Vulpecula

Geography
Miles and miles of grassland.

Culture
Highly suspicious of outsiders, and prone to mental instability. They have the most mind-boggling taboos regarding food: what can be eaten when, what ingredients can be consumed with which others, and in what portions. Most notably, unlike other food taboo systems, there is nothing humanly digestible which has been declared inedible. All meals must contain meat.

There is no big overall structure to Vulpecula. They tend to travel in small, tight-knit clans. Trade is harsh but fair, unless you’re an outsider, in which case they will screw you sideways and steal your wallet.

Vulpecula aren't so big on education. A literate Vulpecula is a rare jewel indeed. What they learn is how to survive wherever you put them, and how to make anything into food/weapon/etc. They use all the parts of the lizard, not because they are dirty hippies like Lacerta, but because DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO STAB THAT FUCKING LIZARD?

Economy
Barter, but will certainly take your coin! And then make you trade something else.

Architecture
Nomadic, set up and broken down at will

Technology level
Crude.

Government
Defined by tribe, no central government

Elemental/Magic affinities
Wind, Fire

The Meat Festival
The most important festival in Vulpecula culture is the Meat Festival, a week-(ish)-long event that ends with Meat Day. Though Vuplecula tends to be rather disconnected and loosely organized, huge numbers of them will gather for this event, creating massive clusters of tents and temporary buildings.

The First Hunt: The first day is full of small game hunts while everyone is showing up and setting up their tents.

The Second Hunt: A bigger, more organized hunt once everyone has set up, followed by a massive barbecue. (All of the following days involve a massive barbecue at some point.)

All Offals Eve: Big costume party. At night, children go around in Trickster masks crying, “Trick or meat!”

Offal Day: Nothing but entrails’n’gizzards! A Vulpecula favorite!

The Raptor Hunt (lasts two days): The best and bravest go out after raptors. Though outsiders are generally welcome for most of the festivities (though it’s the BIGGEST HONOR EVER to be invited), mostly just Vulpeculas may participate in the raptor hunt. Those who stay home regale bitchin’ tales of raptor-hunting. At the end of the day is a party celebrating those who lost their lives during the raptor hunt (and maybe also some medical treatment).

Meat Day: Those who went on the raptor hunt get to sit around all day and nurse their wounds while everyone else is hard at work smoking, salting, pickling, and otherwise preserving all of the leftover meat. At the end of the day, the biggest feast of all: RAPTURDUCKEN. Recent traditions involve fireworks, performances, and small acts of gift-giving (the gifts are also meat).

Coming of Age
Once a year, all of the ten-year-olds are rounded up and sent out into the wilderness to bring back a raptor. Those who come back are adults and get to have a real grown-up name. Except they’re ten so they all name themselves like dogs. Or maybe their parents name them like dogs, we’re not clear on this point yet.

Marriage
Assuming you survived your coming of age, you're allowed to get hitched!

Here's a basic overview of the ritual: "Two Vulpecula sneak into the Hydra swamps. Hydranian scouts stand guard, blending into the scenery and respectfully not looking, and sound a call if there's danger about—whether or not the call is heeded depends on whether or not the Vulps are paying attention. If you come out alive and pregnant, YOU WIN."

Pretty much, a Vulp's idea of a good date is running through a swamp narrowly escaping death. :'D AND IT'S GOOD PRACTICE FOR YOUNG HYDRA, who frequently receive a pile of half dead Vulpecula to nurse back to health.

Native Creatures

 * Fatty lizards - scattered migratory herds. Noms ALL THE PLANTS


 * Dragons - There are only three known in the Vulpecula lands, but all three are old, savvy and way more powerful than you are. No really. Living, breathing forces of destruction. They eat anything they damn well please. The three known each have names:


 * Venna - an enormous green dragon who hunts on the plains. Her arrival is usually only known by the sound of her wings and a growing shadow. The very sight of her stills her prey in mindless fear, and some suspect magic. She has engaged in conversation when very, very full and bored.


 * Farquip - a regal black scaled dragon that hunts closer to Orion lands. He greatly enjoys conversation and will only eat humans who bore him. He often demands complicated topics and enjoys seeing how much the person can make up on the spot.


 * That Bastard - No one really knows his name, and he has yet to actually bother to talk to anyone, just eats first. Hence, naming became very simple. A young reddish, gold dragon with a rather snakelike body and feline shape to his head.


 * Raptors - Pack hunters, usually in groups of three to four, primary diet are Vorns, fatty lizards and Vulps.


 * Fucking Jackalopes - No one knows what they eat. And no one cares. Vulpecula have a rumor that actually catching and eating one grants you immortality.


 * Vorns - A hooved four-legged creature of enormous size. Something in the shape of an elk, but close to the size of an adolescent elephant. Mottled yellow and green straw-like feathers keep it invisible in the tall plains grass. Has a bugling call that echoes when in distress or angry. It charges and headbutts to attack. Herbivore.


 * Kirrik bug - Two to three inches long, the kirrik bugs are glossy black and oval shaped in general. They make a whistling chirp by vibrating their wings when disturbed, and a swarm of them can be deafening. A favorite food of everything that doesn’t have the balls to go for the big meat. “Bug toothed” should be considered an insult to your everything whether it’s true or not.


 * Kanat - They resemble nothing so much as gumdrop shaped balls of fur with teeth. They have 6 to 10 legs depending on the species and can roll if panicked. Omnivorous (Scavengers and carrion hunters mostly). Not the best meat but pretty tasty. Decent game ball in a pinch.


 * Tet - Small rodents with a row of spikes down their spine a tuft of fur at the end of their tail, they are omnivorous, a common pest and the spikes on their back are barbed and snap off easily making stomping on them a generally unwise decision. They are considered disease carriers but are eaten anyway on kabobs. Nothing that a little fire won't fix.


 * Jawbreakers - (Beauty Pet) This creature is absolutely inedible. You crack through it’s shell and it’s like there are more rocks. Its bones are like steel and its claws are not even that useful as weapons. They are like a stone eating stone creature.

Affiliated Characters

 * Aella/Yuffie
 * Black
 * Gray
 * Jinx
 * Lucky
 * Zelgadis/Blue