Eighteen balanced animals

The number eighteen played an important role in Daekon society before the unification of Ju and introduction of Yanism, for unknown reasons. Many towns or villages adopted one of eighteen important animals as a protector, something akin to a local deity. Relationships with protector animals were complicated, however. In some cases, towns praised an animal in order to avoid its wrath, and so it acted more as an extorter than protector. Seeing one of the eighteen animals often portended something, not always something good.

Yani honja assimilated the eighteen animals into their beliefs, pleased that eighteen has a balanced factor (9), Wild factor (3), and Order factor (2). They declared the eighteen animals balanced, sweeping away previous connotations and making them all uniformly good because they all represented a balance between Wild and Order that humans could attempt to replicate.

The eighteen animals are: the leopard cat, royal crane, sun eagle, musk deer, Diao black bear, tripler wolf, magpie, pigeon, boar, giant hornet, bumble bee, hunched vulture, goral, tiger, fox, raccoon dog, otter, and badger. Years in an eighteen-year cycle are associated with an animal, and the animal is featured during new years celebrations.

Leopard cats are wiferine animals associated with listening, silence, and introspection. They are common in the Dhi jungles and far east of Ju. Their elusive nature makes it hard to know their exact habits, behaviors, or diets, and has led scholars to wonder how it was adopted as one of the eighteen animals in towns and villages far from its natural habitat and by people who likely never saw one, either living or dead. Queen Paek has a single leopard cat in captivity in her living menagerie, though it is growing old.

The royal crane, named after its crown-like crest, is a tall, skinny water bird that lives in Ju swamps and marshland and have a seasonal migratory path across the western edge of the Aleya and into southern Diao. Ju hunters avoid killing them, for meat or feathers, and when Kuan hunters kill them, it can be a cause of strife. The royal crane is a symbol of the monarchy and people unrelated to the queen would not presume to wear its feathers or embroider its appearance on their clothing. Only the queen may gift people images or tapestries that feature the royal crane. Historically, the eighteen-year cycle of animals reset every time a new monarch took the throne, placing the monarch's birth year in the year of the royal crane, though such practices have stopped due to the confusion they caused.

The sun eagle is a masculine bird often associated with Diao, arrogance, and bluster. Farmers generally dislike them for killing domestic cats or livestock. Their feathers are fine, with purple, golden, and blue undertones when they catch the light, but wearing them is frowned upon amongst the aristocracy. Members of the middle class often wear them freely, as a rejection of upper-class fashion.

The musk deer is wiferine and represents a sturdy frailty, or a brittleness of temperament. To say someone is deer-like in Ju means they show no outward sign of stress or sadness until the emotion entirely overwhelms them.

The Diao black bear is actually native to Ju but far more respected in Diao. It is associated with laziness and masculinity. Unlike Seprum bears, Diao bears are somewhat tame and unlikely to kill humans. Instead, they tend to retreat when humans venture into their native forests. Some travelers have claimed to see Diao black bears in the Forest, though there is no evidence that they could survive there for long.

The tripler wolf, also called the Kuan wolf, is smaller than the Seprum counterpart and far less ferocious. Scholars believe domestic dogs are descended from tripler wolves and even half-dog, half-wolf hybrids are generally well-behaved, if more energetic. Wolves work in teams, which makes them highly feminized animals in Ju society and masculinized in Kuan and Diao for the same reason. Hunting down and killing a wolf can be punishable by death, though the monarch usually pardons hunters before they can be killed.

The magpie is sometimes replaced with the crow in celebrations, though the crow is actually a non-native bird, introduced for communication purposes by Seprums and now mostly used by jeonmancers. Magpies are associated with wifere, thieves, and children. Ravens are held in somewhat lower esteem, or sometimes viewed as exotic for their pure black plummage and large size.

Pigeons represent the masculine ideal: they mate for life, defend their mate and nest fiercely, and are intelligent when they forage. Many farmers keep pet pigeons for food, both eggs and meat, and aristocrats breed pigeons for racing or beauty. Jeonmancers are especially interested in the wide variety of phenotypes pigeons can display.

If pigeons are the masculine ideal, boars are the opposite. They are wrathful, don't care what they destroy, impervious to pain, and don't care about their own lives, so long as they achieve their desired purpose. In mythology, they tend to represent the folly of someone who chase a single goal without regard for others. Boar are often associated with the Kuan Empire, though such instances have decreased since Ju joined the Spiral Empire and triple kingdom.

The giant hornet and bumble bee are both seen as hard workers, though the giant hornet is a hard working man, often farmer-adjacent, and the bumble bee is a wifere, representing the bureaucrats who follow a queen.

The hunched vulture represents the natural cycle after death as bodies are repurposed by an ecosystem, becoming fertile soil for future generations who will, in their own time, also die. Vulture feather cloaks are traditional mourning attire for the very wealthy.

The goral is a timid animal, easily frightened, often characterized as a wifere or woman. They make excellent food, when they can be found and caught, and live in the forests of Ju and Diao and the jungles of Dhi.

Tigers are feminine animals who represent the ideal of mother- and witherhood, as tigers are themselves doting parents who are highly protective of their young. Killing or capturing a baby tiger without monarchal permission is forbidden.

Foxes are feminine trickster who often specifically target men in their schemes.

The raccoon dog is a stubborn, dutiful child who defends their parents against all incursions and cares for them into their old age. It is most often characterized as masculine, as men bear the most responsibility for taking care of aging parents, but it is often portrayed as a wifere or woman. The otter, by contrast, is the eternal, playful child who may be too distracted to to properly care for their parents.

The badger, which is a subtly different species from the one familiar to most Seprums, is a wiferine or feminine crafter and builder. It is possible this early connotation comes from confusing a badger with a beaver, which shows some engineering ability when it builds dams, but the association has stuck with the badger.