Beblune Lifestyles
Beblunes live a variety of lives, but here are some basics to help develop your characters!
There are many different types of settlements all throughout Taurnar, from nomadic families, small villages, towns, trading hubs and even a few cities! Some beblune choose to live more 'feral' lifestyles, where they establish their own territories and focus more on hunting and gathering, while others live a more 'domestic' way in a community. While any beb is capable of surviving on their own, it's been found that it's much easier to survive when you have others to depend on!
Beblune families come in many different shapes and sizes, and no two families are exactly the same! Since bebs are not dependent on their physical sex to reproduce, any mature bonded pair of beblune can produce their own offspring (though adoption is also a common method of adding to the family on Taurnar). Bebs can be any variety of gender and sexual expression, as well as be monogamous or polygamous!
Many beblune (especially those that live in a community) have jobs to contribute to their families and the surrounding community. Beblunes are a naturally curious species and can have just about any kind of job imaginable! The most typical jobs that you could expect to see will usually revolve around farming, gardening, crafting, healing, trading and patrolling, but there are many more options to consider. There is also a darker side to some beblune, some making a life for themselves out of criminal behaviors! There are thieves, assassins, mercenaries, and plenty of other dangers to look out for out in the world.
Approximately 400 years ago, a ship crashed landed on Shatterfield. The beblune that investigated the crash discovered a strange alien species stumbling out of the wreckage. The aliens identified themselves as humans and, after some technical difficulties with their universal translators, explained that an asteroid had collided with their ship and caused a critical failure that sent them plummeting into Taurnar’s surface.
Lucky for the humans, their ship had been outfitted to form a new colony on whatever planet they eventually landed on, so they had plenty of supplies and expertise to survive in an alien environment. Although they lost much in the crash, they were able to find enough to sustain themselves in their new home.
The beblune that found them helped them sort through the wreckage, and took them back to their settlement in Dawn's Light to tend to their wounded. They learned from each other in kind as they worked together to plant farms with the cargo they’d saved; the humans taught the beblune how to repair and utilize their salvaged technology, and the beblune taught the humans all about Taurnar and their people.
In the centuries that followed, humanity spread across all of Taurnar. As they had been prepared to populate a new world, their numbers have increased significantly over the last few generations, and it is now a very common sight to see humans intermingled with beblune society everywhere.
The technology on Taurnar has been described by its original human inhabitants as rustic industrial. Although that term is not completely accurate anymore, it did a good job of describing the way beblune lived when humanity first arrived.
Since then they have made further advancements, both due to the natural evolution of technology among their own people, and due to human input. While the humans weren’t able to salvage enough from their ship to make anything as high tech as what was found on their old planet, they worked with the beblune to merge their technology into something new.
With the added expertise of human engineers, electricity is now accessible in all regions of Taurnar. Electricity existed in limited forms in the capital cities before they arrived, but their knowledge helped speed the development of electric installations to make them far more accessible. In Dawns Light the inhabitants built solar farms into the buildings using the human ship’s panels as a blueprint, and in Faruo there are wind farms that power the entire region. Areas like Finmere, the Tellstar Islands, and Merthis run on hydropower, while Ignit uses geothermal power.
With widely accessible electricity came more widely accessible automation. All of a sudden electricity was not limited to places where water was readily accessible, or where huge steam engines could be reasonably run; it could be used even in the most remote areas, and with far more finesse than ever before.
However, instead of using this accessibility and automation to kickstart an industrial revolution as humanity did, beblune have integrated this technology on a much smaller, and more personal scale. This is both due to beblune naturally being more in tune with their environment and the earth, and to the cautionary tales the humans told of the history of their home planet.
This has led to things like silk traders transitioning from using manual looms, which needed two or more beblune to operate, to power looms that only need one. Or instead of planting seeds by paw, farmers began to use newly invented seed drills to reduce waste and make the job easier.
Technology has merged with traditional craftsmanship to merge ease and quality, stimulating art, culture, and society in many ways.
One of the biggest changes during this ongoing era of accelerated technological growth is the invention of the steam train. Although many beblune still prefer to transport themselves and goods across Taurnar, plenty of others choose the convenience and novelty of the Taurnar Railway Service. Alongside the cargo trains expanding their trade based economy and diversifying their culture even more, there are passenger trains that offer fun, scenic day trips and even extended vacations for the peoples of Taurnar.
These sorts of innovations have occurred in many different trades throughout every facet of society over the last 400 years, and it isn’t over yet. With new and wonderful inventions being produced every day, there’s no telling what the next big thing in Taurnar is going to be. The sky's the limit!