The Wilskenn

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This fictional culture is created by BIPEDAL_MOTH/Swing, inspired by early human agricultural societies and a love for country life. All images that appear in this article are created by and belong to me unless otherwise stated. I do not necessarily condone the actions described by the peoples within and the political/moral beliefs of this culture are not necessarily my own.

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Please contact me on Discord (BIPEDAL_MOTH#2423) or Reddit (u/BIPEDAL_MOTH) with any questions or concerns.

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The Wilskenn are a peaceful but xenophobic agricultural peoples that can be found exclusively in their homeland territory of Edrye on the continent of Cy'ǧetauria.

## **Culture**

### Language

*Skenyan*--"the flesh screams"; loud, aggressive and generally unpleasant to the ears; relies heavily on minor fluctuations in tone and how long each syllable is held.

### Beliefs

Wilskenn rank their physical bodies as the most important and valuable of material objects. This comes from the religious belief of *Skenn*--”the Flesh/One Flesh”— central to the culture’s identity. Naturally, funerals are incredibly complicated affairs and every effort is put towards conserving the state of a corpse for as long as possible. *Oweskenn*—”new flesh”—which can refer to almost any part of the process of creating offspring, is considered a sacred privilege and, as such, has historically led to numerous eugenics movements across Edrye.

#### Ireoskenn

The term *Ireoskenn* refers generally to heretical sects of *Skenn*, and specifically to the people that reside in the northern boreal forests of Wilskenn territory and rely on hunting to survive. Since their diet consists largely of meat, mainstream believers of Skenn consider their lifestyle crude and violent, with zealots even naming them cannibals. The most controversial aspect of Ireoskenn, however, is their belief that only Wilskenn are the result of the splintering described in the Skenn creation story, and that animals are of a different origin.

The divide in their beliefs spawned a new dialect, beginning with the linguistic consideration of non-sapient animals. This Ireoskenn dialect is also considered to be where the first representation of internal anatomical inquiry in language appears, studying and describing organs and other viscera long before mainstream Wilskenn society braved to open up cadavers.

### Festivals

While the most notable traditions are the ornate and increasingly-complicated birth and funeral rites, Wilskenn also participate in seasonal celebrations. *Gathyote*, for example, is a holiday that occurs in the late fall months when migratory herds of a large bovine called *Gathos* pass through the streets of the capital of Athar. Old and injured Gathos are picked off and cooked in the street to feed the neighborhood in which the animal was killed.

### Lifestyle

#### Agriculture

Most Wilskenn live on family farmsteads (or alone). Farm life can consist of anything from raising herds of large and small livestock as a rancher or shepherd, to cultivating a wide variety of crops. The most popular crop is the plum, produced the most in the fields of Athar and represented by leaf on Athar's flag.

#### Village Life

More and more Wilskenn are beginning to enjoy the benefits of living in close quarters in the city of Athar and other settlements. The safety of a community and the ready availability of goods and services has made sacrificing solitude and privacy worth it for many individuals and families.

### Traditionalism

Generally Wilskenn are staunch traditionalists. Being a low-tech society, premature death is an everyday concern. As such, sticking to "the way we've always done it" has become an outright superstitious mantra to ward away a hunt gone wrong, sudden onset illness, or any other fatal scenario one can think of.

### Social & External Relations

Historically, most Wilskenn enjoy keeping to themselves and lead very private lives largely in solitude. However, since the widespread adoption of agriculture and the transition from a nomadic lifestyle, new generations of Wilskenn are beginning to prefer the company of others. This has lead to an emergence of expectations surrounding hospitality and social gatherings. There still exists a large divide in individual choice on whether or not to engage with growing communities and many--especially older--Wilskenn prefer a solitary lifestyle.

As aforementioned, Wilskenn are stubbornly xenophobic. They have a natural instinct to dislike what is unfamiliar to them, especially anyone they consider an "outsider". Although Wilskenn are peaceful and avoid physical conflict, they are unfriendly to other cultures and avoid interacting with them. A non-Wilskenn traveller will not be in any danger in Edrye, but will almost certainly not find anyone willing to interact with them. Wilskenn's preferred method of interaction with outsiders is to get to a place the outsider cannot reach them (such as within a locked building or at the top of a vantage point) and to stare at them until they go away.

## Species

### Morphology

The most striking part of Wilskenn is their appearance. Lean, humanoid and hairless, their skulls more closely resemble that of the animals in the surrounding wilderness. The skin on their face appears stretched across the snout of some vague mammal that, at times, may appear almost familiarly canine, feline, ursid, mustelid, even equine.

#### Cagaskenn

There is a common birth defect that affects nearly 1/5th of every live birth, wherein the infant is born with a misshapen body and severely diminished faculties, rendering it non-sapient. While whelping cagaskenn is enough to make one a social outcast, shepherds and farmers find them useful in scaring away pests from crops and protecting herds from predators. individuals and couples with no practical use for their cagaskenn offspring will most often rehome it at a nearby farm or abandon it in the wild, since killing it is considered sacrilegious.

The prefix *caga-* has no direct translation, but implies that the individual is cursed with its form by some higher power. Due to its association with cagaskenn, the prefix has also come to be associated with misfortune.

## Edrye

### Land

Edrye is a largely flat province of yawning grasslands and mixed forests, all of which is occasionally made more interesting by rocky, sheer cliff faces when the land cuts down into a valley. This land lends well to a farming and hunting culture.

## History

### The First People

Prior to the advent of the agricultural lifestyle that would dominate their identity as a species indefinitely, Wilskenn were a nomadic people who relied on the bounty of nature and the migratory patterns of game to survive. Only during winter months would they find semi-permanent shelter to protect themselves from extreme weather conditions. As the belief in *Skenn* became more popular, most Wilskenn acquired a distaste for hunting and focused their diet on fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens, leading to a demand for these food sources to be available year-round and, thus, an interest in crop production.

### Agriculture and Permanent Shelter

The first settlements were family farmsteads. Wilskenn built their homes out of large stones and even slabs from nearby quarrys, using clay to reinforce the structure and blending it into the landscape by roofing it with live grass. Settlements were generally layered: the main floor was "sunk" into the landscape by excavating the terrain and carving out circular rooms and winding passageways, reinforced by stone. In the centre was generally a courtyard that served as the entrance and exit. As families got bigger and farmsteads turned into communities, these shelters were eventually abandoned in favour of above-ground architecture centred around geometric, flat-roofed structures comprised of clay, wooden beams, and dried grass connected by narrow alleyways.