BotG: Scana:
Symbols: C c
#Species: the psychology and physiology of the Scana:#
The Scana are far from human in their physiology, perhaps the best introduction is how an Tenryuubito explorer described the first encounter: “As I rounded a thicket of bamboo I found myself face to face whit a strange creature; it appeared to be some kind of salamander, about as long as a grown Tenryuubito stands tall, and having no hind legs. It was a thousand shades of brilliant blues; sky blues, azure, aquamarine, cerulean, cobalt, lilac, sapphire... Some patches even almost appearing metallic, and the light playing beautifully over its amphibian skin. The creature slithered on its belly like a snake, but appeared much less muscular, and had giant, soft eyes scanning the surroundings. The creature in some ways appeared quite pathetic, or at least harmless, slow and clumsy, whiteout any strength or speed or sharp claws or powerful jaws, but there was also something graceful over it, a simplistic beauty, and in those eyes a deep compassion. Only when the creature spoke did I realize this was some kind of people, and not merely another beast of the swamps.”
3h/day sleep. Warm blooded. Great social skills.
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#Culture:#
The scana could almost be said to currently have 4 different main cultures:
Eastern: Much of their culture is absorbed from the lunarians, including language, architecture, and spirituality, however they lack the Hitengu nature of peacefulness, meaning they are scientifically less harmonic.
Middle Urban: Competitive, mechanistic, and even greedy. Seek on quick action and profit; at least that is the stereotype. They are highly urbanized and an attitude that could almost be identified as globalized. Most other races have almost exclusively formed their opinion of Scana based on the Middle Urban, as these make up 90% of all traders.
Middle Rural: Peaceful and nature loving, much less competitive then other Scana, and much closer to how all Scana are at the core by nature when not ruined by nurture
Western: Conservative, tend to have tight knit small communities, slightly xenophobic.
The federation contains mostly the Rural- and urban Middle, and these are also the most numerous.
Eggs are laid and fertilized in a communal building, nobody know who’s kid is who’s, or even what pairing there is to them. Larva is raised into adulthood communally or by adoptive parents. This means there is no inheritance and really no concept of family or blood bounds in general.
In many states (including almost all of the federation) eugenics are practiced, larva that are deemed unfit are killed to improve the gene pool, this is done long before the larva reach sapience, and thus really more akin to abortion than killing people, but some people/races still have an issue with it.
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#Trade and relations whit other races:#
Tenryuubito ((Lunarians, Hitengu tribe from the moon)) [Akroma]
Nocturin ((lizard peaple in the dessert whit undead)) [New Mars]
Ratew/Artew ((water elementals kinda)) [EJ]
Artoin ((kinda humanlike, has good magic and not to much quirks, probably a good source of mercenaries.)) [Kasshyk]
Cado naso Jiar (”Peaple of the void”, Zen, frail humanoids living in floating cities of ice) [Pandarsenic]
Shehalash ((shadow peaple, insane, wants souls)) [Istrian]
Sandriders ((desert nomads tribes in symbiosis whit their riding bear thingies)) [Wimdit]
Zefies ((fluffballs)) [Strife26]
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#The Scana Trade Federation:#
Out of a total ~12 million Scana in the world, ca 8 900 000 live in one of the federations 26 states. (There is a total of 37 recognized city-states, meaning 11 outside the federation. On top of that there exist Scana villages in some places that do not belong to any of these, belonging either to the nation of some other race controlling the territory, or simply belonging to no government at all)
The federation is ruled by a Senate consisting of two senators from each member state, it follows a system equivalent to parliamentary procedure and hold ultimate legislative and judicial power, In addition one of the senators are elected arch senator and the arch senator holds ultimate executive power as well as having two votes in the senate, on top of that it is tradition for the arch-senator to cast his or her vote first, and the same tradition states that if one has no strong opinion on the issue being voted one should vote the same as the arch-senator by default.
The two senators each member state gets is one based of a democratic vote of the population (the rule is that everyone who can be considered a person, and who live in the state are allowed to vote, there is not much red tape about who can be considered to live there permanently or not, and if there is a dispute the general tendency is to default to letting them vote.), and the other being the leader of the state, which depending on state can be royalty, the most powerful merchant in the city, another democratically elected politician, etc. When a member state change their representatives and how often elections are held varies from state to state. Whenever any senator change the arch-senator is voted upon again, but it is a strong tradition to always revote the current arch-senator and thus unless they screw up badly the arch-senator position is usually for life. The arch-senator is also automatically the mayor of Seacastle.
It is a rather loose federation, whit the member states having a large amount of self governance, the federation being mostly responsible for things like trade standards, military, dealings whit other races, and some common laws such as against slavery and soul trade, the best IRL parallel would perhaps be the European Union.
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#Heroes:#
The Scana have no divine champion or immortal warrior, so I’ll just use this section to describe some random characters I’ll (hopefully) use the viewpoints of. Other than a bit of plot armour because I’m attached to them they have no special abilities or game play advantages.
Auaatia ka Ciolin: The current arch-senator of the Scana Trade Federation. She is friendly, cheerful, and easygoing, intelligent, just, and kind, she’s a woman of action. She is something of a rarity in that she is a Rural Middle that engages in politics, and she is the second Rural Middle in history to reach the position of arch-senator. She is the most powerful Scana alive, and the people love her.
Krakon Zaphori: A ruthless slaver from the east, not a citizen of the federation, and one of the few Scana that are actually cruel. He is a successful businessman and owner of a small trading fleet.
Sarrotin: An Artew postal worker living in Evermarket that keeps getting in trouble.
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#Military:#
Most of the city-states have their own military, and the Federation have a standing army of decent size. The majority of Scana military power is however in private initiative mercenaries. The Scana are in generally militarily weak.
Scana are relatively slow compared to other races on most types of terrain, and their build makes it hard for them to weld most weapons such as swords or spears, holding a shield, or drawing a bow. In short, they make rather pathetic foot soldiers, and the only melee weapons they can weld properly are small ones like daggers, and special blades and clubs they attach to their powerful tails.
Scana warfare focus almost exclusively on their navy, which despite the lower relative effort put into it measures well against most other races. When forced to fight on land, they tend to focus on siege weaponry, chariots whit crosbowscana in them, and most importantly foreign mercenaries. Note that while Scana in general make bad fighters, exceptions are not unheard of, and also the principles that apply to large scale warfare does not necessarily apply to all fighting; Scana in small groups whit the element of surprise and armed whit tail blades can be surprisingly deadly.
The Scanas general level headedness makes them well equipped to handle the stress of battle, and while their loyalty to the state often of partial their loyalty to their comrades is remarkable and they are naturally brave. Scana mercenaries also have a tradition that is of note: they adopt the codes of honour from whoever is currently their employer, and will whit surprisingly often follow these even when it risks their life considering they are not their own. Scana do not tend to be loyal to the death to any organization or amount of gold, and you won’t get them to do something outright suicidal, the only thing that reliably will make a Scana sacrifice their own life is close personal friendship.
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#Religion and Philosophy:#
The Scana believe that gods probably existed in the past as described by other races, but does not know of their creation, and does not worship any.
One mayor point in Scana philosophy is that expert knows best, and thus they adopt Lunarian/Hitengu views of nature and colour and life, Artoin views of life and death and souls, Cado naso Jiar views of emptiness and meditation, Shehalash views of perfection and knowledge, Sandrider views of song, etc. This obviously leads to a lot of inconsistencies, and thus what the Scana still needs to have philosophers for sorting out.
You could find minorities of Scana believing almost anything, the largest of these is the ones who follow the Tenryuubito faith, numbering at almost 100 000.
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# 1390 Year History of the Scana:#
Minus 386 nok: the first Scana, about a thousand, and mere savages at the time, are warped into the world by Armok, and given the gift of powerful magic. They start building a civilization according to his instructions.
Minus 350-100 nok: the Scana civilization grows. They fight wars and forge alliances, and generally all the stuff big and successful civs do. They are powerful users of magic, and keepers of lore. They build giant cities relying heavily on magic, whit spires of multicoloured glass extending high into the sky, and domed cities under the sea, they are among the most powerful and influential civs on the board. Literacy is near 100%, almost all menial labour is done by magical constructs, and everyone is decent whit magic. Many cities are built without stairs or similar due to everyone knowing simple flight spells.
Minus 100 nok to nok Zero: The Scana grow lazy and corrupt, their power continues to grow, but slower, they lose more allies but win more wars, the lose their connection whit nature, and whit that their magic start to weaken, but that process is slow and the daily political struggle overshadow it. In total over the ~100 years the magic decrease whit about 20%.
NOK ZERO: One moment, the gods were there, the next, they were not. The moon went black and a bunch of other things happened, but the single important thing for the Scana was that their magic dispersed. Completely.
Not only were they dependant on magic for their everyday lives, but it literary held up their cities: the glass towers collapsed under their own weight, sending torrents of deadly shards for kilometres around, the flying castles fell from the skies, and the domed undersea habitats imploded under the crushing force of the oblivion. Within an hour of the magic flow stopping, 93% of the Scana civilization was dead, a week later only less than one in a thousand remained, the rest having died of dehydration, infighting, or eaten by beasts when they no longer had their magic to rely on. The ones that survived were a few ludite communities, and larva that somehow escaped into the swamps and continued to live there like animals. Almost all knowledge and records were lost.
1-100 nok: The Scana tries to recuperate and figure out what has happened, and adapt to their new situation. Some of the “Tarzan style jungle kids” that escaped as larva form primitive tribe like communities, grow into eremites, or are assimilated into the ludite villages. The ludites also needs to adapt, both as even they were not completely independent of magic, and because of new threats such as the beasts of darkness released by the disappearance of the moon. They mostly succeed in this task and populations begin to grow as they expand to fill, the vacuum left by the massive holocaust.
100-219 nok: the Scana spread out, and form 5 distinct communities, most of the tribes have been absorbed into the villages (now growing into towns and cities) and the eremites have died of old age. As the communities grow they get more organized, forming governments and an economy. They spread to cover most of their current territory, and their total population grows to around a million. At the end of this era, a series of civil wars break out in all 5 communities due to the population of each being more than the governments can successfully control. Written records start appearing again at this time.
219-236 nok: The First Bloody War, massive causalities and suffering, but also prompts the Scana to dig up old knowledge of science and philosophy. At the end of the period the era the situation has settled as 21 independent states, each whit one or two towns or a city and a few villages. These can still be recognized today, after this has also formed what is often referred to as the “classic” or “native” Scana culture and architecture. The body count of the wars is almost 400 000.
278 nok: the population of the year was, according to census, 197 000. This was the year of the first contact whit the Tenryuubito, witch after a first misunderstanding was cleared up, went peacefully, and trade was established whit several of the city-states during the coming decade. Only a year after contact whit the Tenryuubito, and before the news of that had even spread to the point were it happened, contact is made whit the Ratew/Artew, this contact goes even better than whit the Tenryuubito, and both races turn out to enjoy each others company and the cultures contribute greatly to each other. Before the year 300 contact I also made whit the Cado Naso Jiar, the Artoin, and the Thelash. Why all these contacts happened in such close temporal proximity is not known, but it is suspected to have something to do whit a bloodless revolution in what would later become Evermarket a few years earlier.
300- 400 nok: This period is known as the first renascence, as the exchange whit foreign culture fill the Scana whit new vigour, while all the first encounters were mostly friendly, not all of them remain so: several city-states after being assaulted by Tenryuubito slavers war against them, and looses, and some others meet similar fates due to theological issues whit the Thelash and Artoin. In general most Scana remain friendly towards the foreign races, and at no point are there hostilities involving the entirety of the Scana race. During this era is founded the Scana consciousness of their own military vulnerability, as well as their mechanistic tendencies and the eugenic practice of “purging” unfit larva before they reach sapience.
400-500 nok: A boom in economy and population, doubling form around 2.5 million to almost 5 million, and the economy increasing fivefold. Much of the Scana role in the world economy and important trade routs whit other races were formed during this age. A large flow of other races to the booming Scana cities happened during this age, and whit them followed large swats of culture, most notably Lunarian and Artew cultural influences which still dominate in the larger cities. Many loanwords steam from this age, in fact such an amount that many linguist considers it the birth of the modern Common tongue. A large increase in the amount of Scana slaves in other civilizations, particularly the Tenryuubito, appeared during this time, and their unique culture mostly formed during these years.
500-600 nok: In the year 509, a massive slave uprising took place among the Tenryuubito, several thousand Lunarians were killed, and several villages’ levelled and nearly 200 000 slaves escaped to the Scana city-states. This event would come to shape most of this century. First of, the influx of immigrants strained the already overcrowded cities, causing several of the city-states to break up in two, or ally, or declare war on each other. This was the Second Bloody War. The escape also significantly soured Tenryuubito opinion on Scana, and the former slaves of coarse did not think very high of the Tenryuubito. This led to about 35% of the Scana to wage war on the Moon-tribe, and during this war the Scana for the first time showed of the power of their gold by fielding massive amounts of Artew mercenaries and hired Artoin undead.
When the wars were over, the current 37 states had formed (whit a few exceptions), and once again Scana culture had undergone a cultural revolution as well as a political one, the most important parts being the enormous influx of lunarian culture that came whit the slaves, and the split in 4 groups between eastern (that sympathize whit the Tenryuubito, and engage in slavery), middle urban (largely representing the values currently held by the federation), middle rural (peaceful and nature loving, much less competitive then other Scana, and much closer to how all Scana are at the core by nature when not ruined by nurture), and western Scana (Haters of the moon tribe, and almost isolationist). In 598, over 3 years after the wars ended, Evermarket and Seacastle formed an alliance, called The Scana Trade Federation.
600-700 nok: A relatively peaceful century, the Federation, grew whit about 5 states, relations destabilised during the Second Bloody War were repaired, cultures settled in and established their traditions, general growth but at an ordinary pace, etc.
700-800 nok: The second renascence, whit the addition of 7 states during the single year 724, the balance of power shifted, and together whit several technological advances this triggered a second economic boom, and a new influx and mixing of the populations and cultures of other races. A new interest in philosophy and high culture arose, and the old principles held alive but the Rural Middle gained more mainstream recognition. At the end of this time the federation contained 19 states, containing nearly 4 600 000 Citizens (compare to about 7 million Scana in total at the time), and began to gain its reputation as a worldwide superpower. There were some skirmishes between the westerners and the Artoin, but these were of little historical significance.
800-900 nok: The Federation, from having been mostly an alliance and a trade union, took on more properties of a state such as common laws and a military. It was also in the early days of this century that slavery and soul trade were outlawed. The federation grew from 19 to 25 city-states. Otherwise it was rather uneventful.
900-1003 nok: Also this a rather uneventful century as well, there were some rise in xenophobia towards other races but in general trade and the economy have been doing great. There is however a general strain from the growing population, and many sociologists and historians claim that in a century or two a Third Bloody War is bound to occur. This century featured a large increase in black markets, as traders “adaptations” to the laws became standards and traditions and thus more seen as acceptable. In the year 997, Auaatia was elected arch-senator of the Federation; she is the second Rural Middle in history to be given this honour.
1004 nok: The return of the gods, the Scana noticed very little of this, but it’s the start of the game so that is probably about to change…
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#Cities:#
Evermarket: 1 200 000 inhabitants, whereof almost 7% non-Scana.
The larges Scana city, situated at the northern end of The Great channel. It is the largest commercial hub in the world, whit huge organized criminality, so huge in fact that it is sometimes said to have two governments, one official that is part of the federation, and one that consists of the great criminal lords. You can buy ANYTHING in Evermarket, if you are willing to pay.
Seacastle: 900 000 inhabitants, whereof almost 5% non-Scana.
The Capitol of the federation, the great and beautiful city of Seacastle houses the dwarven built fortress complex with the same name. It houses the Senate and The Light of Peace turns night into day and hold horrors away almost as effectively as the moon once did.
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#”Artefacts”:#
The Great Channel: A channel between the northern and southern oceans, this gigantic project took over 100 years to complete (interrupted somewhat by the Second Bloody War) and the huge incomes from taxation of the traffic was what enabled Evermarket to become as large and powerful as it is. It was built by expanding river that existed before.
The Seacastle Fortress Complex: Built long ago by a now extinct dwarven civilization, it is hard to tell were the fortress ends and the Scana built parts begin, but futures known to be of dwarf make is at least the great lighthouse (which also houses the Senate), the underground harbour (the opening allows even the largest ships to pass, and yet a gigantic solid rock gate allows it to be blocked of completely, the harbour itself is deep within the earth and appears almost like an entire hollowed out mountain whit room for over a hundred ships), the near-impenetrable fortifications, and the underground city (whit room enough to in an emergency house almost 200 000 people).
The Light of Peace:
The Light of Peace is a lantern that was carved by the Hitengu of Tenrai Minzoku in the year minus 700 nok out of a single quartz crystal, and decorated whit rose quartz, milk quarts, and citrine. It is a masterful work of art, extremely delicate, looking almost like it could fall apart at any moment, and is breathtakingly beautiful, the shapes form natural-looking motifs, but are abstract. It is about 30cm tall and weights 600 grams when empty. The magic, however, comes into action first when you place a candle inside.
The most immediately notable effect is the range, for the Light of Peace can illuminate any space, and any surface whit an unbroken line of sight no matter how many miles away will be illuminated just as strongly as if the candle were at an arms length. The second, but much more powerful effect, the one which has given the artefact its name, is that anyone who see the light of it have their hate and anger, their prejudice and their hot-headedness, their weariness and bitterness, washed away as by a cool mountain spring. The effect take hold within a few minutes, and for those that would for some reason prefer not to be affected it can easily be avoided by simply closing you eyes, using a shading hat, or by other means avoid looking at it. Other, weaker and less reliable effects of the light is improved mental health, becoming more trusting and easygoing, becoming more “good”, decreased competitiveness, increased rationality, and generally becoming a better person. Other emotions, such as self preservation or loyalties, are not affected. The Light currently resides on top of the lighthouse of Seacastle, were it sheds its light on the entire city turning night into day, and into the senate camber helping them make wise decisions. How the Light came into Scana possession is unknown, but it has resided at its current position for at least five hundred years.
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#Magic:#
The Scana race were once powerful mages, but when the gods disappeared the magic disappeared whit them. Modern day Scana does not have any form of magic what so ever.
They do, however, import magic product, and members of magic races live in their cities, so most Scana are familiar whit magic and some even know the workings of it from working whit other races.
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#God: Armok:#
Armok is quite possibly the oldest of the gods, and elite even among them, but he is quite thinly spread across the multiverse, and as such often has less power to apply to any single problem.
Armok is the god of blood, this is really all most mortals know about him, and thus they assume he’s some kind of war god.
But this is incorrect, Armok is much more than so, he is the god of life as much as death, of flowing blood and spilled blood, of cold blood and hot blood. Or all life and emotion, he is the god of creation and destruction. What he is really a god of, is opposites, of being both sides of an issue, yet he cannot be said to be neutral, as that is simply the lack of a stance. Armok is everything. Armok is inconsistence and paradox.
Armok tends to shift his appearance a lot, if he could be said to have any set form, it’s that n-dimensional infinite spindly fractal that touch a googolplex universes and enters none of them. His avatars, remote controlled puppet shapes that acts like his body for interaction whit mortals or other gods, tend to have certain similar traits however, including extremely dark colour, glowing red eyes, often feline shape, and being either extremely intimidation or extremely adorable.
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Topic: Battle of the Gods VI OOC Thread -preparation- (Read 13991 times)