Lepidosian
The Lepidosians are a human offshoot population native to Lepidos.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Like all human-descended races present in the Sealed Kingdoms region, the Lepidosians were subjected to the Arcopel gene drive to 'tag' them so that they could be differentiated from other experimental human populations. This gene drive gave the Lepidosians the long ears of lagomorphs. The short hairs along the body of the ear are of approximately the same color as the hairs on the individual's head, but fade to black in a chevron-shaped patch at the ear tip.
Ears aside, the gross morphology of a Lepidosian is nearly indistinguishable from that of a stock human. Lepidosians are typically up to a head shorter than Evermornan and more gracile in build. Lepidosian skin tones range from tawny to dark brown, though those whose ancestry lies with the Evermorn Strategic Colony Initiative in the aftermath of Wurth Harkin's Harkinite Expedition tend to be lighter in complexion. Lepidosians have the same range of eye and hair color as other human subgroups, though they tend toward darker colors.
All of the aforementioned features are believed to be the product of the Lepidosian's environment and, further back, their region of origin on the as-of-yet-undiscovered homeworld of humanity. Lepidosians live on a cool, arid world that orbits close to its orange-red star, with most of the historic population centers lying along the equator for comfort and to improve crop yields.
Genetics and Reproduction
For reasons still unknown, the Lepidosian sex ratio at birth is 3 females for every 1 male. While initially assumed to be a result of some sort of environmental contaminant that damaged Y chromosomes (i.e. radioactive fallout in the aftermath of The Midnight), it is now believed that something about the gene drive - which is sex-linked - makes male offspring less viable. The population bottleneck that saw the Northern Lepidosian subgroup rise to prominence, caused by a combination of environmental degradation in the aftermath of The Midnight and the severe ethnoreligious pogroms which preceeded it, may have concentrated the prevalence of an androcidal gene drive strain in the surviving population. Lepidosian populations that interbreed with non-Lepidosian populations see this sex ratio aproach, but never reach, sex parity with successive generations.
The disparity in male and female births has had a profound effect on Lepidosian culture. Polygyny is a common norm across the political spectrum, with men competing for the largest possible harems in more authoritarian subgroups while more egalitarian subgroups instead see women competing over a limited supply of men. This also has the effect that, because men tend to do most of the fighting, population groups become less keen on engaging in warfare the larger and older they become to preserve declining male populations. It should be noted that, while this cultural predisposition is promoted by a quirk of biology, Lepdiosian women - in contrast to certain negative stereotypes propagated among other human subspecies - generally hold a strong desire for monogamous relationships and a jealousy towards competing romantic partners.
Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Because of their ears, Lepidosians have slightly improved auditory acuity and spacial awareness. They are also slightly more sensitive to changes in air temperature and wind direction.
Civilization and Culture
Average Technological Level
In the era leading up to contact with the Evermornans, Lepidosians had an industrial base that was on the verge of discovering semiconductors and nuclear power, operating primarily on petrochemical power and communicating with radio transmissions. Electromechanical devices were the most powerful computing hardware available at that time, and even then, access was limited to governmental, industrial, and educational institutions. Travel and cargo hauling over long distances was (and remains) primarily conducted through the use of electro-thermal airships, though much was also done by train and automobile.
Wurth and his crew, like with the Evermornans before them, began to gradually share more advanced technologies once the geopolitical situation began to stabilize in the aftermath of The Midnight. A collaborative outreach program involving the League of Lepidosian City-States and the Cobalt Protectorate outpost at the Execution Hill Launch Complex serves to distribute advanced power generation, computing, communications, and medical technologies to the various city-states and their holdings under the watchful eye of the Techguard.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
With the destruction of the Occult Fraternity and most of its loyalists, the majority of living Lepidosians share a legacy of enslavement, persecution for their religious beliefs, and later privation in the wake of nuclear war. This has both hardened the Lepidosian outlook towards the world and instilled in them a pining for the days when Lepidos was still verdant. Igeshenk is a culture-bound syndrome that specifically arises because many Lepidosians are used to the wide-open spaces of Lepidos and yearn to see what little greenery there is to be found in the arid plains and hills of their homeworld. All that being said, most Lepidosians also show gratitude and an intense loyalty towards their Evermornan liberators - even if that liberation came at a steep cost. Evermornans, for their part, generally regard the Lepidosians with similar favor as the first among fellows in the Cobalt Protectorate.
The League of Lepidosian City-States represents the interests of the various Lepidosian city states to the Protectorate. Each city-state has a culture distinct from, but nevertheless largely descended from and closely tied to, their Northern Lepidosian forebearers. Other, independent city-states and non-governmental organizations, including trading companies, collections of smaller settlements, or even criminal syndicates, also exist on Lepidos, but these groups tend to occupy the extremes of Lepidosian social or political behavior rather than the median Lepidosian experience.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
Tae na Lepidesn is the common language of most Lepidosians, being the language spoken by Northern Lepidosians since before The Midnight and codified through education and trade in its aftermath. The most common religion among Lepidosians is Lepi Monotheism, also known as Raikepism for its cheif deity, Raikep. Most of Lepidos is arid, if not overly hot, and so many traditions, like that of Flowing-Together (a Raikepist wedding rite), and supersitions, like that of the ashitar (a sort of animate mummy or zombie) center around the judicious application of water. Piktas is a traditional card game that has spread throughout the League and, through the League's connection with the Cobalt Protectorate, to the broader Sealed Kingdoms Region.
Common Taboos
As the Northern Lepidosian culture is dominant due to a variety of factors, the cultural norms of that ethnicity are often overlaid on the subcultures of city-states which rose in its wake. Generally, Lepidosians hold disdain for people or activities known to waste water due to the aridity of their homeworld. Because the Northern Lepidosians were often enslaved or sacrificed to satisfy the obscure civic rituals of the Occult Fraternity, any turn of phrase that implies ownership or non-humanity of a person is generally considered taboo. For example, in Tae na Lepidesn, using the non-gendered object particle in referrence to a person is likely to arouse shock because, as the Occult Fraternity would do in their own language, it implies a degree of superiority and that the subject is chattel at best. Lepidosians generally also have great respect for the dead and a high regard for certain personages in history and will not deign to speak their names directly in the same sentence as anything negative. For example, Shank Moswen in Ancestral Patronism, a famed assassin nevertheless venerated for his guile and his protection of the Protectorate, is generally only referred to among his Lepidosian adherents as "He Who Is In/Of Shadow" for the notoriety of his exploits.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Geographic Distribution
Related Organizations
Related Ethnicities
Related Myths
Comments