Nargol

What's a Nargol? Odd people I say. Skin the color of iron-rich rock and hair like quills or straw. They even have monkey-toes! No, no. Don't say that to their face. Nor to anyone else either. They're a very practical people. Don't waste good oil when a glowing moss-covered branch will do. They live underground. Yes. They make their homes on canyon walls with not so much as a rope to help them get there! Incredibly agile people who like to travel light. Though they always wear big hats and scarves in the heat and old. They like how moderate it is underground. Seasons aren't a thing for them down there. Yes, they do like to explore occasionally but they don't like to impose themselves on other people's space. They stick to their tunnels.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Nargoli are tough-skinned underground dwellers with incredible agility and dextrous toes. Their hair grows stiff like straw. They are born with a coating of it to protect their delicate skin from sediment and silt. Their skin ranges in color from a rusty red to a brown-gray color. Their one to three foot tall bodies are lean and flexible. Their average weight is sixty pounds. They have six ribs and a thicker jaw.

Genetics and Reproduction

Nargoli are male and female. Males are called Nids and females are Sanids. Their gestation period ranges from four to six months. The females give birth to live children but their eyes are closed at birth. The eyes will open at two weeks old.

Growth Rate & Stages

Nargol children learn to climb at the same time as they learn to walk, six to eight months. They eat solid food at ten months old and learn how to speak at one year old. Byfour years old they are able to navigate the dark underground tunnels by themselves. By six years old they can climb vertical surfaces at the same rate as adults. They reach sexual maturity at 12, but they do not mature intelectually until fifteen.

Ecology and Habitats

Nargoli love underground or cavernous environments with plenty of airflow. They prefer some light but live best in shaded and sheltered areas. They enjoy a damp environment more than others due to fungal growth and insect populations.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Nargoli generally eat fungus and rodents that they find underground. They enjoy catching insects and making stews out of them as well. Animals that wandeer in from the surface are a treat, but they also except gifts of food fom surface dwellers. Nargoli build up a natural resistance to poison and are immune to all poisonous spore effects.

Biological Cycle

Nargoli who reach sexual and intelectual maturity generally live for another forty to sixty years. Ovulating and pregnant females develop a waxycoatinng over theirpubic region and breasts This coating is reabsorbed when gestation or ovulation ends. Females enter manapause in their late thirties. Males never lose firtility. After age forty, all Nargoli begin losing dexterity in their digits. After fifty they may lose sight and smell.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

They navigate mostly by touch. They use ligght only for navigation. Their noses and ears tell them where things are. Their keen hearing can hear the lightest shuffling of feet on stone or the tiny crackling noises from a thin sheet of rock.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Nargoli enjoy otomotopia. They nametheir children after the sounds that they hear underground. Each Nargol also has a tactile name tha they tap out on another's wrist by way ofintroduction.

Major Organizations

TheKunthite Republic, the Defenders of Freedom, the Modoles of the Values.

Beauty Ideals

Nargoli often wax their hair to stiffen it and shape it into spikes. They also prefer theirown natural wax over moss or fungus-derrived wax. They prefer rough skin and large noses.

Gender Ideals

Females are expected to maintain the climbing surfaces around the home, ensuring that Nargos can climb with ease. They are also expecteed to teach their children to climb and abut personal hygene. Males are expected to teach and uphold the Values and explain etiquette and literacy to their children.

Courtship Ideals

The most satisfying couple to watch and be a part of is one who does everything together, watches one another's backs, and courts one person at a time.

Relationship Ideals

The Values of Integrity, Charisma, Inteligence, agility, willpower and Strength are ideally upheld by both parties in a relationship. They are expected to protect one another, communicate to each other, and worktogether.

Average Technological Level

Nargoli are stillin the stone age.Thoughthey know how to work metal, they view thetrade as a mark of the foreign power they were enslaved to. Though it is a nececary traade,there are very few smiths in their society because they are disliked.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

There is only Kunthite and Varondian, though they do not speak the latter unless it is to an outsider.

Common Etiquette Rules

Nargoli are expected to knead the spores out of their food before eating it. They are also expected to thank their hosts with an embrace. Hosts are expected to treat their guests as family.

Common Dress Code

Nargoli prefer tight-fitting but flexible clothing. They commonly press moss or lichen into sheets of fibers which they than felt into clothing. They prefer full coverage with extra padding around the shoulders and hips.

Common Taboos

Any foreigner wo pass through their civilization is expected to behave as though Nargoli are equals. Any condescension from either party is a sign of disrespect of the highest degree. To think of another sapient beingas inferior is to assume dominance, and thus authority over them. Those who behave as though everyone must folllow their orders are called "Ducthaya" Tyrants.

History

Nargoli live in the northwestern region of Silvestri which they call "Kunth. They enjoy a subtropical mountain environment with regular rain. Very few outside of their culture know about how they came to be. Legond says that the gods of the surface banished them here for a grave offense against the other Kavunths. They lived under human powers for a brief time in their history. Some of them were traded as "exotic" servants or slaves to foreign countries. Now they prefer not to let members of other species live among them and they prefer not to live among other species.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

They are amused by the Thalim who often misinterpret their language. They named "serodechia" after the Kunthite phrase "Sed ode chya" "Nothing to find there. " referring to the land over the mountains. They resent humans, especially dark-skinned ones, for their earlier enslavement.

Scientific Name

Ticarae Denmis Nargol

Origin/Ancestry

Silvestrian, Kunthite.

Related Materials

• Fungal fabric