Master of the Art of Words
Group: The Truth As We See It
Posts: 1364
Member No.: 2
Joined: 21-May 06
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Genders: Male, Female, Alpha Males and Alpha Females(explained below)
Classes: Alphas make up the military and upper class of the Canids, Male jobs vary depending on race but mostly they do manual labour. Females do jobs to do with economics, religion, magic, and science.
Race: Canid (Singular: One Canid, Plural: Some Canids, Genitive: Canidae)
Age: The average life span of a Canid, depending on race(fox, wolf, so on), ranges from 40 years to almost 100.
Abilities: Non-Alphas are considerably stronger, faster, and tougher than humans, but they tend to be a bit less intelligent. Most males can lift their own weight by the time they're eight years old, and they don't stop growing until they reach twenty-five. Females aren't quite so strong or fast-growing, but they're better with numbers, words, and are more romantic and philosophical than their male counterparts, and they live longer.
Alpha males can transform into humans and then back into their canine forms. Depending on their race, they are specialised for various things. Wolves are very strong and very agile, ideal for close-combat, whereas Foxes are very good at sneaking around and scouting. Females aren't nearly as strong as Alpha males, being only a little bit more powerful than non-Alpha males, but they excel in intelligence and magic. Wolf females use the power that their God gave to them, which is the ability to create and manipulate fire and heat, and thus make up a small but very powerful part of the military. Fox females are incredibly clever and are capable of reasoning that even the most intellectual human would have difficulty following.
Appearance: Non-Alphas are canine anthropomorphs, so they walk on their hind legs and talk and act like humans, but they're much larger, as well as having fur, claws, fangs, and other such canine features. They vary from wolves to foxes, including simple dogs like the humans keep as pets. Females tend to be considerably smaller than males, almost invariably.
Alphas look just like humans most of the time, but they can transform, like the mythical werewolves, into their larger furrier forms. Both Alpha males and Alpha females are larger than the non-Alphas, and they tend to be a lot more dignified in the way they look.
Culture Description: The Canid culture resembles a Caste system that in our modern day and world doesn't exist anymore. Everything resembles around Faith, and Honour through Strength. As a result, Alphas in almost all possible scenarios are considered better than non-Alphas. Alpha females make up the Circle, which is a group of twelve sisters(either through blood, or through birth) who rule over the Canid religion, and nation. Of course, since the group of Canids who migrated to the dark realms to the North don't have the Circle to guide them, they are instead ruled by the strongest and most honourable Alpha Wolf there.
Non-Alphas are considered to be 'Working Class' and live in a less-than-okay habitat, mostly slums and houses far too small for the numbers living in them. Pay for even very difficult jobs is minimal, but if you're found out to be doing a job that doesn't live up to your potential, you're punished in ways we can only imagine.
The few Alphas who aren't in the military run everything behind the scenes, like the banks, the markets, the police, the media. They are an Upper Class that is only known to itself, and they tend to keep to themselves, too, for fear of being lynched by the people they exploit and use to stay on top of their Alpha brethren.
Females are actually considered to be above males in most cases, other than war, but even there many of them are high-ranking officers or generals, but even so, it is considered wrong to discriminate according to gender(Apart from Alpha - Non-Alpha). Not too long ago a particular group of Canids, namely, Jackals, were enslaved by the rest of their people. They were freed by Kamal(see below), mainly because of a powerful Alpha Jackal, who was one of his generals and convinced him to abolish the slavery. Despite the abolition, Jackals are still considered weak, stupid, and generally worse than anyone else.
The most hated of all are cross-breeds. Any cross-breed of any type, be it Wolf/Fox, even a cross-breed of two Alphas, but the worst of all is an half-Alpha half-non-Alpha. They turn out as freaks, partly human, partly whatever their non-Alpha half was, and are considered the same. Many of these half-Alphas are killed because of their 'impurity', and if someone claims that that was the reason for the murder, they're let off. All in all, its a wonder the nation hasn't been destroyed completely from the inside out.
Habitat: Their homeland is arctic, being far South, and it provides good training for armies and easy defence because of the mountainous nature of the land. Although this is good for the military, it made it very difficult to produce food. The abundance of iron, stone, and wood made up for this from the Alphas' point of view, and there was enough fertile land to feed all the army and the Upper Class as well as the Faithful class, so they didn't care, and refused to move elsewhere despite the massive expansion of the nation.
Weapons used by the military: The Alpha Wolves use swords and small shields, but that varies depending on both the battalion and the rank(Basically, the stronger you are, the higher rank you become, and the bigger sword you get). Foxes use bows and small daggers and blades, Jackals use defensive longbows and spears(considerably lower quality), and the Dogs use clubs and short swords. Females don't use any weapons at all, usually, but some like to carry daggers or short swords just in case.
History: Like some other civilizations, the Canids record their history in eras according to their leaders, but unlike those nations, the Canids do it according to their military leaders. The Grand General of the army is the one who dictates how many things are run, unless the Circle disagrees in which case he or she is overruled, and as a result, he is thought of as the leader of the Canid nation during his or her term.
The very first recorded Grand General was a particular Darkhound, a Wolf of incredible power. None have been able to match him, according to the tales of his strength, and he is rumoured to have ascended to the status of God, and thus, they worship his name when they pray for victory in battle.
The second recorded Grand General, a female Wolf by the name of Azielka was born considerably later. She was only at the age of 18 when she reached said rank, and she was thought to be invincible because of her mastery over fire, until she ordered the genocide which wiped out a large portion of the Jackals who were already persecuted in various ways.
The third Grand General, who had been a thirty-year old male Fox called Naden, stopped the genocide by murdering Azielka, and instead ordered the army to force the remainder of the Jackals into slavery, at the time only as a cheap labour force to rebuild all that was destroyed during Azielka's rule. Little did he know this slavery would last long after he died.
The fourth Grand General, Umel, was actually born at least three hundred years after Naden. She was thought of as great because she started the great crusade against the Revim, who had pillaged border settlements of the Canid since before anyone could remember. The devilish Revim were slaughtered, even though Umel sacrificed herself early on in the campaign in order to save a large portion of the force. Of course, this only served to anger the army and make them fight harder.
The fifth Grand General, whose great grandfather ended the Revim Crusade(neither of their names are known), started a similar crusade into the Western territories controlled by humans. They were slaughtered without any mercy, and as far as their homeland knew they could've been killed by anyone, since they were defeated so quickly. This Grand General died when he was murdered in his sleep by a Jackal slave working at his home. The slave was executed, of course, as well as his entire family and anyone he knew who was either a Jackal or a non-Alpha.
The sixth Grand General, sired only two hundred years before the present day, was a female Wolf called Mukecha, who eliminated her predecessor in a duel in which she lost an arm. Unlike other Grand Generals before her, she was peaceful. She was the first in more than two thousand years to suggest that perhaps the Jackals weren't as unworthy as currently considered. She even suggested that Darkhound would've been ashamed of what the Canid people had become. She said that, looking at the other nations around them, they were backwards. In war they relied on faith, and their strength, while other nations built new weapons, and expanded.
Since Mukecha, the Canids had been split, and after her death at the hands of a disease that spread through the capitol and killed thousands, even more flocked to worship her name.
Finally, the seventh Grand General, a great Alpha Wolf by the name of Kamal, who ruled for more than twenty years, which is almost a record, restored peace and stability by abolishing the slavery of the Jackals and convincing everyone that honour and faith were all they required in order to be a powerful, thriving people, even though they were technologically backwards and much smaller than the other tribes and nations.
The current Grand General is a female Fox called Jian, who so far has strongly supported Kamal's ideology, possibly because she was romantically involved with him during his rule, even though she claimed that that wasn't true. She works in a much more liberal way than her predecessors; since she isn't a fighter, herself, she has three generals beneath her who do the fighting. A male Fox, and her lover, Kazan, a female Wolf called Mea and a male Wolf named Stein. All four of these came to the central lands on the crusade against the so-called 'Machine God', as well as three quarters of their army and about the same number of non-Alphas to build the settlement and plant crops and whatnot.
In the year that's passed since they arrived, they had yet to meet their enemy, and their scouting missions had been inconclusive, but Jian had mysteriously fallen ill. Assassination was assumed, and the leadership was split. Since Jian couldn't tell anyone what to do, Kazan was left alone supporting her form of government while Stein and Mea, who controlled the entire army, ruled with an iron fist.
Kazan and a small number of his forces had fled the settlement, for fear of being assassinated as well, and he took his love, Jian, with him. A week after they left, they haven't been seen or contacted, and are presumed dead at the hands of their enemy. Although, with the escort they had, who was only known to them, Mea, Stein, and the Circle, such an outcome was unlikely...
God Information:
Name: Darkhound(Varies a bit)
Age: Unknown
Gender: Male
Class: Fire Knight
Abilities: Can shoot fireballs, breath fire, all that kind of thing. His skills with the sword excel far beyond any mortal, and most immortals, too. He can take a lot more damage and pain than.. well, pretty much anything.
Personality: He is honourable and chivalric. He doesn't talk much to anyone but his closest followers, and even then not much. He never backs down from a fight, and is willing to give himself up in order to defend his followers.
Weapons: A large sword about a metre and a half long, with a three inch blade on the other end of the handle, too. The blade is weighted to have a heavier swing, when holding it near the bottom of the handle, but it's balanced if you hold it with two hands or near the hilt. The handle itself is about a foot long, all in all making the sword about two metres long. The Alpha Wolf, who is easily this height, every time(see below), wears the blade on his back.
Appearance: It varies, too. Current appearance is a grey Alpha wolf who wears steel armour with brown markings and etchings in it.
History: Unlike many of the other Gods, he is more of a concept to most of his people than an actual being, ruling them. Since his actual birth, all those Grand Generals ago, he has only been known as what he is by the Circle, and the Grand Generals. Since Jian had such a strange system, her three secretaries were allowed to know of his existence too.
Every sixty years, on the first day of the year, a male Alpha Wolf is born, who can clearly be seen as being gifted before they're even old enough to join the army. This Alpha Wolf is trained personally by the Grand General and the Circle, not revealed to the rest of the army or the Canid race, until they are fifteen, at which point they are placed by the side of the Grand General, in order to guard them and aid them in battle.
When the Alpha Wolf is sixty years old, exactly, he dies, but for his whole life he is as fit as a twenty-five-year-old. At that point, the next Alpha Wolf is born. This Alpha Wolf is the physical personification of the God, Darkhound.
Unlike most of the other Gods, Darkhound doesn't have a 'God' form, but the Alpha Wolf he is possessing has the ability to grow to be more than fifteen metres tall.
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The Canid Race
