Sfixian

The Sfixian species is a race of humanoid feline-like mammals that most inhabit the eastern half of K'mosia. They are a race of mixed pride and humility in odd ways, and are oddly among the few sentient races with a rich history working as companions with mankind - if with still occasional divides and tensions, often related to the ruling bloodline of the K'mosian kingdom. It is believed they may have evolved from some combination of ekethians, and some form of 'furmen' primate. Some even speculate they've been the prolonged result of some form of halfling, and have since cast branching sub-groups called the Felyjian, and the Sylven. Sfixians take their name from one of two contentiously debated points: 1) A family clan name that grew to high power, and influence. 2) The territory of Sfixle, which once was home one of the most powerful tribes of the race during the primal period.. Its possible these two overlap, and the region itself was named after the clan, but historians aren't certain.
They are perhaps best known for their time in the feudal era of K'mosia. They tended to lean more on the dominant side of local politics, with a royal family bloodline, and many landlords and regional owners with variables of branching serfs. The systems had their ups and downs, with some lords fighting with each other, but generally it made many prosperous and held off for a long while against a far more violent regime in the Ank'Shii empire.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Sfixian mostly resemble a lion-like feline of some form, walking upright with digitigrade paws, moderate snouts, and manes that develop differently on both genders. Though they typically have longer pointed ears, many will crop them more short and round. Like the Reketta, they come up marginally taller than some humans. Some may have spots, stripes, and variations of fur coats, but the majority have faintly visible spots at most with coats shaded between dark brown, to pale gold in spectrum. Some old bone structures support the idea they may have had feathers long ago, but have long lost this.
Male and female differ slightly beyond the normal distinctions. Females tend to have slightly less tuft hair on their tail-tips, and grow manes more central to the back of the scalp and downward. They also host more probability of patterns. Many females culturally cut all mane hair off until they're older or retired. Males on the other hand, tend to have longer hair tufts, and more a circular mane that will cross down their jaw and grow off the chin in addition to the scalp, but the mane typically retains shorter length.

Genetics and Reproduction

Formerly thought to be a 'liter' type mammal, they have adapted like humans and only breed in small spans of one-to-two children at a time. They do however, have twins more often, and consider such pairs "Den-kin" with certain expectations of honor to be shared between the two. While times and cultures change, it is typically thought that the healthier ones are born with darker fur. The cub or cubs are initially blind for the first three days, but can stand and balance upright with some intelligence, often leading them to follow their mother around by holding onto the tail.
They age a little faster than typical people, being fully mature by age 12, but passing often as little as in their 50s. As such, the young are raised very quickly, and may be sent on their own as young as 10.

Dietary Needs and Habits

they are omnivores with some sharper canines than humans, fit for tearing and consuming more raw meat, and for a while in even Scholar Period times, it was more common for them to eat it raw. However they had quickly moved beyond that in other instances, and in civil company, try more of the same methods their human allies might. They will also enjoy berries, starches, grains, and greens, with the common meat on the trade often being pork, duck, and goat.
Their culture still looks at odds with storing food though. They hold food stores, but are worse at preserving, trading, or saving food, leaving the job of food markets or livestock care more to their human allies, serfs, or foreign trade. The prosperous (often politicians for some eras) do overeat more frequently, while the poor are well-adjusted to survive one meal a day, or even binging and then lasting on a larger meal for most of a week. This has however, adjusted them poorly to the abundance trade brought onto them. When the Reketta showed them how to 'properly' eat Taur, everyone found there to be more than plenty to eat. Even guards had access to excess, and could often be found feasting right at their place of duty.

Additional Information

Social Structure

1. Sun Lords: Lords of an estate, almost always males. They owned land, answered only to the king or equal owner, and ran a lot of things ranging from local taxes, farms, serfs, etc. Their immediate family, or in similar instances their harem, was of near equal position of care.
   
2. Soldiers / Guards: These are conscripted commoner Sfixian females. Often while cared for somewhat poorly, they return with higher rights and virtues than that of the commoner, or humans that may not have served. In some times and places, a decorated warrior even hosted some limited privilege over a Sun Lord.
   
3. Artisans / Commoners: People with some independent fortune, earning, mild military assistance, merchant status, or small priviledge. Sometimes living under a Sun Lord in conditions similar to serfdom, while others own small plots of their own land. They were commonly the kingdom-associated humans, male sfixian book keepers, impaired or retired female sfixian, or halflings.
   
4. Serfs: Often either born into the role, or of owing some debt, a serf serves the sun lord and most others on whim of command, and owe certain working rolls and tasks that must be accomplished. They commonly worked on farms, or tedious crafts, occasionally being bullied by merchants for creating products that stole from their own ability to profit.

Domestication

Sfixian slaves were had in later years of the Rekettan empire, but proved to be unpredictable, and harder tempered to control. They were however better than most at intensive field labor work, and could be inspired to be better harvest pickers if well cared for in their resting hours.

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Their pelts or cut tails were accepted as trade in some regions. In later years, their Taur farms proved easy to raid for easy taking. They were designated as inedible for the beginning interactions with Reketta, but in later years the reptilians found organs that could be used. However their main assailant was with the Ank'shii, who could eat or exploit any species for a variety of factors, and the poor Sfixians happened to be near their largest group.

Average Intelligence

They are highly capable race, but among the most instinct-base at their most independent level. They tend to have a limited array of art, creative innovation, or complex invention. Most of their progress has been side-by-side with the better innovations of humanity, and as humans introduce concepts, they adapt or better enforce things that have typically cemented their foundation. However if raised without such influence, they tend to just be still, and calculating basics to success. If you gave a hungry one a spear, it would figure things out for hunting; however if you just gave them an ink quill, the best productive idea it might have is 'terror' make-up. It is through cooperation, order, and generational raising and heritage that have allowed this creature to progress as well as it has.

Civilization and Culture

Beauty Ideals

Often somewhat contradictory, customs of beauty and worth were often paradoxical around physical displays of vanity and worth, while other instances were more about hiding them. It really depended on the person-to-person, and their wishes. It could also depend on the gender, though in many cases the search or show for status or material value is roughly the same. In vain cases, they both seek decorative medals, and jeweled piercings. Its common for males to braid their mane, and pierce their usually longer ears, or to sometimes draw attention to their longer tuft with a ring fixed on the end of their tail. Its also more common for males to have chain-like piercings, whereas for females its a more obvious conflict on battlefields. Females will more often have rings throughout the general tail, and sometimes up to a trail of such along their abdomens, which is done more to be easily concealed in cases of war, but the more daring might pierce their ears or lips.
In cases where materialism is less valued, its more often simpler looks of fur cleanliness, often ideal to lack patterns - save for the more mountain Sylven variant, where its idealized - and simpler differences are emphasized. Males with fuller "rich" manes, long tails, and stronger shoulders are more valued, whereas for females its more about curves and often more trim features of a lacking mane, or cropped ears. For either, sometimes voice and weight factor into attraction, compliments, and pride; Yet, its too subjective to ever have a standard on what kind of voice or weight-class is deemed better.

Gender Ideals

Males were typically lazier, if more well read, and more of the 'brains' of the two genders. Not to suggest the females were anything close to stupid, but it was the males that did the book keeping, the taxes, political work, and even a lot of the parenting in many cases. Females were very strong akin to the males, and seemed to have a better virtue of quick reflexes, and fast social interactions, especially with each other. As a result, they were most often in charge of military work similar to the Rekettan imperial system.

Females are however, still maternal figures in the early days of upbringing any cub. Cub-care or pregnancy didn't stop their common duty. It was actually frowned upon for even a pregnant female to leave service, and a common practice for some to go out for a month's campaign, only to come back guiding a cub to their father for its caring. This routine was called "The Mother's war-walk", and considered a customary challenge to test their ability, while the surviving cub or cubs were considered to be a sign of fortune, and often given gifts from the state based on the cub's sex - males were given monetary value, while a female was given a special imprinted silver coin that had a sun-stamp encouraging their future leadership skills or experience in war, and it could not be spent as silver until they were retired from service in later years. Almost all females served regardless, with exceptions only to the bottom class of serfs during some cultural terms, and those born with defects. It is further believed this may have something to do with a need to counter-act certain horrific tactics employed by Ank'shii, who aren't as able to manipulate females the same way. Males only served militarily in smaller advisory roles, and while often in positions of power over commoners, or in cities, the males in military often forfeited final decisions to female commands. During some periods of law, the female's decisiveness and battle-worth often also gave them some social rights to choose their partner.

Courtship Ideals

These varied across periods, and changing laws. However Sfixians for the most part, are considered very lax or even promiscuous in their romantic ideals. Polygamy was common across many eras, and for both genders, and their co-existence with humans or even their possible origin of evolution, made for frequent halflings that were actually accepted as normal. Of the most rigid routine of choosing a partner, Sfixian females were given the right to choose a male after they have served for three years. They would spend a month with them, often prepare for a child, and then leave back to service again. After some time it became common that this wasn't even considered a full union, and that a female might repeat the cycle again, but would be responsible for some stake in any line of children including with older partners. In other instances, it was more of the male's choice to have partners, and would often form harems, sometimes giving them special rights that shortened the need for their services if he was of upper-class worth. Halflings were treated roughly like local humans for the most part, and halfling females were not made to go to war, but also lacked rights during those times of choosing, and in many case played more to a role of mid-to-lower class serving in simpler labor, and eventually married into an arranged family by a lord or family member higher than them.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

Halfing Acceptance:
They interacted with humans roughly as smaller equals, and sometimes procreated in their more promiscuous polygamy instances to create halflings. It was long a part of their culture, and faster than other places, they just accept and co-exist such mutations. These halflings are often more regarded closer to the human half, unless they're over 3/4ths sfixian, leaving the females to not serve, and males to often lack the same monetary power of a Sfixian. However they are rarely serfs, even sometimes being promoted or more favored if born into it.
Day napping, and fur piles or blob beds:
Sfixians will frequently sleep more often, and don't have a direct day or night cycle in their minds, often active for only mere hours at a time, at any time. Those that are forced to stay awake by work, or commotion, often hold their energy well, but get more personally demotivated and ill-tempered. In cases of encampments and soldiers, they actually even lack beds, and get used to making small encircling rests beneath a cloth canopy, or cover of shade, with some of the busier ones taking this time to also eat. Originally considered the soldier's group break time, this became called fur piles by outside witnesses. When many sfixians fattened-up in the early first "Common" millennium, their pride was questioned as silly groups of lazy slobs they derogatorily rebranded 'pig piles', blob beds, or other manners of mockery. Other times this just appeared more disturbing with more meat in at their disposal, with remains of Taur gore and bone that scared off people, appearing more like a truly feral nest of overgrown beasts.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Reketta

The Reketta have had rocky ups and downs, but have most put the Sfixian race at a disadvantage. The Sfixians pushed around, bullied, and outclassed the local Rekettas, and roughly look at them as bigger goblins. However, when the empire came, it was completely foreign in their expectations. They admired their trade, negotiations, and were fond of them at first, however their technological advances became apparent in hostile ways, and a few noticed how harmful the potential of some of the trade was to their own lands. This has stirred some rivalry, and feuding between the two.

Taur

For a long time, the Taur seemed to just be 'there' and quietly co-exist on the outskirts of some Sfixian settlements. They were regarded as nomadic tribal fools, and little more, with exceptions to some of their occasionally more dangerous mountain kin. However when the Rekettan Empire reintroduced them as food, and showed how much one could make when fed right, they began to view the Taur as expendable livestock and began integrating them as captive life to be carved and fed, and for a time believed this made their empire greatly more wealthy for it fed so many.

Human

Having virtually progressed with humans, they are highly cooperative and fond of each other. Though there are exceptions from further interactions, or social issues in their own towns, they have mostly looked to humans with a lot of mutual bonds, and even mix with them. The conflicts they do have are more in political lines with the K'mosian kingdom, and potential confused ruling of the throne, or how some regions give humans less rights than others. The common excuse is that humans are roughly serving the stronger race for protection, but sometimes the Sfixians are kinder than that - and sometimes the issue is genuinely meant, and it is mostly the Sfixians doing the sacrificing work. The two got a tad more divisive with each other in dividing K'mosian periods, when the Ezqotian Republic and Children of Turro'ki had foiled some unity in the continent.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Ekethian
• Furmen

Lifespan

50-70 years

Conservation Status

Endangered as of 1600 CSP, with efforts made since to help protect them under Ezqotian Republic authority.

Average Height

1.8 meters

Average Weight

70-85KG average, pre-trade relations.
Roughly around 100-110KG post-trade

Average Physique

Often regarded as very strong, fit. After the Minotaur trade, they began eating heavier with access to large Taur & merfolk meat. When the Taur got fat, Sfixians were catching up, with some even superstitiously believing all the growth was an effect from eating a 'cursed' race. It is suspected this factored some into the race's decline.