The Leucrocottas

300 Million Years Post-Establishment + 40,000 years.

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A diverse range of people of varied shape, size, and custom, leucrocottas have made a home over most of the northern continent for around 4 million years, and in doing so have altered the ecosystems around them. They are predators first and foremost, dependent on a carnivore diet to survive. Yet though this is central to the identity of many leucrocotta people, not all define themselves by their will to kill in the modern day.

above: a particularly fierce-looking continental leucrocotta.

Leucrocottas comprise 3-4 living species in the genus Truxmonoceros and at least 1 extinct species, which are or were all carnivorous sophonts descended from unicorn thorngrazers. Leucrocottas are very behaviorally and physically diverse, even within single species, but very broadly they resemble combinations of hyenas and horses, with some taking more after one or the other, and of course all walking on just three legs, not four. They have highly modified jaws relative to other molodonts in which the single upper tooth has become very small and narrow - a sharp biting weapon, but no longer suitably shaped to grind or chew food. Leucrocottas have evolved a work-around to this, a sharp bone plate along the upper jaw against which their much larger lower tooth can slice food. This complex, many-cusped lower tooth runs the length of the jaw and does not flex like the upper tooth. The upper bone plate is shared with their closest relatives among the savage thorngrazer lineage, but most well developed in this genus. Leucrocottas may be hypercarnivores - animals which need around 70% of their diet to come from the animal kingdom - but they are not exclusively meat-eaters and supplement their diets with fruit, starchy root vegetables, and - for settled populations - processed grains in the form of bread and cereals.

above: a diagram showing the tooth anatomy of the leucrocottas, which is unusual among molodonts for the presence of a secondary bone ridge on the upper surface of the mouth which replaces the actual upper tooth in chewing.

The continental leucrocotta is the most common species, and is further divided into sub-populations of varying genetic distinctness. Their most common ecotype, steppe leucrocottas, evolved into valley leucrocottas, central nomad leucrocottas, eastern leucrocottas, desert leucrocottas, and boreal leucrocottas, with the latter three being more genetically isolated than those before them. Valley and nomad leucrocottas today are most numerous by number, owing to concentrated populations permitted by settlement and agriculture, but steppe (excluding valley) is the widest ranging across Serinarcta. Continental leucrocotta are usually large, weighing up to 650 pounds, though 400 is more typical of most populations. They have stronger jaws, short dewclaws, and generally limited manual dexterity; their jaws are their primary manipulators. Settled leucrocotta in more urban regions today have modern technology and agriculture, but received both from influence from the whisperwings that share these environments; while this relationship is largely mutualistic, there is possibly some aspect of domestication at work, in which whisperwings have altered some leucrocotta's behavior in order to use them as a tool in the advancement of their own societies. This is most clearly demonstrated in the valley leucrocotta, who show several characteristic domestication traits including an unusually wide array of colors, smaller teeth and jaws, and retention of child-like playfulness into adulthood; such traits often go hand-in-hand with a selective pressure for lower aggression in a species, and these leucrocotta are the most social of them all.

Continental leucrocotta are functionally trichromats, seeing all visual light spectrums, but having little (but not zero) sensitivity to UV. They tend to favor activity in daylight hours, but usually have multiple sleep and wake cycles in a single day, being awake during both day and night periods with multiple rests in between, usually at midday and latest night hours. Lifespan is typically around 40 years, 45 as an upper limit. A few of the most isolated continental leucrocotta populations, which will be discussed more below, may differ more from the generalizations described here.

The littoral leucrocotta is comparatively rare, living only along the equatorial sea coast of Serinarcta. They are small, nimble, and relatively conservative in appearance. Unlike continental leucrocotta, this species has a history of their own innovation, independent agriculture (though limited) and enough dexterity via large and mobile dewclaws to create tools, and they have done so for many thousands of years longer than continental leucrocotta have. The two species were historically enemies, with littorals evolving how and where they did because of conflict with continental leucrocottas which were bigger and more aggressive, but less tolerant of harsh equatorial climate. Today, there is peace between settled leucrocotta and many, though not all nomadic steppe cultures, with trade between them. Littoral leucrocotta evolved without alliance with whisperwings, as they didn't trust the aids of their enemies. This is beginning to change today, as these separate societies start to integrate. Diaspora littorals in settled regions lead to low-level hybridization. Hybrids often take after the shape and size of the littoral, with continental markings, and are generally fertile but may be socially ostracized. Littoral leucrocotta are almost always dichromats and are red-green color blind, an adaptation to being strictly nocturnal. Hybrids and immigrant populations living in continental-majority regions must adjust to unnatural wake cycles, often with difficulty. First generation hybrids have restored color vision, but ensuing generations have increased odds of color blindness as recessive genes may recombine over time. Lifespan is typically 45 years, with an upper limit of just over 50. An isolated descendant species which arose from the littoral leucrocotta is covered separately lower down this page.

left: Streak, a littoral leucrocotta, bites some guy. Don't worry, he was an antagonist (probably.)

All leucrocottas are very scent-based sophonts, more than any other. While their hearing is acute and sight is decent (a little less clear than baseline human eyesight up close, but superior at a distance and in low light), scent is very important in their social communication, in a way humans cannot relate to. Leucrocotta can determine one another's sex, sexual receptivity, approximate age and even lifestyle (by cues varying based on diet) by smell alone, and have scent glands on their chins, in front of their eyes, and on their flanks which they habitually rub on surfaces and on one another in social greetings to exchange information in a simple and instinctual way. Scent marking with bodily excretions in public places and even on other individuals was once common but is now considered most unsanitary and gross, and is strongly discouraged in both settled valley and littoral leucrocottas, but persists in many nomadic steppe and boreal groups - an example of rapid cultural evolution, rather than genetic change. Yet it remains permissible, and common, for individuals of even the most upper class leucrocotta to smell one another's hind ends when meeting, though you should definitely wait for an invitation. Some valley leucrocottas, more heavily influenced socially by the strictly visual (and auditory) whisperwings which live among them, will find even this uncomfortable and unnecessary. Scent cues are much more important to leucrocottas than visual ones in mate choice, with partners being far more inclined to find someone's scent attractive or unappealing compared to their appearance, which is responsible for the very wide range of color forms of leucrocottas that appear any time populations do not have other need for subdued patterns, such as hiding from prey: leucrocottas just don't care much about looks, and don't reject mates on such arbitrary factors. Hybrids may be different enough in structure to notice, however, and their scent cues will also differ significantly from baseline. Unions between the two species are often organized and political, or form from friendships that grow into stronger romantic attractions over time, rather than being simple hook-ups, as different species (but not different "ecotypes" or "races" of a single species) are not often immediately attractive to each other without other context.

All species of leucrocotta naturally tend to live in extended families, natural extensions of a pack structure based on a pair and their young which was typical of their ancestors. Monogamous pairs are common but not universal; it is considered common for dominant male steppe leucrocottas to have harems. Males usually provide childcare as much as females. In settled cultures, clans can become very large and united through marriage of their members, while in nomadic cultures they are small by necessity and so more prone to conflict without marriage to unite them. Same sex relationships exist, but at lower levels than in whisperwings. Most leucrocotta are heterosexual, but have little concern about what others are doing; same-sex friendships between them are often very strong and could be viewed as romantic anyway. Leucrocottas are very touchy and feely with friends in a platonic way, and in settled regions may be often more so in public situations than with their actual mates, due to social norms around modesty. It is often considered crass and rather rude to have sex in public, or appear like you're going to, so opposite sex couples are less touchy around others than males will be with male friends, or females with female friends. Same-sex pairs can get away with being more publicly affectionate than straight ones because it is generally not expected they will be more than close friends. Gender expression in settled valley leucrocottas is expected by default to be binary, but there are virtually no gender-specific social roles, so it is not particularly troublesome to identify outside expectation. In the modern day a third gender is being more widely understood, and has uses in social interaction. Non-binary leucrocotta may use a non-specific pronoun to identify themselves as this third gender category, which exists mainly as a filter to potential mates, rather than to change social roles. Trans individuals, who may identify as a specific gender different from that expected of them, will also often use this designation. It is unfortunately difficult for a transgender leucrocotta to pass as the opposite sex due to innate scent cues that are difficult to mask (though perfumes can help a lot). They are likely to identify as third gender in general social circumstances for convenience, as it is an understood category to other leucrocotta, while among their own social circles of familiar individuals, they may choose to be identified as their chosen gender. But if you are, by chance, a hybrid, your scent cues may be muddied enough anyway to the majority that you may have less problems in deciding how to present yourself socially. This may be the only actual privilege hybrids get in any leucrocotta societies.

Growing Up

Leucrocotta childhoods are much shorter than those of humans, and their growth and development is comparatively rapid. Their total lifespan is also considerably shorter, usually around 45 years, though this varies and outliers exist.

above: a valley leucrocotta infant. This foal shown above is a relatively rare color mutation for the valley population, being almost entirely red.

Leucrocotta children are called foals, and they are born small relative to similar earth ungulates due to a narrower birth canal (this is true for all tribbetheres on land.) A newborn leucrocotta typically weighs only thirty to forty pounds, or less than 20 for some of the smaller species. Most thorngrazers are born without teeth, but the meat-eating forest unicorns, like leucrocottas, are born with their teeth partially erupted; tusks, though, do not even begin to appear for four months.

Leucrocottas are precocial and can walk and jump around within 24 hours of birth. They are born with an innate set of instinctive behaviors - to freeze or run from danger, to follow their parents, and to solicit food by nuzzling the mouth of familiar adults and producing a characteristic shrill whining sound. Their cognitive level at birth is somewhere around the range of a 2 year old human infant, and though they are born knowing almost nothing, they are capable of extremely rapid absorption of information in their first year, to the point that they mature many times faster than a human. A 3 month old leucrocotta can speak simple words and short phrases and has a larger understanding of spoken language, a 6 month old is equivalent to a 6 year old human, and a one year old leucrocotta is equivalent to a 8 year old human. They are weaned by 6-8 months of age, but will not participate in hunts for big game for at least another year. In their second year mental development slows down, and a two year old leucrocotta is still only around 13 human-years old. Adulthood is typically considered to be five years old, at which time adult size is attained, and sexual maturity has usually occurred, though some cultures - especially those outside settled regions - may be independent by age 3 by necessity.

above: two 6 month old leucrocotta children, a littoral type and a valley type, play together. Sanctuary Crater, home of the valley people, is the most likely place for these two species to come and live together in one society.

Leucrocottas entirely lack a visual sense of "cute" to induce parental care toward their young, which has always been strange to whisperwings, who think anything can be cute and will want to baby it and make it their pet. Leucrocottas don't notice these features, and they don't trigger maternal behavior even in mothers. Instead, leucrocotta foals smell cute, with strong and distinctive, sweet scents and pheromones that trigger strong maternal (and paternal) bonding behaviors in all leucrocotta, not only their parents. Large eyes and other visually pleasing traits seen in the infant are a side effect of being young and undeveloped, and serve no purpose in triggering care from adults, unlike in humans. Because they can't visually tell that an animal is 'cute' by its appearance alone, they don't instinctively transfer their parental behaviors onto substitutes like pets, but can learn to adopt other animals into their social groups from early socialization and culture, and modern leucrocottas do keep pets (to a lesser degree than in whisperwings, and this tendency only recently became widespread.) Leucrocotta who bear hybrid children can have difficulty forming an initial parental bond with their foals because their smell is not correct - greater effort may have to be taken to compensate in the first week or so without the strong, instinctive motivations that may not be present, but ultimately parents will imprint on the specific scent cues of their own offspring shortly after birth, and will begin to respond to them more innately once they are well acquainted with their children. Some hybrids unfortunately may receive poor initial care from their parents due to these issues, and they may grow up maladjusted. These communication barriers make interbreeding between continental and littoral leucrocotta uncommon, despite hybrids being both viable and fertile.

The total lack of a "visual cute" reflex in the leucrocotta almost certainly relates to their ancestral diet of other, closely-related unicorns. Kelpies, their precursor, fed specifically on the foals of their closest relatives, young animals that looked much like their own foals. Any sense of nurturing toward young that looked like themselves had to be lost to allow this diet and niche to develop, replacing visual cues with scent cues more specific to their own kind. Many leucrocotta still feed mainly on other unicorns, and would probably have a harder time doing so if everything they eat looked like a literal child to them.

above left: food or family? This eager valley child is just happy to be included (but his scent, still that of a youngster, dictates that he is still to be cared for, not consumed.)

above right: this pre-teen steppe leucrocotta, only months older, seems to have already decided that you are the food...

Notable Leucrocotta Varieties: Continental Group

These leucrocottas share several traits, particularly robust jaws, stocky body shapes (comparatively), short manes, short crests, barely or non-serrated lower teeth (as visible when the mouth is closed), and dewclaws on the front legs which are short and not very mobile. They are the more basal of two clades, and some still closer resemble the common ancestor of all leucrocottas. They are by far the most successful clade, present across all of the northern continent today, a dominion they have often maintained by force against other leucrocottas.

The steppe continental leucrocotta is the most widespread of the leucrocotta varieties, with the largest population and the greatest adaptability to different habitats. They still most closely resemble the earliest leucrocottas of millions of years ago, and they are found across most of Serinarcta, generally at high latitudes where the sun is less intense, though they are usually thinly distributed. Leucrocottas were historically nomadic, and lived in small, isolated clans which were antagonistic to one another. With the aid of the whisperwings some have developed new ways of life including agriculture and settled populations, namely those in the lowlands of Sanctuary Crater, but many populations of this species still live the older way of life as far-ranging, social predators of big game, though they are no longer as cut off from each other as they once were. Many leucrocottas within a cultural sphere around the Craterlands - but less so within it - call themselves the "Teeth" in reference to their predatory nature. These leucrocottas are usually not shy about their lifestyle as obligate carnivores which kill to live, and until recent times, the keeping of pets or any sort of animal not used as a food resource was an unheard of idea. For many leucrocotta outside the crater, it still is.

Steppe leucrocottas are the most common ecotype of this species, and are the least changed from the common leucrocotta ancestor of 297 million years PE. They are robust and stocky nomads that wander the vast, empty steppe in search of prey, with thick jaws and large teeth to subdue it, and occur east to west over most of Serinarcta. Although thanks to widespread cooperation with the whisperwing, many continental leucrocotta now live in a more interconnected world where clans can communicate with one another in ways they could not have done long ago, there still remain conflicts, prejudices, and antagonistic relationships between different populations, even within the same race. These people are still the products of an evolutionary history as aggressive apex predators which fought over increasingly limited resources, and for many this is still a fact of life. Efforts to improve global food security show the most promise to improve relations and forge cooperation over conflict, as those leucrocottas which live in settled, stable communities have adopted the most gregarious habits and show the least amount of territoriality. But this, too, is complicated by ever-worsening global climate, and the whisperwing's largest government now being notoriously insular and opposed to interfering with groups of sophonts living beyond the walls of the crater city, be they leucrocottas or others.

Valley continental leucrocottas are descended from early steppe leucrocottas, and have adapted to a sedentary life in Sanctuary Crater, the vast basin where once the Centralian Sea sat, now dried up in the shifting climate and thinner air. There vegetation is greener than in most outlying region, and climate remains somewhat milder. An agriculture-based society has arisen, allowing a high population density and food security. These leucrocottas grow taller than steppe populations by as much as 12 inches, though this is more to do with their more reliable nutrition. They also have shorter fur, narrower jaws, smaller teeth, and a very wide range of coat colors as a result of being mainly dependent on agriculture rather than hunting for their food; standing out is no longer a hindrance to these people, killing food is easier, and they are less subject to cold winters. These leucrocotta always live closely with whisperwings, especially the plains race of that bird, in a symbiotic relationship which goes back 40,000 years, and have acquired a lot of modern amenities from this unique relationship which other leucrocotta may lack, which has resulted in a significant degree of intra-species conflict between such "haves" and "have nots" over time, and produced a large cultural divide among valley and steppe leucrocottas, perhaps the steepest of all groups, despite being among each other's closest relatives.

Valley leucrocotta are pastoralists that farm herd animals, not hunters of wild prey - at least not on a day to day subsistence level - and they have less aggressive tendencies than many forms, though this may be attributed as much to their culture as to their genes. They are the best suited of the leucrocottas to live in large groups without severe in-fighting and are often considered to be the least xenophobic culture toward others. As a result, Sanctuary Crater is the most diverse melting pot of leucrocotta varieties, even if valley remains the majority group, and is open to immigration from outsiders. Yet to live there means to conform to their lifestyles and custom to a large degree, and those which will not do so are not viewed nearly so positively.

Non-settled steppe leucrocotta tend to have the least in common with this group and often view them as overly-privileged and made soft by their cushy, domesticated lives as the pets of whisperwings. In turn, valley leucrocottas are likely to view nomadic groups outside their borders as uncultured at best, or savages at worst. There are no immediate solutions to these ongoing conflicts which go back thousands of years.

right top: the face of royalty? With a characteristic white blaze typical of a valley leucrocottta, the otherwise dark-furred Karzavraz is the young but confident leader of the Sanctuary Crater people.

right lower: A rather sad-looking leucistic leucrocotta shows a total lack of fur pigment, but with dark hooves and eyes, this leucrocotta is not truly albino.

The boreal leucrocotta is a large and distinct variant of continental leucrocotta native to the tundra and north fork peninsula regions, just south of the glaciers. It, and other continentals, are given their own status as a subspecies for convenience, but most forms are not truly genetically isolated enough to be true subspecies. Boreals intergrade with other continentals to the south of their range. They are, however, more genetically distinct as a rule than the very closely related steppe and valley leucrocottas. Boreal leucrocottas include the heaviest of them all, with an average weight of 500-550 lbs. Within this species they are the more divergent in body shape than those seen above, having greatly reduced patterning, wide padded hooves to stride on snow, very pale fur which is also quite long, a robust jaw, short crests covered in insulating hair, and the largest teeth of all. Boreal leucrocottas are the most adapted of all to hunt large megafaunal prey, mainly other thorngrazers as well as the fierce arctic giraffowl of the capricock lineage. They live in the smallest groups as a rule, as food is very scarce, and have no permanent ranges, being nomadic to search for prey. Even in the modern day, the boreal leucrocotta is the least integrated group into wider society; only a few larger clans have been formally contacted, and most, living isolated lives in very small, scattered numbers, remain largely unaware of the civilizations which have sprung up far to their south. The boreal leucrocotta is thus rare in Sanctuary Crater, but is not entirely absent.

The boreal leucrocotta, due to its harsh habitat, often still lives by the most ancient ways of life for their species, with very little control over their environments. Domestic livestock cannot survive where they live, and so they depend completely on wild food sources in northern regions. This limits their numbers greatly, and they are the rarest leucrocotta group, as well as the least genetically diverse. This is not usually a problem in their historic range, but in settled regions, the boreal leucrocotta is noted for having little natural immunity to common illnesses in steppe leucrocotta. In the modern day vaccination exists, though its availability is restricted to the larger mixed-species cities. In earlier centuries, plagues have ravaged boreal leucrocottas which spent too long near settled, agricultural leucrocotta communities, reducing their numbers further and resulting in a cultural aversion to large groups or to ever spending long in one place that is still strong today. Though they are recognized by other groups as fellow "teeth" and many use variations on this as their own word for themselves, boreal leucrocottas are also known as wanderers by other steppe leucrocotta for their especially nomadic lifestyle, even compared to other traveler groups. Valley people may call them "giants", which has a neutral connotation. Though boreals are more robust and have larger heads and thicker legs than other continental leucrocottas, valley individuals can match or exceed them in height.

Central Nomads are an ethnic group of continental leucrocotta who have inhabited the greenbelt region between the craterlands and the northfork peninsula, where boreals are common, for at least 100,000 years. They are generally tall and heavily built and represent one of the more prominent intergrade populations between steppe and boreal ecotypes, but only genetically. They do not share closely related language or customs to most boreal leucrocotta, and share some characteristics unique to themselves, most prominently a large "roman nose" which may have arisen as it helps to filter dust from the air and a tendency toward dark, solid coat patterns lacking any other markings which help provide warmth in cold winters and protect from sunburn in summer. These leucrocotta are pastoralists like valley leucrocotta but are generally not settled, moving across the greenbelt with the seasons and stopping only for days at a time in any place. They historically domesticated different animals from other leucrocotta, but their proximity to the craterlands has facilitated thousands of years of trade and cultural exchange, so that unicorn livestock has now been adopted by some nomad groups. When present, their versions of these animals are more primitive in type - less selectively bred and mainly comprised of hardy land races.

This is the second most common ethnic group present in Sanctuary Crater after the native valley group, owing to cultures with similarities in lifestyle and language. Fewer barriers exist to their integration, especially as their own close relationship with livestock animals has produced in them similar resistance to many pathogens afflicting high-density settlements that boreal leucrocotta lack immunity to. And both cultural and gene introgression from valley leucrocottas into the greenbelt region has changed the nomads too, introducing less common coat colors and less stocky body types, as well as reducing the characteristic sloped nose especially in the near-crater region. Comprising several loosely defined territories across the green belt, nomad leucrocottas are broadly allies to the craterland civilization and serve as a natural defense of its western borders from more hostile leucrocotta groups living on the wastelands. The extent of nomad leucrocotta just barely reaches the fringes of eastern leucrocotta territory. Trade here is limited: the two groups historically do not interact much, and when they do it is more likely to be antagonistic. Virtually no genes from the nomad population have entered the very closed-off eastern population, but a small amount of the opposite has occurred as some eastern leucrocotta, perhaps exiled, have historically immigrated into the greenbelt territory.

Eastern leucrocotta are a race of continental leucrocotta endemic to the Fortune River Valley in eastern Serinarcta, where they have developed a highly isolationist and very distinct culture unlike any others which call themselves and their nation the Kir. They are characterized by up to 15% genome contribution from an extinct leucrocotta species which was displaced from the craterlands almost 40,000 years ago, and the genes they retain from that species are more than any other population of their species. This has strongly influenced their appearance, specifically lending them taller manes, longer crests, serrated lower teeth, "beards" along their chins, and more dexterous dewclaws, while being much more robust than woodland leucrocottas with a heavier jaw. They have much less genetic variation than valley leucrocottas and a very low rate of interbreeding; their culture is highly insular and has been for at least 20,000 years, being separated by a vast distance of inhospitable terrain from other settled leucrocottas and generally hostile toward scarce nomads, though there has been a small amount of historic contact with boreal leucrocotta from the north. This isolation has resulted in other physical changes. Eastern leucrocottas have lost the dominant gene for black fur, either solidly or as spots on their coats, and so their entire range of color is faded blonde through red and uncommonly white except in cases of a recent ancestor from another continental race, which is extremely rare as their nation is not easy to immigrate into and known for being very homogenous and culturally unlike any other. Their manes are very long and upright, but virtually without banding. A slightly floppy forelock of hair usually rises from between the crests, often white or partly white in color. All eastern leucrocottas are piebald, but their white markings are fixed in a single pattern of white sock markings on the feet and a small white patch on the forehead, with no marking outside these areas. In contrast, valley leucrocotta can be anywhere from slightly marked to totally white.

This leucrocotta race speaks a completely unrelated dialect to the crater language and to most nomadic steppe leucrocotta, and their language is considered one of the most complex and difficult to learn. They are an isolated, agricultural civilization which domesticated livestock independent of the crater leucrocotta, and the species they have tamed are not present in the crater, nor vice versa. Their progress is their own, independently built, not given. They have never been guided by whisperwings, and they show much less of the domestication syndrome traits that are typical of valley leucrocotta. They are fiercely independent, suspicious of outsiders, and can be manipulative for their own benefit - all things that the whisperwings can respect, even if it makes them hard to exploit. The Kir have established mutually beneficial trade relations with the Zenith, a coastal whisperwing nation, but relations remain much more independent and less inter tangled than the politics of Sanctuary Crater's allied peoples, and there is not even a semblance of any shared government.

Unlike valley leucrocotta, this eastern race of the species is dexterous and has a capacity to create and use their own technology in day to day life, and has thus never been as reliant on others to provide them with tools. Their self-sufficiency has made them difficult for the Zenith to keep in line either through quiet manipulation into a sort of less dangerous domesticated species, as some might say has happened in the crater, or through force. Valley leucrocotta and whisperwings get along well because neither can really threaten the other, but this is not so true for eastern leucrocotta and the zenith, where both parties have more power against the other and thus greater sway in interactions.

This has required more caution on the whisperwings' part to maintain a peaceful, mostly neutral political relationship which is largely transactional. While valley leucrocotta became firmly allied and in some ways dependent on whisperwings, and littoral leucrocotta fiercely rejected them entirely, the eastern leucrocotta are the only group which is just as capable, and just as willing. to exploit them for their own gain. The end result is a suspicious truce between neighboring nations which are neither enemies nor especially friendly, but where each of which can use the other to its own advantage in some ways.

left: an elderly Kir nobleman, clothed according to custom. Eastern leucrocotta are the longest living leucrocotta, with a life expectancy of 55-60+ years, 15-20 years longer than is typical for continental or valley forms, and 10-15 years longer than littoral - and documented and venerated outliers have existed as old as 70 years, making them the longest-lived sophont of their era. There appear to be both genetic and environmental factors at play in this longevity. The Kir have have a high level of food security and a diet low in fat and incorporating more plant matter, as well as little conflict between themselves or their neighbors, and a long history of practicing medicine. As eastern leucrocottas such as this one reach advanced age, their coats may fade almost to white, and the fur on their extremities often grows long and tufted in ways it does not on younger adults, especially on their beards and below the ears.

The desert leucrocotta are a distinct subspecies of continental leucrocotta, or a possible though disputed fourth leucrocotta species, which have had little interbreeding with other populations for much longer than any other, almost 400,000 years and are thus by far the most genetically distinct form of this clade, and the only one which has no intermixing with other groups. They are endemic only to the Zarre Peninsula of west Serinarcta, and exist at an equatorial latitude that is not suitable for the survival of other ecotypes. In this range they are isolated from other continental leucrocottas by hundreds of miles of uninhabited desert territory, and their isolation has brought about a lot of genetic changes. Desert leucrocottas are smaller than most continental groups, and are also exclusively nocturnal to avoid the heat of the day, which is not typical for others. They have extremely short hair and no manes; though babies are spotted, most grown individuals are entirely without spot markings, while some retain very faded "ghost" spots. They have smaller fang teeth than any other leucrocotta, and are occasionally born with no fangs.

This leucrocotta is still uncontacted by "civilized" whisperwings and unknown to all other leucrocotta, living a highly insular existence which is still tribal and very loosely distributed. The species occurs both inland and along ocean coasts and has a wide, omnivorous diet; the primary teeth are large and blunt relative to the small skull dimensions and narrow jaw, an adaptation to feed on thorny cactaiga plants (more for their water than nutrition.) Desert leucrocotta are not pack hunters and almost always forage singly, with the largest prey animals they hunt being small enough for a single adult to carry. As much as a third of the diet may be made up of plant matter, especially roots and seeding grasses, and this population has many genetic mutations which improve their ability to digest starches. They are long-legged and very fast, being great long-distance travelers. Groups are sedentary so far as clans split up daily and reunite at a central gathering site, but these sites can change throughout the year. Natural caves are used as daytime den sites and a dependence on such shelter limits their range toward rockier regions and away from loose sand dune regions, except where the soil can support artificially dug-out burrows. Coastal populations scavenge all manner of seaside refuse but are much less specialized at living here than littorals and unlike them have no capacity to create complex tools to aid their survival, having no manual dexterity and only small, inflexible dewclaws. Despite little capacity to alter their environment to suit them, desert leucrocottas have very good memories and can form mental maps of their barren habitat and recall details such as routes to water sources which may only appear at different times of year. They also maintain a remarkably complex oral history of their people, despite having no written language.

Notable Leucrocotta Varieties: Woodland Group

These leucrocotta share several traits including longer head crests, narrow jaws, more strongly serrated lower teeth (visible with the mouth closed), tall upright manes, thinner body structures with longer legs, more contrasted markings, and opposable dewclaws that are useful as manipulators. Hybrids often retain this last trait, which has also become central to the identity of the Kir, and which makes these leucrocottas potentially more capable crafters that do not rely on other species to provide them tools. Though they are called the woodland group due to common descent, both living species live in arid equatorial regions lacking forests.

[ EXTINCT ]

The woodland leucrocotta was a leucrocotta that evolved as a sister species to continental leucrocotta. Unlike that species, woodland leucrocottas - as their name indicates - were adapted to live in remnant broadleaf forests in southerly regions of Serinarcta, while their relative adapted to drier, open environments in colder, northerly climates. Behaviorally the two species were not drastically different; both were both social and territorial, pack-hunting carnivores, but they differed in appearance, with woodland leucrocottas being more lightly-built, darker in color, and with taller manes used as display structures. In addition, woodland leucrocotta had more sharply serrated teeth, and more mobile dewclaws, which they used to clamber through thickets and aid in traction while climbing steep terrain. They were faster and more suited to ambush small prey in woodlands, rather than run down larger prey in grasslands or deserts.

The woodland leucrocotta was once as numerous as the continental leucrocotta, for though it lived over a smaller range, it could have a higher population where it did live as prey was readily available and non-migratory. But by the turn of 300 million years P.E. it had already grown rare, for the habitat it was most adapted to was by then extremely rare and only occurred in a few low-lying regions: central craterlands, and coastal ravine forests. The final holdout of the species in its ancestral form was Sanctuary Crater, the largest of the craterland refugia, but even this habitat did not save them in the end. 40,000 years ago steppe continental leucrocotta ancestral to the modern valley subspecies colonized the crater. They were now allied with whisperwings and practicing animal agriculture, and able to form much larger coalitions than before. A war resulted, ultimately culminating in the invader's conquest and the deforestation of the crater to its modern grassland state most useful for the grazing of livestock unicorns, at the expense of most remaining wild megafauna of the crater.

above: when the continental leucrocotta and its new avian partners arrived and colonized the craterlands region 40,000 years ago, it would spell dark times ahead for its already present relative, the woodland leucrocotta, which would ultimately be driven to extinction here.

Though the conflict with the continental leucrocotta resulted in many deaths, not all woodland leucrocotta were killed, nor did they flee the craters. Over the next few centuries, a significant number of them remained, ultimately interbreeding into the now much larger continental gene pool until they were lost in their pure form. Steppe leucrocotta today carry 1-2% of their genome from this lost ancestor, while settled valley leucrocottas may retain up to 5% of their DNA. Notable traits originating in woodland leucrocotta which persist in the valley population today include the genes for red hair and the long manes of valley leucrocotta, though in their case they rarely stand upright and instead fall down to the sides. The eastern leucrocotta contains much more - 15% woodland ancestry - and this is reflected in their especially unique appearance including a high upright mane, and their mobile dewclaws.

Though the woodland leucrocotta, in the form it existed in for some 2 million years, is no longer found on Serina today, the non-hybridized species is not entirely lost. Two surviving species are the direct, non-hybridized descendants of woodland leucrocottas which once lived in the ravine forests south of the craterlands some 750,000 years ago, before these collapsed relicts of sky islands reduced to their current extent.

The littoral leucrocottas, who call themselves the Nexians after their homeland, are a small species of the Truxmonoceros genus and comprise one mostly homogeneous culture all living in a small area. A very social and cooperative species relative to most leucrocotta, it is one of two descendants of the woodland leucrocotta. Littoral leucrocottas live in equatorial Serinarcta along the seashore of the Nexus Peninsula, braving deadly heat, radiation, and scarce freshwater in order to find food which washes up or otherwise is supplied by the seaway. Though to other leucrocottas and other sophonts, this coast-hugging lifestyle of this species is its most distinctive attribute, the littoral leucrocottas themselves most identify with being nocturnal, which most continental leucrocotta are not. They use darkness as a shield from the sun, waking at dusk to begin their days and retreating to shelter, often natural caves and ancient underground bunkers dug out over thousands of years by many generations. Over one million years as a nocturnal species has rendered most of the population red-green color blind, and most red hue has subsequently been lost from their manes. These leucrocottas may weigh as little as 120 lbs, and have short though dense hair. The mane is only present on the back of the head, though here it is quite long, upright, and banded with contrasted grey and white hairs. The crests are very long, arcing back well past the eyes and angling up from the head; they have some use in cooling the animal's brain in high temperatures as cooler air is continuously flowing in and out of them as the animal breathes.

Littoral leucrocottas have very narrow jaws compared to continental ones, and their lower tooth has more, and longer, serrations even near its distal edge, an adaptation to catch fish - the upper bone plate in the jaw is also lined with larger blade-like cusps, and more visible in the mouth when the jaws are open. The hooves are large and splayed, to better support the body walking on sand and mud, and the legs are long and suited to wade into the sea to find food. Adults are only one-third to half the weight of continental leucrocottas, which is a benefit both in needing less to eat and being able to hide from the sun in smaller enclosed places. However, this has historically also left them vulnerable to their larger rivals which sometimes made raids on them in the night. This is now rare, as climate change over even just the last two thousand years has made the equator generally totally intolerable to the larger leucrocotta forms, and the two species were no longer sympatric to any significant degree until very recent changes have brought them tentatively back together in controlled interactions. Long isolationist and reluctant to communicate with whisperwings due to long-held cultural association with them as bad omens and allies of their enemies, this has recently begun to change, and there is now trade and tentative peaceful alliance with other settled groups to the northern, including Sanctuary Crater. Trade routes are still dangerous, as both parties are forced to travel only by night close to the equator, and to rely on pathways often scouted out by whisperwings to find suitable shelter to hide by day. Whisperwings with bad intentions can use this to do away with leucrocottas they have vendetta against by leading them out into the desert, stranded, to die, and though this is actually a very rare occurrence, it is often repeated and exaggerated as a warning, and is another factor in the untrusting nature of the littoral leucrocotta toward all outsider groups. Despite this, these leucrocottas are generally less aggressive than others and are much more inclined to work together with others of their own kind for a common goal, the result of thousands of years of facing other leucrocottas as a common enemy.

above: a group of littoral leucrocotta hunt seabirds on a dark, overcast night (seen through a hypothetical thermal camera). Though some of the inexperienced, recently fledged birds are simply snatched in flight as they are flushed from seaside roosts, the main goal is to drive as many as possible into high nets strung up on poles laid out on the beach by others who wait in the wings. Bird hunting is a year-round way of life for these leucrocotta, but the spoils are richest just after the nesting season. Later in the year, the birds' skills of flight will grow more refined, and they will be less easily captured.

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The front legs of the littoral leucrocotta have evolved more flexible wrists with two large, mobile dewclaws each, which are more dexterous than those of continental leucrocottas and even more refined than their woodland ancestor, and let them make many of their own tools and not be reliant on trade with whisperwings. These people have invented boats, fishing line, basket weaving, and other tools and skills that are effectively absent in non-craterland leucrocotta society otherwise. In addition, they have acquired knowledge of the wheel in recent times from other civilizations, which is most useful in long distance travel. In the past, increased capacity for tool use was one way that littoral leucrocottas could defend themselves and avoid attacks by their relative, and it was a great advantage to find food resources much less accessible to them in the water, despite not being especially strong swimmers. They also have native agriculture including a symbiotic relationship has existed for thousands of years with the flick-eared finguin, a fat flightless sea-demon tribbat, which is provided shelter from the sun to nest beneath, and protection from its many, many predators while nesting in exchange for taking a percentage of their chicks for themselves (which is still, ultimately, less than they would lose to the elements and other animals without this protection.)

By adapting to be nocturnal and to live in the hottest equatorial regions, these people survived the fierce competition of the continental leucrocotta long enough for the two species to forge relatively peaceful unity and to see the rise of a modern civilization. Though littoral leucrocottas have changed along the way - losing those ancient genes for red hair, for example as most of them lost their color vision in a trade for better night vision and so rendered it useless as a display color - in a way, they still are the woodland leucrocotta: a species technically extinct, but survived in multiple ways through its descendants. And they, in turn, have given rise to one last leucrocotta species.

The vilelands leucrocotta is the smallest (by a small margin), least numerous (despite a wide range), and most reclusive culture of any of the leucrocotta people. They are also the most genetically isolated into the modern day, and have had virtually no intermixing of genes with any other group in at least 120,000 years and possibly as long as 200,000 (Littorals, though isolated for longer historically, now intermix slightly with continentals, and there is again some gene flow between populations.) For this reason, they are considered their own distinct species in the Truxmonoceros genus, though it is recognized by the author that this is arbitrary (taxonomy is all arbitrary.)

As their name indicates, this race lives mainly throughout the vilelands, a vast, inhospitable arid region near the equator characterized by brackish waterways and saline lakes, rocky calcified soil (the remnants of coastal reefs), and forests of cactaiga. They are a descendant species of the littoral leucrocotta, diverging some 300,000 years ago, and still carry a resemblance, but have also been changed by their isolation. They are shorter, with stockier legs and more robust necks, which suit them to clamber over rocky, uneven ground and move between thickets of spiny vegetation. Body weight is also around 120 lbs, but height is shorter than littorals on average. Their jaws are short, very narrow and highly serrated, with relatively long fang teeth. The digits resemble those of littorals but the dewclaws are not quite as dexterous, a reversion toward a more primitive state due to a lack of use. The neck mane is much shorter, but a ridge of hair runs down the entire length of the back. The crests are long and narrow, set closer together than in most littorals and always arced backwards like the horns of a goat. Though some littorals may have even longer crests - especially males - in those the crests usually have an outward arc. The eyes of the vilelands leucrocotta are positioned slightly more forward than in any other form and provide improved binocular vision, a trait which is beneficial as these leucrocotta preferentially live on sloped terrain, as it lets them flee other predators with less stable footing. Though the base colors can vary, light greys and tans similar to littorals are the typical pelage; striping is scarce, darkest on the legs and throat. All vilelands leucrocotta, except for rare cases, have highly contrasted black and white facial patterns which resemble skulls, and this trait - which increases visibility in low light - lends them their latin name of "masked leucrocotta." This is the only leucrocotta which has dark eyebrow markings rather than white, and they are most often a bright shade of red. A very striking black tear mark serves to catch glare and keep sunlight out of the eye during the day.

Today, the vilelands leucrocotta is the only one which still lives among larger carnivore species which both threaten and compete with it; continental leucrocotta have exterminated their rivals early in their history, and littorals retreated to hostile outlying regions where few rivals could survive (only the stalkvulture still persists, though even it has become very rare in the densely settled regions of Nexus Peninsula.) Natural selection has favored brains over brawns in this species, which still utilizes deception and trickery to outwit rivals much as earlier ancestral leucrocotta and their even earlier kelpie precursors did. Skillful mimics and master manipulators, vilelands leucrocotta still skillfully imitate the other species around them to lure prey, frighten enemies, and turn rivals against each other. The small size of the species lets them hide in cactaiga forests and flee up steep rocky slopes where they can orchestrate plans to lure and trap other animals while being untouchable. They use the terrain to their full advantage, drawing animals with vocal mimicry to fall into pitfall traps set up in natural low-lying ravines and chasms. In this way, much of their diet remains large prey, much too big for them to kill with their jaws alone, even in numbers. Their success at bringing down larger rivals has protected them from decimation from roaming continental leucrocotta in both ancient and recent history. While littorals tend to flee, vilelands leucrocotta will stand their ground and fight, using their knowledge of their land to win against stronger foes.

Though they use minimal tools, their skill in using the environment they live in to its full advantage to exploit and take down both rivals and prey is unequaled, and their memory of the landscape and its many varying routes through dangers is very sharp, to an almost photographic degree. In acting upon the vilelands leucrocotta, living in a more complex habitat than most, evolution seems to have rewired the part of its brain which in other leucrocotta allows rapid speech and language acquisition, to instead memorize visual details instantly and in great depth. Though they can still emulate most any sound, their ability to acquire new languages is significantly worse than other leucrocotta, and this has the effect of isolating them much more quickly, both from other species and within their kind. Vilelands leucrocotta are extremely tribal and kill their own species more than any other leucrocotta, for language barriers lead to rapid cultural change and an ease of viewing rivals as others. Their clans are small and break apart easily, rarely reaching more than three generations, and cooperative interactions, such as trade, is very limited across clans even of a single dialect. Vilelands leucrocottas can be considered war-like, prone to frequent conflict and orchestrated attacks on rival groups. This has the effect as well of making them anxious and always on edge, for danger can come from anywhere, and traps can be set at any time. Vilelands leucrocotta have an extremely short average life expectancy of as little as 8 to years, and very rarely live past 20; they are thus independent and sooner than others, as early as age 3, though they would not be considered adult in many other cultures for at least two more years.

A broad extent of range (but a sparse distribution over it) means that vilelands leucrocotta could theoretically meet littoral, steppe-continental, and eastern leucrocotta, though whisperwing claim of the land east of the Nexus peninsula has driven this species out of this extreme edge of its range so that they now do not typically meet the littorals today - and when they did, they were fierce rivals. Conflict with nomadic steppe continentals is ongoing, for the land where the two meet is considered a lawless frontier, while the Kir view these leucrocotta as the most unevolved and savage in the many-tiered hierarchy of leucrocotta in which they place themselves at the top. They have been so villified that they are hardly more than a pest, and generally viewed as below personhood. In earlier - and less enlightned - periods, they were considered so fierce and unsuitable for civilized life that they were not even considered usable as slaves. Kir have vastly superior technology, and have firmly pushed back the vilelands leucrocotta's range far from the green grassy fields of crater bay - where they once could be found on the rocky slopes nearest the sea - and exiling them to the harshest desert regions where no settlements are worth building. It is believed that in earlier eras, perhaps as recently as 3,000 years ago, that some coastal whisperwings formed trade relationship with at least some vilelands leucrocotta and may have cooperated in finding food and shared the spoils. This relationship no longer exists, as the vast majority of coastal wings are now urbanized, and this leucrocotta has long since been chased away from the northernmost reaches of its historic range where they would meet.

Get to Know Some Individual Leucrocottas!

Below can be seen several leucrocottas who live contemporary to one another in this precise period of time in the civilization of Sanctuary Crater (what we will say is the year 3,040,000, though this would not be the year in their own calendars! which would not be nearly so old!) This is the period of time in which the Bleeding Heart story arc is set, and some of these individuals play a role in that story, while others simply live in the same setting. Several of these characters were sponsored by Serina's wonderful patrons, and if so, their entry will say so.

At the time of their lives, in the most modern day world we have yet seen on Serina itself, technology available to them includes steam engines (and trains), radio communication, and glorious indoor plumbing (sorry, not available in all regions.)

Lord Karzavraz

Lord Karzavraz is the political leader of the leucrocotta nation in Sanctuary Crater (officially a separate, but closely allied state to the whisperwing city-state which claims the crater's walls.) Though he is popular among the populace, there is a small degree of opposition as unlike previous few "lords" (basically prime ministers) he was not democratically elected but rather filled the role after the death of the previous lord, his mother. The system of government officially in use in Sanctuary Crater is inconsistent, and has lately been circulating between a monarchy and a democracy over the last few generations.

Karzavraz is a very charismatic, good-natured valley leucrocotta with a lot of confidence, which makes him very likeable. But he is young, about ten years old (equivalent to 28 years) and has never lived through wartime, which makes some question if he could lead them in crisis. And the possibility of war is not off the table, with a rival polity led by the old, fierce Hartrax having long wanted to claim the crater and its resources for themselves. Karzavraz is very progressive among leucrocottas, with the crater population in general being much more enlightened than is typical in other regions. Though it is easy for them to view others in a bad light for customs now viewed here as cruel and old-fashioned, many craterland leucrocottas have become sheltered and somewhat naive of the harshness of life in less forgiving places.

Karzavraz is a black leucrocotta with prominent white markings, which is not an unusual coat color in the crater. It is considered an aberration and a sign of weakness in many outlying territories, however, and some steppe cultures are known to leave similarly marked newborns to die of exposure. Though there is some reasoning behind their custom - piebald individuals cannot hunt as easily, as they stand out so much - this is considered barbaric to leucrocottas in the crater, which come in a very wide range of patterns, largely because their pastoralist lifestyle no longer requires them to blend in to the environment to any degree. Summed up, "wild-type" groups tend to automatically view "domestic" ones like Karzavraz negatively because their appearance is strongly associated with being weak or ill. It is just one of their cultural differences which have become more and more different over the last few centuries.

Hartrax

An antagonistic steppe leucrocotta from a non-settled group, Hartrax leads an opposition to Karzavraz's "perfect kingdom" that neglects other leucrocottas but cares for other non-leucrocotta creatures, something he finds unjust. Hartrax has never lived within craterland society and is only peripherally aware of it; inexplicable things like electric lighting and powerful machines that rumble out from the crater valley and across the vast landscape confound him. Under a facade of fearlessness and aggression - traits his people demand of him as a leader - he lives in fear of what he does not understand, and of changes he knows are coming to the world that he cannot run from forever. He is an older adult, around 25 years old (equivalent to some 50 years of age.)

Hartrax is a villain in the story, but he is not necesarilly an evil character. He is the product of a culture very different from all the other leucrocotta characters, but is just close enough to those other groups to find himself caught in between their incompatible ideologies - and secretly, he is very intelligent and perceptive, and he can understand both sides' perspectives better than he leads on. He may not be irredeemable, but it remains to be seen where his fate lies...

Tarka

A seasoned and respected elder of the dune tribes coalition of Nexus Peninsula (which has an elected committee of leaders, from which she is retired), Tarka is a 35 year old littoral leucrocotta (equivalent age around 65 years old, her species averages slightly longer lived than continenals.) Tarka has a temper that burns hot if she feels slighted. Despite this, she is very devoted to her people and close with her loved ones. She is often considered to be fearless, sometimes to a fault, though this is not so much a lack of fear of danger as a willingness to expose herself to it before others. Her recklessness has arguably even increased with age, as she no longer has dependent children to worry for. Never a politician to spend her life wrapped up away from the day to day problems of the populace, Tarka is down to earth. She remains active in hunting and foraging, home repairs and other chores, assisting anyone who requires it. She is a free spirit and more traveled than most littoral leucrocottas.

She has been to Sanctuary Crater, when most have never left the seashore at all, and there was involved in a political marriage to Karzavraz that was not fated to last, though it could have gone much worse. She has never settled down with a single mate for too long: in addition to two much older sons from earlier in her life, she also has a young adult hybrid daughter that she raised in the crater and who remains there today. This was to avoid what she felt would be a picked-on childhood for her daughter due to her different appearance if she were born at the coast where everyone looks alike, though when this child was grown, Tarka ultimately returned to her coastal home which was simply more familiar and comfortable to her, even if far less forgiving. If anything, or anyone, threatens anyone close to her she will personally tear their throat out and eat their heart, though it might take her a little longer nowadays, and she might need a nap afterwards.

Trirrirri

Trirrirri (Tree-ree-ree) is a first generation hybrid leucrocotta, born in a political marriage from Karzavraz and Tarka, who lives within Sanctuary Crater during the time of Bleeding Heart. The crater city has the largest diaspora of littoral leucrocotta on the continent - several hundred, and a smaller but notable number of hybrids, most of whom are young, as this immigration is very recent. Trirrirri just turned six years old, which places her around her around 19 years old in human terms - a full adult, but probably still considered a kid most of the time by her parents' generation. Never wanting to be a "princess", a down-to-earth and socially anxious Trirrirri long stayed out of the spotlight as much as she could, until she becomes aware of a strange group of travelers who need her help. Highly empathetic by nature, she will put aside her disdain for the public eye if it means she can help save others in need, pulling a few political strings that she is well aware she is highly privileged to have at her reach as the high-status daughter of the leaders of two nations.

She is an artist by trade, mostly crafting clothing for sale, much of which - including her own shirt pictured - she knits with unicorn wool. Trirrirri has the more prominent, rotating dewclaws of her littoral parent and so has above average manual dexterity relative to other crater leucrocotta, though any individual can improve their grip and attain better use of their forelimbs with practice, especially if it begins at an early age. As a hybrid, she is intermediate between her parent species; she is only slightly larger than her mother, and carries the lankier body shape, but has the unsplayed hooves and less serrated teeth of her father. Her mane is in between, very faintly banded but primarily red and running down most of her neck. Piebald white patches obscure some of her markings - these are a dominant gene inherited from the valley leucrocotta. There is an inherent degree of "otherness" to being a cross-breed, moreso from the littoral culture than the valley one, so that she is pretty detached from that side of her ancestry. Valley leucrocottas are generally more used to variation in body shape and color than other cultures, but her closest companions are whisperwings, which do not care at all whether a leucrocotta is slightly differently shaped relative to another one (but are often much less liberal when it comes to other whisperwing races.)

Her name is considered quite unusual among all leucrocottas, because it is not a native leucrocotta word in any language. It is a whisperwing name in one local dialect, roughly meaning "ray of light." She chose her name when she was an adult.

The second image shows her as a child with her father, running some errands in the crater.

Streak

Streak is an adult littoral leucrocotta living in the dunes tribes coalition, with distinctive very dark markings, but relatively few of them. Second of three children born from Tarka, he is functionally a youngest sibling, growing up in the shadow of an overachieving older brother; Streak is half sibling to Trirrirri but knows of her only through the talk of their mother, as Trirrirri was born years later and raised while Tarka was living in the crater city, far from home.

Though his brother is an established tribe leader with a family of his own, Streak is unattached and bounces around from one role to another, and from one village to the next, a jack of many trades but master of none, always restless and not inclined to settle. With a bit of an ego and occasionally partaking in small-time crime, he has a distaste for authority figures and never quite outgrew teenage rebellion, but he is not a bad guy, if only for a want to not too much disappoint his mother (her expectations have lowered a lot over the years.)

Streak's most recent employment is on nearshore fishing boats, considered rather dangerous, as the oceans are rough at night and storms are very common due to the sudden temperature swings between day and night. There are not a ton of boating leucrocottas - there is very limited resources for vessels larger than canoes, and these small boats are not especially comfortable, nor safe to be used by such a creature on rough waters, effectively being a small tripod horse as the leucrocotta is. Streak however enjoys the risk and the relative lack of supervision with this employment, working with a small number of other fishermen who are also young adult males without strong social ties or wives to worry for them. He is good at it, so for now it's alright work. But Streak longs deep down to do something even more exciting some day, something memorable. A wide world lies beyond the coastal villages - that is well known by his far-traveling family members. But life in the crater city is alien and restrictive. Streak's eyes lie beyond the waves. Just what lies in that far-distant land?

One day, he gets word of a once in a lifetime event orchestrated through the many connections of an estranged "royal" sister. His mother, resigning herself to strong-willed children whose paths she cannot choose, tells him of an epic mission planned under the radar of a far-off authoritative government, a grand adventure to unite a fragmented world larger than anyone knows. Streak's interest is piqued; after years of petty theft and drifting town to town, maybe this is where his story will really begin.

Dirk

Darktooth the Destroyer, or Dirk as his close friends can call him, is a boreal leucrocotta living in Sanctuary Crater at the time of Bleeding Heart. He belongs to the largest race of teeth, known as wanderers to the settled populations, for they are nomads that rarely settle long in one place. Dirk is an outlier, for he was not raised within that culture and knows little of it. Born with bowed front legs - a death sentence among nomadic hunter societies - he was abandoned in the north shortly after birth by a parent or clan member hopeful that he could be given care by others with the resources to do so, was found by the central nomads in the greenbelt, and was taken to Sanctuary Crater where medical care was more available. His condition was able to be corrected with splints, and he was raised from then on by valley leucrocottas within their agricultural society. He is probably the largest leucrocotta anyone where he lives will ever see regularly, and has been since he was three. Always standing out in a crowd, he took his over the top nickname early on to gain some control over bullies calling him silly, mean names referencing his size; with this name, he could own it and at least be intimidating enough to be left mostly alone. Though encouraged later on to enter trades where his size would be useful, where heavy lifting is in demand, he always had different interests. Now an older adult in his mid thirties, he enjoys a role caring for the cute little pillowgoats, a type of unicorn, and other livestock animals which have nothing to fear when he is standing their guard.

Jex

A hallmark of a civilized culture is the care of those with disabilities. Among leucrocotta, historically a strongly nomadic, hunting people of strong social bonds but difficult lives, the motivation to do so has likely long pre-dated the ability to put it into practice. Even among modern nomadic leucrocotta, birth deformities and acquired injuries are often fatal as a clan is simply not able to slow down to accommodate individuals which cannot keep up. But where leucrocotta have formed settled communities, once unsurvivable conditions, like the loss of use of the legs, can now be accommodated.

Jex is a teenage steppe leucrocotta living in Sanctuary Crater, born with a rare genetic condition resulting in deformed forelegs. The cause is an uncommon form of leucism caused by the homozygous form of a gene which removes nearly all pigment from the body and is associated with a range of skeletal deformations ranging from moderate to severe, especially affecting the limbs and spine. Different from the common white spotting gene seen widely in valley leucrocotta, this condition is more common among steppe leucrocotta, and its severity is part of why nomad cultures frequently have a negative view of white spotted individuals, even those whose coloration is caused by benign mutations. Historically individuals born with this condition rarely survived infancy, and were often left abandoned. With modern care, however, individuals like Jex can live fulfilling lives. Jex wears two prosthetic legs and can not only walk but also run with them - the only thing they feel they sometimes miss out on is the use of their dewclaws, though many leucrocotta with fully functional legs still have very little dexterity of their claws.

They are a snarky, sarcastic sort, rebellious but not too much more than usual for their age (roughly equivalent to 16.) Crater leucrocotta as a rule are much more tolerant of differences than other leucrocotta cultures, and Jex doesn't care much anyway if certain people don't like them - their wit and savvy demeanor lets them deflect remarks, and they aren't easily bothered; their confidence benefits them in life, even if sometimes they might come across as cocky, and they are probably better integrated in their society than most of the other characters even though they are also very different from the majority. This does not mean they don't support the struggles of their friends, indeed brash and vocal voices that aren't afraid to cause a stir like Jex are important in social justice. Jex lives in the same district in Sanctuary Crater as Tririrri and Dirk, a place called Blue Hill.

Krickerik

Character sponsored by Richard Lee Zimmerman III!

Krickerik, or Krick, is a middle-aged adult valley leucrocotta living in Sanctuary Crater at the time of Bleeding Heart. He is about as small as a continental leucrocotta usually comes, standing only four feet at the head (around half a foot shorter than Trirrirri, who is already considered short.) Even so, he falls (narrowly) within normal size variation of the species, having parents which are also on the lower size range of typical.

Krick is an enthusiast of the natural world, not only its current glory, but especially the mysterious past. Evidence suggests that Sanctuary Crater was once an inland ocean (how incredible!) and fossil remnants of fantastic animals of far greater size than any known to still lurk there have been unearthed for centuries from the cliff walls and bogs in the lowlands. Finding traces of the ancient world is his most dominating interest, and he has over time amassed a sizeable collection of artifacts which he displays in a new sort of venue he coins a "natural history museum," the first in the leucrocotta territory. Krickerik is an early adopter of evolutionary theory, the idea that all living things evolved from earlier ancestors which may be extinct. Very well-educated, he has used his small stature over his lifetime to take advantage of whisperwing resources in places like cliff city libraries and classrooms - which are not readily physically accessible to larger individuals. Through his academic pursuits in whisperwing environments he met and came to work with Tioran, an archaeologist of similar age with a special interest in Serinaustran history, and through this colleague Krick has learned that the world is wider than even he knew, and has so much more history to discover. He took an immediate interest in the southern hemisphere, a world that to the leucrocottas is distant and scarcely known. Few seem to care - Krick, though, can now only dream of ways to somehow, someday, reach that distant land past the vast sea for himself and learn all the secrets it must hide. Secrets of vanished beasts unlike any imaginable, and of lost cultures - and perhaps even ones still living?

Tioran finds little support and even littler funding from whisperwing interest groups, but greater support from leucrocotta. Krick comes from a reasonably well-off family of pillowgoat farmers, and has the means to fund Tioran's work, providing him a job through his new 'museum.' Though they work well together, whether they are friends is... debatable. Their personalities are very different; Tioran quiet and serious, Krick gregarious and with a sense of humor. The black sheep of his family and always restless and eager to explore a wider world, Krick always knew that work in the field of animal agriculture was not the path for him - from an early age, however, working with unicorn livestock introduced to him the concept of genetic inheritance which would ultimately lead to appreciation of not just artificial selection, but evolution of life over far greater periods of time. A hobby still carried on today, within the grounds of his museum, is the selective breeding of a variety of mutant birds and small animals with novelty colors and appearances far removed from their wild relatives, some of which he markets (especially to whisperwings) as pets for additional funding of archaeological pursuits.

Krick comes to peripherally know Trirrirri's group later on through Churi, an acquaintance of Tioran. With Trirrirri's familial connections to the sea-going littoral people, could they just possibly provide some way for him to see the southern world with his own two eyes? For now, he lives some distance away from Blue Hill, in the larger city of Threehorn Ridge.. but he is just itching to expand his horizons and see all there is to see out there.

Yekaki (and Sintiso)

Two characters sponsored by Amara Reyes!

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"I wondered when you all would show up! The finger sandwiches are getting cold!" the tawny leucrocotta exclaimed, as her guests at last appeared over the hill to join her by the lake.

The whisperwing was finely dressed in a perwinkle jacket that looked lovely, but it would be a few months yet before the weather warranted such dress. Her trusty and loyal pet was in tow with all of her day's deliveries, and other odds and ends.

"Oh you know me, fashionably late. Mr. Butterchunks isn't a young herald anymore, and-"

She paused for a moment, thinking about what her friend had said.

"Girl wait - what are fingers???"

~~~

Yekaki, a valley leucrocotta, and Sintiso, a coastal whisperwing, are two old friends living in Blue Hill. The former is a respected school teacher, the latter a mail carrier with a somewhat obsessive tendency to collect odds and ends that appeal to her (to the dismay of her old but patient heraldhopper [a whisperwing domesticated species distantly related to the leucrocotta] always close by her side.) The duo have been fixtures of their community for decades, and close friends nearly as long, and there is no one living in the district for any length of time who does not know them. Yekaki is a few years younger than Dirk and knows the old oddball well; Dirk is sometimes a guest to her 'classroom' (usually just the great outdoors) and enjoys reading to the youth. Yekaki enjoys challenging her students to think outside the box and her classes day to day can as much about traditional book learning of reading and math as they are practical life skills, martial arts, animal husbandry, or relationship advice (the latter is maybe best taken with a grain of salt - Yekaki is still single, despite her efforts.) Yekaki was both Tririrri's and Jex's teacher; though they are a couple years apart, there was a period where both were in the same class.

Sintiso is a mail carrier officially, but this is really just one of many things she would describe herself as, and packed on her faithful pet's harness are always several bags of unrelated, miscellaneous items. Her collections are sometimes random and fleeting, others held onto for long spans of time, but usually come and go with her fancy. A feather, a flower, an interesting rock are things she will carry around until she finds someone else to pass them on to, often a student of Yekaki. In addition to her mail bags, on poor old Mr. Butterchunks' back she often has a variety of small paperbook booklets, allowing kids on her mail route to borrow them and exchange them, and doing her part to improve child literacy! And she can always be relied on to have any sort of medicine one might need for a headache or a cold somewhere in her many bags, which might seem to be virtually bottomless, for how much she can pack inside them.

Yekaki grew up in the leucrocotta agricultural district, and has traveled little, being happy and content in her part of the world. Sintiso is well-traveled and hatched in the coastal Zenith state a long ways away from the crater, but much of her youth was spent in Starcrest, the crater city whisperwing capital, where her parents immigrated when she was small. Sintiso moved to the 'country', as she calls it, as a young adult seeking to explore the wider world and get away from the hustle and bustle of urban life, and though she does still come and go on forays to wider places, she always returns, and considers Blue Hill her home. Both of these old friends share a cackling and snarky sense of humor and contagious laughter - when one gets going, all bets are off as to when they will be able to stop. Leucrocotta humor is more often quite witty and dry, so it might take some getting used to, but they are very adored elder figures in their community. Though she has since graduated her official schooling, Tririrri remained close with her mentor, and now she and her companion Churi, a hybrid whisperwing, both make time to meet their older friends, if just for a bit of tea and some snacks by the lake on an early morning before they must be off to their day jobs.

Zellatra

This character was sponsored by Balen Falotico!

Zellatra is a young adult valley leucrocotta living in Sanctuary Crater at the time of Bleeding Heart. She is about the same age as Trirrirri (6 years), though would have been born earlier in the year, making her equivalent age around 21 to Trirrirri's 19. This is right in the midst of young adulthood, after which no additional growth or brain development is expected to occur, and when valley leucrocotta are generally completely independent of their parents and likely to begin families of their own (however, this occurs up to 2 years earlier in non-settled leucrocotta populations, well before they are fully adult.) She is a melanistic leucrocotta lacking any stripe markings, a color trait which is very rare among valley leucrocotta (which may be black, but retain faint patterns) but very common to the central nomad ethnicity, which suggests some ancestry from the greenbelt region. She does not herself know her origins as she was found along the northeast slopes of the crater at just a few weeks of age, sick with a fever. It is likely her mother lived outside the crater and died, thus leaving no legal record of herself, and the foal wandered for some time before being found and taken to a state-funded care home near Blue Hill. She was never formally adopted (which is not rare for pupils in these homes, as most leucrocottas are not particularly inclined to adopt unrelated children), remaining in the care home and public schooling. She was treated as well as could be expected in her circumstances, and was mentored by several teachers including Yekaki. Through shared classes, Zellatra thus knows Trirrirri, though their temperaments are quite different and they were not friends until nearing the end of their schooling. Zellatra is intelligent and introverted, prone to daydreaming but also easily angered and defiant to authority, which may be related to her upbringing in the care home without a true parent figure (or so her therapist has told her.) Trirrirri is not confrontational, and though as adults they get along, she was a sheltered child and would have found Zellatra's outbursts frightening and confusing when they were children. Now as adults they find some common ground in both being somewhat out of touch with the culture of leucrocottas but comfortable among whisperwings. For Trirrirri, this is related to finding socialization difficult as she did not enjoy the rough and tumble play of larger peers. For Zellatra, it is due to early familiarity with wings more than her own kind, as many of her earliest teachers were whisperwings, as they are much more likely to be literate and take teaching roles. Yekaki, teaching the highest school grades, would have been Zellatra's first long-term teacher of her own species.

Zellatra now works as a paleontologist who is employed by Krickerik. Though her nature as a leucrocotta would mean whisperwing-funded explorations would only take her on as manual labor, the wealthy Krickerik's self-funded interest in this field has allowed Zellatra to flourish in her unconventional career role without the red tape and restrictions which would come with a whisperwing contract (and Zellatra does not do very well with a lot of rules...) It helps that she is very well educated for a leucrocotta and is competent at both reading and writing. Quickly proving her ambition and skill in her field, and finding a sort of fatherly figure in the older Krickerik who has shown belief in her skills where many have not, she has recently written her first well-received paper on prehistoric life of the crater region, specifically on quadruped birds which once stood taller than buildings, bigger than anything alive today - so big, that she posits they may not have even been capable of walking on dry land, thus their abundance in the crater valley, which was once underwater. Sanctuary Crater was once a deep lake bed and thus is rich in well-preserved remnants of these strange, bygone species which lived around the ancient lake as recently as just a few thousand years ago, though the largest forms are from ten million years before. Now that she has proven her skill in her field, Zellatra has been offered positions from whisperwings interested in hiring her. For now, she remains with Krickerik, snubbing the wings who did not initially believe her worthy of more than being a pack mule. It is her dream to discover an entirely new species, which could be named in her honor, but until then she is very content trying to map out the behaviors and way of life of ancient extinct animals which have left few if any close, contemporary relatives to reference.

Like most valley leucrocotta, her manual dexterity is not highly developed (despite attempts to learn) and she uses her mouth for most fine motor tasks including writing, which is common for literate continental leucrocotta (Trirrirri's skillful use of her front arms to write, paint and sew is considered exceptional, and is a combination of inherited traits from her littoral parent and very determined practice from a young age.)

Erltodyak

This character was sponsored by Tyler Doak!

It is uncommon for the Kir to intermingle with outsider groups, and it is uncommon for nexians - the littoral leucrocotta - to travel far beyond their borders and settle in outlying regions. But there are many, many leucrocotta living in the wide world, and it is inevitable that some will break convention. When this happens several times, you get someone like Erltodyak, one of the more unique leucrocotta you will know.

Erltodyak is an older-adult wandering leucrocotta trader (around 30 years old) with an uncommonly admixed ancestry of littoral, eastern, central nomad and boreal descent. His father was a littoral-nomad, descended from a Nexian (littoral) diaspora who migrated into Sanctuary Crater and later became a traveling trader, who ultimately settled down and intermarried with a central nomad in the greenbelt region. His father was thus a descendant of the central nomad culture, but his grandfather was a settled boreal leucrocotta who had married into a nomad clan, and the traits of this lineage - very large size and huge fang teeth - had been carried through the generations. His mother was a full-blooded Kir, an artisan selling wares near the edge of Kir territory, and the casual coupling which would result in Erltodyak's birth would lead to shame on his mother, as the Kir culture looks down upon such a union, most of all out of wedlock. A young Erltodyak, who was visibly different from other foals of the Kir with dark markings and oddly large teeth from infancy, was sent away soon after his birth into the greenbelt, exchanged in a sort of underhanded trade for wares, and grew up for several years there among the nomad clans. As could be expected, he was not treated particularly well and never had a close family relation there, living on the edges of society and mainly expected to do manual labor, especially as he grew and became unusually tall and strong. Once reaching his adolescent years, he left the greenbelt, spending some time in Sanctuary Crater before beginning a transient life traveling, for he had never known a real home, and could not settle down in any one place for long.

Adulthood for Erltodyak brought extraordinary height; hybrid vigor from his varied ancestors left him taller than any leucrocotta he met, rivaling the mass of even the massive boreals, but his body type instead took after the littoral, a gracile individual striding on legs almost two feet longer than the average continental would have and towering above others he met. Seven and a half feet high at the head, he was a giant among his people - and his odd traits meant that few viewed him favorably, for he did not blend into any group he found, and was always an outsider. In early adulthood, feeling isolated, he dabbled in petty crime and theft, selling stolen materials for a quick buck and taking unattended livestock to feed himself, but age brought maturity and acceptance of himself as he settled into a nomadic lifestyle, traveling with a small herd of livestock and trading items like spices, art and clothing across the continent between the widely separated nations. His size and fierce appearance deterred bandits, and he proved capable of defending himself by killing more than a few opponents who dared threaten him using only his own jaws, earning a reputation as one not to be messed with even by the lawless wasteland wanderers. Over his many years he has crossed the wastelands more than once, and now walks a familiar circuit between the Nexus peninsula, Sanctuary Crater, the greenbelt and the edges of the Kir nation, a route that takes several years of unending travel to complete. He passed time documenting the strange plants and animals he came across in his wanderings, often drawing them in great detail in sketch books. He passed through areas no one had before, and as he collected specimens of the strangest organisms, these sometimes proved of great interest to the people he would meet, especially the crater whisperwings and the coastal whisperwings living nearby the Kir who took a great interest in cataloging the natural world. Some of them would fund expeditions to uncharted regions, paying good money for things no one had ever seen before, and in this way Erltodyak's trade grew to include animals that would be destined for exhibition in some of the world's earliest zoos, though only a few types could be maintained alive for the long duration of the journey. He learned ways to maintain the comfort of his charges, transporting them in large covered wagons, and he developed great empathy towards other species, for these animals would often become the closest social company he would have on the road for months at a time. But as time went on, he found himself questioning his role in this trade, and once turned back to release a particularly coveted, highly intelligent sort of bird known for its tool use back to its own clan, at the loss of his funding. He came to realize that even such 'savage' animals were more complex than most still believed, and his role in the zoo trade was thus rather short-lived.

Though Erltodyak grew used to his own company, an itch always remained that he couldn't quite scratch, the longing for other social interaction. Intelligent and quiet, he learned many languages and relished when locals would take time to talk with him before going on their way. So when, by chance, his route took him back through the littoral leucrocotta's land just in time to see the arrival of a group of outcasts stranger even than himself, he could relate. These new travelers would need a guide to navigate the next part of their journey, to keep them safe on their trek through the most dangerous regions. Who else would know the route better than him?