Shifters

Naming Traditions

Family names

The Shifters do not use family names. Each Shifter earns a second name, which is their animal form, when their form first becomes clear after the First Shift. This generally happens when a Shifter child is around five years of age. However, as animal forms typically remain within a family, most members of a family have similar or the same second names.

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

Most Shifters speak both Trade and the common Shifter language.

Common Etiquette rules

Common expectations are to look away from the leader and his family whenever they are moving about the land and to never curse at an elder. It is also frowned upon to attempt to interfer in relationships or cause harm to anyone. One must also always thank the sun for rising each morning.

Common Dress code

All Shifters, regardless of gender, wear a single piece garment that may be wrapped in whatever style the wearer desires. This garment is easy to remove whenever the wearer wishes to change form. Women, especially those who are nursing children, often choose not to cover their breasts.

Art & Architecture

Shifter buildings are made of wood, mud, and leaves. They typically only have one floor, though this is elevated above the ground, typically by one handspan, as the Shifter Lands often flood in the spring.

Artists make many types of beads, jewelry, rugs, and baskets to exchange among each other. These items are also produced as trade goods.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

The Shifters' most important tradition is the spring fertility festival, which is done in hopes of a bountiful harvest of crops and for plentiful game for the season. The festival involves games and feasting, as well as a large amount of sexual activity among the adults. The number of Shifters who become pregnant during the festival is seen as an indication of how fertile the lands will be, as well.

Birth & Baptismal Rites

When a child is born, a close member of the family is sent around the village declaring the birth. The child is named imemdiately, and neighbors bring gifts to the family.

Coming of Age Rites

The most important coming of age expereince for a Shifter is the discovery of their animal form. This typically happens around five years of age. Once it happens, the parents tell everyone in the village to attend a celebration where the child shows off their animal form and takes their second name.

Funerary and Memorial customs

When a Shifter dies, they are buried in a fallow field deep enough that the plow will not disturb them. The following year, that field is used for crops and another field is left fallow for those who die. It is believed that in this way those who die return to their people through the food that is grown over them.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

A sign of beauty among the Shifters is long hair, typically worn loose but sometimes bound when working. Shifters take great care in how clean and shiny their hair is, often adding oils to it to enhance the natural shine. Body hair is also highly prized among all genders.

Gender Ideals

There are no specific roles to be had in Shifter society that vary by gender other than birthing children. The activities each Shifter participates in, whether it be hunting, cleaning kills, cooking, farming, guarding the Shifter Lands, or making items needed in everyday life, as luxery items, or for trade, is determined by their personal strengths alone. A contributing factor toward a Shifter's strengths include their animal form and what they enjoy doing.

When it comes to childrearing, both parents are expected to play an equal role in the child's development, with only the act of nursing restricted to the mother in most cases.

Courtship Ideals

Courting may be initiated by a Shifter of any gender once they have reached puberty and the other party has also reached that age. The process generally takes years, as the partner who initiates must be able to build a home for their future family. Typically, this partner finds a location for the home and is tutored on how to build a proper home for several months before beginning the process. This partner then gathers the material needed and works on the house as often as possible, showing the partner they are courting how it is going. The intended partner is not permitted to help in the initial construction, but may help with future improvements or expansions to the home.

Only once the home is complete is the couple permitted to formalize the relationship. This is done in a two-step process, the first of which involves the couple becoming sexually involved and the couple living together in the house. Most couples choose the spring fertility festival for this concecration. The second step in the formalization happens once the couple is expecting a child. Then, a formal bonding ceremony is held in which the village grants the couple many gifts and a feast is held, followed by games.

An abreviated courtship is permitted for those seeking new partners later in life. In instances where partners of the same gender wish to court, the bonding ceremony is held shortly after the couple begins to cohabitate. For those different-gendered couples unable to have children but who still wish to be bonded, a ceremony may be held after at least one year of attempting to conceive. Relationships with more than two partners are rare but permitted, though only after at least one year of cohabitation.

In the event that the original relationship does not form for any reason during the home's consctruction, the courting partner must take down what has already been done, but may keep the materials, in order to start fresh with a future intended partner. In the sad circumstance in which the intended partner has died, the courting partner typically receives help from the community in taking down the in-process structure as a way fo showing sympathy.

Those who wish to remain alone romantically live with their parents until their parents both die, at which point they inherit their parents' home to do with as they wish.

Relationship Ideals

Once in a relationship, partners are expected to contribute equally to the relationship in ways that make all involved feel happy with how it is functioning.

Who are the Shifters?

The Shifters, a people who all have animal forms they can change into at will, live on what are known as the Shifter Lands in Algoma. These heavily forested lands are where the Shifters have always lived. The country of Algoma grew up around them, without either peoples noticing the other, aside from Algoman farmers who assumed the Kings and Queens of Algoma knew of the Shifters. When it did become known to the rulers of Algoma that the Shifter people lived among them, they immediately met with the Shifter leaders to ensure the protection of the Shifter Lands and to offer treaties and trade arrangements. Despite some formal agreements, the Shifters prefer to keep to themselves and deal only with local communities. They have, however, united with the Algoman royal family when Fae Unicorn married King Jaimathan Cyra, who she met when he visited the Shifter Lands while still a prince.

It is unclear how the Shifters came into being. As far as they are concerned, they have always been on their lands in what became Algoma.

Algoma and the Shifters

The Shifters came to the attention of the Kings and Queens of Algoma when King Dearg and Queen Gelsomina came to power in Year 253 TE. During the feast following the coronation, various wealthy nobles from throughout Algoma presented gifts to the new rulers. One of these "gifts" was that of two young Shifter girls, given as a curiosity and for entertainment. Appalled, King Dearg had the man arrested and returned the girls to the Shifter Lands himself. When he did so he created an alliance with the Shifters to ensure the protection of their land and culture as a nation all their own. He also made it illegal to kidnap the Shifter people and assisted them in finding others who had been stolen away from the dense forest in which they live.