J'a-goroan

Summary

God

Mayreign, god of invention

Description

The J'a-goroan are a race of bipeds native to the forests and grasslands of Felsaed. They are digitigrade, walking on the toes of their elongated paw-like feet. Their legs have a second knee that is reversed, which leads to long shins. The J'a-goran typically stand at 6'5-7'3 in their natural statures, and can gain up to an extra foot in height when they straighten their legs. The extra height granted by straightening their legs allows them to spy over shrubs and tall grasses while still allowing them to retract back to their natural posture to avoid unfriendly eyes. Each major population has fir designed to camouflage them against their foes, with thin coats of yellow-orange hues being dominant in the east, slightly thicker deep browns in the west and thick white coats in Tierdun.
The J'a-goroan's arms are longer proportionally than a humans arms, and are often somewhat bent to prevent them from hang too low. Their hands boast small claws that are much denser than the nails of near-humans, and although they are not long the hooked shape of the claws makes it easy for them to grip onto opponents, and their great speed makes it easy to bring down their opponents before they have time to react. Their faces are much like that of wild dogs, with long snouts and large ears on the top of their heads. Their mouths are filled with sharp fangs that indicate a primarily carnivorous diet.
The J'a-goroan have a narrow, tall build optimized for speed and agility. However they are not as strong as their height would suggest, and are often bested in close combat by humans. To balance this disadvantage they often use light weapons that make the most use of their great speed and often the more powerful among them can afford the steam-weapons and flamethrowers made by the greatest inventors among them. These advanced weapons are coveted throughout the world, but are seldom seen in the hands of outsiders.
They often use their keen eyes and their lengthened, dexterous fingers to work on constructing works of fine art, armor, weapons or anything else that may require an extreme attention to detail. As they were created by the god of invention they are master smiths, and are only matched by the smiths most closely aligned to the Godcasters in Sethir. However it is only their craft in smithing that is matched in Sethir, as their ability to invent far exceeds the abilities of the other races.

Cultures

Their are three major governments (The West Felsaed Dynasties, One Felsaed Ascendancy, Tierdun) of J'a-goroan, each with unique subcultures. Although each culture shares a focus on invention and craft, they express this very differently.   West Felsaed Dynasty's
The West Felsaed government, known as the West Felsaed Dynasties, is a land of frequently changing dynasties. It's monarch is not necessarily the strongest, and although the position is hereditary their traditions allow for a clear path for a challenger to usurp the throne. The ruler, by design, is the most deadly inventor. An aspiring ruler may challenge the leader to a trial by combat, however neither party fights directly in this trial. A pair of evenly matched duelists are picked, and one is given a mechanical weapon designed by the monarch and the other a weapon designed by the challenger. To ensure the duelists are evenly matched neither party can know which duelist they will be represented by, and after two duelists are selected they are assigned to each party at random. To ensure the duelists are prevented from throwing a match for any reason they are not hold who they have been assigned to, and the weapons are designed without identifying marks.The winner of the tournament either retains or attains the Monarchy, and are then given the choice to kill or exile their rival.
These forms of combat are not unique to the Monarchy, and there are many Arena's in this kingdom. Although the fighters are well compensated, they are not the stars of the arena. These fighters train in evenly matched pairs to ensure fighter parity, and the true stars of the tournament are the crafts they use. Inventors from all over the kingdom, and in some cases from all over Tor'Saarn, test the quality of their inventions in 5 categories, Mechanics, Armor, Forged weapons, Mechanical weapons and Full kit. The inventor whose inventions win these tournaments at the highest level are set for life, with the most valuable (and most coveted) Tournament prizes being won at the bi-decade Full-Kit inventors combat tournament.
Every two decades the worlds greatest Inventors utilize their wits to create the best weapons, armor and mechanical contraptions to win the grand prize. This prize varies from year to year, but has in the past included a body-weight of gems, Relics from Tiorath such as weapons held by the first Tiorathan lords, and even an ingot of pure singing steel.
One Felsaed ascendancy
The Eastern government in Felsaed is known as the One Felsaed ascendancy, and fashions itself as the true ruling power of Felsaed. It is a religious hierarchy and closely follows the tenants of Mayreign. They hold the art of invention as a holy act. The states priests to Mayreign are the nations greatest inventors and it is their duty to gather and share knowledge on these arts amongst the masses of their nation, as well as to govern the ascendancy.
The nations most holy site is the mountain temple in the north-east of the nation. The temple sits under the shadow of the Steel Tree of Mayreign, the plant that sired the mystical Steel trees found only at the mountains base. These trees drop bark that when used as fuel for a specially designed smelter operated through ritual is capable of creating 'Steelsoul' materials, a process which is known only to the high-priests of Mayreign. This 'Steelsoul' essence can be woven into any material, making it not only notably tougher but also greatly responsive to enchantment, and the strongest enchantments are woven into Steelsoul items.
Tierdun
The nation to the south of Felsaed is also primarily under J'a-goroan control, and much like the split nations in the north has it's own subculture. To their northern kin they seem strange, as their forms of invention are far outside the norm. They have mastered a magic art they call cold forging, allowing them to continue to craft goods long after the winter winds strangle even the strongest forge flames. As innovative as this may seem the practice is little used elsewhere, and is extremely taboo in the Ascendancy up north. This art is believed to have not come from Mayreign as even his most loyal priests have yet to learn the art of cold forging, and is instead considered to be a teaching of Olrad given to his cults in the west most regions of Tierdun, seperated only by frozen waters from the Godcasters home of Oron'hye. This suspicion is furthered by the Oroni peoples earlier discovery of this art.

History

When the Tiorath Hierarchy began to move into eastern Tor'Saarn they encountered their first true challenges in their campaign to conquer Tor'Saarn in the form of the J'a-goroan and the Ravient. The J'a-goroan's advanced weapons made them among the only forces to match the military prowess of the Tiorath Hierarchy in the west, and alongside the strategists of the Ravient managed to hold on to most of eastern Tor'Saarn. During this time Tierdun saw frequent conflict between it's J'a-goroan masters and the Tiorathan aggressors, this period of constant war lasting almost until the second age.