Xinu of Moh

(Or MohXin)

Mighty and wise are the Xinu, guardians of the cold and wall-bound land of Moh. Grey and huge as the Hama of Hroch, horned are they, and armour-skinned.

Hideous and beneficent is Moh, the Iron Crab whose colour is rust and whose virtue is Love. For Moh loves all as he, or it, scuttles sidewise and gigantic over Yggsrathaals waste-pack; a terrible, weird discomforting love.

Honest are the Xiunu, sometimes brutally direct. Altruistic are they, but cold, mathematical and precise. In some ways outside the spirit of the great Zoiterran meta-civilisation, though still better than Qua, for though they are strange, they follow Mohs high Virtue of Love

Love, by its nature, must be given freely to all, for love that knows partiality or prejudice, is not truly Love, but mere transaction. Partiality, preference, distinction, these things guarantee that love cannot be unconditionally bestowed. They are sins against Moh. Therefore there must be equality between all, and that equality must be ABSOLUTE.

Absolute equality requires absolute authority to ensure its survival, else it would be swept away, though that authority can be wielded by no particular party or group, but only by all, for the good of all.

 

https://www.deviantart.com/zhenfuli/art/Crab-Carrier-338341391

Science And Pacifism

The Xinu, alone of all Zoiterran cultures (except perhaps the insanely Fascist Krote of Tan-Te), make systemic and focused use of that most un-Zoiterran philosophy - Experimental Natural Science. Nowhere in Zoiterra is technology more advanced, and nowhere are science and mathematics more widely understood.

Due to their large hands and stubby fingers, the Xinu have become expert at building and wielding fine manipulation devices which allow them to work at the smallest scale. With these, they often wear magnifying lenses. Xinu close-work glasses are more like mad face telescopes than anything else, these goggly apparatus use the horn as a bracing point and extend down the length of the snout like a projection of tears frozen in time.

The Xinu "Universal Schools" produce experts in mathematics, metalwork, engineering and logistics. They have discovered steel, have produced engines driven by steam and coal and have even experimented with electrical power. The Xinu's central city; "One", is lit at night by flickering irregular amber lights produced by the transmission of an invisible energy.

But resources are lacking. Zoiterra is not rich in metal, or coal, and the Xinu are loath to systemically harvest the shell of Moh, who is sacred to them.

If metal, or an outcropping suggesting it, is sighted out in the Waste-Pack, then the Xinu are the first to respond, and in greatest force. They surge out from Moh in Waste-Engines - huge black iron castles, smoking battleship tank-arks that journey over the Waste like icebreakers or fortified sleds. There they dive upon any potential metal ores, blasting away any Orc or Monkeyman attacks with jezzails, pneumatic machineguns and rapid-fire artillery, mining and harvesting what they can with the aid of clockwork mono-purpose golems, before racing back to Moh with their spoil, hopefully before the Great Race of Beasts leaves them behind.

These are the only occasions when the Xinu will essay forth from Moh, en-masse, with aggressive intent, and they regret them deeply.

For theXinu are culturally non-aggressive. Not quite Pacifists, for the majority are willing to use force to defend the innocent. But defence only. The Xinu will assist any culture suffering an unprovoked attack, but they aim to never attack themselves.

In the past, Xinu Legions have turned around and changed sides mid-fight on receipt of new historical information about the origins of a conflict. (To them it very much does matter "who started it"). Only to change sides again once an even deeper analysis of the conflicts history is presented.

The Xinu are masters of siege craft, fortification and artillery. The injection of Xinu siege masters into a defensive force can massively increase the time and effort it takes to defeat them, and the arrival of an entire Xinu 'Peace Legion', backed up by (non-lethal) logistical golems, Waste-Engines and spotter birds, can potentially stop any attacking force dead-on.

This makes the price of an aggressive war far too steep for most Zoiterran cultures to manage, which is exactly what the Xinu intend.

The Environment Of Moh

The Iron Commonwealth is not a verdant land. A huge arching plain speckled with low, rolling hills, pine, temperate forests and the jags of tiny mountains capped with rust red where the ferrous shell of Moh bursts through. Around the rim of Moh runs the Great Waste Wall, the largest single structure in Zoiterra.

The Great Waste Wall is constructed from pieces of the Waste Pack itself. Though the Nation Beasts can crash through it like Ice, to beings of normal scale, it may as well be stone. Over generations, the Xinu have hauled up fragments of it, cut them down and worked them into place, sometimes using mortar produced with ultrafluid from the chaos sea itself.

Within the wall are great untenanted areas. But no area is unmarked. Mapping pillars of stone and iron are driven into the earth in a regular grid, the logic of an abstract map built into the land itself. Roads and keep-towns on Moh are built map co-ordinates and navigation happens by number.

A land of forms more than shapes, Moh is cold, covered by winds and freezing fast-flowing streams. Rust hills, dark moors, grey-white keep-cities, right-angled roads, the parralax of marker-stones, the distant sounds of thundering mills or synchronised chants. The iron mountains of the crab are cut with shallow valleys sliced into carefully maintained stepped sides.

Moh is one of few nations where it can be guaranteed that there are no wild hordes of Monkeymen or other Waste incursions hiding somewhere in the interior, and no bandits, monsters or rogue states. The only danger a traveller on Moh must face is cold and Xinu society itself.

https://www.deviantart.com/anderslarsson-art/art/Rhinoman-458747035

Xinu Society

Nothing more perfectly encapsulates the nature of Xinu society than the always repeated shape and layout of their fortress-towns.

Every settlement, of whatever size, is a star-fort, walled and barred, a defensive fall-back in case anything should penetrate the Great Wall. Within their star-shaped layout, Xinu settlements are based around large, single-storied terraced homes on radial gridwork streets, all equally sized. Towards the centre are factories, manufactories and allotments, and in the middle are queues, clacking, ticking, the rattle of lottery balls, bins of ticket stubs, pigeon shit, pigeon coops, bells, the tapping of flashing signal lights, the murmuring of vote-counters, huge shuffling feet waiting with discipline and the three cornerstones of Xinu civilisation, the Keep, the Universal School and the Lottery Hall.

The Keep

Every citizen of Moh is a conscript in the Great Defensive Army of Moh and must perform compulsory service, after which point they maintain a rank as either a reservist or a full-time member of the military.

The Keep is the tallest and most fortified building of any Xinu settlement. Usually built of waste-pack stone fortified with iron bolts, and topped with clacking semaphore hands and a signal tower in contact with a relay station somewhere within view, the keep is the central organising node of the settlements defence, its point of final fall-back and the nexus of its military communications with the rest of Moh.

The Universal School

To most Zoiterrans a Xinu Universal School would seem like a staggeringly vast complex with secure areas resembling a prison, higher areas like an institute of theoretical research crossed with a very refined rabbinical study group and in-between, places that seemed like a university or primary school.

At the peak of the Universal School are always the Bells which ring out continually to remind all its scholars of the passing of various periods and events.

The reason the Xinu schools seem partially like prisons is because for the Xinu, no-one is ever "in prison", they are simply being educated, or re-educated. Though unfortunately, some people have to be re-educated so much they become unresponsive and in fact die.

Every Xinu is in the process of education until they become a full citizen. After that, they often continue into further education in some specialism, or end up being re-educated, should they fail Mohs virtue in some significant way. There is no "punishment" in Xinu culture, only differing intensities of required re-education. Likewise, there is no hierarchy in Xinu culture, everyone is simply a citizen of exactly the same rank as everyone else, doing the best they can for Moh with whatever abilities they have.

But there is a darker, invisible and inverse anti-hierarchy which counts the number of times an individual has had to be re-educated to the point of citizenship. Obviously, the lower the number the better, unless the number is too low for your age, which is considered a little "too" perfect.

Those who systemically fail to be re-educated face voluntary emigration to the Claws, or even expulsion.

Educating The Other

In compliance with Mohs virtue, Xinu citizenship is open to absolutely any sophont capable of communication presenting itself at the Waste Wall Portals or the embassy in Claw City.

A very small number of other Zoiterran peoples do apply for citizenship and pass, and are accepted on Moh exactly as if they were Xinu. Moh even has educated, citizen monkeymen, something impossible and mind-boggling to the rest of Zoiterra, and one of the largest concentrations of "free krote" outside Tan-Te.

The exchange is perhaps a fair one. The silent, but crushing and unending high standard of behaviour required for everyone is paid back with full and unquestioned equality, regardless of shape or form. All that matters is how you behave.

The Lottery Hall

This is a huge chamber, like a sacred bingo hall, full of queues, voting booth, ticket stubs, calm scratching and counting. Referenda are always taking place so the queues in the Lottery Hall are truly eternal, changing only in what they are queuing for. If the purpose of a Queue changes while a Xinu is still in it, they will usually keep waiting and instead vote on whichever issue is presented to them at the end.

Xinu Government

The Civil Service performs almost all administrative functions and is elected by random lottery from among citizens for fixed terms.

There is no Xinu Senate or Parliament, that might lead to parties. Instead there are the Referenda, which are continual. Laws say there can be no more than one referenda per-day and have limited the complexity of the question matrix after centuries of inflation lead to the vote sheets being many pages long with branching path decision structures and preferred choice hierarchies.

Anything than can be dealt with by the Civil Service, is. Anything requiring a higher authority is tabled for a referendum. For those rare and difficult times when a complex decision is required, at high-speed, and the hierarchies of Military or Universal School are not sufficient, the Xinu will submit to the shameful stop-gap of a Temporary Executive Committee.

This committee is chosen by rapid hand-lottery from among the immediately available members of the civil service and makes whatever decisions are required. Later, its choices are retroactively cleared or condemned by polling the whole civil service, or by a referendum. Everyone who has ever served on a Temporary Executive Committee is deeply ashamed of doing so - as its existence presents and unjustifiable concentration of power and possible secrecy

The Outlands

While all upon the Shell of Moh, and within the Great Waste Wall, exists under Xinu rule and Xinu Law, there are some parts which are of-Moh, but not within the Law.

Left Claw

This claw is the site of the embassies from other Nation-Beasts, inter-beast traders and other relatively-civilised, or at least not maniacal, organisations.

Here is 'Claw City' a precarious largely tent-based semi-city where there is at least some 'claw law' created by agreements between the various agencies.

The place is not hugely populated and houses many escaped, expatriate, expelled or un-educatable Xinu. These can vary a great deal in nature, from relatively normal to the most dangerous, piratical, brilliant, aggressive, criminal and opportunistic creatures in Zoiterra.

Right Claw

Known as the "Lawless Claw", there are no large-scale permanent settlements known here, but many ruins. So far as anyone knows, anything goes on the Lawless Claw.

Any being at all is allowed to attempt to make a living there, and can even climb Mohs limb and appeal for entry at the (highly fortified) gate-town. The Lawless Claw is known all over Zoiterra as a hive of scum and villainy, where even the darkest criminals and conspirators can hide without fear of detection, worse even than the piratical Ptak Tail States of Boe.

The Leg-States

Not really worthy of the name "states", these largely vertical provinces are nothing more than wilderness areas given over to whatever crawls up them. Defended against by the Great Waste Wall and occasionally purged by the military and kept open as routes of strategic opportunity, the Xinu are happy to let the legs be cleansed by occasionally dipping into the Chaos Sea.

Die for the Frog-Emperor

The Frogs of the Apocalypse, spawn of the Annihilator, who is called 'Tan-Te' who’s form is unknowable, who’s colour is Viridian and who is without Virtue

As the Nation Beasts descended from Heaven, or coalesced from the ether of forgotten time, one great beast alone came not from above, or from beyond, but from beneath; rising from the depths of the Chaos Sea.

This was Tan-Te, the Annihilator, Beast of the Abyss and enemy of all civilised worlds,

All stories end in death, and the destruction of Esh, had been long-prophesied; to fall to Tan-Te its awful spawn, the Krote. But the slow, tenuous decay of reality has denied the destined end. The Annihilator has been robbed.

TAN-TE

Though the form of Tan Te is unknowable, he seems to be saurian, green and scaled, with sky-scraping spinal plates like shards of broken glass. Long and powerful, moving with slow sinuosity, his brutal face half-submerged, his golden eyes half-closed in slumbering but undimmed wrath.

Across his  back range cold, towering forests. From his heart comes an irregular pulse of bio-tectonic heat which turns the grey rain to steam as it lands and sends endless curls of grey mist piling and rolling across the roaring rivers, waterfalls, stagnant marshes and the terrible cities of the Krote.

THE KROTE – FUNDAMENTALLY EVIL?

The most warlike, destructive and feared of all the Zoiterran peoples,  the Krote were  devils of old Esh. Ghosts in the rain, terrors in the mist.

Over time, direct experience  has replaced this formless and overpowering dread with a more reasoned, detailed, textured and understandable dislike. Most Zoiterran cultures have warred against the Krote, most have also had cause to ally with them at other times. While they are terrifying monsters, they also hate Yggsrathaal and are dedicated to her destruction.

Over time, a slow trickle of independent escapees have fled Tan-Te and found uncertain refuge in other nations. A fragile consensus has arisen amongst the sages of Zoiterra; that the Krote themselves are capable of Virtue.

The same cannot be said for their government, a deranged and mysterious tyranny locked behind the endless mists of Tan-Te.

THE KROTE - FORM

The Krote are frog-shaped beings.

Like many Zoiterrans, they have a wide  variation and many-sub-groups with slightly different morphology. The standard Krote is about five feet high and tends to be of a greenish colour, with smooth or only somewhat mottled skin. Beyond this, there are many other types.

Some are very tall and wide, almost seven feet high, with corrugated warty skin.  Other forms are smaller, more gracile and very light. These can be vibrantly colourful, blazoned in bright contrasting colours.

It may not be that all Krote are inherently toxic,  but it is assumed in Zoiterran culture that they are literally 'made of poison' and toxic flesh, blood and skin strongly assists a Krote in gaining status amongst its kind.

It is rumoured amongst the lower classes of Zoiterra that all Krote are cannibals and that the only way for a Krote to advance is for them to eat their superior, mimicking at a small scale what the Krote wish to do to all life; to consume it.

This is true. They are predators and carnivores. They will eat other intelligent species. They will eat their own kind. They wish to eat everything. Krote raised far from Tan-Te, or those in the few forest tribes beyond the reach of the Frog-Emperors rule, may not share this end-goal, but they are few.

The greatest enemy of the Krote is dryness, and for once Zoiterra is thankful for the Waste. A great sheet of parched, dry and alkali land serves to contain them. They have a process of 'waxing' by which they can make themselves resistant to dry conditions, various technologies to assist them in travel and a handful of sub-groups who are naturally resistant to dryness, but it is difficult for the Krote to move large forces beyond Tan-Te for long

THE MIST-CITIES OF THE KROTE

Little is known of the cities of the Krote. Ambassadors and  handfuls of merchants or high-status individuals have visited them and made reports. Only powerful, and suicidaly brave magic-users will scry them; the Krote keep  watch for astral incursions, and respond with  lethal force. One clan of the Vulture-Ptak of Orxcea is permitted carry messages into, or out of Tan-Te. The content of their messages is minimal

The cities are amphibious, built in or around freshwater. Some are constructed in and around artificially extended and maintained  waterfalls; tendrils of rushing water descending branchlike paths over ziggurats of carved viridian scale, black stone and petrified wood, cloaked in cloud and steam.

And loud. Rain plinks, pounds, steams and evaporates as it lands. Water rushes, roars, trickles and drips. The Krote emerge as darkness falls, they boom, croak, chirrup, cry and call in a great chorus of rolling and consuming sound which echoes through the dank and endless gloom. Waste-Walkers near Tan-Te hear the cities of the Krote as light dies away.

In and around these cities they farm giant insects as a staple diet. Tales speak of gigantic maggots, organised termite hives, huge worms and centipedes and the terrible conditions of a Krote insect plantation. They mine Tan-Te himself, delving beneath his viridian scales to draw up droplets of his burning blood, which they feed to their own young in terrible experiments.

THE TERRFYING CULTURE OF THE KROTE

The Krote live divided into castes and guilds, bound in obsessive  hierarchies beneath a being known in Zoiterra as the 'Frog Emperor'.

These words would be considered a blasphemous insult to most Krote.  To them, the ruler of all Krote is called "The King in Amber", "The Voice of Tan-Te" or "The Mouth". All loyalist Krote live absolute and unquestioned subjection to this mighty and sacred being who unifies the role of tyrant and prophet

Many Zoiterran Sages believe the "Frog Emperor" does not actually exist. The Qua in particular think they are a sacred prisoner who has died and been replaced many times. Others speak of an undead spirit of Psionic energy bound to a shrivelled mummy within an Amber sheath, or of something like the skeleton of a frog, haunted by memories and eldritch power. Only the highest members of each Caste and of the Toxic-Aristocracy are allowed audience with The Voice of Tan-Te.

Beneath the King in Amber, the Krote are bound in a culture of unending wrath. They rage, not to reclaim the worlds of Esh, but to reclaim their destruction. They dream of the day they will once again battle Gods and destroy all, before consuming everything. But that means they must first, survive, and then kill Yggsrathaal.

Towards this goal they accept no moral limits and submit to no philosophy except the doctrine of their own inevitable l victory and consumption of reality. Tan-Te will meet, kill, and eat Yggsrathaal, and they will eat Her children at His side.

THE KROTE MILITARY

The armies of the Frog-Emperor are rightly feared. Shuffling troops in Verdigris-stained bronze, copper-armoured spearmen and charioteers, Giant mindless war-tortoises, beetle-riding waxed Waste-Cavalry, and monstrous creations who have drunk the Blood of Tan-Te, all preceded by hordes of expendable monkeymen and orcs driven before their armies in drugged-up waves of expendable chaff.

The military technology of the Krote has few equals. From above loom 'air balloons' stitched from eel-skins. These deadly psychic zeppelins house Praetorians of the King in Amber protected by gliding and poison-skinned special forces. Below grind Geist Machines; Krote artillery, sorcerous and alchemical contraptions sucking in a spewing out moaning spirts which merge seamlessly into the choking mist which accompanies the horde.

The most loathsome aspect of fighting the Krote is their deeply en-cultured belief in sacrifice. So deeply are most Krote brainwashed into the cult of their own personal worthlessness that individuals, or whole armies, will willingly sacrifice themselves if they think it will bring the Krote as a whole one step closer to final victory.

An individual Krote might allow themselves to be impaled in a sword or spear, then grab the blade, or haft, controlling the weapon at the cost of their own flesh, while their compatriot uses the resulting gap to go in for the kill. In sieges they will build a ramp of their own bodies to the breach in a cities wall. This makes them utterly terrifying for most self-aware beings to fight, it is like battling a horde of intelligent zombies.

SOCIETAL DIVISIONS

The family does not exist. The state has absolute control of fertilisation, child-rearing and education. The Krote breed in vast numbers of tadpoles, all of which are considered tools towards their eventual victory

Young are analysed and separated according to their potential then raised in tight, unified  hierarchies and absolute specialisations. Many Krote often do not even learn of other classes and castes until they reach adulthood.

Some  are sent to the Toxic Aristocracy, those with psychic or magical potential are raised in separate collages, split by even the school of magic they learn, some are selected to receive the Blood of Tan-Te. Some are raised as researchers, administrators and weapons-developers. A handful of those with potential are raised as scouts, trackers and special-forces operatives. Others are pre-emptively poisoned to limit their intelligence, making them more serviceable workers or obedient soldiers.

It is from these 'altered' Krote that the Empire will sometimes sell small populations. This highly-questionable trade, once more common in darker and more threatened years for Zoiterra, has now fallen to a trickle. The development of the Philosophy of Virtue has made the process more and more problematic in the eyes of Zoiterrans, and the government of the King in Amber has begun to worry that its methods for ensuring the sterility, low-intelligence and, crucially, the absence of psychic potential from its traded populations, may not be absolute.

PSIONIC POWER

This is exquisitely rare amongst  Zoiterran cultures, and little understood. Entire generations can pass without any psion being born. There are no schools of psionics in Zoiterra and what little knowledge there is, is handed down from hard-sought, long-lived masters to individual students who may be lucky to find them at all.

The Krote are more naturally psionic than other peoples and their disturbing eugenics programmes have amplified this quality.  Potential psions are carefully scanned for and hunted out when young

Zoiterran intelligence groups, especially the Qua, believe that the higher echelons of the Krote government are riddled with psychic mindworms; subconscious commands, loyalty locks, multi-levelled mind-labyrinths and memory-wipes crated to ensure total control. The Qua postulate that even the ruling Krote live in a state of mild and continual terror, never sure if their own memories or loyalties have been altered or changed, and seeking always to exert the same invisible control over their contemparies.

Those few Krote born with Psionic powers beyond Tan-Te, or those who escape or defect, live in terror. The 'Voice of Tan-Te' is obsessed with preventing the spread of psionic power. An independent, non-loyal, psionic population of Krote living beyond its rule is nightmarish to it. Any psionic Krote desiring freedom must live in total secrecy, or be pursued to  the ends of Uud itself by the forces of the King in Amber.

TAN-TE'S POSITION AMONG THE NATION BEASTS

The people of Zoiterra say that Tan Te is without any virtue, while the Krote say his virtue is ANNIHILATION.

Tan-Te is a predator, and a continual danger to the other Nation Beasts. They tolerate his presence because they have little choice in the matter, none of them have the power to make him leave, and because, as dangerous as Tan-Te is, he is a still-greater danger to Yggsrathaal

For the Annihilator despises the Great Entropic Wym above all. She has stolen his fate, stolen his end and his meaning. And he is absolutely focused on revenge. Tan-Te desires nothing so much as to destroy Yggsrathaal, and to consume her. Once done, he will fulfil his purpose and end what remains of reality, as he is fated to do. But to end the world, he must first preserve it from Her.

So, for the moment, their ends align. Though their cause does not.

I Will Roll Deep

If you are in you better be in all the way. Thusly I have placed the Raven-People for Zoiterra, the Animal-People continent made up itself of nations on the backs on giant animals, on (and in) something which is not a giant animal, big instead a cosmically-huge coconut.

I am fully committed to this idea.

..............................................

Quick are the Qua, and black as ink, riders of the cosmic coconut, called Okoko, the virtue of which is Heroism. A hollow virtue for a hollow land.

Many Ptak, the Aviform bird-people, are seen as having a slightly twitchy, rolling movement, with moments of stillness unusual in other races. The Qua are Ptak, physically, if not culturally.

(Of course you should never refer to Qua as Ptak in Zoiterra, most bird people would take this as being deeply insulting. Culturally, socially and philosophically, they would be seen as entirely different beings, springing from a different land (the least of lands), and following a different virtue (the least of virtues).

But they are Bird-Men, and they exemplify those qualities; more jerky, more still, more rapid when they do move, with a particular glimmering intelligence in their frozen side-on glance. Beak half-open, the eye shining.

They have slender limbs and are light and agile in a way rare for Aviform beings. Unlike many, they are excellent climbers, their beaks are often employed as tertiary hands. They dance well, are not put off by long journeys on foot, deal happily with riding beast and even sail well.



BLACKNESS

The Qua are almost always deep, dark black. Their feathers glimmer like oil when close, like a sheen of opal across a pupil-black void. This, and their general lack of interest in status-markers, makes them quite hard for non-Qua to tell apart.

In the wild, bright forests of Okoko they look like silhouettes of cut-out black paper, dark shadows on a bright day.

In Ku, the city floating on the milk sea in the darkness of the Great Nut, they are like the openings of deep tunnels come to life, swimming in gems, black-on-white against the bioluminescence of the city floating above, rippling away into realms of hidden tides. Like smiling gateways to infinite nowhere.



INTELLIGENCE

The Qua are suspected to be the most intelligent of Ptak, and some of the smartest in Zoiterra, though you would not realise this from their wild, irregular and unwise conduct. They are famously good at puzzles and codes, and at languages in a way, though this is considered a form of mimicry rather than 'true' knowledge.

In Zoiterra the intelligence of the Qua is spoken of in a glib and degrading way. As if it were a trick, not true knowledge. Not true learning, not wisdom, not the knowledge of a sage, but a mere practical facility, and therefore, in a way, somehow worse than mere stupidity.

The perceived ability of the Qua only lowers them in the eyes of Zoiterran culture and, in particular, with the Ptak of Boe, who regard them with sadness, suspicion and agonised frustration.



QUA SERVITUDE

In many ways, Okoko is a professional client state. The Qua will effectively 'rent' out the resources of its surface (but not the interior), along with their own somewhat questionable services and assistance, to whomever is willing to push them along.

This might seem like a good deal. With a large, easily exploitable, (and largely willing) client state and its population any Zoiterran culture could significantly increase its own power and security relative to the rest.

However, though it often takes a while, the Qua always, ALWAYS, end up massively pissing off whichever state of group they serve, and Okoko is booted off to seek another patron.

For the period of their service, the Qua act as indentured servants, for the culture of whichever beast is currently pushing Okoko. They work the slash-and-burn cash-crop plantations in the valleys of Okoko, exporting almost everything to the dominant population. They also serve more directly as house servants, professional indentured labour and malmuke-like military formations.

Qua living on their current client beast are usually locked into recognisable social and legal orders, but those remnants or diaspora populations left behind on previous beasts often form a criminal underclass. (Or underground railroad, or revolutionary elite, depending on how you look at it.)

The remnant populations of Qua do sometimes find a place in society. (A controlled place.) Zoiterra is huge and highly diverse, there are many places for individuals to escape to, get lost in or build a life.


DIVINER CAO

A popular Qua figure in Zoiterran base culture is Diviner Cao and his Monkeyman Servant Biglift

Cao of Okoko is a famous detective-like character in popular fiction and a somewhat comedic figure. Brought in by stretched or harried authorities to deal with problems high or low, and often solving them in the most amusing and counterintuitive ways, both aided and frustrated by Biglift (catchphrase 'Me big lift') and his constant distractions by available food and wild female monkeymen. Cao's divinations often cast an ironic eye upon Zoiterran culture and hierarchies



HEROISM

The virtue of Okoko is Heroism.

This is regarded by all of Zoiterra as the lowest of virtues, most distant from the sublime and from the unnameable cosmic truth. A hollow virtue for a hollow land. Self-possessed, narcissistic, concerned with the things of this world, obsessed with changing things - pushing them out of their natural course and altering their inner nature. Frantic, mischief-causing, life-shortening. Woeful, very woeful.

To the rest of Zoiterra, the Qua are seen as conniving, scheming, interfering, carpetbagging, do-gooders. Causing trouble, doing crimes, ignoring the law, society, propriety and the Virtues. Freeing indentured workers, deposing rulers, breaking treaties, seeking treasure, stealing slaves, burning debt records and land leases, re-distributing cash and information. Never ceasing to stick their beaks in. Seemingly unable to go anywhere without interference in some local arrangement which has *nothing* to do with them. The exact opposite of what a virtuous or enlightened person would do. Put simply; Agents of CHAOS.

Of course the Qua have to lie about this, and sneak about. If they were obvious about what they were doing then they would be run out of wherever they were, (and they often are). So they play the subservient clients, pretending to be obedient, making themselves useful, irreplaceable really. But all the time they are just picking up information - thinking and planning in their little corvid brains. What else can you expect from these robbers?





OKOKO - THE COSMIC COCONUT

Okoko is alone amongst the other Nation Beasts of Zoiterra who, it is said, condensed from starlight and the shreds of unravelling worlds and came to follow the way, (but who, being heavenly, were in the act of following the way anyway).

Some tilted into existence like an image changing in a mirror, some flew from the stars, some treaded down gently from heaven, or burst up through the Waste-Pack from the Chaos Sea beneath, all guided by (or guiding?) the sages.

Okoko was not guided by the sages, and it’s hard to believe it came from heaven, though it certainly came from 'the sky'. Okoko just arrived, plummeting like a nutty meteor. And that is all it is, a giant nation-sized coconut. It is not a beast, it has no mind and, shamefully, cannot even move under its own power.
Okoko can survive the great race against Yggsrathaal only by being pushed or carried by other beasts.


NATURE ON OKOKO

Okoko is also unstable, round and unable to right itself, it rolls in the chaos sea. Sometimes it is pushed up onto the Waste-Pack and grinds, or even rolls across it. Sometimes it crashes through the Waste as if it were ice.

The surface of Okoko is a smashed paradise of tumbling brown mountains, ruined cities and a vibrant, multicoloured, quick-growing jungle popping with fast animals. Within this psychedelic hypnagogic wonderland the Qua slink and hop like crafty black shadows.

It is an ecology accustomed to apocalypse, one that can move or re-grow with incredible speed, as its world literally rolls around it. Okoko has huge slash-and burn plantations wherever its is currently most-stable, these eat away at the jungle near still points and around the great gaps which give access to the interior.

It is also a land with many secrets, for in its long ages of near-stability, many beings have built upon Okoko or delved within its shell. Buildings on Okoko have deep foundations, even after being swept away in a distant age, after a roll, the structure can be recovered and built upon once again.



THE WAYS WITHIN

At various points around Okoko are gigantic tunnels into its Husk. Almost all of these are closed and blocked off, by the art of the Qua and the nature of Okoko, most of the time. In each age of the nut, a few are left open, carefully guarded by the Qua, and these provide passage to the World Within.

Beyond these lies the Quick of the Nut, a white fibrous layer several miles deep, and rumoured to be inhabited by tribes of blind monkeymen who eat their way through it, forming great labyrinths.

Beyond that is the Milk Sea and the darkness of the nut.

For Okoko is hollow, and in its black depths floats a sea of milk. While the shell of Okoko may spin and turn from age to age, scouring its surface, the level of the Milk Sea, swishing in the darkness, remains broadly flat, whatever happens outside.



KU

Here, upon the milk, the Qua built Ku.

Ku of the Quick, Ku-Within, Ku, city of Lamps. A black city on a white sea. A fleet of black ships, tied together, with streets of milk, like a Venice of white water like by huge floating bioluminescent jellyfish.

Some buildings are in the centre of huge rafts, or built into teak ships. None are very high as they might capsize when Okoko turns. Between these travel gondolas poled by Qua and guided by firefly lanterns. There are almost no naked fires, nearly all light being accomplished by various forms of chemiluminescence and bioluminescence. The city as a whole is lit by huge floating Man-O-War bioluminescent jellyfish which drift above its black timbers like huge balloons. These are grown and sustained by the Qua through their art, fed by the nutrients of the Milk Sea and drawn from its strange ecologies.

Here in Ku, the Qua have their noble houses, guilds, magical schools, libraries, nests, treasure houses, houses of cartography, trading houses, investigators alephs, headquarters for their labour and agricultural unions and the great Qua Bank of Secrets.

Oum, who's virtue is darkness

It’s difficult to believe that anything so lazy could be so fast.

Of course the Qitt are not truly lazy, they are merely philosophical, paradoxical, incorrigible, unknowable. Or so they would have you believe.

Qitt are felid humanoids, cat-people, riders and rulers of the Turtle Oum, who's virtue is darkness, the radius of who's shell is three hundred miles and who plunges through the Waste-crust of Uud as if it were pack-ice, swimming in the sea of absolute chaos that lies beneath entropy.

Oum is one of ten great cosmic beasts that make up Zoiterra, the Realm of Life, all of which crash together through Yggsrathaals Waste in an unending race towards an unknown goal. A race which, though at their cosmic scale, it happens quickly, for those realms and nations built upon their backs their movements are so ponderously slow that months can sometimes pass between any observable change.

Oum is said to be the first of the Cosmic Beasts and, though not always in the front, (for the beasts continually change configuration amongst themselves), is seen as their great guide.

But first, the Qitt.

BODIES

The Qitt stand roughly Somon height with fluid shifting catlike bodies. They walk bipedally as Somon do and have the same hands and opposable thumbs common to the humaniform type. Their faces are catlike, with a more complex, shifting and expressive arrangement of facial muscles than any normal cat.

Qitt eyes are utterly inhuman and (to non-Qitt) their stare, whether friendly or aggressive, is extremely intense. The Qitt are near-obligate carnivores, something that lends them an atmosphere of glamour and danger in the cultures of Zoiterra, and which also causes others to assume that they will be a cut above everyone else in combat skill. Which, to be fair, is very often the case.

Qitt are FAST. Insanely fast, firstly by nature but with that intensified and deepened by culture and training. Not only are they incredibly quick, but they deliver mass at that speed and with incredible precision. Speed, exactness and concentration of force. A trained Qitt can spin-kick and cut your throat with the blunt heel of their foot.

The liquid fluidity of the Qitt can make even Aeth seem leaden and gauche. Their unique matrix of body-motion causes them to stand out, even in the diverse crowds of Zoiterra. They move like oil across water, or like the shadow of a dancer across waving silk.

In most cases Qitt are lightly furred over all of their bodies. They have a staggering variety of fur colours and patterns, most of which seem analogous to felid animals of different kinds. Some have spots, stripes, some are simple single colours. These patterns seem to work their way through family or descent groups, and are generally held to mean things by other Qitt. The assumed meanings differ by group, those meanings are multi-layered in each case, with positive and negative attributes interlinked at every level, and even the intensity and depth of belief differs a lot. What a Qitts colour or patterning means to other Qitt is something outsiders find it very hard to work out. It’s hard to tell if Qitt are being racist against other Qitt, or if that phrasing even makes sense.

Qitt voices are considered beautiful, with quite high tones but a capacity for deep, growling bass. This adds to their remarkable charisma.

QITT PERSONALITY AND CULTURE

The typical Qitt personality would be assumed to be independent, egocentric, humorous, observant, inventive and calm. They are considered individually intelligent, but it’s hard to tell because of the paradoxical, looping and quixotic way they speak. Qitt talk in parables and never seem to say anything directly, or to come at any issue head-on, seeking always for a larger conception of things and expressing this through symbolism and example.

They are also assumed to be lazy, or at least, diffident. Qitt never seem to be doing anything, or doing anything very intensively at least. You can't imagine a Qitt sweating, becoming frantic over figures, performing monotonous action or arguing over details. Clearly things upon the Turtle, Oum do get done, for the Qitt have a culture and everything that goes with it,
but you will rarely see them being done.

It's impossible to seperate the personality of the Qitt from the culture of the Turtle, Oum, and its Great Virtue of Darkness, for all exist together, responding to and intensifying each other.

The first thing that must be explained about the Virtue of Darkness, which Oum and the Qitt seek, believe and share, is that it cannot be explained in words. Most Qitt would say that what is fundamentally true is beyond understanding, beyond words. The truth, the real truth, cannot be spoken of or fully described. All attempts to do so are merely gestures which may or may not indicate the right direction. Therefore, all words are lies, of some kind or another.

The Qitt accept that they are in a state of not-knowing, which is part of why they sound so weird and allusive much of the time, but they know that even if they did know, they wouldn't be able to say what they knew.

Instead there is darkness. A Great Silence. Unending. Attend to that.

This way of thinking doesn't leave much room for the systemic acquisition and development of knowledge, as might be seen somewhere like the Grey Cities. The Qitt often know a lot, but they pick up this knowledge as required by circumstance, they do not prioritise technology or organised education as others might think of it. They are concerned with physical life, hunting, fishing, dancing, art, and fighting (which they consider an art), and with the absolute meaning behind all things.

Honestly, the Qitt would seem rather ridiculous if they didn't regularly manage to pull-off the stuff they talked about

They produce the greatest martial artists, illusionists, enchanters and philosophers in Zoiterra. They were also a primary driver in the creation of Zoiterra itself, in the Ride of the Cosmic Beasts and in the Great Confusion of Yggsrathaal. Dealing with Yggsrathaal, eluding, deceiving, persuading and escaping her, is considered the be the primary duty of the Qitt, of their philosophy and of the Turtle Oum. (Though the Qitt themselves would say these things just happen to happen. Few Qitt would ever admit to having a 'duty', to being in 'opposition to anything and certainly not to attempting 'heroism', which they consider ridiculous.)

The Qitt have also proven to be essentially unbeatable in military terms, at least on the Turtle Oum. While they are exceptionally poor line solders in mass combat (they hate staying in formation, acting as a uniform group, obeying authority, logistics, sieges and generally think war is incredibly boring), they are unspeakably, terrifyingly good stealth assassins, and the best amongst them are demigod-level hand-to-hand combatants.

It’s hard to prosecute a war if your entire officer corps has just been assassinated in their sleep and everyone else has lost their drive, lost their mind or is just lost. Likewise, is surprisingly difficult for a field army to fight one guy who can move close to the speed of sound and punch someone so hard their soul explodes.

So the Qitt tend to win fights.

LIFE UPON THE TURTLE, OUM

The shell of Oum is a mountainous, densely forested land. The Qitt ban the sowing of grain everywhere beyond a few protected cantons. These areas are permitted to allow the surplus of food which makes the Rim Cities possible.

At points around the Rim of Oum, small cities exist. These places are not centres of government, the Qitt allow them partly as fortifications against any large-scale invasions, but largely so they can have exactly as much access to the general culture of Zoiterra as they wish, and no more. The Rim-Cities are little pockets of cosmopolitanism, every racial group of Zoiterra, and sometimes a few Outsiders, can be found there. They exist as centres for minimal trade, minimal technology, and as schools.
All forms of knowing are represented in the Rim Cities of the Turtle Oum, even the abstract, technical and systemic methods which the Qitt would never use in their daily lives. Qitt come to the Rim Cities to learn  other patterns of thought, to make the small trades which they find occasionally neceassry, and to attend to the political matters of the state of Zoiterra, the evolution of the Race of Cosmic Beasts, the changing positions of the beasts and the developments which spring from this, and of the eternal chase of Yggsrathaal.

There is no exact rule preventing Outsiders from accessing the interior of Oum, simply the knowledge that any explorer will be utterly beyond the reach of help, in a dangerous and unknown environment and dependant for survival on the whims of the Qitt, who are not exactly a predictable people.

The Qitt themselves survive by hunting and almost only by that method. Within Oum, their population is relatively low. The Qitt allow the mountains and jungle valleys of Oum to exist in an undeveloped and near-wild state. The Darkness bears its fruit, and Oum is a fruitful land. All kinds of wild foods grow there in extraordinary diversity. These are fed on by all kinds of jungle and mountain creatures, from Tapiers to Deer to Monkeys to Jungle Pigs. Huge flocks of birds wheel by day, and bats by night. Beyond the Qitt, the only other 'intelligent' species are savage Fruit-Bat Men and the MonkeyMen who are present all over Zoiterra and are regarded as a kind of vermin or 'subhuman' race.

According to most Zoiterran laws of morality, the Qitt are not meant to deliberately prey upon other intelligent creatures, even if they are MonkeyMen. But they are not exactly respectful of authority, and in the depths of Oum, who is to know what has been done?

No-one can know exactly what lies in the valleys and jungles of Oum. The Qitt are there certainly. Rumours speak of ancient temples to Darkness inhabited by Qitt monks, of ruined and forgotten cities from other ages of time, of monuments and overgrown places dating back to before the Qitt came to Oum and to before Oum came from the celestial realm.

The only other city known to exist on Oum is the City of Darkness, which is built within the black desert on the head of Oum. This is one of the most sacred places to the Qitt, and to the whole of Zoiterra. It was here that the Great Race was first conceived and the Delusion of Yggsrathaal planned. Only the deepest, most philosophical, most potent or unusual Qitt will ever visist the Dark City on the Head of Oum. And perhaps a handful of other races. Every few centuries, Oum drops their head beneath the cracking Waste-Crust and into the sea of Absolute Chaos which lies beneath. When this happens, some of the deepest, strangest, most potent or oldest Qitt sages deliberately remain within the city, meditating. When Oum again raises their mighty head, the city is empty, and changed.

QITT SOCIETY

Typically, it’s hard for non-Qitt to get any kind of handle on how Qitt handle power. From anyone elses perspective, all Qitt act in an 'aristocratic' manner.

Qitt society is very flat, and their philosophy encourages indifference to worldly influence and outright rejection of authority structures.

Nevertheless, amongst themselves, they have a kind of shadow aristocracy based on broad family and kin groups. And even if others don't notice their weird near-invisible hierarchies and even if they are meant not to care, they do notice and can be very jealous of other Qitt.

Qitt can gain status through their reputation for depth as a Sage, their skill at art, fighting and dancing, through personal beauty, remarkable achievements and even for being experts in Outsider knowledge systems. Amongst Qitt, status can be represented through wardship of hunting grounds and environmental zones like rivers, forests and mountains, (though Oum seems utterly wild, this wildness is carefully managed and observed). The greatest mark of status is, of course, gaining access to the Dark City.

Of course, because Qitt are meant to be utterly indifferent to status, wealth and recognition, their actual quests for status, wealth and recognition can take on forms of labyrinthine and deniable complexity. Qitt philosophers can end up in 'shame duels' where they each take on lower and lower status activities, and this is not the strangest of the Qitt anti-status status competitions.

And of course, not all Qitt fit the Qitt mould, or get along in a Qitt-dominated culture. Those who are too worldly, clumsy, greedy, technical, literal villainous, heroic, virtuous, criminal or mad (in an uninteresting way) often end up leaving Oum and travelling to the other Cosmic Beasts of Zoiterra (or beyond), where, even if people are a little less spiritually perfect, there is a lot more diversity, a greater range of things to do and people will FINALLY answer a question with a straight answer.