Bika cultural notes

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raixel
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Bika cultural notes

Post by raixel »

Heres what I wrote based on what little I could find in canon sources, and how our game has developed. Comments and criticsm is always welcome, and feel free to add whatever you have about any other races!

Bika- The packs of the dog-men known as Bika wander far from the land of Viborg Town. It is not known exactly where they come from save that they are nomadic and wander the plains on the far side of the Mountain.


Physiology

The average male bika stands about 4 feet tall and 80lbs, the female anout 4 inches shorter and 15-20 lbs lighter. Their bodies are covered in fur, shorter on the face and longer starting at the neck, and an older male may have a thicker mane and neck ruff than a female. Fur color ranges from blonde thru reds and browns to black, with mottling and stripes common among some packs. Eye color ranges from light yellow to dark brown. Most pack members share a similaity in fur/eye color and markings.A few rare individuals are born solid white with ice-blue eyes. These individuals usually become shamen, but not always. Bika have large erect triangular ears and long, narrowly pointed muzzles. Their teeth are similar to a dog, with curving canines and molars designed for ripping, not crushing. They are suprisingly strong for their size, and are able to run at a steady pace for hours without tiring.

Bika have 4 fingers and a short opposable thumb. On the feet there are 4 toes, and a large dew toe placed slightly back from the others, which is used for balance and gripping when running or climbing barefoot. Unlike other canine species, they are plantigrade(they walk on the full foot as opposed to just the toes) They have short blunt claws on their hands and longer, curved claws on their feet. Neither set of claws are usable as a weapon, as they are too blunt. However, the toe-claws make it easier for a barefoot bika to gain traction while running or climbing.

Bika live for around 150 years and reach physical maturity around age 20, although parrtnering to raise pups usually doesnt take place until the individual has gained status within the pack, usually somewhere around age 30. Gestation period is around 10 months, and females usually give birth to 1 - 3 pups, although litters as large as 6 are not unheard of. The larger the litter, the smaller the pups, and the less likely every single one makes it to childhood. Bika are born hairless,deaf, and blind, similar to their canine ancestors. The pup's hearing develops around 3 months, and eyes open around 5 months. By a year, they are covered in a soft, downy fur showing the markings they will have throughout their life. Also at a year, they are able to run, although not well enough to keep up with a moving pack. At age 5, they are considered a cub, instead of a pup, and are begun to be taught to hunt and other aspects of pack life. The parents usually stay together to raise the pups for around 15 years, unless they have a soul-sharing bond. Once the pups are adolescents, the parents may choose to form a soul-pairing bond again to raise more offspring, or go their own seperate ways. Bika females only become firtile once every 10 years or so, and most females only have 4 or 5 litters within their life.

Diet and Food gathering/production

Bika are technically omnivorous but 80-90% of their diet is meat based. They can live for a short time soley on berries and roots. However, they will become weak and sickly as their digestive system cannot get the same amount of nutrients a true omnivore could. Without a source of fresh or dried meat for protien, they will eventually wither and die. They cannot digest grasses, leaves and other sorts of green plant matter. Berries, however, are considered a delecacy similar to saffron and often mixed with meat in soups and stews. Bika find it easier to digest roots and berries if they are cooked with meat broth before eating.

Hunting is the prime source of food. Both males and non-pregnant females hunt, and to be a full-time hunter is a respected profession. Bika craft bows and stone spears to hunt with as well as trading for metal weapons, although a coming of age ritual among certain packs is for an apprentice hunter to kill an animal with nothing but a small stone knife and his/her own teeth. Bika usually hunt in groups of five to seven, with up to 5 hunting dogs as well. After tracking the game, a few hunters will set up an ambush point while the others flush the game to the designated area. All hunters involved in a hunt recieve credit for the kill even if they were not the one that brought the animal down.

Pregnant females and those too young or old to hunt may gather grubs, insects, roots and berries. Grubs and insects make up a large portion of the non-meat diet, but most berries are used for flavor and spices.
Fishing, agriculture, and breadmaking are all but unheard of. Instead of bread, the bikas craft an odd mixture of pulverized meat, broth, fat, berries, and a certain ground root. This substance has a texture similar to that of a greasy pancake and is used as a travel-bread.
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Re: Bika cultural notes

Post by raixel »

Home Life-

Bika live in nomadic groups called packs. Each pack contains somewhere around a hundred members. The leaders of the pack are a combination of the elder craftsmen, the strongest in magic shamen, and the best hunters. There is no distinction between females and males in relation to leading, and both sexes are represented based on the individual's skill and age, not gender.The pack is the center and focus of Bika life, and an individual will view him or herself in relation to it. Individuality is not frowned upon, mostly because a bika would have trouble understanding the concept as a human understands it. To a bika, the pack is everything. This is reflected in bika speech. In the Bika language there is no word for 'I', 'you', 'me', or 'mine'. If a bika wants to refer to themselves they use a term which can be translated as 'this one of the pack', usually shortened to 'this one' in Common. The word for 'mine' in the Bika tongue translates to 'something i am using now' more than a concept of ownership.

The only thing a bika considers truly theirs is the image that they and the shaman create based on visions/dreams recieved during their coming of age ritual. This image, which may be a stylized depiction of an animal, a magic rune, or anything that the shaman and individual has deemed important based on what is seen in the vision, is referred to as grk-wof, which can be translated as "spirit naming". The grk-wof is often drawn on the bika's tent, shield, clothing or other objects the individual has crafted, or had crafted, for his/her use. In simplified form, the grk-wof is used as a representation of the bika's name similar to a signature in the human lands.

Bika live in tents made out of many heavy and thick hides sewn together.The tents are suprisingly easy to put up and take down for their size, requiring only about 4 hours worth of work per family. Extended families live together in one large tent, with hide partitions hung inside to make 'rooms'. Tents are circular, about 6 1/2 feet high in the center and 4 feet at the edges. They average about 50 feet across, with some large, high-status families' dwellings being as large as 80 feet. On the outside they are painted in bright colors, with representations of the family member's grk-wofs and achievments and status within the pack, as well as spiralling or circular patterns. Inside, there is a firepit in the center, with a smoke hole directly above which is crafted to allow smoke out but keep the weather from coming in. Around the edges of the inside, partnered bikas have little 'rooms' made from hides hanging from the ceiling where they live and sleep with their young pups.

Unpartnered family members and cubs sleep in the circular main room around the firepit, storing their belongings in woven or carved chests in the 'storage room' of the tent. If the family grows too large for the tent, the younger members split off and make their own tent to live in. It is the choice of a partnered couple which parents or if from seperate packs, whick pack, they choose to live with, although they usually pick the one with the highest status within the pack.

Most bika do not mate for life, instead partnering long enough to raise offspring. A few, however, do partner for life. In the Bika tongue, mating for life is referred to as 'Soul-Sharing' and mating for a time is referred to as 'Soul-Partnering.' Unlike their canine ancestors, all Bika are allowed to partner and raise offspring, not just the pack leaders. However, the pack leaders are much sought after for soul-partnering. A pack shaman will lead the couple to be partnered in a binding of vows.

Different packs have different rituals associated with soul-partnering, however they all involve a solemn vow to stay together until the resulting offspring have become young adults. For soul-sharing, the ritual is much more intense, usually involving blood-sharing and/or scarification, as well as a vow to be together for all time. This is because bika believe that some people are born as one soul in two bodies. Individuals who soul-share have described meeting their life partner like 'knowing that the person is some part of you that was always missing'. The soul-sharing couple must perform a magic ritual with a shaman before deciding to take vows, who will be able to discern if the couple is truly 'split-souled-ones', as one half of the pair is referred to. Both soul-partnering and soul-sharing are a time of celebration, with great hunts, feasts, games, and parties. Especially for soul-sharing, the partying may last for days, sometimes for up to a week.

Although all bika can and do hunt, most are not full-time hunters. Many are craftsmen, using the natural materials found on the plains of their home to make everything the pack needs. Although they have no metal-working skills, bika are quite adept at making weapons out of a green razor sharp volcanic stone known as 'bgrawn'. This stone, in the hands of a bika stoneshaper, can be designed into arrowheads, spearheads, knives, and short swords. It is actually sharper than steel and never dulls, although it shatters easily if hit in the right way. Woodformers craft tent poles, travois, and other things out of the tall, thin hardwood trees which grow in groves on the plains, and plantweavers use a type of springy, thin reed found in marshes to weave baskets and other items. There are also hideshapers, who craft clothing, tents, dog harnesses, and other things out of animal skins, as wll as using the sinew to make thread for sewing and lashings for travois and tent poles, earthshapers, who use the gray clay found in streambeds to make beads, jars, and other pottery items, and colorbringers, who use natural materials to make dyes and paints for decoration and ritual. The bika have no money, instead using a simplified barter system. However, they view the goods they create as for the pack, and an individual would never be turned down a necissary item due to lack of ability to trade. Said individual would be expected to contribute what he or she could, when they could, to the pack's wellbeing at a later time.

Bika are nomadic, and follow the herds of the game animals they hunt. Each pack roams a set territory, although they will leave the territory if the hunting is especially bad, to return at a later date. It is considered very rude to hunt in another pack's territory without permission, and scouts are usually sent out if a pack feels the need to hunt outside of its established territory to make contact with any neighboring packs. When travelling, tents are bundled up with family belongings and placed in long travois which are pulled in teams by the large dogs the bika keep as companions and hunting animals. Bika older than pups are expected to run alongside the travois and keep up. However, elders, the injured or ill, and pregnant females are allowed to ride on the travois with the pups if running would be a hardship.
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Re: Bika cultural notes

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Beliefs -

Once a month, during the nights the moon is full, the bika have a time known as the Howling. This is a time of ritual and song, where nightly the songs of the anscestors are sung to please the moon, that she may grant them good hunting in the moon-turns ahead. This is also a time of thanksgiving and reflection on the past moon-turn, where individual pack members stand and tell a story of something they have learned or done to benefit the pack in the past month. Also, the shamen perform a ritual to 'read the moon', which provides insight into the state of the world and portents of the future.

Every year, on the full moon closest to the summer solstice, there is a Great Howling. At this time, all the packs in an area come together for a week of celebration and ritual. There is a Grand Reading, where all the elder shamen of the gathered packs seek advice from the moon and spirits on things that may affect the bika as a whole race. Also there is a formal naming of all pups born in the past year. The pups are brought before the eldest living shaman of all the assembled packs where they are formally recognized and 'presented to the moon'. This ritual involves bathing the pup in a carved moonstone (not the same moonstone as humans think of. It is a rare alabaster like stone that under moonlight glows silver.) basin of water that has been allowed to sit under the light of the full moon for a night, speaking the pup's childhood name in its ears and to the assembled crowd, and raising the naked pup above the shaman's head to be bathed in the light of the full moon. The pup is now considered a true member of the packs of the bika.

Trade agreements and pack territory boundaries are discussed among the elders, and disputes between packs or individual members of different packs are sorted out. Trade and territory agreements are considered binding until the next Great Howling, so there is much discussion, as no pack wants to be bound to an agreement that gives them hardship. To break a trade agreement, even out of great neccesity, would cause a great loss of status to an entire pack so the elders discuss terms long into the night. Although trade agreements change yearly, territory is usually very stable, with only things like drought or illness of a game-herd causing them to change.

The Great Howling is also a time of celebration, with many feasts and contests of hunting and skill between packs. The pack of the winner is awarded much status, although individual 'prizes' as humans think of them are not given out. Those who have recently partnered or had offspring are congratulated, and craftsmen bring items for barter with other packs. Dances are held nightly around bonfires, and young bika eye each other for prospective mates. At the end of the Great Howling, the elder shamen bless the assembled packs, and they split up to go back to their territories.

So thats is for now. I also have plans to add more to the belief section, and maybe a language section.
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Re: Bika cultural notes

Post by raixel »

Life Stages-

Childhood to Young Adult
Since bika are long lived creatures, they go through many different societal roles in the course of their lives. For the first year of life they are not given a name or considered a member of the pack, as hardship claims many infant bika's lives. At one year, the infant bika is known as a pup, is blessed at the Great Howling closest to its first birthday, and given a childhood name. It is then considered a member of its pack. But before this time, it has no status and is just known by the number of its litter out of all the litters born to its mother. So a pup born of Wukka's 2nd litter would be known as "one of Wukka's 2nd". Among some packs, if a bika commits a grevious crime against the pack (which happens so very rarely that such instances are only spoken of in legend) the offender is ritually stripped of name, grk-wof, and status before being outcasted from bika society. From that point forward the bika is again known only by its litter number and dam, when the bika bother to speak of him/her at all.

From the first year to the fifth year a young bika, called a pup, is expected to learn to use its body, feed itself, run (a pup can walk from around a year, but doesnt have the speed or stamina to keep up with even a cub), learn rudementary language, and many other tasks universal to all humanoid infants. At this stage, a mother will keep her pups with her at all times as she goes about her daily tasks. The pups learns by watching their mother and other members of the pack interact. Pups are encouraged to explore their immediate environment, often grabbing things, sniffing at them, and placing them in the mouth. A mother bika will, of course, pull her pup back if it seems interested in something that could be dangerous, such as a firepit. Pups learn to respond to the sharp bark that all bika uses to discipline children, and any loud sharp sound will startle a pup and immediately cause it to drop what it is holding and/or stop moving in the direction it was going. A severely misbehaving pup or young cub is reprimanded by a pinch with the foreclaws to the area where the neck meets the shoulder.

From the fifth year to young adulthood (usually around age 20) a bika child is called a cub. Cubs are given more freedom than pups as they grow older. For example, on her fifth birthday a new cub might be given a tiny bow and arrow set suitable for killing small birds and rodents. She would be encouraged to wander around the pack encampment killing rodent pests and hunting small birds for meat. She would not be allowed to leave the vicinity of the encampment yet, however. Any animals she brought back would be taken from her by her family and either disposed of, or prepared and eaten as part of a meal by the whole family. The family would explain to her the importance of her actions to the survival of the whole pack. ie killing rodents that are pests reduces damages to curing hides and food stores, bringing game provides food.

At this young-cub stage the pack is careful not to heap too much praise on the cub's actions so that the cub learns that the survival and wellbeing of the pack is much more important than the individual. Even a cub that shows a natural talent or interest in a field at a young age is not praised beyond how their actions help the pack, although the elders and family would be watching the cub and gently guiding him/her toward the area he/she shows expertise.

Cubs are allowed to wander freely through the encampment, playing and learning about themselves and their people. The old humanoid saying 'it takes a village to raise a child' is very true among the bika packs. All bika look out for, discipline and teach the pack's cubs. For example, if a cub wanders up to a hideshaper who is stretching a hide for use as a tent, the hideshaper will explain what they are doing, how they are doing it, and what benefit it has for the pack. It is common to see bika craftsmen going about their tasks with a few cubs watching attentively as the craftsman works. In this way, the cubs are given a general education about their people, and as they grow older will most likely gravitate towards a craft or task that they enjoy or have a talent in. So whereas an 8 year old cub might wander throughout the camp learning about many different crafts, a 12 year old cub would probably spend much more time with one craftsman of a craft that they have shown an interest in.

As the cub grows older, s/he is expected to learn and follow bika social customs. What is forgiven in a 5 year old cub would not be acceptable in a 12 year old cub. Cubs are also given more freedoms as they age. Where the 5 year old cub in the first example would not be allowed to roam beyond the pack encampment, a 14 year old cub might join with a few age-mates and leave the pack encampment for a few hours to go hunting small game. But with these freedoms comes greater responsibility. As the cub gets older, they will progress from watching craftsmen at work to helping with simple tasks and food gathering/hunting. Around the 15th year, a cub is expected to begin thinking about themselves and what they can do to help the pack as a whole in preparation for their coming of age.

The coming of age ritual varies among individual packs although most of them involve a rite of self-sufficency and all of them involve some form of spiritual quest to find one's grk-wof. When a cub is nearing maturity, usually somewhere around the 21th year, he or she will be approached by a pack shaman and begin to ready themselves for adulthood. Coming of age rituals involve things such as surviving in the wilds away from the camp for set period of time with no assistance or items but a small waterskin and dagger, hunting a dangerous predator alone, or hunting a food-animal with nothing but ones teeth and a dagger. When the trial is sucessfuly passed, the cub returns to camp, and is given a ritual memento associated with the trial such as a tooth from the dangerous predator, a horn or piece of bone from the food-beast that was hunted, or even a small piece of the shelter the young bika crafted while surviving without assistance. The cub will keep this memento with the through their life as it is considered an object of great mana. Next, the prospective adult must find his grk-wof. The grk-wof is the most sacred thing in to a bika, as well as the only thing s/he can be said to truly 'own'. The cub's adult name will be taken from the grk-wof, and the grk-wof can be said to be a representation of the bika's soul.

When a cub feels ready to search for their grk-wof, a festival is thrown in their honor. There is dancing, drumming, singing, and story telling. Elders speak of their grk-wof quests and shamen bless the cub who will be searching. Although the party continues long into the night, the cub is expected to ritualistically say goodbye to friends and family and retire early to the head shaman's tent with the head shaman, who will spend the night instructing the young bika on the spirit world and how to call the spirits to her, as well as preparing a potion that the cub will use to facilitate the journey into the spirit realms. The next morning, the cub is woken by one of the pack shamen at first light and led out of the camp. At this time, no one in the camp besides the shaman is allowed to look at the cub or the cub to look at anyone else, as it is thought that to look at her will keep her grounded in the material world and keep the spirits from contacting her. The cub is taken far outside of the camp to a special ritual place that each pack has. The place is considered sacred to the spirits of the pack and is also where the shamen go to commune with the spirit world. Once at this place, the cub disrobes and her clothes are symbolically burned. Then she bathes in magically-charged water that the shaman has prepared, to symbolically wash away her youth and connections to the material plane.

She then is given a walking stick by the shaman and drinks the potion. The shaman then turns his back on the cub and ignores her while singing songs and drumming to call the spirits to the material plane. The cub closes her eyes and spins in a slow circle for 28 seconds, one for each day of the moon. When this is done, with her eyes still closed she walks in a straight line for a count of 365 steps, using the walking stick to keep from stumbling or tripping as she walks, although it is not considered a dishonor to do so. Instead it is viewed as the spirits teasing you, so you know that they are near. When this is done, the cub opens her eyes and looks around. This is the place that the spirits have sent her to find her grk wof. Interestingly enough, even though the cub only took what seemed like 365 steps, she might be up to a mile away from where she started. Even if she doesnt move very far, she will not be able to find her way back to the shaman until she finds her grk-wof.

Once at the chosen spot, the cub examines the area closely while singing and chanting the songs and magic words the shaman taught her the night before, as well as other ones she makes up on the spot as her soul tells her. Eventually, the grk-wof will manifest itself to her in a vision or in the area she is in, whether in the form of a plant, an animal, a rune or symbol, or any other thing, the cub will know it as her grk-wof. She will then feel a pull towards the direction of the sacred spot where the shaman waits for her return. Once there, she will tell the shaman what she experienced, and the two will make their way back to camp. Once back in camp, she and the shaman will go to the head shaman's tent, where the three of them will discuss her experiences and the head shaman will commune with the spirit world to find the meaning of the grk-wof. The new adult is then given an adult name and pictoral image based on the grk-wof and is welcomed into the community as an adult.

For example, if a cub sees an oak tree with a glowing white VI rune inscribed on it, his grk-wof symbol might be a stylized while oak leaf with a VI rune in its center, or a river with a white oak leaf floating in it, depending on what his discussion with the pack shamen and the shaman's communing with the spirits say. His name might translate to something like "Life-oak" or "Strong-water", depending on the interpretation. Once the cub has a grk-wof, he is no longer a cub, but an adult bika and is ready to take his place in the pack.
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