Vulpira (vol-peer-ah)

The vulpira are a diverse (yet mostly low-ranking) species native to planet Reynara. They resemble vulpine type fox-mammal types more so than even the Jisuki, always having only one tail and a lower 'magic' they call Qio that doesn't often change alter their vulpine sense of reality as much. Despite it being a low-magic, their qio can alter each individual greatly, factoring into mood and performance of the person, and is a form of function divided into types of energies and virtues to harness them. They're a species with mixed reception, given there's been parts of them adopted into the early k'siiva imperial age, a lot of old fashioned pagans, more moderately adapted 'hick-like' types, and confusions with entities like Midnight copies. Generally speaking they are somewhat classified as a Token grade race, knowing of aliens, but rarely engaged with things off their planetary world. They are quite comparable with Lionkin in that sense. Most are associated closely with trickster behavior, and have normalized some sense of theft into systems of sport in their culture.
Vulpira are mostly broken into three segmented racial categories:

Vaxulp: The vulpira abducted and assimilated long ago into the Siivakian Empire. Shorter and long isolated from others, they're the most different of the types. Their Qio potential is small, but they are thrifty, dexterous, and often know how to jump from world to world - often covert and illegally with stolen goods if tempted.

Gekkan: Also loosely called Gekkers, and thought to be associated with the modern Reynaran term for other wild noises they sometimes make around their territories. These are often the deepest wood types, living in more remote village or smaller communities, and surviving largely off nature and rough elements, or old ancient temples built off ancestors. Thought to be holding onto the oldest customs, they cling close to old day/night themed worships, and are considered the wild and unpredictable ones of Reynara. Yet most modern reports suggest they are very friendly and cooperative with others.

Tailen: Also called Tips, or Tail-ends, they derived their names from the colorful tips most vulpira have, thinking metaphorically from a time they felt they verged close to travels near the edges of their planets. In the end the common name flowed with their sudden twang, becoming Tailen, as these vulpira stood out and built with moderate outside intervention, making for the most modern and advanced on-world culture that took up a country-folk lifestyle and more semi-urban customs and utilities.

Basic Information

Genetics and Reproduction

Vixens tend to be the more active courters, and are enthusiastic on pulling male attention, while discerning enough to not prostitute. Once mated, a female produces offspring quite fast, only taking around 3 months average to produce a developed newborn. They tend to have between 1-3 "kits" at a time, the more taking a bit longer to gestate, and four kits being a very rare possibility. A vulpira's life moves slightly faster than average human standards, and they are considered fully mature by age 16, and too old to breed between early 30s-to-40s. Often a couple will have multiple sets of children over time, especially if the vixen is demanding of it. Males are mostly interested in passing their genes onto a son(s), but also own claim to any of the family under him regardless of gender. If his wife moves onto another, he's supposed to keep the children as his legacy.

Below: Vixens are potentially vigorous breeders, but get easily tired for the few months they endure the cycle. They may be sore for a time after, but often press for more kits later. Its ideal in their society to raise a large family.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Vulpira are true omnivores, and tend to enjoy everything from meats to salads. They do consider bugs a wide cultural food exclusive to their very youngest, essentially being as baby-food globally. Seared Greenose pests are staples in Gekkan meals. Tailens have long gotten access to terran livestock, and have a biased love of chicken and pork meats, kale, apples, berries, carrots, and grapes. Drink culture accepts all forms from teas, coffee, liquor, and beyond. They often pride themselves on their own planet's cider, and customs of brewing whiskey and moonshine, more so than others. They love poultry & fowl meats the most, with some outright prone to addictions with specific chicken/duck recipes. Honey is also a popular additive to any dish, and has become a big part of their culture, often with a Tailen phrase even coming to associate a bad mood with skipping a honeyed breakfast like a glazed biscuit or dipped apple. The concept of having vyllkard meat remains a legendary accomplishment, rarely seen without special import or 'knowing the right guy'.
The vulpira are often less social with food than drinking. Bars are considered a good social community, but food often ends up devolving into largely solitary and quick meals. This doesn't negate the chance of dining with friends or chatting to eat, but they don't largely apply the idea with proper feast or dinner customs, and may depart abruptly when eating together if one finishes quick. They often eat light, and move fast, but may at times eat their small meals frequently across the day to keep up with their potential energetic demands.

The race's habits have generally kept a lot fit, formerly having only 7% of young-adult talens being overweight (much less at obesity). However within some cultural cooking cuisines, more fried and "comfort food" is passed down from spare use in older generations, now eaten frequently by the young. Vixens seem more prone to weight-gain, given interests can gravitate more towards home. Newer strategy video games sometimes replace their sportsy wants easier than a tod's on-field cravings. Fried chicken is also being found to have a highly addictive profile to their body. The young-adult overweight rate went up to 17% in recent years from mostly enabled tailen vixens, and its projected as a rising habit. Worse, Nugget's Queen is planning to spread globally, troubling even tods by a large rate; Local areas tend to see overweight and even obesity cases sky-rocket when a new NQ enters. Yet to this day, the vast population remains more fleet-footed & slim. Vixens also counter-balance their peers with vix-huddles that usually shame poor health.
Pictured below: Inactive vixen developing the infamous fried chicken addiction the species is vulnerable to. Average habits give vixens a slim figure, but new home entertainment & comfort-foods are slowly plumping-up their demographic.

Additional Information

Social Structure

Sun & Moon
The sun and moon are high spiritual symbols that have reached abroad across the globe and race. Most Reynaran Vulpira have a set type of reverance for the sun and moon, attributing them to a heavy dualist sense of spirits and methods in which reality works. Sun is for the heat, truth, comfort, seeing, and a broader perspective of order. Moon is considered the keeper of secrets, shadows, chaos, and unpredictability, but also what sharpens and hardens the race to be stronger. They respect and love both, as well as consider a great sense of even elevating unconventional thoughts like the sun being blinding at times, or to compare with lacking privacy when its needed, while the moon supplements and makes up for those traits while offering its own bad tidings. More rustic and jungle-dense vulpira celebrate these elements stronger, but even more modernizing vulpira have leftover terms, slang, and respect for these spiritual ideals.
Honor Among Thieves
Most vulpira integrate theft as a strangely natural part of life and achievement. Therefor petty theft by other races isn't really a crime in their society, unless under set terms. They generally trust people won't pull full anarchy, and pieces of serious value are usually guarded within a sense of community. Stealing say, a whole cow, or a company's working beast of burden, is much harder by the odds and populated security than pickpocketing - and pockets at that measure are often secured well or lost with a 'deserved' sense. Yet most of the thieving actually comes out in games of sheer sport, as if to deflect from more serious happenings. Sun-staffs are common tokens, meant to represent an oath to things seen, and one's pride. To hide and cast even that into dark, across games of theft and run, or hiding it, remark a playful sense of one's honor or pride being stolen. Still, things can be stolen to even a drastic degree in most local laws, including terms for 'wife-winning', where an unexpected lover separating a union is literally considered a fair theft of a vixen's heart. Thefts that are not tolerated are considered Uncivil Thefts and worth arresting, though the terms may vary by place. Same applies to rules of cheating, with floppier terms set given they consider most work-arounds to be a skill of cunning worth also celebrating. Within these sports and legal petty crimes, few actually organize in a way that allows for warfare and more organized wounding or any sense of superficial prejudice.

Sibling Society
Families foster a large deal of respect on siblings. The eldest is supposed to set an example and be raised to help uplift the rest of the kits, whether those born slightly slower off the same twin set, or older by generation. Females tend to encourage heavy reproduction to instill this sensibility, and attempt to reproduce a big family of at least four or more with their mate. Families that break their union too soon, often tend to have single children that wander into another social group or family to form unions, or tight sets of twins/triplets that are very close to each other. The eldest is held in heavy regard, and may be acting as more of the parent themselves in time around the younger and newest siblings. Its very rare for vulpira to truly be lonesome, often finding such a fate either from illness, or a very self-occupied sense of hobby, with witchery and magic users being the most likely to ward off others or be stuck in a book to be worried on heavy social interaction. Yet even most of them tend to crave some social activity, and sometimes garner a bad reputation for magic users by putting on pranks or acts to raise attention if they struggle with such social adaptations.

Average Intelligence

Mid-low. They are often very quick, cunning, and clever in a grounded sense. They show potential to use advanced technology across certain circumstances, but struggle off-balance in others. They rarely use transports, and mostly show a lifestyle too busy to settle and compute more complicated technology. They like very paws-on use over equipment, and close communal associations, tying them up with good wit but lower pique learning ability. Some are very conservative in traditions and have still barely moved on past tribal communities, while others dabble in alien tech and modern appliances while very stiff and rigid to grow on past that progress. They would prefer to play games, mate, and build a nice local home, than to truly engage with the "freaky" things beyond their understanding, and put a lot of energy into their conservative world views.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Vulpira have all-around good senses. Sight, hearing, smell, and touch are all keen abilities. Smell might arguably be their best trait, and said to have some exertion over their more supernatural senses through emitting Qio energy - a Ki-like source of spiritual power harnessing excess fluid energy inside one's self. This gives trained 'witches' and magi the ability to alter things from a gas-like emission of energy and will power emitted from their core energy presence, and controlled breath.
Qio through the body is often categorized in a system between six great energies: Lust, Joy (light energies), Focus, Vitality (neutral), Greed, and Fear (heavy). These energies are considered fluid, and can mix and alternate in ways that cause their senses to stir, such as greed and lust mixing to create jealousy. Basic use of these energies happens daily and often natural, such as finding a new item spiking greed-qio, or intercourse passing a surge of vitalty-lust energies. Harnessing these on a deeper level can allow magic principles of drawing excess energy types off others, and refocusing them into casting through the lungs and air in projectile or gas formats that imprint on the world or others. For instance, raw focus qio can be trained to focus on holding an object down, and in action, the cast of breath can freeze or paralyze the target. Draining off lust energy through female-to-female huddles is a common method of invoking it into charm spells, but given the charged rate females are expected to have, losing it feels draining and the notion is often detested as 'vampirism' in their culture.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Often their names tend to derive from some simpler names that translate quite closely with common tongue. Ronnie/Howard/Beth/Brittany, etc. However a lot also love naming their children after small quirks they're born with. Inkpaw, Amber, Scarlet, Ash, and Smoke are all common based on standard or frequent types of traits, and derivatives may even include something like "Leifla" akin to leaf for stark green eyes.

Gender Ideals

Males (tods) tend to be geared natively towards the material side, and have stronger focus & greed qio energies off their hormones. They love collecting trinkets, proving their worth, and finding the best ways to steal, or sneak their way into fame. Tricks, cheats, theft, shiny objects, money, banking, and such are a large drive for them, while they're also really good at stern commands and quick decisions. In the wild they are known to be the most likely to commit odd acts, insane dare-devil stunts, or do something odd to draw attention. In the family unit, they're most likely to set the stern rules, enforce them, and yet make up for offenses or dishonorable things that come towards his children. If the wife moves on, he is to keep the children, and the most innately possessive of them. As they host a great deal of protective ego, and think of being clever, they are actually somewhat shy and difficult to approach females outside of official duties. Given females are often flirty in their race, but quite selective, they prefer females approach them, rather than risk the chance they are being gamed or tricked and may witness shame. Still, some fail to resist the chance of a winning approach. Otherwise they tend to be more rigid and reserved when it comes to flirtatious decisions, and more calculated about when to have more offspring, but not cut off from the emotion and can be forced into it through a set amount of cast lust-qio energy from a magic vixen.
Females (vixens) tend to be more sexually energetic and creative with higher joy & lust qio-energies from their hormones. This makes them drastically more of the flirty and outgoing socialites among public groups, developing even a system they're (in)famous for known as vix-huddles, where two unrelated females tend to embrace and make-out over each other. Tight hugging, groping, kissing, and other activities most would consider sexually complicated, is actually quite normal across all but Vaxulp forms of the race. They aim to tease and stir envy in passing males, while for other females, they either express compliments or insults, sometimes pairing up and 'loving' on rivals just to embarrass and shame them for flawed features in the huddle. Despite lots of horny considerations on their mind, they are actually somewhat reserved on picking a mate until they 'sense' a good one, or get to have a conversation, though they don't do long form dates so often and tend to go with hunches or even qio readings. A union is agreed when they consent to mating, and often they play a smaller role in raising the family, but a large role in securing the environment, putting more effort into creative outlets and crafting ideas that support the homestead. Usually after a week of birthing kits, their lust energy is spiking high and desiring more to support the family legacy, and make the most of their home.

Lifespan

65-80 Years

Conservation Status

Their star-exploring counterparts are mildly endangered & protected

Average Height

Varies by region. Most Reynarans are 1.7m, but have a past history of being quite shorter.

Average Physique

Slender & lithe. Don't build a lot of muscle/fat on normal diets. A slow fattening population is seen in relation to fried comfort foods or NQ.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Often earthen brown tones, or ashy darks. Paws often have special colorations, and some dark markings may form around their snouts or eyes.

Related Organizations

• Second Siivakian Empire

Related Technologies

• Solid-state Television