Guidebook: Cultural Dynamic

...or without its own unique mystification...

World Currency
  • 'Stones' – River rocks, those smooth and white-gold baublerocks sanded by time, in all shades, from the slate grays, blue-black volcanoids, white-golds, orange and iron-rich handfuls. From the pretty pebble to palm-sized, these pebblestones ( “stones” ) are the money of our world, made from the granule earth, and reminiscent at least in shape and vaguest shadow, the coin of lost worlds.

Footnote: the stones are a currency that began trade with the horses first, and as such many dissenting, loyalist wolves do not accept it as their currency, despite it being the only currency.


Passage of Time.
  • Equines and canines are only now starting to utilize the new abilities suddenly becoming prevalent in their species, and since evolution is an ebbing entity their sapience is still young and underdeveloped. Though the beasts are aware of the passage of time, their carnal instincts have stemmed them from seeing a need to measure it accurately. The positions of the sun and moon, the seasonal effects upon the environment, and perpetual process of birth and death are the only concrete manners in which the animals tell time.

    Even more perplexing, individuals who dwell in, and travel to Eshteth suddenly cease to age, their lifespan seeming to double due to a mysterious cellular invigoration ingrained in its enigmatic threads. Ergo, each character ages twice as slowly on Xalypsis.


Here is a small chart that shows the comparison between the lifespan of a wolf and a horse in Eshteth vs. reality.

EQUINE LIFESPAN CHART

Normal Age Eshteth Age
5 Years 10 Years
10 Years 20 Years
30 Years (Max) 60 Years (Max)


CANIS LIFESPAN CHART

Normal Age Eshteth Age
3 Years 6 Years
8 Years 16 Years
14 Years (Max) 28 Years (Max)

For the sake of simplicity, the only technical amount of time on Xalypsis is an 'epoch', which is relatively 10,000 earth years.

Seasons.
Eshteth is an island located vaguely in the oceanic tropics, whose shore is separated from a vast mainland by a slender yet formidable strait. There are only two seasons in the land of Eshteth:

  • (Summer | The Dry Season) : Solstice of Limu

  • (Winter | The Rainy Season) : Equinox of Pyre


Equine Dogma.
  • Equus cabal. They are an intelligent race, civil, material, political and matriarchal, organized into powerful governing bodies that thrive on scholarly pursuits, wisdom, research, technological advancement and diplomacy.

    Their crowning cities live on the backs of mountains surrounded by elegant militaries and similar covert designs; filled with rich architecture; and religious politics that border on the obsessive or insane.

    Elegant, productive, individualistic, and potentially corrupt, their nationalistic tendencies give an air of superiority to some members of the race. A species of philosophers, enigmatic socialites, intelligent warriors; they are a melting pool of a thousand ideals, science and religion, peace and victory, technology and earthly survival.

    All horses are taught that they came from the union of earth and stars – where the sky meets our world, the horizon is the birthplace of gods – the first woman and man who were transformed, and rebirthed, in equine form, rode from that distance line.


Canine Dogma.
  • Savages! Strewn in tribal clumps all throughout the boreal, decorating deep the iron jungles from whence they came, and enriching the cave systems below are wolves. They are a spiritual, carnal, and unmaterial race, prizing a relationship with nature, and reveling in all its raw glory – its purity.

    Their movement is akin to shadow; with ease their stoic numbers slip seamlessly through any terra they oft defiantly wish. Called savage by many, even by word of their own kind, indeed they are a race carried through the ages by their brute strength, endless endurance, and violently high prey drive.

    Fierceness, pride, and brute strength are prized endeavors, just as much as delicacy and a respect towards nature are. Gifted as apex carnivores with extremely high prey drive, they are also strongly familial, often loyal to a fault, and ritualistic with tendencies towards the cabal.

    Unable to agree upon an organized government like the equine, they are a thinly spread race of tightknit blood families eking survival in a just-as-violent world – which is, to the savage, fiercely free, and instinctively-minded wolf, perfectly fine.


Essence's prophecy.
  • The canine and equine were the chosen, and in the future, others may rise, but for now, these two races were the ones selected from the canvas of earth's designs to bring our world to a higher plane.
In the books of essence reads:

“You that shall unite
You that shall weave
Together in a fabric
Of both-become-one 

That we shaped you,
And we that who bore you
From the clay of this life
To a life like no other,

We who made the edge of this world
Who made altar of those that came before
But with eyes, could not see,
With voice, did not think,
With ears, did not believe, 

In this you that shall unite
For when the wars come
They will come
And ignite.”


  The passage ends here, the tablet lost and likely in pieces.

Essence left messages deeply encoded in the depths of the jungles, and all throughout the world, in the form of stone tablets whose broken shards range from obelisk-sized boulders to pebbly fragments that tumble through creekbeds. These stone tablets are the remnants of essence's prophecy, a prophetic decree that through difficult translation seems to paint a bleak future where wolves and horses must unite as a single kingdom – or at least a truce – to continue survival.

Many canine and equine believe in this tale, though rampant variations have risen to confusing taste. What does it foretell, exactly? A war? A civil struggle? The end as we know it? –

Time will tell, and so will Essence.

Biped Syndrome.
  • 'Biped Syndrome' is the title given to the alleged sickness suffered by some individuals who begin having visions of a past life as a human being. These visions border on hallucinations, and can strike at any time, leaving the afflicted completely vulnerable. It is said that those who are able to weather the strife and sheer madness caused by Biped Syndrome are eventually granted the power of transforming into a human by Essence.

N O T E : It is up to the player to decide whether or not their character suffers from Biped Syndrome. The exact boundaries of this definition are flexible to creative liberties, but please do not go overboard – if the human version of your character resembles more an eldritch monster than a human, please reconsider a revision to be accepted.