Uyeer
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Uyeer Profile
Life Expectancy: 100-120 (up to 200 for abyssals) Homeland: Under the sea Average Height: 7-8 feet (10-12 feet for abyssals) Average Weight: 600-800 (1300-2200 pounds for abyssals) Preferred Classes: Warrior, Knight, Druid Preferred Alignment: Any Lawful Preferred Weapons: Anything heavy—heavy blades, heavy blunt weapons, heavy throwing (like axes or drills (see below)) Aggression Level: Moderately High Intelligence Level: Slightly above average Magic Rating: Low Strength Rating: Quite High Weak Against: Magical attacks and ranged combat Strong Against: Any melee Related Races: Seaborn Allied Races: None Enemy Races: None
Physiology
Uyeer are large crustaceans resembling ancient sea predators. Some have compared them to Chuul, and indeed there are many similarities. Both races have four walking limbs and two large claws for crushing, and both have exoskeletons. An uyeer, however, is built entirely for the water. Their segmented carapaces have a row of paddles running down either side of their backs, used for swimming. They have four legs, each with two knees, made to curl up underneath them when swimming, and two arms with an additional joint near the shoulder, both of which end in large three-pronged crushing claws. In the middle of the claws are five retractable tentacles each, used for fine manipulative work and gripping small objects. At the base of their “spine” are two whip-like tails and four additional paddles used for steering.
Uyeer have compound eyes on short stalks on either side of their semicircular heads. These eyes can see a little way into the ultraviolet spectrum but are weaker when it comes to red and orange. Their mouths are mounted on the underside of their heads with spiraling plates of sharpened carapace that open and close like a camera shutter to slice up food. In the front of their face, two extra appendages hang like a large prehensile moustache. Rather than end in claws, they're lined with small spikes and are used to rip food apart into small chunks for eating, as well as gestures.
The problem with this sort of mouth is it makes regular speech very difficult. Uyeer very often have a speech impediment of some sort and it's extremely rare to find one that can speak common fluently.
Uyeer have powerful eyesight and have a nearly perfect 360-degree view of their surroundings, which makes them nearly impossible to sneak up on. Their sense of smell is almost nothing, however it becomes much stronger in the water. Hearing is slightly above-average and becomes stronger underwater as well.
They are water-breathers and can't go very long without it in the air. It takes only twenty minutes to completely suffocate an uyeer without water, during which time they will likely go berserk trying to get a source, though they will get progressively weaker and weaker.
Female uyeer are typically a head taller and proportionally broader than the males, with wider paddles and larger claws. Their shells are also more ornate, with golden vein patterns decorating them and larger spines protruding from their claws.
Uyeer have several distinct ethnic groups with different colored shells:
- Blue: average height and weight, most common group
- Green: generally smaller, with broader paddles, genetically predisposed to faster metabolisms
- White: thicker torso and limbs, shorter paddles, genetically predisposed to living in cold climates
- Abyssal: massive, somewhat softer shells, genetically predisposed to slow movement and long life
- Teal: Mixed-ethnicity
Psychology
Uyeer are often seen as an angry race, but this isn't wholly true. Yes, it's true that individuals can have problems managing their rage, but the truth is that an uyeer simply finds the brute-force solution the best one to most problems, and will often resort to that first. As such, they can be belligerent and aggressive, though it isn't always because they're angry.
Above everything else, an uyeer respects personal strength. Admiration is won by beating it out of somebody, squabbles are most easily solved with a battle, and social standing is almost entirely reliant on how well you can defend your title, literally. So while they may come across as trigger-happy and quick to the punch, they are simply expressing their displeasure the best way they know how.
In connection with this, the average uyeer finds magic unreliable and much prefers solving things the mundane way, without assistance. There are some who recognize its utility, however, and use it despite these qualms, but these spellcasters often lack much of the refinement of those on land.
Another thing the typical uyeer will find important is justice, though their idea of “justice” is a little bit skewed since it gets ranked below personal strength. If a person in a position of power is seen as weak, justice demands they be replaced with someone stronger. If someone beat you up and took your stuff, or kidnapped you, or fed your annoying pet parrotfish to a shark, as long as they did it openly and you had the opportunity to fight back, they are still in the right, because you weren't strong enough to overcome them. Might often does literally make right in their mindset.
Color is very important to an uyeer, and this can be seen in how they dress in extremely vibrant hues and decorate their architecture with glowing sea creatures. Often one's appearance is tied somewhat loosely to one's status, so uyeer will try to pretty themselves up when going out on the town, putting on fine jewelery or body paint in addition to their bright clothes.
Uyeer Society
Government
The uyeer have a very tribal culture, and each tribe looks to a patriarch for guidance and governance. Tribes are divided from there into clans, and clan chiefs are akin to governors, whose subordinates are in charge of the various settlements. People who live in a city and aren't of the ruling clan have no political power in the city, though they are welcome to stay and live there since that's still good for the economy.
Order of Power
- Whichever tribe patriarch beat up the others this year
- The other tribe patriarchs
- Clan leaders
- City council
- Citizens who are members of the same clan as the council
- Outsiders
Criminal Justice
Uyeer have no lawyers and no prisons. Accused criminals get a customary thirty days to put together a court case for themselves and should they be found guilty, punishment is carried out immediately. There are no laws against cruel and unusual punishment so while sometimes the penalty may be as simple as a fine, it may be as extreme as being tied to a rock and sent into a pit of venomous eels or forced to fight a school of sharks with no weaponry.
Now if, when they come to serve you notice of your court date or, alternatively, drag you away to serve it, if you can somehow beat up all the cops, you're considered pardoned by virtue of your sheer awesomeness. Clearly, whatever it was you did, you earned it.
The definition of a crime is a little different as well. Sneak attacks and cowardly behavior are very bad. Murder is bad, stealing things without challenging someone for them is very bad. Rejecting a challenge isn't a crime, but it is socially unacceptable—it just isn't done except for very good reasons and even then you might lose friends over it.
Family Life
Uyeer are polyandric, meaning a woman can marry multiple husbands simultaneously. However, only the first husband is considered her equal. Subsequent husbands have no authority in the home and are often considered as only slightly higher than servants. As such, while there's no social taboo about it, it's somewhat uncommon to see a multiple-husband household.
Children are viewed as a renewable resource, mostly because they are. Women lay hundreds of eggs in a single clutch. Generally, since raising children can be difficult, let alone hundreds, a few are picked at random for raising and the rest are generally eaten. Yes, uyeer are cannibalistic, and yes they eat children. They are weirdly civilized about it, however. Only unwanted children are acceptable to eat, and it's considered very impolite to ask a child about his or her status. A good way to tell if a child is unwanted is to ask for a name.
The few that are selected for raising, however, receive a personalized education from a tutor who works one family at a time, making sure each child gets the basics of math, history, biology, reading and writing, but also trains them in problem-solving skills and using their imaginations. After this, children are made apprentices with local businessmen to learn a trade.
Domestic violence is the norm in uyeer households, as any argument has the potential to lead to weapons being drawn on each other. Nobody truly minds this, however, and it doesn't change how much a husband loves his wife or vice versa. Fighting is simply in their blood and it's how they typically resolve disputes, so it happens at home as well.
Architecture
Uyeer breed gigantic snails and feed them to extra-large hermit crabs which then take their shells. These crabs are then maneuvered into place and slaughtered and eaten in a sort of barn-raising feast, and the shell is anchored into place with coral. The various chambers are drilled into, giving the structure multiple rooms.
For structures that must be larger than a single shell, the uyeer take several different shells and graft them together using coral and resins, linking the two (or more) together using large parts of the carapace of the housecrab.
In the deep deep water, where housecrabs are more difficult to come by, homes are simply carved pueblo-style into the continental shelf. Occasionally a shipwreck will be incorporated into an uyeer structure at any depth, preserved and refurnished and usually with a housecrab shell or two grafted to it.
Fashion and Armor
Uyeer don't typically wear much clothing--a kilt or skirt usually covers everything that needs covering while still providing flexibility. Sashes are sometimes worn crossing the chest--these originated for practicality, offering more carrying space, but are now worn ceremonially as well. Non-piercing jewelry, such as bracelets and necklaces, is common among both genders.
The materials used in clothesmaking varies, but is often some kind of leather, and is occasionally woven from plant fibers. It's almost always very brightly colored, sometimes bordering on garish, with sparkles and sequins being common additions to their outfits. Some of their leathers are taken from creatures with unusual properties in their skin, which their preservation techniques are able to keep functional—leather made from a cuttlefish still changes color, leather made from a hagfish still produces copious amounts of slime, etc.
Uyeer also wear armor when the situation calls for it—as you'll read just a little lower, they have developed ingenious ways of killing each other despite their exoskeletons and sometimes need the extra protection. Multiple layers of hagfish leather underneath a hardened sharkskin plate causes the armor to balloon outward when struck, absorbing the impact well and protecting the shell and soft tissue underneath from damage.
Technology and Weapons
Much like druids of the land can grow plants into any shape they need, Uyeer druids and animal breeders alter the sea life around them to shape their desires. Small, brightly bioluminescent fish are contained in transparent jars and used for light sources when the sun has gone down. Trilobites are bred in larger sizes to allow them to be used as beasts of burden. Cleaner shrimp are bred for greater efficiency, permitting better hygiene. Particularly wealthy people can heat the water when it's cold by sliding metal coils around electric eels kept in Faraday cages, using their resistance to generate heat. Whale skulls can be used as long-range communication stations, broadcasting and receiving infrasound pulses. The huge snail and housecrab are more examples of specially-bred life forms meant to fulfill a task.
Many animals have been domesticated and turned into living weapons. Small orthocones have been bred to have spiraling blades along their shells and reflexively jettison themselves when thrown with a twist, creating a sort of throwing-drill that launches itself at high speed. A subspecies of cone snail has been bred that can fire toxic bone darts like a crossbow. The shockwave lobster is a breed of enlarged pistol shrimp that can hurl deadly shockwaves through the water and is the most devastating undersea weapon yet developed (hence the need for armor that can absorb and neutralize impacts such as from shockwaves).
Of course, all this “technology” is completely reliant on the ocean to function at all. Anything brought above the surface of water does not work at all, simply because the fluid dynamics of air are so radically different from those of water. No cleaner-shrimp body wash, no long-range comms, and definitely no shockwave lobsters. You can still throw a throwing drill but it isn't going to be able to launch itself. One exception to this is a medical device used to reoxygenate water. With a little modification, these can be used as scuba tanks, allowing an Uyeer a bit of time on land without suffocating.
While not quite as potent in most cases, uyeer also have weapons formed from nonliving matter. These have the benefit of being useful outside of the water as well. Longer orthocone shells can be hardened into lances, jellyfish tentacles twisted into painful whips, large crab claws hardened and sharpened into forward-curving scimitars, but the true mark of a weaponsmith is how masterfully they can craft a jawblade.
A jawblade is a long, heavy shaft of bone, usually taken from the jaw of a massive fish. It can be straight or curved, but always has two sides: one blunt, reinforced with extra resin, plates of carapace or a metal bar, and one toothed, with shark's teeth or sharpened shards of shell grafted to it. The toothed side can have up to three rows of teeth, in straight lines or staggered, and the body of the weapon can be curved or straight. The weapon is designed for tearing through armor or flesh as well as smashing open exoskeletons, and is generally regarded as the apex of uyeer weaponry despite its rather crude appearance.
The techniques of metalworking are known only to a few trench-dwelling Uyeer, who dig deep mines and process cobalt and silver ore using magma furnaces into an alloy whose name translates to “abyss-bone”. Due to the danger involved in this, plus the relative rarity of the metal items given the lack of mining personnel, plus the metalworkers wanting to make their items seem almost arcane, metal is extremely expensive and usually incorporated only into the finest of items. Abyss-bone is harder and heavier than steel, though somewhat more brittle. Making pure blades of it isn't recommended, however an edge can be reinforced with it or a core weighted down.
Warfare
Urban warfare is a completely foreign concept to an uyeer. Fighting in the streets of a city seems, to them, just plain silly, as there's less room to maneuver. When two leaders have an issue that a simple brawl cannot resolve, they go to war, and essentially this works like a duel on a mass-combat scale. Both leaders gather an army, they find some spot out in the middle of nowhere, and proceed to beat the crab out of each other until a winner emerges.
This doesn't mean the concept of cavalry is lost on them, however. In true uyeer fashion, they breed warbeasts to ride into battle, such as huge eurypterid sea scorpions, with bladed limbs and ripping stingers; colossal squid with their crushing tentacles, clouds of ink and powerful beaks; mosasaurs, swift and agile with razor-sharp teeth; or pliosaurs, with some of the most powerful jaws on the planet, and definitely the biggest teeth.
Language
While it's not unheard-of for an uyeer to know some Common due to the influences of other seaborn, the primary language of uyeer is an advanced form of interpretive dance that involves heavy use of posturing and rhythmic body percussion. Every gesture makes a particular sound, and the way these sounds fit together form words. The language is as visual as it is auditory, though a careful observer can figure it out from only one or the other.
An interesting quirk of the uyeer language is that it has no past or future tense. In their native tongue, they speak constantly in present tense and one must discern from context clues when the speaker is talking about. “Tomorrow, I go to work and complete the task I am unable to finish this morning.”
Music and Sports
Because of their focus on rhythm in everyday speech, the uyeer as a species are extremely rhythmic and make fantastic drummers. They don't do well with singing pitches, but they have developed various instruments that use the motion of water to create pitches, making a rather ethereal sound. These hydrophones are then accompanied by a full percussion section, with massive drums and tuned shells arranged in a pattern. Unlike on land, where the 12-tone scale is prevalent, they use a 24-tone scale, arranged in quarter-tones rather than semitones. Syncopation is all over the place, as are odd time signatures like 7/8 or 5/4.
Uyeer do more than just fighting for recreation. Catching and riding manta rays is considered an undersea rodeo, as the creatures are very fast and can't be held in captivity and must be released after capture. A game like a hybrid of rugby and quidditch is another pastime, with a ball that's usually sand covered in leather and the desire to get past the other team and put the ball through one of a few different scoring rings.
Uyeer & Religion
Since they're something of an isolationist race—not necessarily by choice, merely the product of their natural environment and the fact that other types of seaborn generally look down on them for their brutishness—uyeer don't have much knowledge of the regular gods of Hollow, and invented their own to worship. Being false gods, they have no actual power, though the uyeer attribute what small amount of nature magic they discovered through experimentation with various regents to these gods and perform their rituals as if they were prayer.
Since their ability to work with magic is limited and often unreliable, the uyeer have set up a rather peculiar form of polytheism to explain this. There are two deities that oversee everything: Hyu, god of creation, and Vekhnrn, god of destruction. (Some scholars believe that long ago a priest of Vakmatharas helped to introduce the idea of Vekhnrn in an attempt to gain more worshippers.) These two deities are usually extremely busy with whatever it is gods do and aren't usually paying any attention to this world, but rather the one before it. As such, they require messengers, and these minor deities are assigned to each clan to listen for prayers and take them to the First Two for granting. Sometimes the gods care enough to help, sometimes they don't. Other times, the messengers flat-out forget what they're asking for, which is what explains unexpected reactions from their magic.
Most uyeer “druids” pray to their gods while doing what can best be described as natural alchemy, and are capable of minor feats such as causing gardens to grow swiftly, charming monsters, or infusing people or creatures with extra natural energy, leading to different effects such as reinforced shells or better vision or increased healing. They can also craft potions that can cause various effects, and preservation potions are often their primary way of making money. As they work with long rituals, druids have a difficult time casting in combat and will more likely throw punches and swing weapons in combat.
Even non-druids know of and most believe in their religion and mythology, however, and often offer up simple prayers to their gods for assistance on a daily basis. They can be very bull-headed about this and a paladin or missionary will find it very difficult to convince anyone that their gods are fake.
Creation Myth
Before our world existed, there was a Great Primordial Chaos in which Hyu and Vekhnrn, the spirits of creation and destruction, warred endlessly. Neither could gain advantage over the other, for there must always be something, and there must always be nothing. Thus the grand paradox of the universe continued until the two tired of their game, and bound themselves together in an unbreakable pact using their very essence as parchment. No longer could the creations of Hyu be destroyed entirely, but neither could Hyu create perfection--Vekhnrn must always be allowed to twist and alter the world to some extent.
Brimming with excitement over the opportunity to finally create something that would not destroyed immediately, Hyu invented a world. Alas, the god wasn't used to creating things that last and it was easy for Vekhnrn to twist this first creation: The First World, the World of Clay, was a barren, hilly world. Water hadn't been invented yet, nor plants. The creatures were impermanent blobs which roll around eating each other for sustenance and the light was a dull brownish omnipresent glow.
It amused the gods for a time, but soon Hyu tired of it. As the world could not be destroyed, even to make room for something new and better, the god devised another plan: he constructed the new world on top of the old--building around it, sealing it inside. Vekhnrn was able to bring death and pain to this one as well, though it was constructed stronger than before and wasn't as impermanent. The Second World, the World of Lightning, flowed with a liquid energy. The ground was glass, the light came from the world below. The life was metallic and varied, with different strategies for feeding on the energy.
Again, though after a longer time, Hyu grew discontent with this world and its limitations and therefore set out to build another, once more creating around their previous work. The Third World, the World of Wisps and Clockwork, was created in an attempt to thwart Vekhnrn's distortions by making all the life as vaporous as possible. The ground churned constantly with gigantic gears and eternal fires, the air filled with smoke of varying density and constitution and temperature. Floating in this aerial skyscape lived ethereal creatures that barely existed, wispy things that held together via the first primitive form of magic. It was here that sentience was invented for the first time, and the race that inhabited this world formed a primitive culture based on farming the smoke for food. Vekhnrn thought this world would be easy to corrupt, and unleashed monsters which defy description, but somehow Hyu's gift of intelligence helped the wisps to adapt to the assault.
Eventually, however, Hyu realized that his people were stagnating. Vekhnrn hadn't corrupted the world to the point of complete instability, but he had succeeded in halting its progress. Desiring change, Hyu created the Fourth World--the World of Flux and Power. This world was to be Hyu's masterpiece. He granted all of its life intelligence and knowledge, filled them to the brim with magic, and presented it to Vekhnrn, smug and confident that there was no way his ancient rival could ruin his world.
He couldn't have been more wrong. Vekhnrn, using only words, started a single quarrel between two creatures. Within a generation, the entire world was nearly torn asunder by its own people--the landscape was destroyed utterly and remodeled at will, lives were extinguished and reformed by the thousands every day, things were created and destroyed in an instant. It was a world that very closely resembled a smaller version of the Great Primordial Chaos.
Suddenly fearing that this world would seek another outlet, unleashing their magic perhaps even on the gods themselves, Hyu and Vekhnrn worked together to craft a Fifth World atop the Fourth, sealing their mistake inside a World of Fire. Made entirely of magma, the Fifth World is utterly devoid of any magic whatsoever. It sits as an eternal barrier between the Fourth World and the rest of creation, patrolled by even more of the demons designed by Vekhnrn.
Realizing his folly, Hyu began constructing a new type of world--one that would take a long time to properly design. This one was intended to befuddle Vekhnrn with its intricacy--here was the first water, and the first plant. Here were mountains and tundra and oceans and complex food webs and life -everywhere-. Hyu filled this Sixth World with Beauty, and it is the world we live in today. Vekhnrn simply caused his demons from the Fifth World below to occasionally slam the underside of the Sixth, causing what we know as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. He designed giant monsters and toxins and various methods of being horribly killed, but the world's sheer complexity supported it even through this. As a safety precaution, Hyu and Vekhnrn created minor gods to serve them, to help mediate and run the world to prevent direct access to their magic. It is the Sixth World in which Hyu created his favorite children, the Uyeer.
The First Uyeer
As the Sixth World was taking shape, Hyu reached into the stones of the ocean and crafted his first champions, the eight Uyeer, four male and four female. To these heroes he gave great strength and wisdom, the power to spread light into darkness, and great clarity of purpose, and told them their mission was to further the creation of the world by performing four important tasks while he continued working on other forms of creation to distract Vekhnrn. A male and female each were assigned to a task.
The first pair was tasked with sealing the crust of the earth, preventing the demons that lurked in the fire below from bursting forth and wreaking havoc. To them he gave extra-hard shells. All around the places where the fire poured up from below and the demons struggled to tear free, the pair drew up massive mountains and high walls all around the rifts, sealing the demons where they could not climb out. Sometimes the demons attack these mountains even today, and while some fire may escape, the spirits of this pair turn it quickly into more stone for the mountain barricade.
The second pair was tasked with setting the world in motion, giving everything in it ways to keep track of its history. These uyeer were given swift minds and bodies. Something huge moving quickly through the oceans to churn them, they reasoned, would only be destructive in the end. So instead, they tied the surface of the water to two great stones, set them ablaze with light, and hurled them into the darkness of the sky. As the stones touched the sky, some of their light rubbed off on it, and left millions of tiny points of light all over. While it helped illuminate the world a bit better, they were dim and did not glow bright enough to shine on everything from such a vast distance. Feeling that this was not enough, the pair took another stone, lit this one far brighter, and hurled it even harder and faster into the sky and letting it circle around. Now, the world had two ways to keep track of time—the interval between visits of the dim stone and the spaces between bright and dim light.
The third pair was tasked with creating barriers for water to crash against, preventing the waves from becoming gigantic and destructive. These uyeer were granted hot blood which allowed them to survive in conditions far colder than normal, as they were expected to craft massive walls that contained the water, far above the heat provided by the fires below. Instead, they searched out the places where the barrier was thickest, and slammed them repeatedly with their claws until they became deep trenches into which the water flowed, revealing new areas of dry land that Hyu was free to create land-dwelling things upon.
The fourth and last pair was tasked with the formation of rules to live by, to prevent this world from falling into chaos like the Fourth had. To this end, they were granted great size so that others would take heed of them. As their task would take the longest, Hyu also granted them longer lifespans. This pair crafted a clever system of honor and courage, teaching honesty and strength rather than subterfuge and diplomacy. Uyeer ever since have lived by the examples they set.
These first eight heroes, upon completion of their task, married and spawned many children, defending them from threats and allowing their civilization to grow. And when they died, their souls remained bound to this world in the service of Hyu. They continue to watch over their people today, keeping track of their tribe and bringing their requests to Hyu and Vekhnrn.
Uyeer History
The uyeer have had the advantages and disadvantages of being isolated from interacting with other races. They've been allowed to pursue their crafts in peace, leading to rapid development of animal husbandry techniques and powerful undersea weapons. They've been able to stay out of various disagreements between other seaborn cultures and avoid being allied to a race that might use them for their own agenda. However, they've also had little opportunity to learn from these other cultures and as such have only rudimentary magical ability and for all their advancement they still think their best weapons are made out of bone. Plus, as none of these advances can come out of the water and be functional, their inexperience with the technology of other cultures leaves them little better than a wandering barbarian when on land.
Recently, as the seaborn and oceans around Hollow became more active, two ships that battled each other dropped metal items into a town populated by Kreekitaka, a successful clothing merchant. When he realized that those people on land were capable of creating and simply discarding items with so much metal in them, he decided to investigate, purchasing a pair of saltwater containers to help him breathe above the water and set off on adventure, rapidly finding great success in bringing his products to the surface world.
Word of Kree's success spread quickly among the uyeer, and it's looking more and more likely that others will soon be launching expeditions of their own to see how the surface might bring them success, as well.
Famous Uyeer
Kreekitaka, the first Uyeer in recent history to see the profit potential in going onto land.
Images
An uyeer with a jawblade and turtle-shell shield, image courtesy of SladeDragoon on Imgur. He drew it, so he gets all credit.
Another image of an uyeer, this one provided by our very own Artia! All credit on this goes to her. Note the kilt.
This is an image of a jawblade drawn to scale next to SladeDragoon's character, Slade. Slade is not short. Jawblades are big. Again, all credit goes to him for the drawing.
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