The Known World 327 members · 82 stories
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Prince_Staghorn
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Besides the Sporcellus, Great Voles, and Skaven, there exist three other types of sapient rodent, one of which only recently rose to sapience.

Fink

Native to Boardor, Finks are 5' tall, bug-eyed, pudgy relatives (or possibly descendants) of the Skaven. Their mangy fur is usually a toxic green hue, but these beings can appear in any day-glo color.

Finks are manic and altogether unhinged, and can't handle their liquor, but they are geniuses when it comes to unearthing, repairing, and upgrading technology, and vehicles are their specialty. The sheer rarity of mechanical transport in the Boardor makes finks the undisputed kings of the blasted roadways.

Tari

Skaven relatives (descendants?) native to areas in northeast Khaan (Neighpon, Carrea, Ib'xian), Tari (also called Tesso) consider themselves to be the guardians of magical lore and ancient martial traditions.

Many Tari maintain their own hidden temples high in the mountains, where they are happy to allow those pilgrims who make the journey to access their lore- for a price, of course. The tari’s affinity for text extends to magical scrolls, and these are favored payments for use of their libraries. Tari occasionally take pupils, and the most skilled monks may boast of years spent under the watchful eye of rodent masters.

However, there are also "Urban" and "Wilderness" Tari. These Tari are more like their Skaven relatives, nocturnal scavengers and hunters that travel in packs and wear no clothing, though warriors sometimes have leather jerkins or even chitin greaves, while chieftains are usually highly decorated with dyes, beads, and ceremonial garb.

Both Urban and Wilderness Tari travel in packs, but their approaches to survival are quite different.

The Urban Tari are denizens of the sewers and garbage heaps. By day they sleep beneath the filth of society, and by night they gather the food and water to keep themselves alive, but they also seek out creature comforts for themselves and their chieftains. The small, furry thieves scour the buildings, scurrying up walls and through windows, stealing everything they can. They aren’t particularly good thieves, making a lot of noise, upsetting tables and toppling chairs in their clumsy approach.

The Urban Tari lair is a hodgepodge of stolen finery and trash. Crates are covered with silk and linens, while plush pillows and rugs adorn the floors and walls. Tari tend their chieftain who wears the jewelry and rags the neighborhood provides. If left alone, a Tari pack can live in relative luxury, unnoticed beneath the bustling city.

Wilderness Tari are nomadic scavengers, scouting miles in all directions to find the richest grounds, contending with other creatures for the food there is to be had. Wilderness Tari move their few belongings and families in triangular frames of leather and wooden poles. These frames are piled with belongings and dragged along the ground.

Kashikoi

Even given the fact Starswirl's Law exists and is often enforced heavily, occasional caveats allow certain cases to slip through the cracks. One such case was the His'kra, where the creator was found innocent on the technicality of her not uplifting a species to sapience, but instead creating a new species that was sapient from the outset. Similarly, the creator of the Kashikoi was found innocent due to the uplifting process being unintentional and unobserved, being the descendants of lab mice used in various experiments by a member of the Neighpon royal family. Pupa's still happy about this accident she made.

Found in both Neighpon and the Lunar Republic, the Kashikoi (a word roughly translating into "intelligent", "bright", or "clever"), aka Apodemus sapiens ("thinking mouse"), part of the family Muridae, although they regard other members of the family as beasts of burden, predators, or sources of food, depending on their relative sizes and behaviors. A colony of Kashikoi descending upon a rat is a fearsome sight indeed.

Biologically, the Kashikoi is near-identical to a common field mouse. Dissection of already-deceased subjects has revealed an enlarged cerebral cortex, indicative of their high level of intelligence, and their forepaws are sophisticated enough to be considered true hands. Additionally, they can be distinguished by their tendency to dress in clothing and jewelry fashioned from bones, bits of fabric, and things they've managed to steal from the kitchen junk drawer.

The birth rate of Kashikoi is dramatically lower than that of their wild cousins. The average female will have one baby every two years, resulting in no more than three to four offspring over the course of her life. Kashikoi take between three and five years to mature, and can live well into their late thirties.

Kashikoi possess a highly sophisticated society, centered around a devout religious class. Each colony recorded has worshiped a different god or set of gods. It is generally believed that these religious leanings are intended to keep the colony unified, and to prevent straying from places of safety. However, religious schisms occur every three to five generations, with groups of younger mice splitting off and leaving the parent colony to find new gods.

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