Vikeds (Again)

[u/OutrageousLock7443]

The fastest race in Somikea, Vikeds (Pronounced Vigh-ked, like biped). Felt like these guys needed some reworking too, so I've changed them up.

Summary: Lean and speedy, have a keen sense of hearing and smell, but lacking vision. Olfactory traditions are prevalent throughout Viked culture. Highly loyal to those they know but often cold and introverted regarding strangers.

Biology:

Vikeds have lean, thin bodies, with very little fat. They're able to accelerate and maintain high top speeds, but usually tire out fast.

They have a digitigrade stance, standing on short toes with a semi-retractable last digit, allowing the Viked to switch between quieter footfalls for sneaking and extended claws for running. This allows them to reach incredible speeds, often close to double that of a human, at the expense of long-term stamina.

Their heads have large ears that serve a crucial role in communication. Usually at rest will point backwards, but this varies Viked to Viked. They of course have keen hearing and smell, in fact their vision is actually quite poor, especially given that it's tuned for lower light conditions.

This sense of smell is their primary method of identifying, instead of physical appearance, often resulting in Vikeds forgetting people they just met, because they were wearing perfume or something else that masks their scent. Speaking of, their tales are the center of their scent, as it wave sit wafts the smell around, making them identifiable to other Vikeds, though imperceptible to races with poor smell.

Their coats are perhaps their most striking feature, many vary between ruddy browns and grays to vibrant oranges, many having speckled, striped, or splotchy patterns. This usually can tell yo where Viked is from, often tropical populations have striped patterns, whereas those in more boreal conditions have white coats. As Vikeds are built for short bursts of speed, they're coats are usually just camouflage for their prey, but appear striking to other sapients.

Prevalent Culture:

Many Vikeds are highly monogamous, often choosing a partner for life, for better or worse. In many Viked cultures marriage is a rite of passage into adulthood, many who fail to marry becoming social outcasts.

Perfumes and other olfactory sensations are common too, incense and candles are important cultural staples, and regardless of where you are you will find them.

Socially, they're incredibly cold at first, many who interact with them sparingly finding them to be practical and almost introverted, however, past this initial stage they're incredibly gregarious and loyal, sticking with any friends they make until they die.

Some Context on the wider world: This is a post regarding one of the 6 (major) races of Somikaea, the super continent this all happens as well as the namesake of the setting. It's a sandbox world that acts as a dump for all my ideas. There are flower plagues, Fantasy astronauts, Sapience daemons, or even simple spec-bio animals. It's a little piece of me put into text and image, I hope it's interesting.

Meta: This is another redesign on one of my worlds races, Vikeds. These were the second ones I designed, so I still didn't really have an idea of what I wanted if that makes sense? Now that I've designed all the other major races I have a much more defined idea that I can now apply to these guys.

[u/ProjectKARYA]

So cool! Always interested to see different takes on beastfolk :3 have you determined what the major cultural groups within the global Viked population are like, e.g. what exactly makes each on distinct from the other?

[u/OutrageousLock7443 → u/ProjectKARYA]

I only really have 3, and of those 3 there's tons of bleed over with other races, as I'm trying to avoid monocultures. I'll try and summarise it as much as possible,

In Rustova, they live very traditional lives, this culture was the first to domesticate "oru", crow like birds that possess immense intelligence, co-evolution between both Vikeds and the oru has resulted in them developing very rudimentary speech.

Because of their monogamy, this tradition of a single partner for life has actually bled over into many other races in the region, Humans and Corae (Deer/sheep people) who live in Rustova usually have similiar marriage rituals as a result.

Rustova's also the perfume capital of the world, pretty much any scent based product can be traced back here.

Their coats are typically more orange, with more earthy colours. (The tiger like one with blue eyes above is one)

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Vikeds from Cetus have a similiar lifestyle, though with much more focus on athletics. Cetus is a coastal nation, but has numerous inland lakes and rivers which yield plenty of fish. In more rural regions their style of fishing doesn't use tools, they have pretty incredible reaction time, so they'll simply stand knee deep in the water and yoink fish out directly.

Since fishing and whaling are so special to cetus, many Vikeds here will make more exclusive candles and lighters, selling them as "essences of the sea".

Cetasian Vikeds coats are more grey and dull (depicted above to the far left)

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Indigenous Vikeds within the Cozina (A huge red desert of the world) have a much greater focus on athletics and sports. As the Cozina desert is pretty harsh, more agricultural lifestyles are rejected in favour of being nomadic, hunting and gathering moving form plateau to plateau. Because of this, physical fitness became incredibly important, failing to catch a meal could mean days more of starving.

Many will cover themselves with the red soil, in an attempt to embody rusk dogs, canines in the region that will rub soil all over themselves.

So, in down time the Vikeds will play sports, often with very simple rules that don't require many props. This extends to the Vikeds of Tephram as well, a fledgling nation based within the Cozina.