Nagpako
Harsh winds whip at the flipped saucer wings, the dragon purses the hundred dark dots. I watched from the safety of the city as a tribe of the harsh Aarakocra species that is the Nagpako glided across the cooling evening air. The great dragon of the The Deathless Dunes pursuing. Some looked soaked in blood with red feathers. Others dark as night, or white as snow. Crackles of lightning shot from a few backs at the dragon. A magocratic tribe then. What rare unwise decision must they have made to trigger the dragon? How uncharacteristic of them. Surely they will survive though, as they have for millennium in this endless hellscape.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Humanoid. Two arms that reach to ankles or feet, shorter legs with four clawed talons, larger wings that fold vertically to back, dark rough skin on limbs. Main body is rounded at the chest and tapers thinly at the waist. This area is often covered in plumages of black, white, red, to grey. Rarer dark blue feathers can be found in some specific individuals. Beak is often tan and/or black. Sharp and curving downward usually between two to eight inches in length.
Genetics and Reproduction
Due to their harsh environment reproduction is a long and strenuous process. Females will reproduce with male counterparts and holds onto a child for a little over a year. This allows for more mature infants to be born. Maturity assists greatly in their natural desert habitat.
Growth Rate & Stages
After the long gestation period, most children will grow spindly legs and arms with undersized wings. After birth, it will take a newborn six months to become an infant. Another year passing will make the infant into a toddler. During the toddler to child stage rapid growth of wings, beak, and changes in plumage texture and color onset over the next five years as they approach youth. At the average age of six and a half, they will begin to become a young adult over the course of the next three and a half years. Ten-year-old Nagpako will go through trials from the adults and be accepted as an independent member.
Ecology and Habitats
These bird large cup-shaped wings are ideal for the heated desert updrafts of the Hazfen desert. Often cruising between rock formations they will use their eyesight to spot oases, herds, and approaching danger. Their feathers are extremely heat resistant and allow for long periods in even the noonday desert sun.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Nagpako is an omnivorous creature that forages and hunts for food. While capable of farming they have never lent themselves away from the nomadic lives they lead. The creatures are capable of storing nearly twenty percent of their body weight in water on themselves under their chest, leg, and wing feathers as a cooling and storage device.
Biological Cycle
At ten years of age the Nagpako youth will form into an adult. Some minor plumage shade changes, beak shape, and facial feather changes can occur. Nagpako of fifteen to twenty will stabilize into an adult body of a fully matured member of the tribe. Anywhere between the ages of eight and thirty five a Nagpako can expect to begin to feel the need to mate, as well as great mood swings when exposes to large quantities of water.
No extensive research has been done on this phenomenon but many Nagpako will often become energetic, aroused, and/or boisterous upon swimming or full immersion in water for longer than a minute. Theory states that due to their nomadic and desert lifestyle their bodies have adjusted to force mating or interaction when the Nagpako can find plentiful water.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Nagpako has always been found in tribe-like, nomadic, and/or magocracy structures. Whether lead by elders, or simply the natural leaders most tribes set up in the oasis, or wander the deserts to rotate food and water sources while avoiding other wandering threats. The blessed few tribes of a greater population will run on a magocratic structure.
Great druids and wizards have been noted to regularly arise within the Nagpako tribes. These tribes will often transfer leadership to magically learned individuals upon their fifteenth birthday. A notable few tribes have a dozen or more of these individuals who lead the population.
Facial characteristics
Nagpako faces feature a curved downward beak, usual feather color plumages of solid or mixed patterns. A rare few Nagpako or half-Nagpako will have dark or black skin in place of feather on the face.
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Nagpako has been located in primarily the Hazfen desert. Since the calamity, a dozen tribes have been located in the Wisconsin and Memphian Desert located west and east of the Hazfen.
Average Intelligence
Nagpako who have found themselves in academia, leadership, and throughout the world have stood slightly above other humanoids. Though note notably.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Reliant on somewhat sharp sight there hearing and smell can often be weak in comparison to average humans. Rumors state that if trained and genetically predisposed they are capable of picking out the leaves on a tree a mile away.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Nagpako waste little in the desert. Their names are often one to two syllables. Their names when translated from Avian often feature clicking sounds at the start such as Kla, Klee, Cie, or Khl. They have no last or middle name tradition but tribe names are often substituted for last names in the presence of outsiders.
Major Organizations
Three tribes have reached population of two hundred or more within the Hazfen. The Hyscee noted for flight and bowmanship. They are nomadic and the smallest of the three. The Duabis are the second-largest, and extremely proficient in magic. Lastly the huge nearly eight hundred member Ankah lay claim to the south.
Beauty Ideals
Nagpako when asked often look for bright and smooth plumage. Slick and thin plumages that conform to the body are considered attractive. Large more curved wings as well equate to huge muscles in a human.
Gender Ideals
Little to no gender distinction in their culture has been noted. While physically different in minor forms, no actual behavior or treatment is noted in the tribes.
Courtship Ideals
Courtship within the Nagpako is fleeting. Most of their lives is spent without romantic tints or thoughts. Getting close with a fellow Nagpako is common, as most will know the same few dozen or hundred individuals their whole lives, with little meeting of strangers. While resting or in town these friendships are often suddenly physically intimate or expressive verbally. Notably at oasis or feasts after great hunts. These sudden moments will leave a lasting mark on most social connections, but no formal bonds are made.
Relationship Ideals
The Nagpako prize tribe-wide connection above family. Parents merely give birth to an individual but often a child will be taken care of by nearly a dozen adults. Bloodline connection has nearly no value to the social structure. Nagpako prize aiding anyone within the tribe as ideal. Because of this, the Nagpako are surprisingly accepting of helpful outsiders despite their tribal nature.
Average Technological Level
Nagpako while nomadic maintain an advanced magical ability. Many spellbooks, relics, and items have circled the tribes for hundreds of years and built of great knowledge from within, and from travelers. Their ability to glide throughout the desert has underdeveloped their travel methods on the other hand. They are capable at tool creation and map-making though.
History
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Scientific Name
Aven Sapien
Origin/Ancestry
Aarakocra
Lifespan
70
Average Height
1.3-1.5 meters, 4.5" - 5.5"
Average Weight
45kg, 100lbs
Average Physique
Most Nagpako prove slightly weaker than humans, though more dexterous and wise.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
The skin underneath most Nagpako feathers is dark to black with a rough texture.
Geographic Distribution
Related Ethnicities
Discovered by
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