Exotic Phenotype

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El aspecto de los societarios, con sus extremas diferencias entre individuos e incluso entre familiares cercanos, es motivo de muchísima discusión académica en todo el archipiélago. Sin embargo, es sabido que el aspecto de cada individuo guardará cercanía con el aspecto de sus padres, y seguirá algunas reglas de sus razas. Todos pueden esperar que un peludo tendrá un rango de colores entre el amarillo, el marrón y el rojo, más claro o más oscuro, que un emplumado no tendrá cuernos, o que un escamado no tendrá pelo. Los fenotipos se repiten todo el tiempo, y pese a haber miles, la gente sabe más o menos qué esperar.
Sin embargo, raramente, algunos individuos nacen con fenotipos únicos, nunca vistos antes, que muchas veces rompen las "reglas" de su raza, presentando colores, adornos o pieles inexistentes para esta. Suelen ser más llamativos que los fenotipos comunes, pero más allá de sus características físicas, no tienen otras alteraciones apreciables.
Los fenotipos exóticos aparentemente surgen al azar, y no se ha encontrado explicación o patrón, y su condición no es hereditaria. El fenotipo de estos individuos no parece afectar su genética o función reproductiva, y se pueden reproducir con individuos de fenotipos similares al de sus padres. Sus hijos asimismo suelen heredar los rasgos de sus abuelos, de parte del exótico.
No hay una causa conocida para la aparición de un fenotipo exótico en un recién nacido. Pese a que varios estudiosos han hecho análisis de las lineas familiares de los afectados para tratar de encontrar puntos en común, no parece haber un patrón, y los exóticos dentro de las mismas familias no suelen siquiera parecerse entre ellos.
Si bien cualquier hijo de vecino lo negará, es cierto que la mayoría de los societarios tratan a los exóticos como especialmente bellos y, en términos generales, les otorgan mayor estima y fama. Entre las personas influyentes y famosas del archipiélago se puede encontrar una cantidad desproporcionada con fenotipos exóticos, lo que se atribuye a que se les de mayor confianza y credibilidad inconscientemente, y que la gente aspire a ser como ellos, pese a que su condición no cambie nada más que su aspecto.

How things usually go

The physical aspect of societarians and the extreme differences on the physical aspect between individuals (even close family members) is the root of a lot of academic discussion in all of the Haan Archipelago.
However, a newborn usually will have an aspect more or less similar to that of their parents, and most of the individuals of a specific subspecies or "race" will share some characteristics:

People know that a furry's hair colour will be in the range of yellows, browns and reds, featheries won't have horns, waterland silkies won't have hair, segmenteds will have a section with organs where other subspecies would have a tail.
Phenotypes repeat themselves a lot and even when they are hundreds of them, people usually know what to expect their children to look like.

How things sometimes go instead

Despite these general rules, on rare occasions, a societarian baby is born with a unique phenotype not seen before, usually very different than that of their parents, and even breaking the "rules" of their subspecies, presenting colours, adornments, shapes or skin types inexistent on the rest of their subspecies.
This condition affects only the physical aspect of the individual and is usually not detrimental to their abilities.

Naelin by Naelin

The king of Thaur is an exotic with characteristics that are not shared by normal individuals of the furry subspecies:
His fur is shimmering dark blue with cyan markings, colours seen mostly in featheries and outside the normal furry range.

Biology

Watches by Naelín

There is no known cause for the incidence of an exotic phenotype on newborns: The condition seems to be a matter of random chance, and it is not hereditary.
Scholars have analyzed family trees, history and demographics of those affected to try to find patterns without result, and even exotics inside the same families tend to look very different from each other.

The phenotype of these individuals does not affect their reproductive functions and, apparently, neither the aspect of their offspring.
For all reproductive intent and purposes, a person of exotic phenotype function as if they had inherited the traits of their parents:
They will be able to reproduce with an individual of similar phenotype than that of the parents, and their offspring will "skip their generation" on the exotic parent's side, looking more similar to their grandparents.

Type

Genetic

Cycle

Chronic, Congenital

Rarity

Uncommon

Affected Species

• Societarians

People affected by this condition
Naelín
Watches
Adikari

Cultural perception

Singing Adikari by Naelin

While publicly most people would rotundly deny it, in reality, it is known that most societarians consider exotics especially attractive and esteem them higher than normal:

There is a disproportionately higher amount of exotics among the influential and famous people of the archipelago, an statistic attributed to a cultural inclination towards granting them a higher level of credibility and aspiring to "be like them", even when this condition affects only the physical aspect.