigs, instead having flexible lips to select and crop food items. When pursuing edible roots/tubers, they usually dig scrapes with their hooves or rip whole plants out from the ground.

In captivity, Chul are usually provided refuse to eat (inedible parts of crops, byproducts of butchered animals, uneaten or rotten food, etc) and will roam a small home range to supplement this with forage. The flavor of their meat ultimately depends on their diet, which can cause notable individual/regional variations in taste. They are sometimes 'finished' on a higher quality diet of grain/nuts/starches/fruit to produce a mild-tasting carcass with sweet fat.

They pant and sweat to thermoregulate and are not dependent on wallowing, though will gladly do so when given the opportunity (they're also fairly strong swimmers). They have sweat glands across most of their bodies, and will sweat very heavily in heat and require large amounts of water to stay hydrated. They originated in the tropics and do not molt into winter coats, though some populations in temperate climes have adapted via thicker year-round coats (though usually must be actively fattened before winter. They require a lot more upkeep in temperate zones and aren't as common there).

They are notably vocal. When foraging together, they make soft barks to keep track of each other (kind of like this). Babies produce squeaky bleats as contact calls (kind of like this, but much shorter). Boars are known to produce loud, deep bellows when displaying (sounds somewhat like a red deer but a little higher). All will produce low moaning growls when threatened, sharp barks when behaving aggressively or in pain, and panting huffs when excited/happy/playing.

When left to their own devices, they generally form into herds of sows/young/juvenile males. They do not establish discrete territories, but will generally stick to overlapping home ranges as long as food resources remain reliable. They are very social animals, and these herds can become quite large when resources allow (though they are typically on the small side, with 2-6 adult sows per herd). Sow bands form social hierarchies based primarily around size and age. Dominant sows are usually the ones to chase off subadult boars, and may chase away subordinate sows if resources are scarce. Unfamiliar sows will be integrated into herds with little issue if food resources are stable (though the process entails a few hours of posturing and displaying to keep the hierarchy established).

Subadult males usually live in small bachelor groups (almost always with siblings from the same litter), which form dominance hierarchies largely based upon size. Boar bands with stable hierarchies may remain together for life, and have greater reproductive success overall than lone boars. However, boars can be extremely aggressive towards unfamiliar boars, particularly when in the presence of sows in estrus. There are some ritualized elements to confrontations between boars to prevent escalation into deadly fights. Most confrontations can be resolved with posturing, roaring and yawning to display teeth and jaw size, and will usually escalate no further than shoving matches before one backs down. Fights usually begin with face to face open mouth posturing, which will turn into slashing and biting with the cuspids. Outright fights can be deadly, and boars with a number advantage may not stop until the opponent is mortally wounded or dead. Even when confrontations do not end in fights, confident boars are known to target the scrotum of fleeing rivals in attempt to castrate them.

The best practice is to geld most of your male chul and keep only one boar per herd. It is generally safe to keep multiple intact boars together if they're from the same litter, but this can create other problems, as boars in bands will wander farther and are likelier to get into confrontations with those of your neighbors.

They are also more physically dangerous in general than domestic pigs, being similar in size but stronger with a significantly more powerful bite force. They are not particularly aggressive towards people, however. Most respond positively towards the company of handlers and enjoy close interaction, and are likelier to hurt you by accidentally knocking you over than in acts of aggression.

All in all they cause proportionately fewer deaths than cattle. The big difference is that a cow who kills you will ultimately leave your corpse alone, while a chul will readily eat it.

Comparing livestock color-words.

Brakul at around 5 years old, getting his first tattoos from Grandpa and being so brave about it

Hibrides at around 5 years old. Her brother Adeya is saving her very life from a menacing goose.

THE BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS

[A rendition of the Wardi creation story. This is the first portion of a longer song and details the time from God's emergence to the full creation of life.]

---

I sing first of the great stillness.

The sea, darkness beyond darkness, is empty and still.

The sky, blinding, radiant light, is empty and still.

They touch without mingling,

two expanses without motion.

No winds blow, no clouds gather in the heavens.

There is no sun, and there are no moons or stars.

No land stands between sea and sky.

There is no tree, no grass, no flower, 

no bird, no beast, no fish,

no small crawling things.

There are no people.

There is no one to do the planting, nowhere to plant

and nothing to be planted.

There is no life, and there is no death.

All is emptiness.

All is stillness.

All is silence.

CHENAHYEIGI FUNERAL PRACTICES AND ANCESTRAL VENERATION: AN OVERVIEW

---

FUNERARY PRACTICES

All dead must be cremated to be properly sent off. Their soul will remain in their body unless and until this is done, and a soul that remains trapped without rites may wander as an incorporeal evil spirit, or reanimate into an even more dangerous physical one. Community members will be given the most lavish funerals, but unidentified people found dead or even enemies slain in combat will usually be cremated (if only to prevent consequences from their potential vengeful spirit in the case of the latter).

A recently dead person still has their unaltered soul in their body and their senses are intact, and their body is not considered unclean to touch until it begins to noticeably rot. Their eyes will be left open so they can see what's going on around them (though they will be closed immediately preceding cremation, if possible). They will be visited by friends and family to say goodbyes and are spoken to and held and touched during this period. They are washed, freshly clothed, and wrapped into a wool blanket until the funerary preparations are complete.

Funerals should ideally be performed within three days of passing at most, and most people in the clan will cease their other duties to focus on preparation and gathering firewood. Oak is relatively abundant in most of the Highlands below the treeline and is the fuel of choice for pyres. Most Chenahyeigi peoples readily use dry cattle dung as fuel for everyday fires, but do not share the Wardi approval for using it for cremation and will not do so for honored individuals unless in desperation.

A form of animal sacrifice plays a role in funerals here. When someone dies, they are sent along with some of their clan's livestock (and potentially guard or herding dogs) to ease the transition and add to their ancestral clan’s wealth in the afterlife. The amount and type of animals offered depends on the person’s status, and upon the wealth of the clan. Offerings of khait are particularly special and often reserved for only the most honored dead. These animals are slaughtered and butchered in the typical fashion, and only their hearts (vessel of the soul) are cremated. Their remains can then be freely eaten (usually winding up in part as a funerary feast) and used for material.

Other grave goods are important as well. The dead should always be burnt in their finest clothing and jewelry. Food and drink will be added to the pyre to provide sustenance on the way to the afterlife. Most Chenahyeigi peoples who believe the dead take the form of birds will place eagle feathers into the dead person's hands to assist in the transition, with some high status individuals being cremated in featherwork shawls. They should also be presented at their funerals with any tools they needed in their daily lives, and any other belongings that were precious to them and not intended to be passed down. These objects are not typically burnt and rather will be interred in clan ancestral shrines.

The body must be completely burnt until only bones remain. Once this is accomplished, the soul will rise with the smoke and begin its journey to the Celestial Fields, the great landscape behind the stars and the site of the afterlife. In all traditions, the dead will be guided and assisted by their ancestors in this journey. Some traditions hold that ancestors teach the dead secret magic to become an eagle and fly there, others believe that the dead are merely assisted by birds at their ancestor’s behest. A few instead believe that the dead are carried by the cattle of the gods Hraighne and Od during their daily journeys through the sky (Hraighne and his sons are the sun and moons respectively, Od lives on/is symbolically the earth).

In the process of traveling to the Celestial Fields, you'll pass through the land of two divine clans. The gods Ariakh and the king of eagles have pasture on the tops of mountains and the lower skies, while the land of Hraighne and Od is the earth and the Fields themselves. The importance of these deities to funeral rites varies heavily by tradition. In most cases, funerals just require the pouring of libations to each deity to request safe passage through their lands. In others, the gods can be personally entreated to act as guides, and funerals require an additional array of failsafe rites to guarantee that the dead retain their favor. Hraighne and Od tend to be most important funerary gods, as the afterlife is their land and they are also often elevated above other deities as the first ancestors and the beginning of all male and female ancestral lines. If you fuck up so badly that you've offended all of your named ancestors, you still potentially have their favor and assistance.

After full funerary rites have been completed, the dead are regarded as having no further connections to their bodily remains and no need of them whatsoever. These cremains are also regarded as mildly unclean, and have no further interactive purpose for family members either. The bones are typically buried in nondescript locations, usually far away from a clan’s land. This is in part due to beliefs that the empty human remains still carry a bodily connection to their blood kin, and can be tampered with in malicious capacities to inflict harm on the living. Burying them in nondescript, distant locations reduces this threat.

---

OFFERINGS AND ANCESTRAL SHRINES

Intercession with the dead centers around actions of the living and maintenance of shrines. The dead now live in the Celestial Fields. The Fields have been provided with heavenly cattle by the goddess Od to ensure that the dead never starve (the cattle offer a perpetual supply of milk), but no mortal Owns these cattle. They belong to Od and are guarded by the dog Mak-Urudain, and the only person who has ever successfully stolen cattle under his watch is Ariakh. A mere human doesn’t stand a chance. Rather, the dead live in clan systems like they did in life, and require crops and wealth in livestock to thrive, and quality goods and tools to be truly prosperous. They are dependent on the living to provide these things.

Some livestock and other supplies will most likely have been provided at the funeral, but the dead will be continuously gifted additional offerings in the time after, by leaving them in the ancestral or household shrines. Small offerings of food, flowers, and grain are burnt to send them directly, while more valuable offerings are left in the shrines for the dead to collect upon their periodic returns to the world of the living.

All discrete objects have spirits, even manmade/inanimate ones (which have the simplest type of spirit, not a consciousness but an essential force that makes them ‘alive’, capable of imbuing life into other objects and working magic). The dead, having departed from the body, can take the incorporeal spirits of offered objects with them for use. After this point, these objects are considered ‘dead’ and cannot fulfill their full purpose for the living. Sure, a dead loom could perform its material functions of weaving, but dead objects can only create more dead objects, and dead objects are unlucky to touch anyway. On top of that, objects whose spirits have been taken by the dead represent a line of contact between the living and dead. It’s a minor desecration to use the body of an object belonging to an ancestor, and it will gain their disapproval.

In times of dire need, the dead may deign to return an objects spirit for the living to use again. In most Peoples, the negotiations require the intercession of a witch, who is uniquely equipped to mediate with the spirits of the dead and read signs of their approval or disapproval. If the ancestor approves, they will return the objects spirit to its body and it will become alive and viable for use again.

A clan's ancestral shrine in of itself is usually a large above-ground mausoleum, containing numerous smaller shrines for each of the clan's dead. These individual shrines are maintained for a set number of generations (typically twelve generations counted in 20 year periods) before the objects within are permanently interred in burial and the person is no longer obliged further offerings. These dead have passed into an elder status and join the ranks of ancestors unnamed. They have presumably been cared for properly by their descendants, are well-set up in their afterlives, and no longer require direct intercession from the living for their benefit. The retirement of these shrines take the form of a second funeral (long after the last person to have known them has died) where all objects within are buried on the clan’s land.

Even after passing into the ranks of ancestors unnamed, old dead still have some representation in ancestral shrines. Clans maintain a beaded rope (with a new bead added for each death) within the shrine, as a means of record keeping and an object that can be easily carried should a clan lose or have to flee their territory. Very old clans might have beaded records of hundreds of dead, and it serves as a visual reminder of the great scope of a family and its ancestral lines.

Shrines may have valuable items tempting to thieves, so they need permanent guardians. Bone or wood carved figurines of guard dogs are usually utilized for this purpose and enchanted into sentience by calling a minor wild spirit into it. One figurine will be made for each individual shrine. Most traditions also involve interring the skulls of actual deceased guard dogs in ancestral shrine mausoleums, so that the same animal continues its duty in death.

Consequences of theft from ancestral shrines are grave. You will, first and foremost, provoke the wrath of the dead. They may curse the thief, which can cause devastating ill fortune or disease. Your own ancestors are likely to be insulted by your shameful behavior and may inflict their own punishments as well. The guard dog spirits will also take vengeance. They are believed capable of pursuing the thief and haunting them until the theft is amended, causing night terrors and additional ill fortune, (or potentially even just killing them, you never know). Underlying the spiritual dissuasion of theft is hard material and social consequences- stealing from another clan’s ancestral shrine is a serious act of desecration, and is accepted as generally warranting a blood price (severing fingers, a hand, an arm, or just killing them, depending on the severity of the theft).

Destruction and raiding of enemy's ancestral shrines is not unheard of in warfare, but this is generally considered a 'nuclear option'. Some people may see it as a deserved consequence for a detested enemy, but it is catastrophically risky behavior, creating both mortal and immortal enemies. Stories about people who do such a thing in war tend to end in their annihilation (if not that of their clan itself) via the consequences of enraging an entire ancestral clan. In reality when this occurs, it tends to cement permanent enmities that can last for generations, and is at least cited as reasons for long-held hostilities between entire tribes.

Clan ancestral shrines are a separate entity to the household shrines where most everyday religious practice is held. Each home will have a dedicated shrine area where each of the family’s ancestors and other honored dead are interceded with on a daily basis. Much of this comes in the form of offerings, burnt or left in bowls. Minor day to day offerings are small items that will be of utility or sentimental value to the dead, usually libations of milk/tea/wine, grain, flowers. or small gifts. These daily offerings are less about actively sustaining the dead and more about sustaining your connection with them.

— FEAST OF THE DEAD

Major offerings occur on set holidays, most importantly the winter solstice feast of the dead. Individual ancestors may make the journey down to earth throughout the year as they deign fit, but on the longest night of the year, all dead make this journey at once to mingle with the living again. This is a joyous and festive occasion- it's a time to celebrate the lives of both the living and dead, reconnect with loved ones, and have a lot of good food and drink.

In the days leading up to the holiday, you should clean and decorate your home. It's a good time to restore protections against bad luck and malicious spirits for your community in general- people sprinkle milk around the entrances of homes and of the village itself, hang fresh iron bells over doorways, and clear any present snow from pathways. Communities will have stored food for months in advance, and now have to cook it all in preparation. The leading clan must send out envoys throughout their land and provide high quality foods (particularly yachuig, which is rendered grain-fed khait fat mashed with honey and berries and chilled) and wine to their constituents (or else lose dangerous amounts of respect and social capital via their inability to gift). The cattle and horses are usually nearby the village in their winter pastures. Some should be slaughtered for the feast, and the finest animals in each herd are cleaned, brushed, and decorated.

The night before the solstice, you set up and tend bonfires around meeting points in your village, and place candles in the windows of your home. The dead have started their journey at this point, and this makes it easier for them to find you, as well as providing light and protection during the night of the sun's longest absence (Hraighne is having a prolonged visit with his wife; they're separated the rest of the year). It's best that you go to sleep early (or if you get stuck on bonfire duty, that you establish strict sleeping shifts), as you will probably be awake for the entire night that follows.

The dead arrive at high noon on the winter solstice. Everyone should convene at their respective clan shrines (or a household/temporary shrine if you are traveling or live away from your clan). There, the dead are greeted with offerings of warm clothing to wear during their visit (as it's much colder here than in the Fields). This is also the time to give the dead major offerings as gifts. These are items of value that members the clan has obtained/created over the course of the year, whatever any given family is willing and able to give (wool, yarn, looms, staffs, artwork, saddles and tack, bows, swords, musical instruments, clothing, etc etc). These objects are to remain in the clan shrines and to not be used again, and are under similar restrictions as funerary gifts. Livestock that were slaughtered for the feast will have their hearts cremated, so that their souls can be sent as further gifts.

The titular feast is usually held as an entire village, with multiple clans assembling together to lay out a full meal. The meal is left out all night for the dead to eat while the community mingles and drinks tea and wine. The dead are present and listening while they eat, so it’s a good time to keep them updated on events via each family member announcing updates about their life and accomplishments from the past year. Anecdotes are told about remembered dead relatives, and stories are told about more distant ancestors. The conversation doesn't have to remain strictly about the dead, and the atmosphere usually becomes very casual, being a good time to catch up with your living relations as well.

The feast goes untouched until the first light of dawn, at which time the dead will have finished eating the spirit of the food and the living can start to eat the body. The spirit of this food has been consumed, and it is thus conceptualized as less nourishing (the fact that the food has gone cold by this time works as a symbolic reminder of this), though it’s still enjoyable enough as a substantial feast. The dead depart again at high noon, and the festivities end with consumption of freshly brewed butter tea before the living depart to catch up on sleep.

This festival is a distinctly happy and celebratory event, but has a solemn side, in being the best time to deal with earthbound ghosts. It’s not unheard of for people in your community to go missing and never be found, owing to rough terrain and people frequently spending long periods alone at pasture. Such a person never gets funeral rites, and is thus trapped as a ghost and likely to warp into an evil spirit. This fate is not only tragic and distressing but can also become dangerous for loved ones; a ghost might return to haunt them, causing illness and other misfortune, or occasionally more immediate corporeal danger.

The feast of the dead provides an avenue to potentially retrieve and save such dead, which is the job of the community’s witch. Witches do not join in the nighttime festivities, and rather must spend the night in vigil to call in the wandering dead and send them on their way. Anyone in the community with a missing relation will provide the witch with a straw doll in advance. This will contain a lock of the presumed deceased’s hair (locks are typically saved from haircuts for a variety of other medicinal and magical purposes) or one from their blood kin if this cannot be found. This doll will become a substitute body that can be cremated.

A witch has their own additional non-blood ancestral line, being the many generations of witches before them, leading up to their own mentor. These ancestors return with all the other dead, and will join the living witch for their vigil and assist in their duties. They then set a bonfire outside the boundaries of the village, place the dolls around it, and wait for sundown.

At dusk, the witch will begin a summoning song, calling the names of any known ghosts and attracting them to the fire. Other earthbound human spirits of unknown name may also wander in of their own accord. The witch then does a form of battle with these ghosts- these entities are dangerous and may try to possess or harm them, or to slip past the bonfire to enter the village to wreak further havoc. The witch paces around the fire and beats the drum (closely related practice to Wardi heartbeat drums) while singing commands and directions to the ghosts to settle into their doll body. They point the dagger into each doll with each pass, which may force the spirit inside. Their witch ancestors are also present in intangible form and are doing the same thing all around the boundaries of the village, guarding it in its entirety. The witch must attempt to keep this up all night, and will usually chew the stimulant bruljenum leaf to assist in the process. Most witches have mentees in-training that will provide additional support and potential backup.

Come sunrise, any evil spirits have either been driven away or driven into their doll bodies. The witch then burns the bodies to send the souls to the afterlife, and their witch-ancestors leave, assisting the dead in their journeys. They then must perform an exhaustive reading of the sky, first to see which dead have been saved, and then to gain information on how to assist any that have not (divining requests from the restless dead that may help them come to peace, or possibly the location of their remains). At the end of this exhausting endeavor, they descend to the village to announce the results and join into the feast. They are rewarded with saved portions from the meal and the very first serving of hot butter tea.

—

DAY TO DAY ANCESTRAL VENERATION

An person’s most important ancestral connections are their parents, all of their grandparents, and 12 further generations of their direct male and female lines (their father’s father's father et all, their mother’s mother's mother et all). These are the ancestors that you are directly responsible for assisting in the afterlife, and the ones that will maintain a close connection to you throughout your life.

This bond is the bedrock of your identity, the ultimate support system that is present throughout your life, a home no matter where you are. Your ancestors will provide you guidance, can grant you good fortune, can protect you and your kin, will assist in the births of your children, and will eventually help you reach the afterlife. In return, you honor them (and your living family), give them offerings in support, better your and your clan's positions, behave virtuously and observe taboos. They are to be venerated as a matter of filial piety, but they are just people (not omnibenevolent) and will (usually righteously, sometimes pettily) punish misdeeds or the neglect of their wishes. Many misfortunes experienced in life may be signs of their disapproval.

Respect for the dead is obligatory, most importantly for your ancestors but also just in general. It's a matter of both virtuous behavior and personal safety, as the dead might be listening and there can be consequences if they are offended. Of course, not all dead people are owed obligations of filial piety, or considered to be respectable people in general. Speech avoidance taboos regulate some of these dangers. You should NEVER speak the names of people believed to be earthbound evil spirits except under very specific circumstances where you are under strong spiritual protection (or are a witch and equipped to handle these dangers), as this may summon them to do harm. Ancestors and other dead who have reached the afterlife can be referred to by name, but you should not do so if you don't want their attention, especially not if you're speaking ill of them. If you need to talk about the dead in any of these potentially dangerous ways, you speak of them obliquely 'the old man' 'the one who died last year', 'that old bastard' etc. The word 'eshe' is used almost exclusively in the context of speech avoidance, with the meaning being roughly 'that one'.

Your responsibility is towards your ancestors, but all honored dead are recognized in practice. Your clan's ancestral shrine will also be the place for grave goods and offerings to non-ancestral dead- namely children or people who died without children. A person may additionally leave offerings for dead friends or non-ancestral family, or seek guidance from renowned historical figures.

Family records in general tend to be very well kept, in part to avoid exclusion of people who end one line or the other (one line effectively ends if a person does not have Both male and female children, or if they don’t have children at all). Such people near inevitably will not get as much support from the living, and the fact that dying childless threatens your prosperity in the afterlife is a soft pressure that strongly encourages having many children (in addition to harder societal pressures, and some very material subsistence practicalities). Record-keeping is predominantly through oral transmission, and usually supplemented by pictographic or other visual memory aids (the Chenahyeigi language has no native writing system, though some groups have adopted + adapted Wardi syllabic script or have individuals literate in it, and keep written records).

The practice of tattooing the arms with abstractions of 30 ancestors (your parents, all four grandparents, and your 12 person male and female lines beyond that) is partly such a mnemonic device, but more importantly an act that ritually solidifies one’s place in their ancestral lineage. A child secures their place in this lineage upon coming of age (15 in boys, menarche or 15 in girls), and bearing these tattoos is the marker of adulthood. They were under the Protection of these ancestors beforehand (via their parents), but are now equipped to be active participants in interactions with the dead on their own terms.

Young adults will likely already have learned the names of their ancestral line by this point, and if not, they'll be learning them now. Most people memorize their names by heart by looking at/touching the tattoos as they recite, and will often habitually continue to do so long after the memory aid is unneeded.

You don't have to leave offerings for your ancestors every single day, but you should be naming them on a daily basis as a matter of honoring them and maintaining your connection. This is usually performed in the form of a nightly prayer, where you will recite the names, leave any offerings, and make any requests for guidance or assistance needed at the time.

Your full name is your given name, those of your parents, and your 26-person total ancestral lines (some traditions include All grandparents, bringing the grand total number of names to 30), as well as the name of your clan. It's not even slightly necessary to recite all this in casual introductions, but reciting the entire list is necessary for some formal and ceremonial occasions. You will reintroduce yourself to your community by your long name upon coming of age, will state the whole thing during your marriage ceremony, you and your spouse will recite both of yours when formally naming your child, and others will recite it for you at your funeral.

Honestly went back and forth on that because like, part of the deal is Hibrides is unsure whether she's Really interested in her, or is just desperate for attention from someone she finds hot and is also blatantly interested in her but not in a way that makes her super uncomfortable. And also is tired with having basically no social life outside of the orbit of her stupid husband and his stupid family. And at this point down the line she's got some pretty intense levels of nervousness about intimacy and is kind of only comfortable (in a sense of the word) having sex with Brakul, who she isn't even attracted to but it's like, familiar, she does Trust him in the sense of being confident in his intentions, and there's no further lines that can be crossed and very little left to ruin. These conditions don't apply to her husband's partly estranged sister who she's barely ever interacted with until recently.

But yeah I don't want the story to be romance focused but this Is the only background slowburn shit, and of the current draft I've gone with 'yeah they can manage to fuck at some point' on the basis of 'love wins'.

Couya has had a semi-latent crush on her for years, which was never really that big of a deal but it comes to a head since they're traveling in the same party and at routine close quarters for the first time in their Lives. It starts to get distracting from her job and her burgeoning convictions that she's God's chosen to ensure the renewal of the land and Its spirit and etc. Like damn my prophetic dreams involve me eating her out what does it all mean.

I wouldn't describe Hibrides as having had a past interest to the same extent (she had a crush on FAIZA for a really long time), but she's been Curious about her and kind of baffled by her since they met 13 years back, and she is definitely her type physically. She's always been a little fascinated by how little of a shit Couya seems to give about what anyone thinks of her. Kind of unsure whether she's the most self-assured person ever, or is just really rude, or there's something wrong with her.

Couya does initially win her trust because her natural propensities for social interaction happen to be a highly effective Hibrides Befriending Strategy: making absolutely zero moves and barely speaking to her and not even really looking at her much and just going about her life while existing simultaneously in Hibrides' immediate vicinity until there was naturally something to talk about.

They have a lot of spare time to spend together like this and gradually get to know each other. They're both going through it, with Hibrides just feeling kind of desperate to re-exert a sense of control over her life and Couya being in a Dark Night Of The Soul, and both of them are very deeply spiritually disturbed by the implications of the drought and distrustful towards the Amanti dynasty. These factors all combine into them becoming friends and confidants, which eventually escalates drastically into them plotting a coup and also theyy can bang a little in there somewhere.

Here's two related sketches that I can post

WARDI KINSHIP STRUCTURE: AN OVERVIEW

Important notes for the diagrams below:

KINSHIP

Wardi kinship is patrilineal and defined around the male line primarily. The word for 'Family' here exclusively refers to some (but not all) members of your father's side of the family, while 'kin' refers to the broader scope of your relatives. Effectively, anyone who shares your surname is your family.

It's important to note that you aren't family Just Because you share a name, rather that the family name is the way this kinship system manifests and is reinforced.

A phrase equivalent to 'in-law' is used for kin who are from or are married into a different family. Your married biological sister is a 'sister in law' because she belongs to another man's family, she no longer shares your name. Conversely, people who are not biologically related to you but married into your family are referred to as 'kin by blood' (of covenant). Your brother's wife is your 'sister by blood'. Every single member of your mother's side of the family is referred to as an 'in-law'.

An additional dimension of kinship is 'blood of womb'. Colloquially, this refers to any direct biological relatives, but in terms of the family structure it acknowledges a person's special status in relation to you after they have been married out of the family. You might be married into another man's family and no longer share a family name with your siblings, but they still share blood of the womb with you, and you still maintain mutual obligations. This status is retained for one generation after the last shared paternal relative (ie your married paternal aunt is blood of the womb to you, but her children are not), and is applied to all of your grandparents.

Kinship gets more complicated if you're one of the vast majority of women who get married. In receiving your husband's name, you are joined into your husband's family and integrated into its structure. You are considered kin by blood of covenant to his family (those who share his name) and effectively lose kinship ties to most of your own (aside from parents, grandparents, and biological siblings, who are still considered your blood while no longer your Family by name). This does not mean bonds with your former family cease to exist on social levels, but those who are not your kin by blood cease to have familial obligations to you (and vice versa), and there is also a good chance you will no longer be living in proximity to any of them.

Each family is divided into houses (which may or may not entail Literal households). These consist of each man and all of his dependents [his wife, all subadult children, unmarried adult sons living on his property, unmarried adult daughters, sometimes unmarried sisters or aunts]. Each house patriarch has legal jurisdiction of his own house and its members, and is considered the owner of the house's land, property, and assets. A house patriarch makes and has the final say on marriage arrangements of female dependents (and also effectively those of his sons) whether they're adults or not. He has absolute authority over all subadult children- he can unilaterally send them to a school or priesthood or sell them into servant positions, and they will not gain legal autonomy to leave until adulthood (and even then, will still be under his household if not male).

Each house in a family exists in a hierarchy based upon the age of the house patriarchs, with the eldest man to a name being considered the family patriarch. This has legal dimensions when multiple houses are living in the same Literal home, as the family patriarch is the legal owner of their property and assets. He does not have legal authority over the men beneath him and their dependents, but has tremendous social power within any given family and is generally expected to be deferred to by its members.

MARRIAGE BETWEEN RELATIVES/INCEST TABOO

[obvious content warnings apply below, there's non-descriptive mentions of sexual abuse]

The definition of what is and isn't incest is somewhat complicated, and also has different dimensions of taboo and legality.

Incest as a form of sex crime applies only to sexual acts between immediate relatives (parent-child or between siblings), though cases between more distant relatives can usually be charged as rape or adultery (given in most cases it will be the former and often technically the latter). Incest is considered among the absolute most severe interpersonal crimes and can be punishable by death. This is sometimes applied to Both parties when the abused party's victimhood is not 'proven' or imagined to be possible (particularly for male victims). Female victims may be spared capital punishment, but still often suffer disownment from their families and social ostracization.

By law, marriages cannot be performed between any relatives who share a family name, though exceptions are known to occur and are not legally punishable in of themselves (though can be annulled if discovered).

So generally speaking, people will not marry anyone in their family, though sharing a family name does not necessarily mean incest Taboos are applied to the theoretical relationship. The lines for incest taboo roughly stops at the distance of the first cousin- first cousins on your mother's side are outright considered marriageable. It's a little more complicated for first cousins on your father's side- many will share your name and thus would be a marriage into your own family, and those who don't are still cognitively understood as Too Close in a way maternal cousins are not (many people only have close relationships with/live in proximity to their father's side of the family).

Marriages in these gray areas are legal and not subject to strong incest taboo, but are overall socially frowned on. First cousin marriages in general (regardless of side of the family) tend to be negatively associated with the peasantry (with Some accuracy in that people living in small villages don't always have a lot of options) and considered a distinctly low class trait.

Incest taboo is not applied to relations with people who have married into your family (though sex in these contexts will be adultery by nature); even though they have been integrated into your family structure, kinship by blood of covenant is not considered a threshold for relationships to be incestuous in any sense of the word. It's very common for people married into a family to remarry another member if they are widowed or divorced.

In all, marriages are almost always between different Families, though marriages between relatives at the distance of second cousin or further are not outright uncommon.

I'm not the most math brained so this isn't Super fleshed out tbr

The number systems in use in the present day I Think counts as biquinary and uses sign value additive notation rather than place value. This system does not account for decimal fractions (it Conceptualizes these integers as divisions of measurements but does not have a discrete means of depicting them), and does not have a well-defined mathematical concept of Zero that can be used in calculations, though does use visual placeholders to Indicate the concept of a lack of numerical value. There is no recognition of negative numbers whatsoever.

For people not familiar with the concept of place value vs sign value (because I don't Think this is super common knowledge?):

If you're reading this, there's a high chance you use the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, which uses place value notation. In this system, 326 and 623 represent different numerical value even though they're written with the same combination of numerals. Their position indicates what they must be multiplied by to determine their value (623 is 6 x 100 + 2 x 10 + 1 x 1)

The Wardi numeral system (and that of most of their regional contemporaries) uses sign value additive notation. A symbol's value remains fixed regardless of its position, the number is determined by adding its facets together.

This is what the numeral system looks like as of now. This is developed out of older tally systems and some pictograms, the latter having been simplified beyond recognition into blocky shapes.

There are stylistic conventions to improve ease and clarity of reading. Numbers are usually written right to left from the highest to lowest symbol integers, which is intuitive for the broader right-left writing system. The 5, 50, 500, etc signifiers are usually connected to their nearest 10, 100, 1000, etc as a matter of visual simplification (ie combining the 100 and 50 symbols will be instantly read as 150, thus and speeding up the mental math).

However, writing them the wrong way does not imply a need for subtraction or otherwise change the numerical value, it's just substantially less intuitive to read. You can write a number with its parts completely out of order and it will mean the same thing, it will just take significantly longer to read and people will think you're a jackass for it.

The 'nesting' mentioned here refers to the smaller integers being nested at a smaller size within their nearest master, causing the scale to decrease from right to left. This convention was inherited from older Burri numerical systems and is utilized in formal record keeping, though is rarely used elsewhere and is broadly falling out of favor (in large part due to jarring heavily with aesthetic conventions in formal Wardi script).

You'll also see numbers written in abstracted form with modified logograms or pictograms (the latter shown here)

This is completely abstracted, lacks clarity, and doesn't convey any internal information beyond Resembling the shapes and positions of the number characters being represented. This is related to the de-stylization of certain logograms in written poetry (ie fully illustrating a cow rather than the typical heavily stylized vague cow shape for the character 'Gan'), and is an artistic convention for beautifying certain texts, functionally Adjacent to the practice of illuminated manuscripts.

You'll also see this form of stylization used in sympathetic magic and some ritual contexts, where shaping numbers into the subject of your rite is a matter of emphasis of what EXACTLY you want accomplished.

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I have the measurement system better fleshed out so I'll go over that a little.

The smallest standard unit of measurement is the wan (literally 'thumb'), which is associated with the length of the distal phalynx on the thumb and its joint (I didn't actually intend for this, but that's pretty close to an inch on average).

'Hands' (the word is 'un') are the unit of measurement for height/length at human scales, associated with the width of a closed fist (this averages around 4-4.25 inches). These are clumped into larger measurements still referred to with the 'hand' value, with the 'five-hand' being the next base (approximately 20 inches).

In most cases the average person does not have to measure small heights with great accuracy, so they will describe it rounded to the nearest hand base. IE:

The five-hand is the base for longer measurements, having similar function to the meter or foot. It tends to be Associated with the length from the tip of the middle finger to the elbow (though is generally longer), and is often approximated as such for low-stakes everyday use.

'Ten five-hands' is the basis of measurement for distances. (approximately 17 ft). (I haven't decided on the in-universe terms for these btw, 'five-hand' probably is spoken how it's written but the 'ten five-hands' unit would have its own discrete word).

The biggest unit of measurement is a mile (no Wardi name yet), composed of 200 'ten five-hands'. (This is a little over a kilometer).

In everyday life most people are just using their own bodies for reference of the 'hands' unit, so measurements in hands can vary TREMENDOUSLY. There have been attempts to standardize these units and divorce them from the length of the body parts of individuals, which is what is usually used in official capacities.

The standardization of these measurements worked backwards from the preexisting established units. The length of the wan was given a set value and established as the smallest unit of measurement from which other measurements derived. 5 standard wan is one hand, a five-hand is 25 standard wan or 5 standard hands, and so on up the scale.

You'll see solid yardstick type tools for small measurements, but most larger scale measurements are performed with knotted lengths of cord, prepared referencing a standardized model cord. Fully beaded measurement cords like this are somewhat of a status symbol- they require a lot of beads and are EXTREMELY time consuming to produce and repair while maintaining accuracy.

People also measure in 'paces', though this one has not been adopted into standardized systems. It colloquially refers to the average length of a single stride at a normal walking pace. You say 'twenty paces from here' to give an approximation of distance in an intuitive way, not when you want to accurately measure a space.

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You aren't expected to have high proficiency in math unless you're entering a field that requires it, but educated classes/all nobility is expected to have Proficiency. The act of reading numbers in of itself requires you to know at least Basic addition.

Every child who gets any form of formal education learns arithmetic as part of their core studies. Most public education for commoners keeps this pretty basic, you'll learn addition and subtraction thoroughly and will be taught how to multiply and divide small numbers, but it's unlikely that you'll be working with particularly large sums or getting into any algebra or more than basic geometry. It's potentially important knowledge for every member of society, both for basic utility and in managing finances and taxes.

Nobility get much more advanced education in mathematics. Most nobility are landowners who receive a the majority take of crops and livestock from peasants on their land. Much of this will be owed in taxes, but most will still end up with a large surplus Far beyond what their household can consume. Having a good grasp on math is important for wealth management in this context.

Male nobility in particular get thorough educations as part of the broader purpose of grooming them for official positions or priesthood. Anyone involved in the taxation system needs to have a rigorous understanding of mathematics, and the ability is also important for astrological observations performed by priests. Female nobility Usually get a more basic training adjacent to that of commoners, with any additional depth mostly being framed around home economics.

The MOST complex math education tends to be received in formal training as a scribe, which is generally a servant position occupied by members of the commoner class. Most scribes will double as accountants and the like, and working with large numbers with rigorous accuracy is vital to the job. Specialist craftsmen and merchants in the coastal guilds also frequently receive more in-depth math education during mentorships, particularly architects and shipbuilders.

Dagi are specifically evil spirits that are explanatory for ailments with clear or presumed external cause, and that are known to spread (either through the body or between people). They are thus considered the source of most infections and contagious diseases. They are sort of a proto-proto germ theory in that they are conceptualized as being tiny and/or invisible and entering the body through wounds and orifices, though this is conceptualized more along the lines of miasma theory (they are usually spread in the form of Bad Air). They're a pretty small part of the medical model as a whole, being a direct Cause of the disease but not what Enables it.

The broader medical model revolves around these core concepts:

-Blood is the living spirit. Every person has two souls, with living spirit being the one that animates and maintains the body. A body's healthy function is dependent upon blood flow being normal and uninhibited, and the blood not being polluted.

-All matter in the world is composed of a mix of essential properties of Sea (female/cold/wet/malleable) and Sky (male/hot/dry/transformative). In medical contexts, these essences are usually referred to as Hot or Cold as proper nouns. This does not usually refer to literal temperature, and rather describes an object's presumed interactive qualities.

-All non-human/animal matter in the world is also God's body and carries the flow of God's living spirit, with each discrete form of matter being imbued with an Essence that is a fundamental nature that defines its being. In the context of medicine, Essences are influenced by their Hot/Cold properties, and are the mechanism for medicinal effects ascribed to any given object. This is rooted in Wardi animism, and the concept of Essence is basically interchangeable with the notion that all natural objects have an interactive Spirit. The explicitness of this element and how much this Spirit is ascribed internal agency/personhood is more variable.

-The body/living spirit is metaphysically vulnerable to spiritual pollution. Forms of spiritual pollution first weaken the living spirit, thus becoming an avenue for ailments to develop. Curses can similarly weaken the body, as can attachment/inhabitation by evil spirits. An already weakened body is more vulnerable to this sort of outside harm by dagi/other evil spirits/curses, so the effects can be compounded.

-The totality of your wellbeing is dependent upon your connection to God, maintained on an individual day to day level by prayer and offerings, and by avoiding spiritual pollution. God's body and living spirit, while great on scales beyond imagining, is still a body, still susceptible to its natural flows being blocked or severed. Proper orthopraxy maintains your connection, which is the ultimate foundation for a good life, good fortune, and good health.

-The worldview in general doesn't distinguish a 'mundane' dimension from a 'spiritual' dimension. Most things are spiritual and mundane at the same time. Everyday ablution is cleansing yourself of spiritual pollution and it's also just washing your hands because they have dirt on them. There is no fundamental difference between physical health and spiritual health, even wholly physical injuries (ie a broken arm) affect the living spirit, even wholly spiritual injuries (ie a curse) affect the physical body.

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So pretty much every possible ailment can be interpreted through this model. Contagious flu is dagi entering the body through orifices and spreading into the blood, causing the blood to become polluted and obstructing its proper flow, thus resulting in the flu's physical effects. Infection is dagi entering the body through wounds, obstructing the blood from healing the wound and causing inflammation and rot. A migraine is an excess of blood flow to the head that becomes too Hot, potentially caused by blockage of blood flow in other parts of the body. Erectile dysfunction might be because the testes or penis are too Cold and/or have obstructed blood flow and/or have localized polluted blood and/or you could be cursed, buddy. Intestinal parasites are small bugs that get inside your body and feed on blood (yeah), causing blockages and disruption of bloodflow to the affected parts and harming your health.

The medical system is built upon this model and attempts to address every dimension of these concerns.

At the most abstract end of things, heartbeat drums are used in healing contexts as a matter of belief they can influence the flow of living spirit. In almost all cases, this is supplemental, encouraging the blood to move in the necessary capacity while more direct treatments go to work. IE- your wounds have been cleaned and you've been given medicine, the healing is already in process but further encouraged via the healer drumming the medicine through your body. Their use is most critical in life-or-death circumstances- a midwife overseeing a childbirth will have an assistant to drum throughout as a matter of keeping both parties alive and strengthening their blood flow.

'Medicine' refers to any objects that encourage health or healing via their direct interaction with the physical body. Medicines that are Consumed or topically applied usually intend to be active treatments, medicines that are Worn usually intend to be preventative.

Every discrete object is believed to have a Hot or Cold property, and a more nuanced Essence. The former describes how it interacts with other matter on a fundamental level, the latter ascribes its actual effects. Everything that exists Could potentially be medicinal and the grand totality of Wardi medicinal knowledge includes plants, minerals, and animal parts, though the majority of common medicine is based around herbalism. This medicine system is built on centuries of accumulated knowledge and some more historically recent scholarly investigation. Some of it is ultimately Vibes Based (astoundingly, antlers/horns and animal penises/testes tend to be ascribed positive effects for virility and male fertility), some is actively damaging (lead is sometimes consumed medicinally), but a lot of the most central medicines have Become central for having very strong correlation with positive results.

For example, wounds are usually cleaned with vinegar (the acetic acid of which has actual antimicrobial functions). Some contraceptives definitely Reduce the chance of pregnancy via properties that actually block the cervix, reduce sperm motility, make vaginal PH more hostile to sperm, or contain spermicidal chemicals (ie inserting bandage soaked in a ground mix of olive oil, honey, and acacia- the latter is spermicidal, the liquids reduce motility, and blocking the cervix via a barrier is just intuitive). Honey and garlic figure heavily into a lot of medicines in general, largely due to their actual antimicrobial properties. Cumin is already central to the diet, and is the preeminent treatment for internal parasites (and has some positive effect). Etc.

Ailments are also in part addressed by general dietary changes. Everything you eat has Hot or Cold properties as well as more nuanced individual Essences, so your everyday diet can address some dimensions of health and be a supplement for more directed medical treatment.

Bloodletting is a response to more severe or resistant ailments, usually when the cause is regarded as polluted blood in a specific body part and/or evil spirits in the body. It attempts to treat ailments by removing polluted blood at the sources of pollution, allowing the body's natural defenses to replace it with clean blood. Bloodletting is not performed willy-nilly and is generally not the first resort- this is your living spirit, the soul that animates your body, and you should only intentionally shed it with great purpose.

Given the lack of distinction between physical and spiritual health, all these forms of medicine are supplemented with everyday religious practice. Your connection with God is also a source of maintaining your health, and most priesthoods can assist you with more complex physical-spiritual matters via blessings and sacrifices in your name.

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DOCTORS:

There are two main bodies of physicians who receive formal educations and work as physicians. Both of them are connected to the priesthood of Ganmache (largely due to that priesthood having become heavily interwoven with educational institutions in general) and receive their basic education from them, as spiritual knowledge is considered a fundamental necessity for medical care. These are the Hittlatlamii and Nacouy.

Hittlatlamii are predominantly midwives, but are also general physicians specializing in women's care. This role is Technically open regardless of gender, but male Hittlatlamii are uncommon and often subject to mockery as having failed at being Nacouy or possibly being some kind of pervert. The order is mostly composed of women and akoshos, and they are uniquely condoned to remain unmarried and given significant freedom of movement due to the necessities of their work. Most of their patients are women who may not necessarily leave the home as much as men, so Hittlatlami often have to travel to their patient's homes and may sometimes live there temporarily. Most Hittlatlamii are members of the commoner class, and usually inherit the position from a relative via recommendation (who will often become their mentor).

They are formally educated in the priesthood of Ganmache's schools from the age of ~7-10 to 15, and work in a close mentor-mentee relationship with a senior Hittlatlamii until the age of 30. In this process, they will have learned to read and write, have access to a broad base of recorded medical knowledge, and will have had extensive hands-on experience as physicians and midwives. Their specialty is women's health re: fertility and pregnancy and 'female anatomy', but they are also equipped to treat non-gendered common ailments and will sometimes attend to men as needed. They are also a cult to Anmir-Ganmache (God as the hearth/domestic sphere)- their work itself is a matter of this devotion, and they are considered equipped to provide blessings and attend to domestic spiritual issues (though are not full priests and thus not permitted to perform sacrifices).

Nacouy are the other group, with the word 'nacouy' being functionally translatable as just 'physician'. This role is exclusive to men. Most are commoners, but being a Nacouy is a fairly common 'youngest son of 6 brothers in a noble family that doesn't really have anything else to do' career path. They are general purpose doctors who will have been extensively educated, and will know/have access to the breadth of recorded medical knowledge. They are educated in the priesthood of Ganmache's schools from ~7-10 into their early 20s, and from there will work with a mentor until the latter dies or retires. They usually receive patients as visitors instead of coming to their homes (unless the patient is bed-bound or any travel would otherwise harm them), with full Nacouy usually sending their mentees to handle the majority of house calls. Highly esteemed nacouy are sometimes hired to become permanent doctors for royal families.

They are considered the backbone of medical practice and knowledge in Imperial Wardin, working life-long as healers while also extensively recording their knowledge and findings in the process. They are expected to be highly literate and good writers, though usually hire servant scribes as assistants for this matter. After retirement (usually around 50) they generally spend the remainders of their lives as teachers in their former schools.

There are plenty of people in this society who work as healers without being a member of these orders. These are mostly people living in small villages who work as doctors for their community, usually having inherited this position from their parents. They are very unlikely to have a formal education or to be literate in written Wardi, but will have learned a broad variety of medical lore via oral transmission and cooperation with other healers. This role tends to double as a local spiritual authority in places that are distant from priestly centers, as spiritual knowledge is a requirement for being a good healer.

I will be 100% real I don't have the post-canon timeline Solidified for anyone but Couya and Palo (and also Faiza on account of her being dead) so I don't have much set in stone for this.

The main thing that impacts this is that I have two HEAVILY branching options how things are going to go for Janeys specifically (and by extension his children). In one option, the post-coup restructuring attempts to legitimize the Odomache as a dynastic kingship, kind of like old Ephenni kingship where a king's sister's eldest son was his heir, except patrilineal and focused on producing related female heirs that can become celibate god-monarchs. Janeys would thus be semi-forced into forming part of the body of a new royal dynasty, and one or both of his children would be subject to extremely high-stakes political marriages to fully entrench their positions.

In the other option, this system develops much later on during a succession crisis towards the end of Couya's life, or after a highly questioned appointment of her successor. Janeys just kinda gets dropped and goes back to being the Haidamane failson who just inherited a kinda shit parcel of land and a bunch of cows, his only children are girls so the family line dies with him. They get married off (or Erubi might be inducted as an Odonii) in a pretty normal capacity and have pretty normal lives for female nobility.

Both routes would need further development so I'm not sure what I'm going with yet. The former is wayyy meatier because it sucks worse and also would entail additional succession issues because THE KIDS ARE BASTARDS. Not everything needs to be so fucking dramatic though.

One other thing is that, spoiler alert, baby #3 ends up stillborn (baseline high infant mortality rates don't mix well with spending most of your pregnancy traveling long distances over land). His existence was an ominous growing weight of the future, a body dies in the womb but the future comes nonetheless, etc. Baby # 3 has no particular feelings about the circumstances of his conception.

Otherwise yeah Erubi is presently at an age where she can start to understand complex aspects of the world she lives in and question her place in things, so this is quickly oncoming. She's already approached some of the immediately obvious questions like 'why am I the only Haidamane with red hair?', with the answer being the (culturally standard) notion that red hair runs in some families with some northerner blood and just kind of pops up every so often ((given the gene is recessive and can seemingly spontaneously express in children of two brown haired parents who carry it)). Hibrides' grandfather was a redhead, and one of Janeys' great great grandfathers was from the province Erub and a lot of people there have red hair. So it came from that.

One mitigating factor is that, as female children of nobility, they don't spend a whole lot of time out of the household in General and have next to no experience seeing how other households work in person. They play with the children of servants and peasants sometimes but any instances "your family is kinda weird" they're getting is gonna go over their heads initially because their learned first instinct will be "you just think that because you're a commoner/PEASANT".

This is going to start hitting home more when said kids can better verbalize (or behave on the basis of) rumors that the two children are bastards via the unwed middle aged man just kinda living in their house in an atypical capacity. And when they notice strange looks from their dad's extended family, and pick up on how Brakul almost never accompanies them anywhere in public, and how their mom makes Erubi wear her braids down her back so you can't see her hair under the veil but doesn't make her brunette sister do so, and how their dad and 'uncle' sleep in the same room most nights and have occasionally been encountered cuddling on the couch next to the shrine, and how they've also seen their mom and 'uncle' sleep in the same room sometimes, and start to fill in some of the blanks.

I don't expect them to be any more interested in their parent's love lives or the circumstances of their conception than most children are, so they probably won't give much of a shit about most of this until they're old enough to have other resentments of their parents to think about in tandem. It's going to specifically be the fact that THEY might be bastards (and how that affects their treatment by people who suspect this, and how it might impact their future prospects) that gets to them. There's no reason they wouldn't internalize concepts like 'being a bastard is shameful' 'being a product of adultery is shameful' etc, none of their parents actually disagree with that notion anyway (they just interpret the combination marriage + sworn brotherhood kinship to be a mitigating factor that makes it not Quite the same thing).

Erubi is going to be someone who wants to interrogate the world and her place in it. Once she has any reason to suspect her illegitimate status and is able to properly verbalize her questions, she's not going to let them hear the end of it. They're going to be plagued with questions until she gets an explanation she can understand, and plagued with more questions until she gets tired/bored of it. There's no chance in hell that this explanation is going to be a well-worded, compassionate, easy to understand one, and she's probably going to alternate between being angry/annoyed and pretending it isn't a thing for a while. I think she could come to some kind of terms with it though. Like, she is TECHNICALLY a bastard, but not like other bastards who are fatherless or were born in the kinds of secret, shady extramarital affairs their parents should get whipped and fined and socially ostracized for.

Both kids are inevitably going to have difficult relationships with their parents (not just because of the situationship stuff but on the basis that they're all difficult people and 2/3 of them didn't actually want kids) but I think Erubi will end up with Fairly positive feelings towards them overall into adulthood. They're your mom and dad and your dad's live-in boyfriend who is your actual dad, you're supposed to love and honor them no matter what. I see her pivoting to kinda treat Brakul as her Real Dad on an emotional level when she gets older.

I think she's also going to strongly internalize cultural values of pride in one's family and their honor, so she'll be pretty willing to defend things. Like, 'No my dad is NOT an effeminate cunnari, my uncle just lives with him because he has no land, and my dad loves him dearly enough to provide him a life worthy of his stature, which is a VIRTUE for such a bond. May I remind you that the old king Erub kept his sworn brother Janes as his right hand, to live within his palace and govern at his side? Famously? It's like that. I am NOT a bastard and my resemblance to my uncle is HAPPENSTANCE, red hair runs in my mom and dad's families. You see the way my hair falls in waves? THAT comes from my dad. You don't see my [bald] uncle having hair like this, do you? Yeah. Actually, how dare you even suggest that I'm illegitimate? Are you implying my mother is some kind of whore? I could have you flogged for that. [INTERNALLY: My dad is totally a faggot]'.

Livya will be more someone who picks up the vibe that No One Talks About This For A Good Reason and decides to follow suit. She might also ask a lot of questions early on, but give up after the first few terse non-answers, and would ultimately figure it out on her own and/or hear it from Erubi. She'll play along even if it eventually comes out in the open, and will probably go some lengths to emotionally distance herself from Brakul in particular. He's not Supposed to be her father after all, that's part of this whole deal. It will weigh on her heavily that people who know or suspect the general circumstances of her birth will see her as lesser or a liability in some capacity, a possible bastard from a bad family. She'll probably keep most of the discomfort about it to herself.

If the Less Dramatic route happens, it's probably going to be harder than average to find her a husband, depending on whether the families of her prospective matches are aware of the rumors. The process of being sold off like goods is already taxing enough, the feeling that no one even wants to Buy because of circumstances beyond your control might be even worse for her.

I think her inevitably difficult relationship with her parents is going to boil over into resentment in adulthood, lingering on the ways that they've set her up for difficulty and have shamed their family, particularly in contrast to Erubi (who is probably going to end up being an Odonii, was expected to do so from a young age, has been rewarded for headstrong, 'boyish' behaviors and expressions of autonomy that Livya can't get away with the same way). Hopefully her inevitable arranged marriage will be a good match, and she gets a husband and new family she can eventually feel at home with. Even if it doesn't work out that neatly, she'd still try to find a different sense of identity in this new life. Being the wife to a good man is at least better than being the suspected bastard of a failed father. She wouldn't HATE any of her parents though, and might miss her mother in particular. Might even feel a new sense of sympathy for her in retrospect, wonder how much of a choice she really had in things.

A dense patch of high summer oak savanna ft. gazelle

Janeys:

He's kind of trying. He's really kind of trying, a little.

The fact that they're not actually his children and that he's cuckolded himself by cultural definition Does grate at him. He is raising another man's children, he's doing so because he's effeminate and soft and could barely even bring himself to fuck his own wife, and his scattered successful attempts ended in jack shit because he's probably infertile to boot, probably a natural eunuch even. So now he's a cuckolded failed man raising another man's kids. It's a weird mixture of feelings, he looks at these children and can pick out the features of the person he loves most in the entire world, and those same features are a reminder that he's an EFFEMINATE CUCK and also that he could be LEGALLY CHARGED FOR ABETTING ADULTERY.

He's also pretty irritated that neither of them are boys. Like he's already the pitiful death of his bloodline no matter what via not actually siring offspring to begin with, and he can't even pass himself off as Not That since none of his claimed bastards are male. He had kind of convinced himself he was looking forward to having a son and teaching this hypothetical son things his Own father couldn't because Janeys was too sickly as a little kid/his dad was so busy/when his dad wasn't busy he mostly hung around with Faiza and Couya instead for some reason. Now he can't even do that.

He's actually been able to Kind Of handle this to a surprisingly decent extent via rationalization. The Point of sworn brotherhood is ultimately providing for your brother's children, and he's doing that. He's doing that Extremely well by claiming them and raising them as his own so they're not suffering a life as the nameless bastard products of adultery. He also obviously can't perform official rites of adoption because they're supposed to be His Kids, but he DIY'd it for both of the children in their infancy. He's kin to them by blood. They Are his kids now. He DIY'd adoption blood rites it's fine.

They are HIS KIDS and he is going to set them up with EVERYTHING THEY NEED and MAKE SURE THEY HAVE SECURE FUTURES and they're girls so it's HIBRIDES' AND THE SERVANTS' AND TUTOR'S JOBS TO DO THE CHILDREARING.

Most of whatever affection he has for his kids is deeply entangled with the fact that they are, in fact, Brakul's kids. He's caught between feelings of 'I have become a facsimile of a father in the most shameful way possible' and 'If Brakul was a woman I would have impregnated him SO hard, or vice versa, fuck man I don't even care, and I guess this is the next best thing?'. He ultimately kind of conceptualizes them more like adopted nieces, he's the head of their household above all else.

So like ultimately he's pretty distant with them except when he feels compelled to attempt his expected functions of Paternal Guidance. He gets irritated when they pester him and is quick to foist them off onto Someone Else, and has to try very hard to not lose his temper with Erubi who is Very demanding and Very stubborn. The head of a family should be stoic and cool headed and should demand respect without force of anger, and also Brakul will straight up fucking murder him if he loses his shit at his kids.

He does get them a lot of gifts, and gets genuine enjoyment out of seeing them happy and Provided For. He got both of them pet polecats because he remembered how much he liked the ratter in his childhood home that would sleep on his stomach. Hand selected two of the cuddliest, tamest kits from a temple ratter's litter. Was psychologically devastated when Erubi eventually threw hers out a window, killing it. This was right in the middle of his mourning period for his mother so he really can't deal with this shit, pulls her aside and yells why the FUCK did you do that. She starts crying, says I Don't Know. He's at the end of his rope for a variety of reasons and now they're both crying. She says she's sorry and calls him papa and he has to flee the room. He gets her another polecat before leaving on the pilgrimage a few months later. That's how it is.

---

Brakul:

He was BY FAR the most reticent about this whole thing at the get-go but is also the only one of them who Actually Wants To Be A Parent. He's perpetually haunted by the whole 'abandoning his firstborn son' thing and has ultimately come to the conclusion that he just wasn't ready then. He's ready now.

He was the primary caretaker for Erubi in her infancy, doing just about everything short of nursing her, and parental bonded with her HARD. It took several months before Janeys could land a trusted wet nurse to take over, and they pretty much had to rip the damn baby out of his arms. He wasn't as involved with Livya's early childcare 3 years down the line though. He ended up getting hit with his own post-partum depression and spiraling pretty bad (several months of binge drinking), and by that point they had permanent help on hire anyway. So he didn't have that infancy skin-contact bonding period with her, and definitely shows Erubi a degree of preferential treatment. He thinks of both of them as his children but Erubi is HIS child, he was a mother and father to her ('because I guess OTHER PEOPLE around here would rather pay a stranger to nurse their baby than DO IT THEMSELVES LIKE THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO').

He does adore both of these kids though. His dominant personal struggle is that he's not Supposed to be their father, not supposed to let them know he's their father, and just in general is supposed to minimize being seen with them as much as possible (they have some very obvious points of resemblance to him). He did know this was what he was getting into but didn't really comprehend how acute it would be, and also Kind Of thought he 100% be their dad in private. He's living in the same house as them and can interact with them on an everyday basis so it's not like he's locked away from his offspring. But he does really want to be a father, has very specific ingrained ideas of what a father Should Be, and he isn't able to Be that in its entirety. It's even more frustrating because Janeys and ESPECIALLY Hibrides aren't being the things he thinks a father or mother Should Be, while here he is ready and willing and desperate to do both of their jobs for them and he Can't.

He wants to take them out in public, have them watch him compete, introduce them to his friends and acquaintances, teach them basic self defense and how to ride and all sorts of other life skills. He wants them to call him papa. And very importantly, they're his descendants, he's the root of their male ancestral line. They Should know and honor the names of their ancestors, they Should be able to look to them for guidance and protection, they Should have the comfort of knowing they have a home in this connection wherever they go (especially since they'll eventually be married off and moved far from everything they know; he Kind Of knows how that feels, and unlike him they'll have little choice in the matter), and he Should be able to teach them this. But he can't, because they're not supposed to know that he's their father. Etc.

So his parental functions boil down to 'being the 'Uncle' who lives in the same house as them for some reason'. He kind of takes advantage of this by positioning himself as the Fun One and leaving most situations that require sternness for other people to handle. He's willing to play games with them and get climbed on and fulfill the basic small child need to get thrown through the air onto soft surfaces. He's fairly doting overall, though does get exhausted with them now that they're big enough to follow him around and demand attention, and will also participate in the household tradition of Foisting Them Off To Someone Else. (Their current tutor does a massive portion of the day to day caretaking).

He really likes telling them stories. Livya is 3 years old so is pretty enthusiastic about Listening To Adults and Acquiring Language, Erubi is more hit and miss as to whether she's into it or just wants to play with her damn touys. She's just getting to an age where she has some understanding of the world and a desire to be a Big Kid, and he's found that he can get her to actually sit still and pay attention by getting as morbid with it as possible. He's a big believer in 'scare the shit out of those damn kids so they don't go out wandering where they shouldn't' so he's all for it. He'll settle her down and unload the most harrowing ghost stories he can muster, and she's now kind of scared of a) snow b) boulder fields c) deer d) dragons, fortunately all things she is unlikely to encounter very often.

---

Hibrides:

She in no capacity wants or has ever wanted to be A Mother, and has always just seen it as an inevitable obligation (which to some extent it is on a societal level) that she'd have to get over with sooner than later. She and Janeys actually did have an active period of trying to conceive, which is about as grim as it sounds and she became EXTREMELY eager to get it over with by any means necessary. The 'have Brakul do it' thing was originally her idea.

Part of her willingness in spite of not really Wanting it was because Hibrides' closest older female relations (her mother and her brother's wife) both ended up feeling pretty alright in their situations. They wound up liking their husbands and forming easy, loving bonds with children. So she was going into it having gotten the message 'YES getting married off to a stranger and being moved away from everything and everyone you know will be the hardest, most soul crushing thing you ever do, but you'll love your children, and your husband will eventually stop being a stranger and it will all feel normal someday'. And kind of just expecting that to Happen, and especially expecting that she would just have an innate Female Maternal Bond with her offspring.

This did not happen. She did not have a magical child bond at birth, and instead went through very intense post-partum depression. She didn't want to nurse, and when she did there was no feelings of warmth that there were Supposed To be. If anything it was just revulsion towards the infant, like it was some sort of parasite. Which made her feel absolutely broken and monstrous, so she spent most of Erubi's infancy avoiding her as much as possible. Brakul Also thought it was horrible that she wanted little to do with her kid and guilt tripped the shit out of her about it, which shockingly only made things worse.

It got easier when Erubi survived infancy and started to walk and talk and stopped feeling like a purely symbolic 'helpless thing you SHOULD feel maternal towards, you fucking monster'. Livya's infancy wasn't much easier, but Hibrides was more prepared for it and had full time hired help at that point, so she could be pretty much entirely hands off until she was weaned. It's nursing that distresses her most singularly.

Part of the the dynamic w/ her kids is that she has a sister a full decade younger than her, who Hibrides last saw when she was 15 and her sister was 5. Like, the kid is now 18, has been married for almost two years, and is expecting a child last she heard, but it's so hard to wrap her head around that. She's kind of been perpetually 5 in Hibrides' mind ever since.

So it's not that hard to translate those feelings into pretending her biological offspring are just younger sisters, kind of approaching it she's still at home and watching her actual sister grow up. This doesn't extend to like Actually denying that she's their mother, but she engages with them like they're much, much younger siblings.

She's still kind of emotionally distant and stern with them, has very deeply ingrained feelings that People Should Learn Crying And Moping Doesn't Get Them What They Want, Even If They're Babies. (There's some deeper underlying issues here that can be summarized very basically as 'crying never got me what I wanted and you gotta learn at some point').

This was something she learned in part from JANEYS' mother, who tried to parent her for a few years and is someone she has very complicated feelings towards. The senior Livya Haidamane was deeply miserable and bitter about her life, saw the young and naive version herself in a 15 year old Hibrides, and made a genuine and deeply misguided effort to comfort her by teaching her about the harsh realities of life (while also using her as a replacement Golden Child to wield as a cudgel against her other children). Hibrides does not like her at all and REALLY doesn't want to become like her, but saw some value in this experience. She wants her kids to be prepared for their futures. She doesn't want them coddled and then subsequently traumatized at how hard life can be.

All that being said, she doesn't Hate her life, hasn't had all the joy sucked out of her, and does feel affection towards them as 'children I am related to'. Being hardline stern doesn't really come naturally to her to begin with, it's something she's had to force as a matter of constantly regulating herself. She's not being what a mother is expected to be but is doing an okay job as a quasi-older sister. She doesn't really play with them, but will indulge them in watching them attempt to stand on their heads and put on plays and pretend to be bards and charioteers and etc. She's pretty invested in teaching them life skills (mostly Erubi by virtue of being old enough for it), and will wrangle her to teach her weaving and embroidery and to subject her to longform poetry (she doesn't care for it now but she'll learn. She'll appreciate it someday).

---

All in all I would describe the situation as Not Great But Could Be A Lot Worse, Also These People Are Lucky They Can Afford Servants And Tutors To Do Childcare For Them.

While I'm at it here's a sketch from a couple weeks ago

Grandma's cremation is so FUCKING boring

Oh yeah no absolutely not, when I describe something as ‘lore friendly’ that’s a tongue in cheek descriptor for ‘not even slightly reflective of in-universe conditions to an extreme degree as a joke’

The only precursor camera technology extant is intentional use of the natural camera obscura phenomena, mainly for viewing eclipses

Hibrides threw a bottle of wine from her saddlebag at a charging boar nechoi, thus drawing first blood in a hunt for the first time and, by custom, technically earning a blooding after its death. She's feeling pretty proud of her surprisingly good aim and absolutely thrilled to rub it in.

Yeah armor is worn under the cloak and over the skirt for some ceremonies/very rare battlefield appearances, it's been gold lamellar in recent history. Here's a quick sketch

Also relevant, here's an older sketch of the previous Odomache in mega-private getting fitted by one of her associates Amanti Mitlippe. This is normally a job for the 'lieutenant' servants and not other Odonii, and there was definitely something going on there.

They're both dead I'm sorry