The Stonecroft descend from the Monster of Doctor Stonecroft. Brought into existence by the completion of the Novel Stonecroft, Zatolen took pity on the creature consumed by his loneliness and gifted unto him the means to reproduce and created a people for him. The Stonecroft are generally tall, strangely beautiful though piecemeal, and often powerfully built. They have stone-grey skin and black hair, jaundiced eyes, and a constant scent of formaldehyde. They have no real average height, as many Stonecroft take to customizing their bodies to fit their wants and needs, and now many people in Gothique leave the Stonecroft pieces of their mortal bodies.
The Stonecroft are inhumanly strong, highly durable, and able to graft and replace limbs with those of other bodies. They can repair themselves by switching out organs, and many are well-versed in stitchwork and surgery. They are highly intelligent and logical; they do their best to understand the strange and difficult emotions of their neighbors. Stonecroft live throughout human settlements and maintain one city around the tower that serves as the tombstone of their author.
Stonecroft Cultures.
Gothic.
The Shae are beautiful and strange creatures native to Gothique. Fictional fairies that escaped from their Novel World to find a new home. They bring light and color to the dark lands of Gothique. Their dwellings are some of the few places where the Light of Siger touches Gothique soil. The Shae have large ears, a mix between the fuzzy antenna of a moth and the ears of a fox. They have a long, fluffy tail, big moth wings like a great, sheer silk cloak, and big eyes drawn to light and color. They keep their hair long and fluffy and enjoy trying to make themselves look as voluminous as possible, from their tails to their ears to their hair.
Shae live in close-knit, compact communities, with most of their structures connected by protective layers of walls against external threats. They can turn into moth-winged foxes, allowing them to keep entry points too small for other species to use and expand vertically without the need for stairs or ladders. Shae can create small bursts of raw magical energy and command color and light. They have been adopted by Tal Sok and the Fox Goddess.
Shae Cultures.
Fennec, Cape, Island, Swift, Pale, Kit, and Corsac.
The Danse are strange and unearthly creatures. Their ears grow into points that curve downward, their noses shrink, their eyes become a pure golden glow, and they always wear their masks. The Danse all look subtly off, uncanny, both too close to humanity and yet not enough… they have a waxy look with permanent smiles. Danse always look off, like the difference between the painting’s focal point and a distant side character. In truth, the Danse are the very masks they wear, each one carved and placed on the corpse of a freshly dead humanoid. It warps their bodies, making them Danse, a twisted, monstrous attraction of dark desire and wanton bliss.
The Danse are technically immortal; their bodies can be broken and ruined, but their consciousness can be transferred by putting their mask on a new host. Their masks can be destroyed, but so long as the material can be salvaged, they can be remade, albeit mayhap lacking, lost pieces. They are not an aggressive or violent species, and they feed off want, attention, attraction, and the feeling of pleasure and bliss. They build cities of beauty, wonder, and often little to no practicality. Their society is a worship of all things grand, beautiful, and artistic, and layers their lives with intricacies and complexity. Their masks can be worn by the living creating a half breed a creature that retains all its personality with the new conscious mind of a Danse. A hybrid of mortal and abstraction.
Danse Cultures.
Masqueradi, Operathea, Ballia, Waltzic, and Gekijou.
The Zver great hulking brutes, humanoid wolfish monsters, muscle upon muscle and looming height make them one of the most intimidating of the Gothique intelligent species. Often mistaken for werewolves, they have a skeletal structure like a bear’s, allowing them to swiftly move on all fours or to rise on their hind legs to claw and manipulate the world with their nimble foreclaws. They have bright red eyes and live in simple villages, hunting, farming, and raiding human settlements that grow bold enough to settle next to their established territory. One of the more aggressive species is still civil enough to engage in trade, commerce, and treaties with some of its more agreeable neighbors.
The Zver are extremely strong, durable, and able to recover from wounds, as their bodies rapidly stick skin back together, though deep injuries still take time to mend. Zver bites cause sepsis, and their jaws are powerful enough to snap steel swords and the hardwood shaft of weapons in half. Zver have a deep, innate fear of fire, which has left their culture in a rather primitive state, and they still rely on stone tools, whatever they can acquire through trade. They’ve learned how to harness the heat of thermal vents to their food, preserve meat with salt, and have taken to herding sheep to make their simple clothing. Zver do not eat raw meat except for ceremonial or war-related reasons, as they can absorb memories and personality from it. Consuming flesh can alter their minds, change their outlooks, and corrupt their core personality. Though some use this to relive ancestral memories, acquire intel on enemy forces, or exchange blood between mates, becoming more intimate and aligned with loved ones and family members.
Zver Cultures.
The Zver have many minor cultures, each village an island unto itself, with different languages, ideals, and desires. Zver primarily war against each other.
The Gano are large, heavy-set brutes with piggish faces, large dark storm grey to a deep sunset pink. These big brutes have thick tusks, long piggish ears, and small black eyes. They shave what hair they have into the intricate hair of foreign warriors they’ve fought and lost to. Gano believe in strength and squeal boasts and bravado, but will often bow to the whims of their larger and more dominant females. The Gano have thick fingers and trade the ore they dredge from the earth below. Male Gano have a strong cultural tie to tattoos, piercings, and scarification, often fighting other males to the first wound. Gano do not stop growing and can reach truly massive sizes.
Male Gano are extremely aggressive and territorial, with their dwellings spread out into small war packs, while females maintain small, fortified settlements seeking a mate who has earned enough scars, tattoos, and piercings for deeds done. Female Gano are larger, more intelligent, and far fewer in numbers, leaving Male Gano to keep the markings they earn meaningful and punish and kill those who steal honor. Gano regularly raid their neighbors but do not aim to cause death, but to earn glory and wealth. Gano respect warriors, cooks, and brewmasters as they enjoy good food and drink and often accept Dwar into their clans who find themselves lost on Gothique. Their snouts are adept at finding ore veins. The Gano regularly fight with the Zver in relatively safe skirmishes to get out the aggression both species feel.
Gano Cultures.
Culture among the Gano Warpacks are as varied as the differences between human families. The female Gano maintain several cultures.
Trufflesnout, Moregore, Mohawk, Chonmage, Oseledets, Bigbrand, and Bigpig.
The Felis are tall and lanky, covered in a soft, deep, velvety blue coat. They have long ears between feline and vulpine, short feline snouts, large eyes, necks, and arms. They do not have tails like most catfolk, but have feet and hands with retractable claws. Slim, agile, and one of the most advanced species on Gothique, they have built a great city that rises in tiers towards the heavens. Deep in the heart of their terraced city are the tombs of dead kings and queens, whose statues hold their people aloft.
The Felis are inhumanly agile, flexible, and sporting reaction speeds that put even the most capable felines to shame. They dwell across the great grey sand deserts of Gothique, serve Milisam, and call upon armies of their preserved warriors to protect their lands from aggression. The Felis are peaceful, magically adept, and reliant on their natural affinity for necromancy to build their empire. The dead of invaders and fallen Felis allow the living to have lives of leisure, intellectual pursuits, and peaceful respite. Felis do not work unless they choose to; many spend their time seeking knowledge, understanding, and artistic beauty, and the Felis serve as a place where the people of Gothique and distant lands can gather safely to trade in goods and cultures. The Felis worship felines, Milisam, Septriss, the Moons, and magic. The main culture differences are driven by the three Moon Cults that lead the main body of Felis faith and structure.
Felis Culture.
Azure, Saffron, and Maroon.
The Curdle are short creatures with smooth, leathery skin, mammalian features, including hair, and short horns. Their scales range from white to black, and they wear large, intricate clothing to cover their short beaks. The Curdle believe that outsiders can steal their faces and thus never expose them to those outside of their city-state. Neither gender tends to wear much clothing, save their intricate, over-designed, and fanciful head coverings, through which most of a Curdle’s fashion and self-expression are shown.
The Curdle are isolationists attacking outsiders who wander too close to their city-states with vicious, unrelenting aggression. One of the most advanced species on Gothique with access to muskets, explosive concoctions, and steel weapons and armor. They trade exclusively with the Felis and do not interact with any other species. The Curdle make large quarries to acquire stone, carve them, and then build their cities in the carved hole with branching tunnels, and terrifying weapons of war such as bombards, cannons, and batteries of rocket-propelled arrows. The Curdle are cunning, intelligent, and bow only to the most intelligent of their kind with the most wondrous inventions to show off for their resume.
Curdle Culture is divided into their City-States.
Twinmoon, Kaboom, Alloy, Eternal Eclipse, Momentum, Logic, and Ascension.
The Waxin are short creatures descended from Hymenordor, who bred with natives. They have feminine humanoid bodies with fuzz covering their wrists, hands, ankles, and a small protrusion where their stinger sits. They have short wings that buzz rapidly, allowing them to hover, fly, and maneuver with ease. The Waxen have wide black eyes with small honey-colored irises. They have short antennas on their heads and golden hair. They like to wear bee-print clothing and fuzzy, or fur-trimmed, clothes to make them look more bee-like. Male Waxin are rare, but females, once they have bred, can store genetic imprints to reproduce asexually for the rest of their lives.
The Waxin herd bees produce honey, mead, maintain orchards, manage fields of flowers, and trade their crafts to neighbors. Valiant Waxin communities have brought a good deal of color to the once-black-and-white world of Gothique. Waxin primarily communicates with one another through the buzzing of wings, pheromones, and antenna movement, but has learned to speak the languages of its trade partners. They can speak to bees and keep flocks of the cat-sized Faebees who defend their Waxin with their deadly stingers, though as Waxin are mortal after generations of diluted Faeblood, they rarely use their own stinger, as to do so would be death. Waxin rely mostly on wooden tools and can work with clay, and has developed bronze working for what metal they need.
Waxin Culture.
The Waxin tend to integrate themselves into the culture of nearby societies but are known to form their own settlements with their own cultures.
Hivers, Freebees, Nomada, Wildones, Ambereyes, and Sweetbees.
The Hade are tall, with sharp features, ears curving that curve back on themselves like a sickle blade, short noses, and visible fangs. They have pale skin, bleached white, blood red, or raven black hair, and milky eyes with glowing red, yellow, or violet irises. Male Hade grow horns straight up like arms lifted to the heavens, while females tend to grow antlers like the branches of an unkempt tree, which they shed during spring. The Hade are majestic, monstrous, with clawed fingers and a deep bloodlust. Often mistaken for vampires, the Hade wield great magical power and are both aggressive and highly advanced, for Gothique standing as one of the main threats that keep invaders from colonizing the pale lands.
The Hade grow in strength, their skin becomes resistant to blades, their bones turning to steel, and their arcane powers burgeoning as they age. They seem similar to humanoids from different lands, but can drink the blood of other mortals to steal their youth and prolong their lives for eternity. The Hade maintain a twisted culture around blood, battle, and pain. They express darkness and explore it in their art and literature. They find beauty in death and suffering, and have large class divides; violence from the upper classes is quite common. They have a deep disdain for the Zver and Gano, whom they view as mindless beasts. Though they accept Waxin hives to pollinate and tend their crops, they feed on blood to maintain their lifespan, and must still consume nourishment.
Hade Culture.
Hecos, Charos, Hypos, Nyos, and Erinos.
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