Orati

### Biology

Typically 2 children born at a time (80%), a single child (15%), and triplets (5%). Orati women may have 1 pregnancy per year, from age 20 to 50, and typically have no more than 6 pregnancies in their lifetimes.

Maximum life expectancy is 127 years, with median life expectancy being 100 years. However, the Orati don't usually live that long, since fighting the Chasm Skrippa, an insectoid race of monsters, take many Orati lives before their time.

Acceptable Orati types include: Cats, Wolves, Rams, Minotaurs, Kitsune, Badgers, Bears, Rabbits, Mice, Pigs, Deer, and Horses. (Capitalize Orati type names to differentiate them from regular animals.) These creatures tend to have humanoid bodies with bestial heads. Other features such as fur patterned after the animals they resemble, tails, and claws will be present. Fur, hair, skin, and eye colors are all matched to their animal type. Orati are all bipedal and approximately human-sized.

All Orati have the ability to shift fully into their animal type, but they will be much larger than a regular animal. For example, the Cat Orati can shift from humanoid to full-cat body, and the Cat will be approximately twice as large as the average large cat. Larger types, like Horses and Minotaurs, are also noticeably larger than their regular animal counterparts, but not twice as large.

When in bipedal form, the Orati have human-like hands and arms, and their legs, while adapted to stand upright, resemble those of their animal counterparts. They have their tails, and their heads look far closer to their animal form than to that of a human or an elf, being furred and having ears of their animal clan. They can speak in their bipedal forms, but not in their beast forms.

### Culture:

Orati names vary from kin to kin. The members of a particular species are spoken of as a kin, such as Wolfkin, Mousekin, or Catkin. Individual members are described as their species, particularly when transformed, but always capitalized. So a wolf is non-sentient animal, of normal size but a Wolf is member of the Orati Wolfkin, and will be sentient, much larger, and able to transform back and forth between bipedal and dire animal form. In the Orati's own dialect, one can hear the difference between wolf and Wolf, and to call a a Wolf a wolf is extremely offensive, something like calling a human a monkey.

The Orati have districts for each kin, though members of the kin regularly travel and even live in other districts, But because each species is suited to its own habitat, each district contains far more of, and its rule is dominated by, the corresponding kin. The exception to this is the Mousekin, who do not have their own district, and live in the margins of other kin's districts, or on the edges of bald-skin peoples.

**Orati classes include:** Farmer, Hunter, Trader, Storyteller, Artisan, Warrior, Matron, Queen.

### History

We have always been here, in this land. This land was ours before the smooth-faces, those with pointed ears, or round. The ancient caves hold our paintings, so old that the caves have started to grow over them, sometimes, so that only hints of the stories they told can be seen. Long, and long ago, there were many kinds of People, and we all fought amongst each other. The Fox Folk battled the Bear Tribe, the Mouse Kin warred against the Cat Clan, the Badger Colony clashed with all. We were senseless with these wars, until a common foe brought us all together. The Chasm started small, as all things start small. The first of the Enemy to emerge were small, too, and weak, and easy to kill. But as time passed and the Chasm grew, the Enemy grew, too, in strength and number. We had no choice but to band together as one People, where once there had been many. Our unity gave us strength, and it is this strength that we rely on today in our never-ending fight to save the world from the Enemy. You would know them if you saw them; great, gleaming things with many eyes and legs, some with wings, all with murder and destruction in their hearts. They come in swarms, every two or three years, and spread across the plains, eating and poisoning as they go. They will eat anything... grass, animals, People... they do not care. If it grows, or if it has a beating heart, they will eat it. Our legends say that their Mother is in the Chasm, breeding and breeding and breeding. Some day, we will kill her, and peace will finally settle the land.

Long ago, the smooth-faces arrived, and settled on the other side of the mountains to the East, and later after the ships came, to the South and West. We let them have that land so long as they promised not to cross over the mountains without permission. They promised. Sometimes they wander in, one or a few... but those who do not heed our warnings never wander out again. For uncountable generations, we have fought the Enemy, and we have always won, though the price has been great. But lately, the Enemy has been expanding the desert and the Chasm has been growing like a hungry mouth. Perhaps it is time to ask the smooth-faces to join our sacred battle. After all, if the Enemy ever crosses the high mountains, they will be next.