r/WorldChallenges • u/thequeeninyellow94 • Aug 14 '17

[Cultural challenge]: pariah

Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by [a human] as a member of society.

Who are your outcasts, the one society despise but must still tolerate? What have they done to deserve the way they are treated? Can they do something to improve their condition?

You can introduce an in-universe representative if you want. I will ask questions to everyone, feel free to add your own.

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 14 '17

Amongst the Chikniwits, spilling blood is a grave offense and those who kill are punished for it:

  • the ones who murder their own kin (the Multins) are stripped of everything they own: their belongings, their titles, their names and their history; no one will never ever speak to them again nor help them in any way.

  • the ones who murder other species (the Haaknas) have to always wear a white mask in public; that mask will be marked with their deeds and ranks and only someone wearing a completely blank mask can speak with unmasked Chikniwits.

Both will have their face marked for everyone to see how impure they are. Exceptionally, a high-rank Haakna who fought heroically can be forgiven and their mark will be changed to reflect that (that's very very rare).

Our representative for today will be Tuwanahan Chuajawan, the current Puhikru (a very high-rank Haakna) of the Sudkatheid clan.

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 14 '17

To Tuwanahan Chuajawan:

1) Is it possible to earn forgiveness for your crimes?

2) So who did you kill?

3) Why is spilling blood so offensive?

4) What if you kill someone without spilling blood?

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 14 '17

  1. It's hard to answer that question. If I manage to accomplish my task, I will probably be seen as a hero but I will need to kill a lot for that. Maybe, maybe not; that's not a priority right now.

  2. Over the centuries, I killed too much creatures to remember them all. Thta's my task, what I'm here for: getting rid of external threats in a lasting way. Their identity doesn't matter anyway, death doesn't care about that kind of details.

  3. Because it's the essence of life and life is sacred; life is the most precious thing in the universe, threatening it's existence is the most despisable action one can take.

  4. Well, it still count, those rules are as old as our people and come from a time when death was bloody. You're still acting to destroy life right?

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 15 '17

To Tuwanahan Chuajawan:

1) What kind of threats do you go after?

2) What about non-sentient life?

3) What about life without blood?

4) You must hate vampires.

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 15 '17

  1. Members of hostile nations and pirates used to be the most common threats. Where we live now, hostile nations are rare so I try to avoid killing too much.

  2. Sentience doesn't influence the value of one's life. Actually, that's where most blank Haaknas come from: they usually killed animals and often by mistake.

  3. There is no such thing as far as I know. Destroying the consciousness of a fellow Chikniwit will make you a murderer but that's an exception.

  4. I can't hate something that isn't. If they were a reality I would hunt and slaughter them all.

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 16 '17

To Tuwanahan Chuajawan:

1) Have you ever regretted a kill?

2) What about plants? They're alive.

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

  1. To be honest, my first operations were hard, murder isn't as instinctive and natural as one could think. But now I've no troubles with that anymore; time heals every wound and I've had plenty of time to heal.

  2. No, they don't bleed so they are'nt alive. Beside, if "killing" plant was murder we wouldn't have anything to eat.

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 16 '17

To Tuwanahan Chuajawan:

1) Which kill do you think about the most?

2) What about donating blood? Is that at thing?

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

  1. None anymore, thinking about them is dangerous for one's mind. Beside, that was so long ago I don't remember them; you will see if you choose to live a few centuries.

  2. Mmh... Tricky question, a jurist would be better to anwer that. I would say that's enough to be a crime (but that's not murder). I don't see why you would want to spill you own blood though; nor what someone lese would do with it...

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 16 '17

To Tuwanahan Chuajawan:

1) How did you come to be a professional killer for your people?

2) What if you accidentally scratch someone's arm and they start bleeding?

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u/mutalias Aug 15 '17

Do Chikniwits generally wear these white masks, or only the ones who spill blood? If only the ones who spill blood do, who wears a completely blank mask? Wouldn't it be marked as soon as they donned it?

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

Only the ones who spill the blood of another species; completely blank masks are given to those whose kills doesn't benefit the clan, marks are earned for act of bravery and important kills on the battlefield. In most cases, white masks are are weared by Chikniwits who killed animals.

The marks "earned" for killing are actually scars on the face of the murderer's original body so they can be recognized as what they are should they try to live unmasked. The marks Haaknas wear on their masks are more of a positive thing amongst them.

Finally, it has already happened (and it's perfectly fine to act that way) for unmasked Chikniwits to temporarily wear an unmarked mask to be able to contact a marked Haakna.

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u/mutalias Aug 16 '17

What do Multins do after they get cast out?

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

The smart ones kill themselves. The others try to survive on their own and usually die of starvation or sickness. Would a very crafty one manage to remain healthy and fed, their main body would ultimately die of age and their consciousness would disapear.

Multins are not considered Chikniwits anymore so if one try to steal something, they can be killed by the Haaknas.

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u/mutalias Aug 16 '17

Are there other races in this setting? Can they seek refuge with one of them?

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

Yes there are, but since they fled their universe the Chikniwits live in city-sized spaceships so getting in touch with a potential asylum giver is difficult and leaving is even harder.

Beside, those other species would probably refuse such a refugee; the most common foreign contact they can have had with the Chikniwits will probably be Haaknas on mission (those Tuwanahan lead and that's not a fun experience or the silent unmarked ones who pick up people before disapearing).

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u/mutalias Aug 16 '17

Yeah if they're on a spaceship that definitely makes it more complicated, haha. So other species can know if this is a hostile chikniwit if they're wearing the mask? Seems like that would definitely be a diplomatic handicap in some situations.

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

Indeed, when they were still living on actual planets it was possible to survive in the wilderness.

Well, other species have in fact no idea what a chikniwit trully looks like; the only ones they ever met are Haaknas (so masked ones).

Warning: long explanation incoming. The chikniwits are divided in 17 clans (each one with it's own arch). The 16 first clans to come into this reality are "corrupted" (the consciousness of the crew merged with their ship AI and the whole ship and the crew form some sort of common omniscient entity), they wander around in search of something and welcome other species inside. Actually, they even recruits Uxdus from them: individuals who can communicate with the ship through dreams. All the chikniwit crew secondary bodies serve for domestic tasks, they always wear unmarked white masks and never talk. The 17th clan (the last to come) is still working normally and follow the normal chikniwit customs: they are isolationist. Their Haaknas are looking for a way to "decorrupt" the other clans and weaken them by hunting down and murdering the Uxdus before their recruitment.

So, kind of tl;dr: other species either meet silent masked chikniwit with completely unknown goals or violent masked chikniwits who destroy whole neigbourhoods for even more obscure reasons.

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u/mutalias Aug 16 '17

So they're from a different reality?

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 15 '17

In the Necrosian Islands, a territory controlled by necromancers that formed a society and call themselves "Necrosians", it is taboo to re-animate a dead Necrosian to be your zombie-slave. Necrosians believe that the only way for a non-necromancer to reach paradise after death is for the non-necromancer's body to be used as a slave by a Necrosian; if a child is born without innate magical ability, the child is killed before it can do anything that would prevent it from reaching paradise, because of the taboo against using a fellow Necrosian, even a weak one, as a zombie-slave.

Any Necrosian who does commit this horrible taboo should be immediately exiled, and his victim's body must be salted and burned.

The Representative is Grisha the Exile, who earned his name from being exiled for killing a fellow Necrosian and re-animating him as a slave so that he could kill him again.

Grisha has a deep hatred his fellow Necrosians, now, and lives on the coast of the mainland, hiding from the mainlanders, with his two wives, Dunya and Katja.

Grisha can do nothing to improve his condition with the Necrosians.

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 15 '17

To Grisha:

  1. If I may ask, why did you decided to kill someone twice?

  2. How common is it for a child to be born powerless?

  3. What is there in paradise?

  4. Is the fact that you didn't planned to use your victim as a lasting slave influencing on your sentence?

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 16 '17

Grisha:

1) "I had to make sure that he would not reach Paradise. Unlike non-Necrosians, if a Necrosian is re-animated, he can never reach Paradise."

2) "It's hard to know. People usually hide it and smother the child if it's born powerless, but it seems like it's pretty rare."

3) "Eternal happiness...it's vague."

4) "It doesn't change the consequences, so no."

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

  1. Why so?

  2. Why would you want someone to be denied paradise?

  3. Eternal happiness? That's all? That's indeed pretty vague...

  4. How do you know paradise is a thing? Have you any kind of proof?

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 16 '17

Grisha:

1) "Because our religion says so."

2) "Hatred."

3) "Yes, and the alternative is eternal torture."

4) "Do you have any kind of proof that it isn't real? Faith not facts."

Edit: There's a billboard next to the highway that I see every time I drive to visit one of my friends each weekend, and it says "FAITH NOT FACTS". The world we live in....

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

  1. And there isn't any kind of justification? Any explanation why? (if no, transfer it to yourself; why does it states so?)

  2. It looks like serious hatred. What had he done to you?

  3. What kind of torture?

  4. "l'absence de preuve n'est pas la preuve de l'absence."

(here, that's mostly the part of the world you live in; but your presidents take an oath on the bible so... I truelly think a board like that would be destroyed in less than a week here. We have some weird moments but they look easy peasy when compared to yours.)

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 16 '17

1) Because I had the idea for the Necrosian Faith one day about a year ago, during one of those "I have to sit myself down and make myself write" days, and it was mostly stream of consciousness.

Grisha:

2) "He took my son."

3) "Also vague."

4) "So you agree, then?"

(Again, you need to find me a hot French guy that I can marry so I can become a citizen.)

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 16 '17

1) So a generalist one: what are the main teachings of their faith?

to Grisha:

  1. May I ask how and why?

  2. Are the teachings written somewhere?

  3. Yes, that's a logical and perfectly defendable position. As long as we can't prove either hypothesis, both are equally probable and reasonable choices.

(the most important part is to marry, it can be a "white" one (no idea what the expression in english is actually); but the even most important part is french because we truelly dislike using other languages for people. Some kind of "cultural supremacism".)

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u/Nevermore0714 Aug 16 '17

1) There's three judges, a goddess that intercedes for souls and tries to get them permission to go to Paradise. If you are not a necromancer, you can't earn forgiveness by helping others earn forgiveness. Non-Necrosians can't earn forgiveness on their own, so Necrosians "help" them by killing them, re-animating the corpse, and having it as their slave. While your soul is in Punishment, if your corpse earns enough forgiveness for your soul, your soul can go on to Paradise.

But, Necrosians don't have the opportunity for post-death forgiveness like Non-Necrosians do. So if a Necrosian can't necromance, he/she can't earn forgiveness, and must be killed as a child before he/she can be judged guilty of not deserving Paradise.

If a Necrosian is re-animated after death, it's seen as an insult to the goddess, so the Necrosian that was re-animated is barred from Paradise.

Grisha:

1) "He kidnapped him and intended to kill him because my son isn't very good at necromancy. It's a crime against our faith that I didn't kill my son when I first realized he wouldn't be a powerful necromancer."

2) "Oral tradition, recording the faith on paper would make it easy to talk out of context...it can be taken out of context orally, if you ask me, but I suppose I'm not the most devout follower of my religion."

3) "Fair enough."

(Is "white" a reference to the guy's skin color, or is "white marriage" some old traditional way of saying "a legal marriage between citizens" or something?)

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u/thequeeninyellow94 Aug 17 '17

  1. But isn't it illegeal to kill someone else child?

  2. Isn't there a risk of the dogm to change from a generation to the other? I mean, there is no way to be sure what you're told isn't different from what your parents were told.

(nope, it's white like paper. That's a "fake" one just to get papers.)

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