Ursarian
The Ursarian are a broad mammal group of inhabitants that dominate the planet of Ursari. They are often compared to bipedal bear-like creatures, but may also be construed as wolverine, or badger-like. They have foraged a society divided by competing tribes & forts, and show a confusing display of intelligence, primitive nature, and a constant struggle of balance between cooperative alliances. On the CDAM scale, they rank as a Vahakin. They seem mostly capable of being underseen as liable to be taken advantage of, and yet seem to know more than they let on. They have reached some forms of cross-universal contact (likely from outside help), may stowaway on traveler vessels, and have dealt with trade, but are still in early phases of their own space colonization (never the less their own universal transports).
Most of them live in a region effected by deep winter states, and mild summers. They have adapted by spending a large amount of time connecting their larger groups into underground bunkers, where in most seasons they ignore and spend the time in small housing and villages where they gather abundant food, share lively art, and even have playful sports with what most societies would designate as 'enemies'. They also have a strong reverence for astrology, and study behind the stars, including a two early budding space colonies multiple tribes stay in contact with to measure progress and star trades. During the fall and early winter, some tribes get more aggressive over last minute decisions, or trying to look to find vulnerabilities. In the deep winter, most are underground where they mostly sleep, with smaller intermittent activities, and close rationing of resources. The few that don't dwell in effected regions (mostly an ethic group of Roosa that's a bit shorter) are more calm, lazy, and largely unprogressive without the same society and timing pressures to schedule ideas and developments around.
Basic Information
Anatomy
They have broad furred bodies, often growing to hold stout traits with large shoulders, strong arms, and may often be more fat than thin as they work to hold out against a harsh winter. Their heads have short bearish snouts, but their ears tend to be born pointy-tipped naturally, even if a cropping style has some trending relations. Likewise, they also host a mid-length tail-brush of coarse fur, contrasting against their mostly bearish image. Their fur is often eathen shades of brown, brown-red, black, pale-tan, and in more rare cases albino, or 'aurora' blue. For fingers they lack one more than most dominant races, having only three primary fingers, and a thumb. Females & Males look nearly identical, with females lacking the same curves & breasts as most bipedal humanoids, instead beholden to an older format more comparable to quadrupedal mammals. However female and male differences in pheromones are strong enough that sometimes even another race can 'smell' one apart from the other. The dominant main group of Ursarian also goes by the ethnic name of Nelvan.
A smaller ethnic group called the Roosa vary in a couple ways. They're more often shorter, with predominantly flopping rounder ears often draped along the back of the head, while two small horns sprout closer to the top. A female only has one horn. This group is more often found in warmer and tropical regions, but is still fairly prominent or even mixed-blood with the Nelvans as a second-class found doing some of the technical and computer jobs around their villages.
Dietary Needs and Habits
They eat a wide range of things, technically being classified as omnivores even if they have a bias towards sharper teeth. They tend to favor chocolate, fish, berries, and honeycombs (honey itself is considered more a poor leftover). They use nuts as an additive to many cooked meals. Their least favorite things often involve grain, and starchy vegetables, which plenty will still eat.
Civilization and Culture
Average Technological Level
An odd array of technology, it is suspected that winter cycles have bot inspired and stunted the race from heavy advances. They have built elaborate materials, and forging, to produce strong metallic structures that get used for a lot of serious needs like military walls, communicator links, and winter bunkers. However they still use vintage materials for more individual ideals, like summer cabins, or simple hiking sticks, and some even still prefer to hunt with bushcraft bows. They still develop guns, heavy armor, and work often with a fighting philosophy to look strong and be strong. More recreational activity has lead tech to still allow a format of television, computers and games, but they lack the desire some see as more sophisticated formats, such as purely streaming format, and very spare use of holographic projections. They tend to have older designs of more physical hardware, boxed televisions and monitors, and sometimes more compacted keyboarding systems to help cope with mildly less dexterous hands.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Vahamin: They have a very friendly, if spare tie to vahamin associates. Associates are often only done over comm chats, and visible trade values, and they respect and admire that, but one long span in their history also held a researcher outpost they came to treat like brothers, if also ignoring the odd differences they could see within technology that gave them ideas of 'Impurities' with the human race. Alternatively, they'd had so little exposure to the Rustgoths, that they actually believe images they have seen to be simply a vahamin in 'war-armor'.
Ryclin: Ursarians tend to view ryclins as the best manifested resource of the term 'alien'. They will be amused by their physical presence, to see them hopping, or merely expressing itself through masks or gestures, and respect a mutual agreement to still gather food. They are also perplexed and curious in a more positive way about their religious values, and will exchange differences in peaceful chats with Therva bio-coder monks. However between the "extreme" show of technology, and the occasional visit one makes to hunt one of their own kind, the Ursarians may also find them to simply be nothing short of weird, and a little discomforting and surreal of a presence to be around. Some even speak of ryclins as an example of why perhaps "the stars should just remain an enigma that we can forge better stories with for ourselves."
Vyllk: They have held some trade exchanges with Vyllks, but hold an unconventional idea of trading them for more raw materials that don't include the popular Koovrot metal. They tend to instead trade food, simpler weapons, and even fabrics, and tend to treat associates with a lot of respect as their 'short feathery brethren'. They admire the race enough, that they are among one of the few that entirely reject Vyllkard meat, even if the race insists it, and in tribal war terms it is forbidden to harm any vyllkard guests.
K'siiva: K'siiva have been just a light blip on their awareness, but over time some influence has shown up, and the K'siiva recreationalists foster the Ursarians in mind as a race to invite within their society once the K'siivakian government is more repaired. In the mean time, they have been sending small agents, and trades over, to show their hospitality and to plant the seeds to a stronger future. The Ursarians only view them as pragmatic tradesmen so far, holding their technology as an alien curiosity, and seeing them more as an enigma they don't yet entirely trust as the K'siiva may want.
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