/who/ Lore - Viti Edition
Writing Status
- Introduction
- /who/ as a Nation
- Authority Figures
- Events and Ceremonies
- Libraries and the Archival Salvage Efforts
- Concerning Hoomans
- State of the Military
- Relations With Other Nations
- The Pink Angel
- Meanwhile, in Tower!/who/...
- Miscellaneous /who/ Lore
Introduction
When the Nameless One departed from the greater pantheon, the Hoomans consulted their seers, the Morbs. When the Morbs saw that She would not reincarnate like others have in the past, parliament was in agreement: the Owl Republic cannot continue, and its well-fortified cities must not be used by schizos or any who would use them as bases of operation to attack the civilized peoples of the world. Thus, any and all metropolitan centers not ceded to neighboring nations were destroyed, leaving nothing but ruins, ashes, and the stench of burning tar.
The devastation, along with the decision of much of the populace to remain behind in the tower dimension, has diminished /who/ in size and especially population; with no major cities, /who/ is very sparsely populated and susceptible to raids.
In spite of this, /who/ carries on. Though no new tidings will come from the Nameless One, Morbs and other oral retellers perform reenactments of Her exploits to keep Her in the hearts of Hoomans. There may no longer be great walls to support the population centers against those who would besiege them or the manpower for a standing army, but the gun culture of the people is alive and well, and nearly all able-bodied adults are ready to spring into action in the event of a schizo raid. And even if the prospects of being a major player in the world stage are null, many a Hooman are content nowadays in having their own communities through it all.
Ultimately, /who/ is a humbled nation. One that is a shadow of its former self, yet not one that seeks to regain its former greatness. Instead, its people care more about carrying forward the Nameless One's legacy to the next generation and ensuring She is not forgotten.
/who/ as a Nation
Governmental Structure
/who/ could be best considered a loose confederation of city-states united by the principle of Owl Love, though it would be disingenuous to call any of the towns or villages "cities".
Unlike many other nations, /who/ has no capital city. With no central governing body to set any hard rules, a sense of autonomy has been developed between the towns. This has led to them becoming more distinct from each other. These distinctions are usually small (such as general cuisine or what "mooming" entails), but on some occasions they have escalated to the degree that they affect how the locations are governed. Typically a town or village is governed by an elected mayor, but it's not unheard of for an established town to have a marquis or a council of elders that citizens "age into" govern instead.
Inventions
https://rentry.org/who-inventions
Notable Wildlife
V-tail Orca
The nation with the most interest in researching the V-tail Orca is also the one that has the most stringent limitations on research and contact with them. /who/'s port towns highly value and revere the V-tail Orca and have consequently passed local laws preventing Hoomans from performing autopsies on orca carcasses that wash up on the shore (deemed "desecration of a corpse") or handling living beached orcas in any way that does not return them to open waters (deemed "abduction"). Crews are also not allowed to initiate contact with a pod or lone V-tail Orca, leaving them with no hope of direct contact unless approached by whomever they are observing.
Bubon Toehound
Pale-faced Pufferfish
Authority Figures
Ave
One thing that remains constant across all towns and cities of /who/ is an Ave. Each location has only one Ave, and it is annually elected by all adult Hoomans of that town or village typically mid-year. The one who is recognized as town Ave is hailed with a cry of "AVE!" upon departure from or arrival at any civilized part of /who/, and is entrusted with an identifying trinket of some kind. This is always either a form of headwear such as a helmet with a large red crest or something that can be comfortably held in a raised hand, like an ornamental knife.
Some places (typically those at or near the coast) refer to an Ave as a Skal instead, deriving the title from a command yelled in the Hooman "navy" as opposed to one borrowed from what was the nation's army. This difference is functionally cosmetic, as a Skal has the same responsibilities as an Ave.
An Ave's main purpose is to speak on behalf of a town to the people of another. If there's a dispute of some kind between two towns, both towns are expected to send their Aves to attempt negotiation and mitigate any potential conflict. If a village is in distress, the Ave is sent out to ask neighboring locales for assistance.
The Ave is also entrusted to speak on behalf of local developments at the Hoosmoot and vote for or against issues raised at the event, as befits the needs and desires of his or her home.
Morb
The later days of the Owl Republic saw the nation in gradual decline. Though there were little if any nationwide problems with marriage rates or fertility, the native population was in a period of stasis rather than growth. Technological innovation as a whole stagnated. The Nameless One's influence upon the land and its people had been diminishing resulting in poor crop yields, and Her people slowly abandoned the temples built in reverence of Her.
In place of the temples rose the Morbs, enigmatic Hooman women who claimed to receive portents directly from the Nameless One Herself. Though first branded as heterodox or even heretical depending on the specific city's temple, the Morbs were greatly favored by the general population and over time became the ones the Hoomans consulted for tidings from the Nameless One.
There was some dispute in Parliament over whether to recognize Morbs as legitimate, but with the broad support of the people as a whole they were eventually accepted by the government. There were few clergy members to protest this, and most of them saw the writing on the wall and acquiesced much of their religious authority after Morb legalization and became scribes and lorekeepers, documenting the women's tales. They would also still make the "It's time!" declaration, though it would be referring to what the Morbs had to say most of the time.
Nowadays, Morbs are oral retellers who perform retellings and reenactments of the Nameless One's words and deeds on a regular basis at the local C-tubes.
M.E.S.
Events and Ceremonies
Hoosmoot
C-tube Performances
A renovation commonly made in the later years of the Republic was the creation of amphitheaters in which the Morb(s) of a given town or city could speak of the Nameless One's words and exploits. These were typically built extending from the local temple, allowing it to be used as a backdrop. The format was never formally standardized, but the high yet narrow multi-tiered semicircle seating arrangements around the stage led to the public colloquially calling them "C-tubes". Here the Morbs would reveal their tidings before enthusiastic crowds, however rare or common that may be.
The Nameless One's apothnitosis and the Owl Republic's self-inflicted devastation left many a Hooman in a state of aimlessness. Yes, it was better that they kept the embers of their civilization hot so as to leave less land for schizos to call their own, but what hope did they have of their days getting better again? In these dark times, many went to what Morbs were left for guidance.
Though they had lost their connection to the Nameless One and had no quick means of communicating with each other, nearly every Morb had come to the same conclusion: to keep Her spirit alive among the Hooman population by retelling what She did in her divinity and providing shows of these deeds as best they could in the local C-tubes. Hoomans, remembering the days of C-tube tidings, flocked to the amphitheaters in great numbers to see and hear the Morbs retell the passages of yesteryear.
These oral retellings quickly proved to differ from the old tidings in the days of the late Republic. For one, as there were no more live tidings of the Nameless One, the tales or passages had to be hand-picked by the Morbs performing them. This resulted in greatly increased coordination and amicable communication between scribes and Morbs, with the former looking through the archives for suitable writings to be recounted. The fact that these were all retellings also meant that they could be performed with regularity and that non-Morb Hoomans could be called upon to aid a performance.
These performances continue to this day. Though they are no longer live or recent tidings of the Nameless One, these retellings keep Her spirit go on in those who view them, in a way. They remind the Hoomans why they're still around and help build community between each other, and most make it a point to attend on a regular basis.
Libraries and the Archival Salvage Efforts
Concerning Hoomans
Physiology
Hoomans have owl heads but human bodies. There are additional characteristics that are reminiscent of owls as well, though not to the same avian extent. These include a wider neck-turning radius and noticeably longer-than-average legs, the latter giving Hoomans greater height than other humanoids. Females lack breasts, not needing to nurse their young.
Anything that would be hair on a human can be seen on a Hooman, just keep in mind that it's not hair. They're primitive/reverted feathers not meant to allow for flight. They have tail feathers proportionately about as long on them as the ones on owls. These and the ones on the head are the only ones that resemble flight feathers, though as mentioned they are not. Any other natural body covering is analogous to the down one would see on a duckling. Perhaps the most prominent of this is the "chest fluff" found on the eponymous region of adult Femhoomans. Though often if not always covered by their cloaks, Femhoomans take care in properly grooming the down on their chests, often giving them the general size and shape of a pair of "premiums".
Hoomans lack wings but wear cloaks that give the impression that their arms are wings. Some may assume that they have a pair of feathers atop their heads, but this is not the case. They are feathers of local owls that are attached to the hoods of the Hoomans' cloaks when they are recognized as mature, responsible adults.
Attire
All Hoomans when in public wear cloaks. There are subtle differences, but the base design is largely the same. They're almost always a shade of brown and the ends are patterned like feathers. The specific pattern may change and there might be subtly different colorations or lighter specks to match a row of feathers, but the base template of "hooded brown cloak that extends to the ankles and past the wrists and the edges are patterned like a row of feathers" remains largely the same regardless of where you are in /who/.
Home Life
Dietary Biology of the Viti Hooman
Dietary preferences vary from place to place, but potatoes are undisputably the primary crop of the land. And of course, berries are the go-to foraging food for the Hooman population. In fact, it's a common practice for Hooties (children) to go berry-picking with their Hoojisans (grandparents).
State of the Military
Relations With Other Nations
General Hooman Sentiment
Official Alliances and Other Partnerships
The Pink Angel
Though Hoomans are allowed to talk about the Pink Angel, there are limitations on what can be said. She cannot be held to any standard of divinity in the same manner as a chuuba.
Regardless, there are those who perform rites in the belief that doing so will allow her to attain apotheosis. Many of these also attempt to equate the Pink Angel with the Nameless One, a topic that while not outright forbidden is very touchy with the general Hooman populace. Correlation and comparison are acceptable but framing the two as the same entity is highly discouraged.
There is also a group which holds the belief that there is a third entity who was a goddess before Hoomans settled the area and that she will return in the Nameless One's absence. People who adhere to this are mainly by the seaside and often hold the beliefs stated earlier.
As militia and law enforcement groups are on a local basis, so too are crackdowns on this behavior. This has led to more variety in how various towns regard the Pink Angel as a divine entity. Some places have an enforced zero-tolerance policy towards the above groups, while it is more embedded in others. There is suspicion that adherents to these beliefs have positions of authority in some villages, though lack of centralized military or law enforcement prevents any significant investigation into or action against these rumors.
Meanwhile, in Tower!/who/...
Miscellaneous /who/ Lore
The Hooman Calendar
The Hooman calendar is split into three ages, intended to mirror the development of their nation. The ages are as follows: E.S. referring to the times of Early Settlement, O.R. denoting the Owl Republic, and N.S. being the current days of a New Start.
One curious aspect of this system is that E.S. progresses backward. To give an example: The first Hoomans settled in what would become the port city of Avisporte in E.S. 152, but the first recorded maritime contact between an Avisporte ship and a V-tail Orca took place in E.S. 36.
There is also no year 0 in any of the three ages. It goes directly from E.S. 1 to O.R. 1. There was some deliberation of whether to make the final year of O.R. also the zeroth year of N.S., but it was ultimately decided against to reduce possible confusion in bookkeeping.
Lastly, although the Hooman calendar uses the same system as a whole with most/all other Holo nations, one point where it differs is when each year begins in a given age. The end of E.S. and beginning of O.R. are with the signing of the Proclamation of Unification, generally seen as the beginning of the Owl Republic as a unified nation-state. N.S. 1 began with The Nameless One's apothnitosis. This resulted in O.R. starting in late summer and N.S. beginning mid-spring.