This post is about the feral and savage Woruxi race.
The Woruxi are a race of feral humanoid canids that stand about 1.5 feet over the average human. They live in the Darklands, and make use of relatively crude equipment designed to be effective. They are a secretive race, doing their best to hide many aspects of their culture from the other races. This has led other races to view them as barbaric and savage beasts. They more than live up to this reputation in combat, overwhelming their enemies before tearing through their foes in melee and feasting on the fallen afterwards.
Society
The Woruxi have a secretive but fully functioning society based around a code of honour. Their language is a harsh sounding and relatively simple one, consisting of mainly nouns and verbs with few conjunctives. The Woruxi live in tribes, which control territories that they protect fervently. Each tribe consists of several mated pairs of various social rankings and offspring, each of which is headed by Alphas; these are mated pairs of Woruxi that have managed to fight their way to the top of the hierarchy, and tend to be the oldest and strongest. Woruxi tribes are divided into groups for hunting and raiding known as packs; these are led by their own alphas, which tend to be Woruxi that make up the middle of the social order. This order is enforced by a strict code of honour which makes confrontations open and ritualised, and keeps a somewhat harmonious hierarchy in place.
All Woruxi are given a unique first name at birth, and use the name of their tribe as a surname. Sometimes, a Woruxi that gains a particularly fierce and brutal reputation can be given additional titles referring to this reputation, which go after the tribe name and are used as a nickname.
Woruxi live in relatively small villages made of the gnarled, blackened wood of the darklands, with a sacrificial pit in the centre.
Outside of this live the Ferals, outcasts from Woruxi society that live in crudely built shelters and live a solitary life. They hunt on their own and can grow to varying sizes as they get to eat as much as they like. Ferals can be accepted by other tribes as a sort of mercenary, paid in food for their combat ability, honed from their days of solo hunting and frenzied from their isolation. They still maintain the war paint of their tribe as a means of identification, and their original tribe will kill them if they see them. They can come together to form new tribes, especially if they are cast out with their mate.
Religion
The Woruxi worship a figure known as the Wolf Father, which is revered as the first ancestor and first alpha whose spirit still wanders the world, feeding on the blood and souls of those sacrificed to him. He is worshipped through blood sacrifice, as this is believed to make him strong and willing to grant favour to those making the sacrifice. This is done in the Blood Pit, a 10 foot deep pit lined with the skulls of those sacrificed mounted on 2 foot tall stakes lining the pit.
Woruxi tribes each contain a shaman known as the Wolf Lord, which is the equivalent of a priest. They carry out the sacrifices with ceremonial weapons and costume, and can even be seen on the battlefield, attempting to make up for a past failure or to ask a particularly large favour from the Wolf Father.
Sacrifices are carried out by the Wolf Lord in the Blood Pit whereby captives of both other races and tribes attempt to fight against a volunteer dressed as the Wolf Father using Woruxi weapons, or none at all, similar to gladiatorial combat. Once this is done the tribe feast on the bodies of the slain and their skulls are placed on the stakes lining the arena.
Physiology and prey
The Woruxi are obligate carnivores, meaning they must hunt other animals for food. They are able to eat any type of meat, from that of the small Kashkir to the large Vriin reptile, humans, and even other Woruxi. Their favoured prey is the Vriin which they have adapted to be able to hunt which other animals are incapable of; however, during the hibernation season, Woruxi will perform considerably more raids on human settlements in order to eat the inhabitants. Woruxi are lithe creatures, having particularly dense and efficient muscles and lighter bones to enable them to run fast enough to catch their prey and to strike hard enough to kill the caught prey.
Technology
Woruxi technology is crude, as it is often made from salvaged scrap metal, obsidian found in shallow mines worked by captives, and Vriin claws and hides. Their weapons have blades made of either steel or obsidian with Kashkir hair covered metal handles, and their guns are the product of those captured from Kurae pirates merged with the heavy, basic weapons of Woruxi manufacture to create more efficient versions and variations. Their vehicles tend to be made of scrap salvaged from human and Sparaxian vehicles by the Teks of the tribe, making them difficult to build. Because of this, technology, and vehicles especially, can bring honour and status to a tribe that is able to construct and maintain their technology. The exception to this, however, is the lobber and superlobber cannons. These are believed to be dishonourable as they are used indirectly to take on foes while Woruxi see direct confrontation as honourable, but they are still used, especially by smaller and poorer tribes which cannot afford to maintain the more honourable technologies.
thatkiwiguy 