#forest dorceans

[ladyanaconda]

Dorcean Chieftains

@dracocheesecake. @faithisthedoctor @skysiren41 Now that I've started writing season 3 and these guys will have a secondary but important role, I've decided it's time to share their designs.

Juxreel Ventavir (Hunter name: The Longrunner)

Calm, collected, and has quite the black sense of humor sometimes. Is afraid of heights, hence why he insists on travelling everywhere via longrun. He respects Besteel, and tends to butt heads with Art'eena and Duknaga.

Duknaga Zeph'ri (Hunter name: Terror of the Skies)

Ill-tempered, aggressive, always itching for a fight. While he somewhat approaches the line into sociopathy, he can feel empathy and is quite honorable. He's got a personal beef with Besteel. Even Poachers fear him, considering he decorates his village with their skulls.

Beltra Brih'nar (Huntress name: Thorn Weaver)

The oldest, blind and wise, mostly a peacemaker. Legendary skills at healing, and is a motherly figure to her tribe. She can tell hen someone is lying through their heart rythm

Art'eena Shom'ur (Huntress name: Executioner of Sandsnipers)

Famous for taking on female sandsnipers head-on, and surviving. Tough-as-nails, earnest, and brutally honest, she holds humans in contempt because her tribe has a history of hunting them

Eletra On'du (Huntress name: Dune Dancer)

Outgoing, funny, but beware when she gets serious. Loves teasing Juxreel and Besteel, but keeps distance from Duknaga, who's left flying whale meat outside her home, a traditional method of Dorcean courtship.

[ladyanaconda]

I picture that Forest Dorcean wombs are Y-shaped, just like dogs and cats, a structure designed for multiple fetuses to develop along the horns. On the other hand, sea and polar Dorcean wombs are more similar to the humans', better for a single fetus—or sometimes two, in the case of polar Dorceans.

Like human babies, unborn cubs hear muffled sounds—most notably their mothers' two heartbeats—and can do stuff such as drink, hiccup, yawn, cry, etc. However, forest and polar fetuses cannot make out shapes because their eyes won't open until they're at least six months old. Instead, they use their smell and hearing.

[ladyanaconda]

For Dorceans, mating between members of different subspecies isn’t forbidden, but it’s very uncommon and seen as unpractical. Each subspecies evolved to different biomes and lifestyles. EG: A forest Dorcean’s skills as a hunter won’t be of any of use in a coastal village, because sea Dorceans are fishermen, not hunters. This, summed up with the fact that the three subspecies seldom interact with each other other than the occasional trading or the Forest Games, contributes to the rarity of cross-subspecies pairings.

Of course, there’s exceptions. Redimus, who never felt quite at home in the forest, had no problem adapting to Nalavega when he and Marakeen got married, mostly because his new job as lightkeeper didn’t require him to swim. 

Then there’s Fayluna, who would eventually fall in love with a Polar Dorcean, and their arrangement is kinda like Hades and Persephone: in the fall and winter months, her mate would live with her, and during spring and summer he’d go back to the north pole while Fayluna stayed behind—though sometimes she’d tag along. 

[ladyanaconda]

Scyrias

After making a post about sea Dorcean villages, I figured it's a good time to share my headcanons on Scyrias, capital of the Zeph'ri tribe.

First of all, it's located on a mountain, a short distance away from the cliffs where the wild glidewings nest. It's architecture is adapted to be built on cliffs, mountain tops, and such.

Most notably, every structure has a landing platform for the tribe's glidewings.

The village tavern would be just like this, located in the center of the village. When the weather is bad or when it's otherwise dangerous to be on the air, a horn is blown—it can be heard from miles through the mountains—to indicate flyers to land their glidewings. They cannot fly again until the horn is blown again.

And this is Duknaga's home. Granted, the dragon heads would be glidewing heads.

[ladyanaconda]

I wonder if you could get scratched from rubbing against Besteel's fur like it were as rough as a stubble.

Not really. Forest and Polar Dorcean fur is actually quite soft, and the latter is quite warm, too.

[ladyanaconda]

Imagine if Kumak excelled at housework and/or hunting to the point that he proves better than Fayluna and Besteel combined!

I'll bet the latter would have more than a few words to say to him about that - the thought of that polar stranger succeeding him as the next "Masterful Dorcean"!

While Kumak is an exceptional hunter, his reputation means nothing amongst the forest tribe because his skill in ice hunting is useless in the forest. Likewise, Besteel’s reputation as a hunter means nothing amongst Sea Dorceans because his skills are useless in the ocean.

And it’s very unlikely anyone will ever surpass Besteel. He wasn’t only the first to kill a vipanther, he was also the one who saved Orbona (he had help, but Dorceans usually omit the others in their songs)

[ladyanaconda]

Would Besteel and Redimus enjoy sitting in a hot tub?

Nop. Forest Dorceans don't like getting wet because their fur soaks up water, becomes heavy and loses its insulating properties, which leads to discomfort, chills, and matting, making them feel sluggish and vulnerable. They prefer to use vurmians to keep themselves clean, though during their monthly baths, they prefer to use humid sponges to wash themselves instead of actually entering water.

[ladyanaconda]

If I had to guess what Tergaron was like, I'd say most of its Dorceans lived on the treetops - anywhere on every tree's branches or even in the trunks. But after Tergaron got destroyed and then rebuilt, the majority of homes were on the ground. I wonder what relationship the Forest Dorceans had with the earth versus the trees.

I made a post sometime ago with some pics of how I imagined Tergaron, but yes, it's a treetop village. Forest Dorceans normally build their homes in high places to avoid predators, a practice they've been doing for millions of years. EG: The vipanther is an adept climber that can glide like a flying squirrel, but it cannot go that high into the trees.

Tergaron was rebuilt on another tree formation, but it had a different name—which I haven't thought of yet.