The moon

## Inhabitants

* Anthropomorphic rabbits
	+ Inspired by Tu'er Shen, Usagi Yojimbo, the rakasta of Myoshima from Mystara, and the Moon Kingdom from Sailor Moon
* Beholders
	+ The first two were the goddess's eyes
* Centauroid ~ elephant on top, louse on bottom, gem growing on the end of their trunk, monastic culture
	+ Inspired by Chaugnar Faugn
	+ Connected to the Crystal Gem-like folk
	+ descended from the lice that had infested the goddess's hair
* Dwarfs
* Gnomes

## History

### Origin

Long ago, before the foundations of Hhabikht' were laid, the great goddess Snake-Skirted Lady Wind was living peacefully at Silent Snake Hill.  One day, she was sweeping her home as she always did, when a peculiar sight greeted her.  A little ball of beautiful feathers was drifting down from the sky towards her.

“What a lovely bunch of feathers!” Snake-Skirted Lady Wind said as she stopped her sweeping to pick them up.  “Perhaps they are a gift from another god. Either way, I will keep them.”  She tucked them into her clothes for safekeeping and resumed her sweeping.  Later, once she had finished sweeping, she reached for the feathers to take them and put them away, but they were gone.  “Where are my beautiful feathers?  Did I drop them?”  She looked around for the feathers, but they were nowhere to be found.

Snake-Skirted Lady Wind suddenly stopped her search and placed a hand against her belly.  “What’s this?  I’m pregnant!”  She wondered at this miracle.  “The beautiful feathers have become a baby ~ how can this be?”  Excited and amazed, she shared this incredible news with the other gods and goddesses.

Face Painted with Bells was not happy for their mother.  Later that night, they gathered their brothers, the Four Hundred Southerners.  “Our mother has no sense of shame!  She’s pregnant, and who is the father?  We don’t know!  She claims it’s a miracle, but I don’t believe her.  No, she’s let herself be overcome by lust and is acting like a common whore.  We’re going to have to kill her to remove the stain of shame from our family.  Who’s with Me?” they cried out, raising their shield and shaking their warrior’s bells.

The Four Hundred Southerners all shouted back to them in agreement.  “We’re all with you!  For her disgusting behavior, we will help you kill our mother!”  Then they all began to prepare for war.  All of them except one, that is.  A single star, Upright Tree, crept away from the secret meeting and ran for Silent Snake Hill.

“Mother!” he cried out.  “Mother, your child and sons are planning to kill you!”

Snake-Skirted Lady Wind wept in terror and heartache at the news.  “So I will be murdered at the hands of my own children, even though I’m innocent of any immorality!”

Then a strange voice was heard.  “Don’t be afraid, Mother.  I won’t let them lay a hand on you.  I’m here, and will protect you, no matter what the danger.”  It was Snake-Skirted Lady Wind’s unborn son, the Left-Handed Hummingbird, speaking to her from within her womb.  Upright Tree and his mother were amazed.  “I’ve already got a plan for dealing with these murderous kinslayers.  Just tell me when the army gets to the top of Silent Snake Hill, and I’ll do the rest.”

So, Snake-Skirted Lady Wind waited with trepidation in her home atop Silent Snake Hill as the only loyal Southerner watched Face Painted with Bells’s army march slowly towards them.  Even from his vantage point on the peak, he could hear the terrifying war-shouts, jingling of bells, and clashing of spears against shields.  Face Painted with Bells marched their army higher and higher up the slopes, calling out “Snake-Skirted Lady Wind!  Prepare to die for your shameful deeds!  We come to avenge our family’s honor!”

At that time, Upright Tree called out to the Left-Handed Hummingbird, “They’re here!  And Face Painted with Bells herself is leading them!”

In an instant, the Left-Handed Hummingbird was born.  In the blink of an eye, he was a full-grown man, painted for war in blue and yellow.  He straightened his warrior’s array and picked up His shield and javelin.  “See, Mother?  I am here to protect you!”  He took up the Fire Serpent, a blazing thunderbolt that flared to life in his hand, and with an echoing shout he raced like a comet towards the very startled Face Painted with Bells.  They fought like two fierce lions, but in the end, the Left-Handed Hummingbird struck off his sibling’s head and threw their lifeless body tumbling down the side of Silent Snake Hill.  He then threw their severed head into the sky, where it still is to this day as the moon, their golden bells shining in the night.

Before the Four Hundred Southerners could react, he was in their midst like a raging fire.

They fought back, but nothing they did could drive him away.  They tried to frighten him, but he just kept attacking.  Finally, the Southerners pleaded with him to spare them.  “No!” the Left-Handed Hummingbird snarled.  “You will all die for betraying your mother so cruelly!”  The enraged god chased them, killing them mercilessly.  Only a very few Southerners escaped to hide in the farthest reaches of the southern sky.

With the army crushed, the Left-Handed Hummingbird proudly walked the battlefield and picked up the regalia of one of the Southerners.  He took it as a trophy, wearing part of it as his own and absorbing the might of the Southerners.  This great battle at Silent Snake Hill was the Left-Handed Hummingbird’s first victory, his first steps on the long road through the maelstrom of war.

### The Coming of the Rabbits

Long ago, before the halflings ruled, before the various giant races ruled, way back when the butterfly people were the most powerful people in the world, ten suns rose together into the skies and scorched the earth, thus causing hardship for the people. The archer Hut'anbaon shot down nine of them, leaving just one sun, and was given the elixir of immortality as a reward. He did not consume it straight away, but hid it at home, as he did not want to gain immortality without his beloved wife Shaghei. Hut'anbaon went about his business, which included peeping on a very handsome imperial inspector with whom he had fallen in love through a bathroom wall. When the inspector discovered him doing this, Hut'anbaon confessed his reluctant affections for the other man. The inspector sentenced Hut'anbaon to the loss of his greatest prize, and proceeded to storm to Hut'anbaon's house in an attempt to force Shaghei to give him the elixir. She refused and drank it herself. Shaghei then flew upwards towards the heavens, choosing the moon as residence. Infuriated and unrealizing that his sentence had indeed come to pass, the imperial inspector had Hut'anbaon sentenced to death by beating.

One month after Hut'anbaon's death, he is said to have appeared to a village elder from his hometown in a dream in the form of a leveret (a rabbit in its first year), claiming that since his crime was one of love, the underworld officials decided to right the injustice by appointing him the god and safeguarder of homosexual affections and reuniting him with the woman he had loved as well. The two thus became the divine parents of a race of anthropomorphic rabbits who live upon the moon.