Soɾaʝ

Soɾaʝ head

*"Not as harsh nor high as Ai-Mo's mountains, Soɾaʝan tepuis are a lot more remote.*

*Up there, in the isolation of their lost worlds, the Soɾaʝans have mastered the art of flying, and hop from one such island to the next with no need or interest for the other trbes.*

*But their lands are getting crowdy, so now they shall descend upon the rest of the Square !"*

## Description

The **Soɾaʝ** triberelies on flying technologies that replace regular sailing. They start with **Gliding** (Fishing), a technology that allows their units to glide from high terrain and reveals whales.

They live on isolated plateaus of pink(ish) granite covered in purple(ish) moors dotted with massive orange and turquoise *pumkloons*, slender *shiptrees* and home to the adorable yet ferocious *squarrels* (basically indian giant squirrels with red squirrel ears, that are flying (gliding) squirrels).

They wear squarrel ears and use squarrel tails as scarfs, and their main colour is rust.

## Resources

Soɾaʝ have special "mountains", **cliffs**, surrounding most of their territory. They spawn **no shallow water**, as usual land does.

Other resource modifications are :

**- Crop
- Metal**

## Special terrain : Cliff

Cliffs are a special terrain type that has some field, mountain, and unique characteristics.

Roads can be built on them, but they don't connect with land underneath them. Cliffs also don't grant a defense bonus,

One needs **climbing** to go up a cliff, unless he is **flying** of course. They only block movement when climbing up, not when one moves on a cliff tile from another one, or from a field tile that is a part of the tepui. They only grant mountain's extended sight outward.

Cliffs don't spawn shallow water on their own : unless a neighboring regular terrain spawns a shallow water tile, ocean is created instead.

They always spawn next to a few others, creating plateaus, that still can usualy be accessed without climbing through some gap in the cliffs. They are more likely to appear on the fringes of Soɾaʝan territory.

## Special technologies

**Gliding** (fishing) : Starting Tech. Grants the **glide** skill to every Soɾaʝan land unit ; reveals whales

**Flying** (seafaring) : Allows airports, baloons and airships

**Navigation** : Allows raiders, motherships and Explorer

**Sea harvesting** (whaling) : Allows whaling AND fishing (but they don't have many fish in their territory)

**Aerism** (aquatisme) **:** Grants a defense bonus to all air units (when flying !). Enhances the autonomy of aircrafts.

## Special skills

**Glide** : When the unit gets off a cliff or mountain, it is replaced by a temporary **Glider** unit with 1 move and the aircraft skill. As soon as it moves (or otherwise at the end of the turn), it retrieves its original form and remaining moves.

**Aircraft** : Aircrafts are flying units which are subject to the winds. At the begining of each turn, a random cardinal direction is choosen. It is displayed on every Soɾaʝan city by a weathercock. Every aircraft has a free move in that direction. Going the opposite way costs 2 moves instead of one. Units with only 1 move cannot go in that direction at all.

Aircrafts also need to refuel every 4 turns (6 with **aerism**). That is : Be next to an airport or mothership at the begining of a turn. When out of fuel, aircrafts are stuck on the ground, cannot move until refuelled, and have defense bonuses according to the type of terrain they are on. Whenever they want, aircrafts can go back to normal.

**Mothership** : An aircraft that doesn't need refueling but refuels other ships instead.

## Special building : Airport

Just like regular ports, except they are built on top of mountains and cliffs rather than shallow water. They work with customs houses as well.

When an Soɾaʝan unit gets on an airport tile, it can turn into a balloon for free. It's not automatic like for boats.

They can bond like ports do, even above land, but only 2 tiles away.

## Special units

Balloons can be upgraded to Airship, then Raider and Mothership.

Giants are unchanged and are just what your need for true motherships.

## Appearance & lore

Even if those cute fluffy squarrel ears and tail might not show it, the Soɾaʝan have a harsh way of life, full of dangers that they have learned to celebrate, turning them into festivals.

Spring is the time of **squarrels' rut**. The squarrels go nuts (no pun intended, even is they do love those the shiptrees produce) and attack any nearby creature. Soɾaʝan youngsters try to harvest ears and tails (they grow back) to prove their worth and become adults. Watching them wrestle naked ("tradition") with randy squarrels is rather disturbing for anyone who is not Soɾaʝan... And those who lose against the squarrels usually jump off the nearest cliff, unable to cope with the shame.

But the other Soɾaʝans rejoice.

With summer comes **whale hunting**. Obviously, harpooning whales from the sky, and lifting them up the tepui, does not go without incidents either, but the Soɾaʝans plateaus are not so full of resources that they can just discard this one. Young Soɾaʝans who passed the squarrels' rut try to impress each other while learning to glide, many die in the process, but in the end the tribe is prosperous.

So the Soɾaʝan rejoice.

Autumn is the season of pumkloon harvesting, but also **pumkloon explosions**. The huge pumpkin-like things are initially quite normal, but as time goes by they get bigger and bigger, and then bigger again. The rust-coloured ones fill with what the Soɾaʝans call "high air", a strange kind of air which is lighter than normal one, and can be used primarilly to lift ships (when ripe enough they start floating in the air, tied to the ground with their incredibly strong stolons), but also can be inhaled to speak with a high-pitched voice, which is considered extremely attractive by the Soɾaʝans and the squarrels alike. The other, turquoise kind are used to get high in a less figurative way, both by eating their psychedelic flesh and by inhaling their exhilarating content ("higher air"). Those are essential to Soɾaʝan rituals and considered sacred. Unless harvested, both sorts of pumkloons keep growing, until they explode to spread their seeds. This is a magnificent sight, as the first explosion to occur triggers a chain reaction that fill the tepui with orange and turquoise pieces of tasty and psychedelic pumkloon flesh. Not only some Soɾaʝan fall to their death because of how intoxicated they get, but those who forget to wear their eye-protections end up blind.

That's no reason for the Soɾaʝans not to rejoice.

Their forests are sparcely fitted with lean supple trees with hollow trunks that are perfect for building aircrafts, and whose huge, pale triangular leaves are quite logically used as sails. Indeed, when winter comes, shiptrees don't lose their leaves. Instead, the weakest ones get blown away in what the Soɾaʝans poetically call "**shiptree regattas**". Those fearsome tempests are a great way to gather wood for their ships and houses... But some limbs are always lost in the process

Anyway, that wood is essential, so the Soɾaʝans rejoice, as always.

Soɾaʝan cities are made of the same stuff as their ships : Flexible timber, tearproof triangular leaves died their favourite colours, majestic hollow pumpkloons... And in fact they would drift with the winds, if the Soɾaʝans didn't secure them to the ground with carefully placed pumkloon stolon tethers.

Their fields are covered in heath, mostly amaranth purple, but with patches of yellow and green.

The cliffs on top of which they are found, somewhat akin to Kickoo's mountains (with a flat field-like top), are made of slightly pink granite.

## Strategy

Your starting tech is a more useful climbing, and you are somewhat sheltered from land and sea.

Whales, that you can see from the start should be more plentiful. On the other hand, you're not likely to have many fish, nor highly productive farms and mines... or any use of those water tiles, including shallow water, especially in foreign territory ! Your cities wont become enormous.

Because of those neat aircrafts, researching other units will not be your top priority, but even if they are great for exploration, they are not (or at least should not be) as good as regular ships when above the seas, and cannot compete with cheap and powerful land units either.

The wind can be you best ally as well as your worst enemy, spicing up things a bit.

Any thoughts welcome

## Other Tribes

If you liked this one, go take a look at the others here : Gradokko