Gobi
The gobi are a race of small humanoids native to the island of Molten Heart. Descendants of the Precursor Race, as their home island was inconceivably inhospitable, their race was forced to adapt radically to their environment.
The gobi are a race of contradictions and baffling efficiency. They are chaotic, fast talking, and clever, while being incredibly loyal to those whom they hold close. At the same time, their manic energy can often leave them running off in several directions at once, unable to get much of anything done, save bickering and infighting. However, when someone can heard a group of gobi in a single direction, harnessing their raw creative spirit, they display such a wealth of ingenuity and inventiveness that they can literally move mountains.
Gobi life is characterized by a unceasing drive to act. Rarely will you find a gobi who is not in the middle of doing something, preparing something, helping someone else out, or planning what to do next. The exhausting pace that the gobi live their lives at is often difficult for the other races to keep up with, and likely contributes to their shorter life spans when compared to the other people of the Skies.
Gobi culture is pulled in two directions, the desire to lead and the instinct to follow. Among the gobi, individualism is seen as one of the highest virtues, and this manifest in all sorts of facets within their culture. Some gobi use chemical compounds to dye their hair in radical and distinctive colours and patterns. Others modify their bodies with scars to create intricate patterns over their bodies, a practice helped by the fact that gobi scar tissue comes in coal black. Some take to invention, building strange devices with limited practical use, while others take to architecture and construction, building structures that bare their name.
Obviously, this chaos of everyone perusing their own passions would make getting anything done on a large scale difficult, but as prone as they are to doing their own thing, gobi are predisposed to working together. Gobi constantly share their projects with each other, seeking informed opinions and critique. This tends to naturally cause a clustering effect, where multiple gobi are slowly pulled into the orbit of a single project, which once they are committed too, see it through till the end or the project goes bust. There is little that can stand in the way between a group of gobi and their goal.
Gobi are generally ruled over by the philosopher king Doro, whom they share a native island with in Molten Heart. While a bulk of the gobi view this relationship as symbiotic, as they are fond of the grand projects and designs of the Doro and the abundance of food brought by their entry into The Pact, some gobi have begin to agitate for independence from the Doro, who they firmly believe have no right to rule over their people.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Gobi stand roughly 1 meter to just over a meter tall. They are lanky creatures, with heads hands and feet that seem disproportionately large for their small frames. Their ears are long, almost bat-like, and extend well past their head. Their teeth are serrated, perfect for tearing through flesh. Their skin is ashy gray in colour, and their hair a pale, almost ghostly white. Their eyes are large and black as a doll's, and their blood is blue when spilled.
Genetics and Reproduction
Gobi reproduce sexually and give birth to live young, a female typically giving birth to two or three children at the same time. The gestation period of gobi are relatively quick when compared to the other races of the skies, only taking roughly 140 days till the children are ready to be born.
Pregnant gobi swell to frankly cartoonish sizes and require quite a lot of assistance during their last trimester.
Growth Rate & Stages
Gobi are born blue in colour, but this slowly fades to the familiar ashy gray as they grow older, completely fading before they transition out of puberty. Typically, most gobi reach young adulthood around age 8, and reach full maturity around age 10. As gobi grow older, their ears continue to grow larger and larger, until they begin to sag and weigh the gobi down. Most gobi live to only 60 years in age, by which time their ears begin to drag behind them as they walk.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Because of the way their species developed, gobi require only around 1000 to 1400 calories per day, with much more needed when growing. Gobi are omnivores, but are capable of eating raw meat if necessary, and generally prefer meat when available.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Gobi's large ears are not just for show. Although they can see perfectly well in daylight, gobi rely on a kind of echolocation to maneuver during the night and in dark caves.
Civilization and Culture
Beauty Ideals
Gobi beauty ideals are based largely on voices and singing ability. Their highly developed sense of hearing has made them incredibly sensitive to all manner of frequency, even those not audible to most other races. As such, sounds are much more affective to gobi, who go out of their way to seek sounds that they find pleasurable. What sounds qualify as "pleasurable" is largely subjective. One gobi may enjoy the subtle clacking of wind chimes, while another may prefer the banging of pots and pans. Those who are beautiful in gobi culture are those capable of producing a wide variety of sounds that a majority of the population find enjoyable, either through singing, instrumentation, rhythmic tapping, or even the carefully timed releases of biological gasses.
History
Gobi are the descendants of members of the Precursor Race who fled to the dark caverns of Molten Heart, fleeing the elemental horrors that stalked the island during the day, and steering clear of the molten rivers of liquid metal that crisscross the island. Their ancestors would only emerge from their caverns during the night to hunt what little game could be found on the island, such as Sky Serpent and the various species of birds that would land on the island, and to collect rain water.
These environmental pressures, coupled with the earth and fire energy that radiates the island, caused the gobi to develop into the ground-bound bat-like creatures they are today. To compensate for the small amount of food and water available, the gobi began to shrink in stature, until they reached their modern size within a single century. Forced to reside in dark caves, the gobi began to rely on other senses for maneuvering through their environments, which lead to their specialized hearing.
The first century and a half of gobi history was marred by violence, famine, and death. Early gobi were splintered into hundreds of small warring tribes who fought for resources and living space, while others were enslaved by more brutal factions of early Doro. It was only after the The Guild Order was established, guarantee equality and freedom to all the people of Molten Heart, and the resources that came with Molten Heart joining The Pact, that gobi life began to change for the better. The sudden influx of food and technology, as well as medicine and resources not native to their island, drastically improved life for the gobi, as well as their life expectancy. The gobi population exploded, and began to congregate around the great metal cities which the guilds had begun constructing. Gobi became free to peruse their own desires, unshackled from the constant labor of survival.
Comments