Guttpi (Gutt-pee)
Tengu-born Tieflings, general of Daemonic descent. Like all of the Cosmic Races, their appearance and abilities can vary wildly, but most have skin that appears like it is rotting of their bones, although this is usually concealed by their feathers. They typically have the ability to transform corpses into weak skeletons to do their bidding.
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
The Guttpi typically speak Abyssal, Tengu, and Urrok Common, but like many tengu, are easily inclined to pick up many more languages.
Common Dress code
While it is not easily seen beneath their feathers, many Guttpi have lesions that resemble rotting flesh. While dealing with outsiders who are unfamiliar with their culture, the Gutppi are very self-conscious of these markings, and thus often wear long robes that conceal their features. However, when in the presence of each other and their dark masters, the Guttpi reveal their flesh as a mark of pride, a showing of their closer-to-death corruption.
Art & Architecture
The Guttpi build little, most areas outside the grand daemon cities are barren and wasteful, but they take great pride in crafting grand sinister temples devoted to their dark masters. Those that don't dwell inside either the cities or the temples often eke out a living inside ramshackled tent-cities on the roads between.
Foods & Cuisine
The Guttpi have little in the way of exotic food, as many lack the spark of creativity to innovate meals. Most sustain themselves of bland trail rations, and it is regularly common for many Guttpi to delve into cannibalism in hard times, often digging up old graves, consuming the flesh, and then utilizing their magic to re-animate the skeleton to serve them.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
It is usually custom for the mother to be ritually sacrificed as her baby is being born, so that the amount of new life is not increased, but another person, generally an elder, can be a substitute for more influential families. This practice is also sometimes suspended in times of low birth rate or after large purges.
Coming of Age Rites
All Guttpi must commit some act of murder to become an adult. Such action can be overt, such as a knife to the back, or covert, such as arranging for a rival to starve to death in the wilds. Family clans usually have a practiced and preferred method; such method usually corresponds to the whims of the daemon that serves under or the one that rules over the city that family resides in.
Funerary and Memorial customs
The final goal of a Guttpi in life is its death, and many hope to offer their souls to their masters, either to feed them, or in the hopes that they may transform into daemons themselves.
Common Taboos
Like their daemonic masters, the Guttpi loath the concept of life itself, and thus seek its ultimate destruction. This means most Guttpi's are cruel nihilists, and acts of charity and kindness are anathema to them. They even hesitate to give birth, only doing so to create more servants to fulfil their masters agendas.
Common Myths and Legends
The Guttpi venerate Omni and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Most choose to worship Omni and Charon, the Horseman of Death, over the others, but sects to the other three exist as well. This veneration stems from the Night of Disillusions, when Omni emerged from the Stygian Ring and sing-handily conquered the nation, transforming its most powerful inhabitants into daemonic generals under his command.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Due to their warped ideals on death, the Guttpi view those closer to death as more beautiful. Thus, those gaunt from hunger, plague or with grevious wounds are seen as more attractive than those in good health.
Gender Ideals
Due to their nihilistic outlook on life, the Guttpi have little in the way of gender norms. If their goals are succussful, death will come swifter to every creature regardless of gender.
Courtship Ideals
Due to their hesitance to create new life, few Guttpi willingly enter into courtships. They often only do so when the population drops too low due to over-sacrifice or other events that reduce their numbers. When the desire does come, they have little regard for their partner, with most simply accosting the first eligible target they come across.
Major organizations
Nearly all Guttpi are citizens of the daemonic nation of Vrasia, serving their daemonic masters with grim determination.
Instead of rolling for their Otherworldy Trait and Physical Feature, a Guttpi can select the following traits:
Call of Undeath: Once per day, a Guttpi can cast Animate Dead as a spell-like ability, animating a 1 Hit Dice skeleton.
Rotting Flesh: Underneath the Guttpi's feathers, its flesh appears to be rotting, although this has no negative effects on the Guttpi's overall health.
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