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Message: <blockquote data-quote="QuietBrowser" data-source="post: 6955024" data-attributes="member: 6855057">Alright, it's been a long, long time and I apologise for that, but, I finally have the gazetteer complete for my expy of the Shin'hare, whom I have renamed the Slyvhars. I hope folks enjoy this look at the first, and probably last, of my "evil by default" races.[sblock="Slyvharri Gazetteer"]Who Are They?The legacy of elven warmongers returned to haunt the world they almost destroyed. Once ordinary rabbits, the ancestral slyvhars were possessed by the undead spirits of powerful elven fleshcrafters. Mutated over generations into a humanoid form, their undying masters whip them on as a final, spiteful attempt at seeking revenge on the world they tried and failed to rule so many years ago.PhysiologyThe slyvharri ancestry as common rabbits is writ quite plain to see for anybody with eyes. A slyvhar has a bipedal humanoid form, but is covered from head to toe in a short layer of fluffy fur; usually brown, black, gray, or patterns of two or more of these colors. White fur is a distinct rarity; patches of white are simply uncommon, but predominantly or solely white is all but unheard of, and usually signifies arcane talent. Its face is fundamentally a rabbit's muzzle, but with forward-facing eyes and sufficient articulation of lips and cheeks to produce human-like facial expressions. Long, rabbit-like ears rise from the top of its head, and a rabbit's tail grows at the base of its spine. Although its body is orientated in a bipedal fashion, with human-like hands consisting of three fingers in a prehensile thumb, the legs are slightly longer than proportional for a human, with elongated, paw-like feet and adjusted ankles that allows a slyvhar to shift between plantigrade stance for standing and walking and a digitigrade stance for leaping ands printing.All in all, the slyvharri look like somebody took a rabbit and essentially evolved it to fit the basic humanoid template. slyvhars are short creatures, averaging between 3'8" to 4'6" in height, and slenderly built, with both sexes having powerfully built legs and the supportive wide hips to fuel their lapine-like speed and leaping abilities. It is very rare to see a non-slender slyvhar; only the most powerful members of their society tend to have that kind of luxury, and even then, the expectation that all will contribute means few grow more than slightly husky. The exception are the Lifegivers, who are universally voluptuously curved due to the combination of a life of sexual luxury and the production of countless massive litters. Amongst the slyvharri, it is normally only the Lifegivers whose secondary nipples swell into full, permanent breasts.PersonalityIn truth, when talking about slyvharri personalities, there are three separate kinds of slyvhar one must discuss; Lower Class, Upper Class, and Deserters.Lower Class slyvharri are a grim and stoic lot, almost  emotionless. Brought up from cradle to grave with the unimportance of their individual lives, the need to sacrifice all for the good of the slyvharri as a whole, the sanctity of death for duty and the meaningless of the individual, they are cowed and beaten. Most are little more than blank-eyed drones, at least externally, desperately suppressing their own thoughts and feelings for fear of punishment from above. Some break, turning into soulless drudges who will march without qualm to their death because they barely even comprehend they are alive. Others absorb their master's lessons and take them to heart, becoming vicious and cruel, seeking a relief from their own misery through the pain of others. Yet more become fanatics, sincerely convinced of their indoctrinations and willing to kill and die for what they truly believe is the greater glory of their people.Upper Class slyvharri are far more malevolent, as a general rule, than those of the lower classes. Free of the soul-crushing brutality those beneath them face, they are given free reign to drink in the power they hold and the supremacist doctrines of their culture. A high-ranked slyvhar is almost always amoral, arrogant and cruel, used to considering all other life beneath itself and consumed by a sense of manifest destiny that will place it atop the pinnacle of creation. Although true incompetents are swiftly weeded out by the cuthroat nature of their culture, many high-ranked slyvhars have a taste for indolence and indulgence unthinkable to those below them, and even the least callous of them still simply does not understand that other creatrues are themselves worthy of life.Finally, Deserters are those rare few slyvharri who manage to flee from their twisted society and try to make a life for themselves in the lands beyond the warrens. Possessed of a powerful independent streak that helped them to survive beyond the warren, Deserters tend to be paranoid, always observing their surroundings and fiercely protective of what they have managed to claim as their own. Many are selfish and suspicious, anti-authoritarian and reluctant to stick their necks out for something so ephemeral as a "greater cause". To say nothing of those traits stemming from the cultural scars they bear.Still, no matter the kind of slyvhar one is talking about, there are some aspects that all slyvharri have in common.For starters, all slyvhars are a naturally sociable species. As a slyvhar is never alone, from the womb to the grave, they are naurally very accustomed to being around others, and so even the most introverted slyvhar still typically prefers to be where he or she can at least hear and see others doing their thing. In fact, this sociability can often extend into crippling monophiba - a fear of being alone that can sometimes be so intense as to cause slyvhar survivors of massacred squads to become suicidal with sheer terror. Deserters have managed to resist or at least control such fears, but even they are naturally drawn to the presence of others for comfort.Secondly, although they try to deny this to themselves, slyvhars have not evolved that far from their lapine roots in one key area. They still have a high libido, easily aroused and naturally interested in carnal pleasures. This is not to a suicidal extent, but it has led to some rather embarrassing defeats for slyvhar forces in the past.Finally, because of the aforementioned traits, slyvharri are both an extremely tactile race, who consider touching to be normal, and have no sense of privacy compared to most other races. A typical slyvhar has never known what it's like to be alone, and honestly enjoys being touched, which means that Deserters can have problems adjusting to people who object to being seen naked, bathing in a group, or just not liking being touched.CourtshipIn truth, slyvharri do not have any real courtship traditions. Family is not something they recognize; most slyvhars in a warren are born to one or more Lifebringers who have neither knowledge nor care in regards the sire of their ceaseless tide of progeny, and even in the upper ranks, a Slyvhar 's ability to manipulate the social order to benefit its offspring is limited. But this does not mean that slyvharri do not couple, and certainly doesn't mean they are indifferent to breeding! It simply means that the sort of permanent, stable, family structure that other species take for granted is alien to their native culture.Amongst the lower classes of the slyvharri, courtship is handled quite prefunctorily and is based solely on seeking sexual pleasure or emotional comfort. One slyvhar asks, the other agrees or disagrees, and the matter is dropped. One quirk of note is that lower class couplines rarely produce offspring; this is because, although breeding is not prohibited to them, neither do those above them care to protect a lower class female who falls pregnant, which means that on the battlefield, a pregnant low-rank's chances of survival fall even further. As a consequence, most lower class sexual unions are homosexual, and even if this is born of culture and convenience, it can lead to very strong emotional connections. More than one Deserter ultimately traces their origin to despair over the loss of their lover or lovers.In the higher classes, things get slightly more conventional. In addition to Blade cadres who ultimately bind their teams together with sexual unions, the Highblades and Exalted often take both partners from their own ranks for political reasons and appoint lower ranked slyvhars to attend them as, effectively, concubines. In the former case, open relationships are usually the norm, whilst in the latter, polygamous relationships are normal. Truth be told, low ranked slyvhars will often fight for the honor to be taken as a concubine, as it is a key to a life of comfort that they normally could not dream of attaining.As for the Lifebringers... well, these female mages may choose as many lovers as they desire, from whatever rank they desire. Some may come to find a particular appreciation for particular partners, but even then, a monogamous relationship is all but unheard of. Their lives are dedicated to mating and producing offspring.Still, they do tend to favor higher class members of slyvharri society for their mates, if only because of the belief that such individuals will produce higher quality offspring.Lower class slyvhars being summoned to the bed of a Lifebringer may find this to be a mixed blessing at best. More than one such unfortunate has found their life sucked from them at the pinnacle of climax, their soul consumed to empower the magics of their black widow of a lover or simply to rejuvenate her against the ravages of age and constant pregnancy.When ordinary slyvhars breed, the gestation lasts about six months and produces an average of five to seven offspring. Although one or two of the litter may be runts who fail to flourish and end up dying before six months without dedicated care, the slyvharri have a much stronger bloodline than the rodushi, and so their infant mortality rate is not as naturally high. Such rare "selfish" births are reared in secret by the mother and any allies that she has who can be trusted when born to low-class slyvhars, and are reared by devoted nurses should they be born to higher class mothers.However, the birthing caverns of the Lifebringers are another matter entirely. The experienced matriarchs routinely grow too pregnant to walk, and the most powerful of this caste can swell to enormous sizes, with litters numbering in the dozens incubating inside of wombs only held together by potent magical incantations. With their development accelerated once they leave the womb by more magic, the birthing caverns are awash in a sea of juvenile slyvhars in various sizes. Comparatively little individual care is given to these unfortunates, and this combined with the stresses of their magically accelerated aging means the mortality rate is much higher. For this reason, slyvhars only bother to record the warren-born who manage to survive to the age of six months, by which time they are physically young adults and ready to be given their place in society.CultureThe root cause of the slyvharri hostility towards all other life and their deep suffering as a people, the slyvhar culture is unique in its breathtaking mixture of cruelty and arrogance, born from its combination of manifest destiny and dehumanization. The slyvharri are taught from birth that they are the true and rightful masters of the world. It is their purpose, their reason for being, to spread out and take more living space, to conquer and dominate until the entire world has been made theirs. Other races are insignificant, and are not hated only because to say the slyvharri hate them would first require that the slyvharri recognize them as other sapient beings.The slyvharri are taught that their fellow humanoids are absolutely nothing, that they are no more than obstacles to crush and livestock to domesticate. A slyvhar would think no more of eating a well-cooked human baby than a human would of eating veal, and would wear kobold or rodushi hides with the same casualness with which it would wear animal furs. That the slyvharri is cruel is both accurate and not; they are cruel, but it is typically motivated by a sincere failure to understand that other beings are also people, rather than a true delight in hurting others.But it is not only the other races who are dehumanized in such a fashion. The slyvhars themselves are not exempt from this. It is their manifest destiny to rule over all, true, but it is the destiny of the race as a whole, not of any one individual. All slyvhars are but tools to the accomplishing of this great goal, and any broken tool can be replaced. Individuality is, for the most part, crushed; the warren is all, the race is all, and if that means death, then give your life gladly, for with your blood you buy the glorious future of your people!Thus go the propaganda posters used to educate the young of a slyvharri warren.Needless to say, the slyvhars are the only culture on Malebolge who can be truly described as warlike. All races produce their tyrants and their raiders, of course, but only the slyvharri are united around a culture rooted in the base need to dominate and subjugate all around them, a quest for "living space" that will never be sated so long as another race still breathes free.In pursuit of this goal, slyvharri culture is a weird mixture of feudalistic and meritocratic. Although rigidly defined into castes of ascending authority and power, mobility between these castes is possible, if only a futile dream for the downtrodden majority.In ascending order of worth, these are the castes of the slyvhar people:Dregs: Such is the unimportance of individual lives in slyvharri culture that there is an entire caste denoting those slyvhars who are literally born to die. Those slyvhars who reach maturity in the birthing caverns but are judged unfit by the Lifebringers are dragged to blood-stained altars and slaughtered, their lives consumed to fuel blood magic rites for purposes such as prolonging the life of a Lifebringer or creating enchanted arms and armor. Additionally, in times of true war, those Fodder who are deemed particularly inept may be demoted to this rank, used for the most suicidal and hideous of combat roles should they not be required for blood magic or necromantic sacrifice. The Dregs are the slyvhars who are sent charging across boobytrapped ground to clear the way with their bodies, or sent to their deaths in the lair of some beast that it may be subdued with minimal harm once it has gorged itself into a torpor upon their flesh. In the brutal tyranny of the slyvharri, demotion to Dregdom is the most feared and common of punishments.Fodder: This rank denotes the vast majority of all slyvharri, the teeming legions of serf-militia who build and smith, who forge and forage, and who give their lives in mighty waves to quench the hunger of their superiors for victory. When one thinks of the slyvharri, one is typically thinking of the Fodder, the oppressed masses who shuffle on through their lives, so nasty, brutish and short, because they know of nothing else.Blooded: Those Fodder who survive long enough may, potentially, win the rank of Blooded. These are capable enough soldiers that they are actually given recognition as individuals, rather than just an interchangeable faceless mob, and so it is that they are officially considered to have names. Such individuals still form the bottom of the "true" slyvhar totem pole, but they have skills that are worthy, and so they are not sent to the slaughter as casually as the Fodder are. Blooded warriors make up the bottommost leadership ranks, commanding squads of Fodder on the battlefield or else holding the position of skilled artisans - such as that role exists amongst the slyvharri.Blade: Elite soldiers, the Blades are those warriors whose skills and abilities have warranted merit, propelling them to a place beyond even the Blooded. Some may be the most lucky of all Fodder, veteran warriors who have attained sufficient skill to raise them above the herd. Others possess magical talent and have skipped straight to this rank, rather than struggling through the existence of the Fodder. Blades are the lowest of the "birth castes", the social ranks that a slyvhar can be born directly into.Highblade: Elite of the elite, the Highblades are the most skilled and well-trained of the Blades. Standing in between the Blades and the Exalted, Highblades are the most powerful of slyvharri that Fodder can expect to see, and are true champions of their people.Exalted: The highest rank any normal Draeg can hope to climb, the Exalted are the general rulers of their population, second in power only to the Eternals. These are the warlords and archmages, the master monks and the chief assassins. Their ranks are jealously guarded and although it is possible to ascend to the Exalted rank, many strive to produce direct offspring inheritors to this position.Lifebringer: Technically part of the Exalted rank, but in practice slightly above it, the Lifebringers are an all-female order of slyvhar mages who use perverse fertility magics to produce unnaturally large and quickly-aging litters. Through this role, they serve as the backbone of the slyvharri; without them, it is doubtful that their culture could continue in its current state. Many Lifebringers are also Eternals, but not all of them.Eternal: There is a deep, dark secret to the slyvharri, and even they are not truly aware of it. The origins of their people lie in the sins of the past, in the destruction of the Black Dawn. A cabal of aelfar necromancers and flesh-crafters found themselves overwhelmed by necromantic energies, transforming into strange, ephemeral undead. In this state, they survived the Black Dawn, and became witnesses to the destruction of their people. Driven mad with hatred, they swore revenge, and sought to reclaim a fleshly form that they could use to enact retribution. Through some twisted irony, their souls bound themselves to forms of common rabbits, and so they were reborn as the first of the slyvharri. Now, they have become trapped; each Eternal lives for a few short centuries, a pittance of an elven lifespan, as a slyvhar, only to die and reincarnate again and again. It is possible that this existence has only driven them deeper into insanity, and is to blame for the sheer vitriol their children direct both against others and against themselves. As the god-kings and -queens of the slyvharri, their word is law and so long as they exist, it is doubtful that the slyvharri will ever change from what they are.SettlementsSlyvharri settlements, called warrens, can be found anywhere the race deems suitable for colonization. As their name suggests, the bulk of the settlement is typically underground, although they have been known to experiment - slyvhar cities built in the branches of the giant trees of the Jaderealm, for example. The surface is used for fortifications and, if possible, for agrarian pursuits, whilst the underground portions of the settlement are dedicated to living spaces and storage.Slyvharri warrens are always heavily defended; they are not the trapmasters that kobolds are, and as a result enjoy enslaving kobolds to make them craft defenses for their warrens, but fortifications and legions of swarming bunnyfolk warriors prove quite effective deterrents to any who might be so foolish as to invade.Because of how unconcerned they are with individual lives the slyvharri are, their settlements often include territories or features that other races would avoid as being too dangerous. Polluted water that might kill one in five Fodder to drink it is acceptable because such losses are quickly replaced, after all.AdventurersIn their own brutally repressive society, adventuring classes represent the many subcastes of the elite Blade rank, or else the Blooded - those lucky few who survive long enough in endless combat to refine their skills to a useful level.Amongst those slyvharri who have deserted, however, all are adventurers in some way, as it was through these skills that they managed to escape the tyranny of the Eternals and seek sanctuary in the lands beyond.Barbarians: In the ranks of the slyvharri, where life is unimportant compared to victory, barbarians are quite common. Many slyvhar barbarians were either the result of experiments with alchemy or sorcery to produce unnatural combat frenzies that eventually became semi-permanent, or were Fodder whose deep and abiding fury at the horrible lot they had been given at birth exploded on the battlefield. The vast majority of slyvhar barbarians are Battleragers, although Berserkers follow close behind. Storm Heralds and Zealots make up the bottom echelons of their ranks. There are no native Totem Warriors or Ancestral Guardians, and even those who flee the chains of their culture never become Ancestral Guardians.Bards: Considered unimportant but useful, bards are rare amongst the slyvharri, but far from unheard of. However, those trained in their own culture are always Lorekeepers, Skalds or Blades; the principles of the College of Satire are anathema to the ruthlessly tyrannical leaders of the slyvhar. However, those draega who flee and find freedom are often quite willing to become Jesters, now that they can freely laugh at those who hold power over them.Fighters: Without a doubt the most common of all adventuring slyvhars, these are, in increasing order of rank and decreasing commonness, Champion, Cavalier, Scout, Battlemaster, Banneret, Eldritch Knight.Monks: Amongst the most elite of the martial classes, the slyvharri monastic traditions actually have their roots in ancient elven fighting styles, though few remain who could realize that. Only the Shadow and Long Death styles are taught in the dojos of the slyvhar; the Sun Soul, in particular, is anathema to the Eternals. Rangers: Though the slyvhar military's default tactic may be to drown the enemy in bodies, that does not mean they are ignorant to the potential of the ranger as forward troopers. No Conclave is particularly dominant in their ranks.Rogues: Whilst Thieves and Masterminds only arise in draega warrens that live near enough to settlements of other species that subverting them from within is seen as a viable tactic, Assassins can be found in all warrens, serving as the much-feared secret police and as agents of political turmoil. Arcane Tricksters, however, are rooted out zealously for their potential at subverting their own kind - talents that often enable them to flee to the dubious safety of the world beyond.Sorcerers: Prized and valued amongst the slyvharri, few are willing to leave the life of luxury that they can have there, but some do, often out of a sense of destiny stunted. Only some origins are native to Draega, though; the Shadow Sorcerers, Greenbloods and Rothearts, who tap into the ancestral elven magics of life and death, are predominant. Apart from those, only Wild Mages appear with any confirmable accounting, and they are feted for their talents, though still placed under some pressure; though wild surges can be overlooked in a culture where life is so cheap, a true inability to control magic with any reliable degree can result in... corrective measures.Warlocks: Although somewhat distrusted by the Eternals, warlocks do have a value to the slyvhar cause and so are carefully vetted. They are always a minority amongst a warren's casters, and are amongst those most likely to leave. Undying and Dark Mother Pacts are the norm for draeg warlocks; Undying Light warlocks either flee their warren or are destroyed by the Eternals.Wizards: Although the slyvharri are certainly willing to solve problems by throwing bodies at them, magic is very much a prized skillset in their society, and slyvhar wizards are tutored extensively. The most common and valued schools are Bladesinging, Necromancy, Conjuration, Theurgy, Elementalism, and Evocation. Transmutation and Artificering are less common, but still respected and respectable. Illusion and Enchantment, however, are strictly forbidden, and Divination is extremely uncommon, being seen as being of limited use.Mystics: Slightly less common than wizards, but equally respectable, slyvhar mystics are seen as one of the strongest symbols of slyvhar superiority and manifest destiny. Unfortunately for the Eternals, this inner wellspring of power has a bad tendency to give slyvhar both the insight into how messed up their culture is and the power to escape it.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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