Mera Gladstone
APPEARANCE
Hair: Thick, black, full hair. Kept short and usually braided. As per tribe custom, she wears a thin, long braid at the front with beads showing her clan, family, and status. Her beads are amber, onyx, and copper with a Harkamp feather at the end.
Eyes: Very dark green, almond-shaped.
Skin Tone: Golden-Bronze
Body Build: Compact torso, muscular, very athletic, long and strong legs, small chested.
Clothing: Harkampii hide pants, usually mottled green-brown. Harkampii hide shirt with a bare midriff, very sparse covering. She wears a white spun harkampii down overshirt during the hottest part of the day to protect herself from the sun. When needed, she wears armour made from the tough armoured top of Harkampii (breast plate, outer leg and arm protection that tie into loops in the pants and shirt). She wears a necklace with a bronze disk shaped like a sun with Harkamp feathers for rays. The pants also have built-in sheathes for knives, and she usually has a composite bow and quiver on her.
Personality: Nari is very outspoken and opinionated. She tends to take charge of situations whether or not it is needed or wanted. She is extremely independent and hates having to rely on anyone but herself and her Harkamp. She is distrustful of anyone who is not of the Okatept Clans, especially Kingdomers. She is very prickly about anyone else caring for or even touching her Harkamp. She can tend to act first, see if you are still alive and need more stabbing later. xD Like most Okatept, she is highly superstitious about magic. It makes her extremely nervous.
HISTORY
Okatept Nomads:
The Okatept are a nomadic race based on a clan system. The clans' society revolves around the Harkampii. They move when the Harkampii need fresh grazing and stay in one place during the breeding season. The Harkampii are a matriarchal species. The female mates and lays a single egg. The males takes it up into a special brood pouch in its abdomen (which opens from left to right). The female then mates with more males, leaving the male to care for the offspring. Females are larger and stronger as they fight for the attention of the males.
This matriarchal pattern carries over into the Okatept lifestyle. Lineage is determined through the maternal line, and they scorn Kingdomer's tradition of using the male line, claiming that only through the mother can lineage be sure and pure. Men are the defenders, staying within the camp to look after the children. Since men are generally stronger, it became a necessity to have the best guards stay with the children. After a woman weans her child, she usually goes back to patrols, leaving her family behind at the camp for weeks or even months at a time. Both men and women begin training in fighting as soon as they are old enough to walk, but boys stay with their fathers. Girls are taken into a special training group, which becomes their family more than their biological family is. They learn to fight offensively as well as to ride the Harkamp as a war mount. (All Okatept are highly adept at riding, in general). By the time they go through their rite of passage, they are carefully honed warriors. Their weapons of choice are the bow, steel knives obtained in trade, and spears.
Magic is rare among the Okatept, and the few who do have it become shamans. Magic outside of clan shamans is looked at with fear and suspicion.
Harkampii:
The Harkampii and related species are an evolved remnant of the raptor family of dinosaurs. Time has allowed for a change in structure and function. Some retained their predatory ways, such as the Harkamp, but the Harkampii became herbivores. While they still have the sickle on the back feet for defense, the front feet have become more adapted for supporting the body while grazing. They have a set of thick, bony plates across the back for protection. Their belly and lower sides are covered in a coat of downy proto-feathers. The head has a crest of true feathers, which are highly prized as decoration among the Okatept. The proto-feathers are useful for making clothing, and the hide and plates are useful as leather and armour respectively. The last vertebrae in the tails have evolved into a flat, spade-like shape, giving the Harkampii better support when standing up to reach foliage on the rare trees on the plains. This is likely an evolutionary throwback to when the plains were more forested.
Harkamp: The Harkamp are a related species, and they are one of the few predatory species in the lineage left. They no longer are wild, with all of the Harkamp being bred and used as riding and war mounts by the Okatept. They are intelligent, but they are still true animals. They retained a more upright position, having a posture similar to that of an ostrich. Unlike the grinding plates in the Harkampii, the Harkamp have true teeth. Agile, fast, and equipped with natural weapons, they present a terrifying front to the Okatept's enemies and between the nomadic lifestyle annd the strategic advantage of the Harkamp as compared to horses, they have been the reason that the Kingdoms have not been able to absorb the tribes.
Nari's History: Nari is a young hunter in the tribe. Like all Okatept (male and female), she was trained in war as well as in herding and caring for the Harkampii from the time she was old enough to walk. While the men stay to protect the children, who are considered to be the most valuable resource of the tribes, the women are generally the hunters and offense warriors. She has shown promise as a leader, but she still lacks maturity and any sense of tact. Since status and rank are earned rather than inherited, she has yet to have the time to prove herself enough to gain much status.
HER HARKAMP
Name: Kotaktl
Gender: Female
Colour: Olive green with sandy brown countershading on the hide, slightly darker green for the back plating. The protofeathers are sandy brown, while the crest feathers are bright blue and green.
General Appearance: Kotaktl is unusually large, standing a full head taller than most Harkamp and being quite sturdier. Along with the extra size, she is stronger and faster than the average Harkamp. Having been bestowed Kotaktl as a young adult, Nari considers herself quite lucky to have received her. If her size and strength had been known, Kotaktl would have been given to a higher ranking member of the clan. Kotaktl, herself, being one of the sentient Harkamp, was the one to make sure this was arranged, though no one but she knows it.
Hair: Thick, black, full hair. Kept short and usually braided. As per tribe custom, she wears a thin, long braid at the front with beads showing her clan, family, and status. Her beads are amber, onyx, and copper with a Harkamp feather at the end.
Eyes: Very dark green, almond-shaped.
Skin Tone: Golden-Bronze
Body Build: Compact torso, muscular, very athletic, long and strong legs, small chested.
Clothing: Harkampii hide pants, usually mottled green-brown. Harkampii hide shirt with a bare midriff, very sparse covering. She wears a white spun harkampii down overshirt during the hottest part of the day to protect herself from the sun. When needed, she wears armour made from the tough armoured top of Harkampii (breast plate, outer leg and arm protection that tie into loops in the pants and shirt). She wears a necklace with a bronze disk shaped like a sun with Harkamp feathers for rays. The pants also have built-in sheathes for knives, and she usually has a composite bow and quiver on her.
Personality: Nari is very outspoken and opinionated. She tends to take charge of situations whether or not it is needed or wanted. She is extremely independent and hates having to rely on anyone but herself and her Harkamp. She is distrustful of anyone who is not of the Okatept Clans, especially Kingdomers. She is very prickly about anyone else caring for or even touching her Harkamp. She can tend to act first, see if you are still alive and need more stabbing later. xD Like most Okatept, she is highly superstitious about magic. It makes her extremely nervous.
HISTORY
Okatept Nomads:
The Okatept are a nomadic race based on a clan system. The clans' society revolves around the Harkampii. They move when the Harkampii need fresh grazing and stay in one place during the breeding season. The Harkampii are a matriarchal species. The female mates and lays a single egg. The males takes it up into a special brood pouch in its abdomen (which opens from left to right). The female then mates with more males, leaving the male to care for the offspring. Females are larger and stronger as they fight for the attention of the males.
This matriarchal pattern carries over into the Okatept lifestyle. Lineage is determined through the maternal line, and they scorn Kingdomer's tradition of using the male line, claiming that only through the mother can lineage be sure and pure. Men are the defenders, staying within the camp to look after the children. Since men are generally stronger, it became a necessity to have the best guards stay with the children. After a woman weans her child, she usually goes back to patrols, leaving her family behind at the camp for weeks or even months at a time. Both men and women begin training in fighting as soon as they are old enough to walk, but boys stay with their fathers. Girls are taken into a special training group, which becomes their family more than their biological family is. They learn to fight offensively as well as to ride the Harkamp as a war mount. (All Okatept are highly adept at riding, in general). By the time they go through their rite of passage, they are carefully honed warriors. Their weapons of choice are the bow, steel knives obtained in trade, and spears.
Magic is rare among the Okatept, and the few who do have it become shamans. Magic outside of clan shamans is looked at with fear and suspicion.
Harkampii:
The Harkampii and related species are an evolved remnant of the raptor family of dinosaurs. Time has allowed for a change in structure and function. Some retained their predatory ways, such as the Harkamp, but the Harkampii became herbivores. While they still have the sickle on the back feet for defense, the front feet have become more adapted for supporting the body while grazing. They have a set of thick, bony plates across the back for protection. Their belly and lower sides are covered in a coat of downy proto-feathers. The head has a crest of true feathers, which are highly prized as decoration among the Okatept. The proto-feathers are useful for making clothing, and the hide and plates are useful as leather and armour respectively. The last vertebrae in the tails have evolved into a flat, spade-like shape, giving the Harkampii better support when standing up to reach foliage on the rare trees on the plains. This is likely an evolutionary throwback to when the plains were more forested.
Harkamp: The Harkamp are a related species, and they are one of the few predatory species in the lineage left. They no longer are wild, with all of the Harkamp being bred and used as riding and war mounts by the Okatept. They are intelligent, but they are still true animals. They retained a more upright position, having a posture similar to that of an ostrich. Unlike the grinding plates in the Harkampii, the Harkamp have true teeth. Agile, fast, and equipped with natural weapons, they present a terrifying front to the Okatept's enemies and between the nomadic lifestyle annd the strategic advantage of the Harkamp as compared to horses, they have been the reason that the Kingdoms have not been able to absorb the tribes.
Nari's History: Nari is a young hunter in the tribe. Like all Okatept (male and female), she was trained in war as well as in herding and caring for the Harkampii from the time she was old enough to walk. While the men stay to protect the children, who are considered to be the most valuable resource of the tribes, the women are generally the hunters and offense warriors. She has shown promise as a leader, but she still lacks maturity and any sense of tact. Since status and rank are earned rather than inherited, she has yet to have the time to prove herself enough to gain much status.
HER HARKAMP
Name: Kotaktl
Gender: Female
Colour: Olive green with sandy brown countershading on the hide, slightly darker green for the back plating. The protofeathers are sandy brown, while the crest feathers are bright blue and green.
General Appearance: Kotaktl is unusually large, standing a full head taller than most Harkamp and being quite sturdier. Along with the extra size, she is stronger and faster than the average Harkamp. Having been bestowed Kotaktl as a young adult, Nari considers herself quite lucky to have received her. If her size and strength had been known, Kotaktl would have been given to a higher ranking member of the clan. Kotaktl, herself, being one of the sentient Harkamp, was the one to make sure this was arranged, though no one but she knows it.