Lanle

[Collection of Summary-esque Facts]

History
History a-la notes:
 * After their chaotic and abrupt birth, Lanlen flocked to the prettiest Lin for guidance.
 * The prettiest Lin would eventually select a mate and through them create the first child in the line of emperors.
 * For many, many years, Lanlen exhibit a promising progress into civilisation, albeit a slow one under the leading guidance of the emperor family who makes of their wisdom a world advancing towards improvement.
 * Year ???? - A foul plague that, against all the protective and careful efforts of the Lanle people, takes the emperor family from their midst. It nearly wipes the Lanle people out.
 * Chaos arises in the struggle to establish power when the monarchy is without monarchs. Opinions are no longer regarded as things that are to be exercised with care, but as weapons to be brandished. The Lanlen begin to fall into various factions struggling over the landscapes they are still cultivating and slowly gaining more of.
 * Year ???? - The 23rd Lanle clan is established.
 * The 8th, 9th and 11th clan form close friendships with the Actias and begin to trade with them.
 * Year ???? - During a meeting of interests, these clans and their clashing ideals are put to side at the table of the Actias when a Lanle from the 11th clan named Gao-Hon Lonrau gets out of his chair and offers a very convincing argument as to why their bickering will not benefit any individual clan.
 * The 8th and 9th clan eventually unite with the 11th under Gao-Hon Lonrau. They strengthen ties with the Actias and begin forging weapons from the ceramic MATERIAL the Actias have been collecting from the skylands.
 * Gao-Hon Lonrau, sworn to the warrior wife Lai-Lin Lonrau, decides to lay before clan 8 and 9 the plan to sweep through the country and bring all other clans to their knees. This suggestion rises as a result of a steady population growth that has been under way since the plague, and after years of good harvest - they need more land. They need more space. The three clans agree that the time has come for expansion.

During their march across the continent, the Katrazi from the cold side of the hourglass launch a fierce invasion. These two armies end up unknowingly marching towards each other in their war moving towards the center of Lanle lands.
 * The first clan that falls to Gao-Hon and Lai-Lin is the 17th. The victory comes without many losses from Gao-Hon and Lai-Lin's forces, and this results in a very greedy, very cocky Lai-Lin, who argues with her husband that there is no reason to stop here. She offers him ambition. He accepts it. So does his people.
 * The 19th and 4th clan surrender to Gao-Hon. Gao-Hon and Lai-Lin brings a son into the world. They name him Ngeng-Lin.
 * The 18th clan and 23rd clan have been looking out for each other despite remaining separated. Gao-Hon and Lai-Lin's meets a very big challenge at their gates. Losses are had on both sides.
 * The 1st clan finds Gao-Hon and Lai-Lin's before they find them. They are evacuating - the Katrazi has defeated them and taken their home. Gao-Hon and Lai-Lin's suddenly got a very different war on their hands, than they initially set out to have.
 * The new metal from the Actias give the Lanle forces an edge in warfare. The Actias do not seem hindered by the prospect of spilled Katrazi blood, and the trade of MATERIAL only becomes more abundant between the two races.
 * At age 17, the son of the Lanle leadership suffers a brutal injury during a skirmish with the Katrazi. His face never heals fully, and he loses his ability to speak.
 * After three bloody decades, the Katrazi are finally beaten back into the cold half of the continent. It is said the war ended when Lai-Lin unsheathed the axe that killed Gao-Hon from his chest and slammed it into the leader of the Katrazi's chest. It has since been depicted in statues.
 * Lai-Lin dedicates the rest of her life to making peace. She dies of common sickness a six years after the end of war. All look to the mute Ngeng-Lin for leadership. He gives them exactly that, albeit through the written word.
 * Ngeng-Lin takes a wife, Xi-Lin, and the Lonrau family slowly manages to make of the clans under their rule and without their rule a more peaceful connection. Their closest advisor, Lao-Ani, suggests that they make a more clear distinction of people, of races - that they assign roles and simplify - that they create something that makes sense for their confused people who now, more than ever, needs it.
 * Ngeng-Lin and Xi-Lin establish the growing settlement they owe to his parents, and they name it Ngaiyen (Ngai = Home, Iyen = Gift - or, the Home that is a Gift) to their credit and effort. Lao-Ani's advise is taken into mind and the effort to unify the people starts with language.
 * Ngeng-Lin and Xi-Lin have three children. Of them, Pon-Lin is the prettiest, and, with the slip of a lot of coin and influence, Lao-Ani manages to make of the child a rumour. The emperor reincarnated.
 * The Empire is at last re-established.
 * First human contact.
 * First airship.
 * Skyland mining operations begin.
 * Allegiance with Kaltai Lahn.
 * Year ???? - Mai-Lin, the thief that stole the world, is born.
 * The War for the World reaches Ngaiyen. (2nd Trilogy)
 * Year ???? - The Yalanlan family's secrets surface and cause chaos. The Inner Rebellion starts. (Potential book about the Lanlen)

Culture
Supressed Vanity

A very strong ideal of Lanlen society is to never be openly vain about anything. Praise is worthless unless it is given to you by others, and blatant attempts to get praise are often associated with pathetic, lesser personalities. Strongly contrasting this view, the best Lanle is often the prettiest and most luxurious creature – so long as they do not boast it.

Discipline
Discipline is paramount in the southlands. Something that rose as a result of having plenty, the felines' ideals warped around it. You do not eat more than what is served, and you eat everything as a manner of showing respect. Those with higher authority than you, you bow down to. You do the work that is assigned to you. You never come short of a goal or expectation. There is no greater dishonour.

Kakuran
Every Lanle knows the story of Kakuran, for in many ways he is the father of their people. Thousands of years ago when the lands were but primal, and ruled over by the Fey, Kakuran traveled the world to share his greatness with it. He took great pleasure in showing his colourful gown to the primitive tribes, and all saw reason to give him praise for his gifts - for his beauty was unmatched, every individual feather worthy of song.

One day, he would inevitably arrive in the southlands. Here, there were no primitive tribes waiting readily to worship his form. He found only the feyfolk. He knew of them, but had never seen them in such a great quantity. So numerous and peculiar were they that there was no way they wouldn't come up with at thousands of new songs for his gown, every day. It was perfect. It was ideal.

It was neither.

The fey saw Kakuran more as a noisy nuisance than a God. He wasn't welcomed. Rather, he was under constant mischievous harassment. Bombarded with magical tricks and whimsical curses. So he retaliated, insulted, and gave them a piece of his mind. He had traveled the world - so many tribes had he seen, tribes that saw him for what he was - a God. A God, and the fey were invoking his wrath. His beauty, his spirit - he was proud to call both more magnificent, more beautiful, more powerful than the petty magic these wildlings practiced.

As you can imagine, this didn't sit well with the fey. He was punished, by the fey he so largely denounced, and all of his feathers grew legs, arms and heads and began springing from his body. He was stripped of his gown, and of his songs. Hon, feathers resilient enough to belong to warriors, grew on the bird's crest. Lin made for its beautiful tail, and Ani and their earthly, natural colours sat over its wings. These were the first Lanlen, brought to life int he confusing chaos of magic and the wailing noise of Kakuran.

The stripped, frightened Kakuran fled their lands in panicked haste. Most assume that his vanity killed him when he realised how ugly he had become. The first of the Lanlen scrambled together, confused infants in the face of a sudden world. And yet. They had memories. Memories of all the songs that belonged to them each, and of the praise they had been given. Songs that were cherished and kept up until present day. They are sung in the temples, even if they have changed much since those days thousands upon thousands of years ago.

The faith put into the following beliefs has become tradition moreso than practice today.

Fey

Grounded heavily in the way Lanlen came to be, the worship of Fey creatures has become every bit a part of them as breathing. Their sacrifices of foods and goods to the wild races of the feather forests keep them in good spirits with the Fey, and for the most part the average Lanle can walk the glades and vales without having to worry about harm. Though they may leave them tricked. A lot of good luck / bad luck is associated with coming short of Fey sacrifices.

Lanlen funerals are held in fey glades.

Technology
There are no two masters in the world of technology, and while the feats of the great thinkers of Hain are not be questioned, the achievements of the Lanlen are insurmountable by comparison. Theirs is a society built upon a refusal of magical heritage, and yet it is rich with the ambition that comes with it. Cities teem to the very brim with ingenuity - fine rubbery tools for squeezing fruits, steam-powered scissors at the end of long elegant sticks used to trim unwanted weeds, windows with shutters that close on their own and much, much more. It is an art so treasured that it has become difficult to find any kind of bolt, sprocket, hinge, door handle, lever, stirring wheel or otherwise without some kind of personalised, artistic twist. These inventions range greatly from useful to utterly absurd, from common to unheard of and yet still quite present, and they have become to the Lanlen what magic is to most other peoples: a resourceful, vital practice at the heart of progress.

Many have looked upon the Actias and felt a melancholic jealousy for their ability to fly, but the Lanlen felt as if they belonged free in the air long before they laid eyes on any flying creatures. However, they have sadly remained grounded for most of their existence - bar occasional episodes where a particularly ambitious Lanle may have invented something somewhat capable of flight. This would perhaps be a good time to note that the Lanlen have, more than any of the other races in the world, contributed to the full mathematical understanding of gravity.

Of course, there is no shame in a little humour at the expense of the Lanlen when it comes to this, as their ambitions and effort bore fruit in the end. These days the skies are navigated by ships exclusively of Lanlen design, powerful engines driving the roaring propellers that keep their magnificent air ships afloat. The energy required to lift something as heavy as a ship up to the point of gravitational equilibrium became a matter of nehn and MATERIAL, the latter of which is strong enough to keep compact nehn from overheating. This did not only allow them to harvest nehn, but it allowed them to build the Steam Nehngine - the most powerful machination in the world - capable of producing so much energy it might make your average arch mage blush. Putting such energy to use is another question altogether, and while the temple of technology in Ngaiyen is fully invested in testing the potential of this technology, it has yet to be put to use in something else than airships.

Much of the inventing is traditionally handled by the Ani, though exceptions are known to occur where Lin are allowed into the temple of technology: Prrihijijaio mi Mlao-Ani. Hon are not allowed to study at the temple. In fact, Hon tinkers are considered to be a rather laughable concept by the Lanle people.

Magic
Banned Magic

Born in the chaos of it, the Lanlen have since their very conception been respectful of magic. Learning the lesson put upon Kakuran, they swore to never clash with magic again. It belonged to the Fey, and they were happy to keep it that way.

Language
The Lanle language, Ngailo, is a manufactured language created by the emperor family 700 years ago. Diplomats and linguistics contributed to the creation of an alphabet containing 23 signs, each sign the symbol of one of the clans the lynx-people of the southern continent used to belong to. Since the re-union of the Lanle people and the return of the imperial family, these clans have slowly faded into history, and yet, their languages remain. A great sense of miscommunication and dialectic complexity is present in Ngailo, to the point that particularly far-flung villages may struggle to understand the language of the people three villages away from their home. Only in the capital, Ngaiyen, do all understand what is being said, as the most effective and polished version of the crafted tongue exists there. There are no dialects in Ngaiyen.

Unique consonants:

Prr

Ml

Ng

Naming
Lanle names consists of three units. They are given a birth name, a kinship name and a family name. Their birth names are typically only one to two syllables long, their kinship name serves to bolster their racial identity and their third name simply indicates their lineage.

Examples of Lanle names: Prragesh-Hon Malrauu, Tol-Ani Yinai, Pin-Lin Rranimlen

 Food 

Lanle food is almost always soggy or wet in some way or form, to the point that some visitors have complained that one is more like to drown in their cuisine than taste it.

Appearance
A Ralskander would tell you that a Lanle is a lynx that, by some magic, has become an imitation of a human. A Theudgardian will claim that they are like the foxes of the glades, but stood tall and dressed with the features of maneless lions and flying squirrels. A bird, could it speak, would tell you that Lanlen are but simply birds of a feather. These descriptions will not suffice apart, but together, an image of the whole starts to form.

The Lanle (plural: Lanlen) is a bipedal, fur-covered humanoid with varying qualities of vixen and feline likeness, bar for a large tail taking the form of a single feather with varying colours. These variations seem to racially define the individual Lanle, of which they themselves list three types: the Lin, Ani and Hon.

The Lin, by far the most common Lanle, indeed shares many features with the lynx in Ralska's wilds, carrying similar markings in their fur and tufts at the end of long, flexible ears, as well as the maws full of deadly fangs...which may occasionally be bared in a threatening snarl if one pesters them long enough for a look at them, I wisely add. Their tails, unlike their Hon and Ani cousins, display a large gallery of vibrant and saturated colours from the entire spectrum. The shape of the tail, too, is different from Lin to Lin, some taking the shape of down, others a curling plume, and yet others a long elegant feather. Females typically have paws more akin to those of foxes, while males leave paw prints that rival the Ralska lynx's in diameter. Their claws are small, refined and commonly trimmed, and male Lin often like to fashion them into thin styled beards. Lin are most typically two to two and a half gnomes tall.

The Hon are often mistaken for Lin by unknowing visitors as they mirror the Lin in all ways bar size, feather and female vixen builds. These Lanlen are recognizable most of all for their remarkably dense tails, always taking the shape of a large broad feather made of incredible fine metal hairs. To run a hand through one is not quite unlike letting ones fingers dance over a plethora of small golden chains, albeit more silken to the touch. When a Hon bristles, their tail becomes voluminous and hardened enough to pass as a serviceable shield. They come mostly in brass, iron and rustic colours, though obsidian and silver variants are not entirely uncommon. Both female and male Hon have large paws with a diameter just surpassing the orange fjord lynx, largest of its species. Typically, Hon grow out sizable claws and, when they are not burying them into the chests of their enemies, they are often decorated with pretty jewellery. Hon are most typically two and a half to four gnomes tall.

The Ani have no feline features bar the markings in their fur, carrying a far greater likeness to the desert vixen one may find in the wilds of Mes-Mejai - their snouts are longer and their ears far taller. These shorter Lanlen have tails far less vibrant than that of the Lin, colours more akin to the ones you might find on a common grey sparrow - the tails do, however, grow into the same varying shapes their Lin cousins don. Distinct to the Ani is the excess fluff running from their chin to their solar plexus, which most clothing accommodates for the sake of what I understood to be a matter of comfort. Their claws are just slightly shorter than their Lin cousins. Ani are most typically only a head or two taller than a gnome.

Hon, Ani and Lin all share certain physical variations. Density of fur is geographically determined in much the same way the colour of human skin is, while the colour of the fur, ranging from reds to browns and blacks to whites, differs in much the same way eye colour might. Unaltered eyes range from green to auburn brown, and all in between - bar the rare case of blue eyes, which is said to be the sign of a wealthy life. Lanlen are visually distinguishable from one another through their fur markings, feather, body type, height, voice, sex, beards and eyes.

Feathers

To outsiders, the idea seems absolutely absurd – but the Lanle people explain that they grew from the feather, the feather didn't grow from them. Losing your arm is a matter of losing an appendage, but losing your feather is being plucked from society. With no feather, you do not belong. You have perished.

Fashion & Clothing
Casual clothes for Lanlen often hangs loose and serves primarily to cover more private parts, simply because it is uncomfortable to wear body-clutching clothes due to both fur, and because they often prefer to keep their backs exposed rather than covered, though many exceptions occur. Fashion still clings to the same loose material casual clothing is made of, embroidered silk, but sets itself apart by the hindering trend to let as much of it hang off the body as possible, which passes for elegance and grace, much like Kaltailanian fashion. It is said that the wealth and beauty of a Lanle can be measured in the length of their gown.

There are no shoes to be found on Lanle paws, but sandals are a rather frequent phenomenon. The further they crawl up the ankles the richer, although after a certain part of the shin it has come to be seen simply as excessive.

Most of all, fashionable Lanlen don jewellery. Their large ears and humongous feathers exist to be tormented by the weight of precious metals and magnificent gemstones. The same logic that dictates the length of their draping cloth can be applied here, and there is nothing more eye-catching than a feather that can comfortably hover just a gnome's toe above the ground, jewels just almost scraping across the brilliant floor tiles.

In fact, much of Lanle fashion is made to draw as much attention to their feather as possible, which is what most Lanlen find to be the most attractive part of the body. Particularly lucky women are born with frecklish spots at the root of their tails, which has come to be a mark of beauty so great that those that are born without have begun to controversially paint the spots themselves, in order to appeal to the other sex.

Painted feathers are a relatively new fashion among Lanlen that draws very vile reactions from some, who claim it to be deceiving and disrespectful, while others claim it to be harmless so long as it is used only for artistic reasons. This discussion is very loud and very public, currently, in Ngaiyen, where artistic freedom is seen as paramount.