Baroka (Faction)

The Baroka are a pre-spaceflight monastic society with a simple but strict doctrine uniting them worldwide. What they lack in number and mobility they make up with individual ingenuity and group industriousness. They operate under a communal childraising structure, as everything else is. See Baroka for information on their physiology.

The Landkind live inland, far away from the seas. Their homes tend to be heavily hollowed out caves and mountains.

The Seabound live on the ice of the planet’s wide and solid oceans. They make castles and walled communities with ice blocks and use traded molebeast furs to protect their own health.

Separate from the above two, the Maro are the government heads and have a separate home for running and connecting the planet, located between three steep mountains in a less weather-assaulted valley.

Since there is very little distinguishing one from the other, differences in the sexes do not play a role.

Religion plays an enormous part of any Barokan's life, as the Tenets govern the base conditions for their society to follow.

The fable of their religion is simple in nature. It follows the Sky Mother (The Sun), and that all Baroka are her children. The story goes that the land was once filled with much yalla★ many years ago, but the Emptiness (Void/Night) pushed her away and brought the Cold. The Sky Mother gave her children protection in the form of the Tenets and their scales, and told them to be patient, and wait for her to return. Each day she tries to return, the emptiness fights back for an equal amount of time.

★Yalla is the Barokan word for greenery, but is mostly used to describe their moss these days.

The Baroka follow several core tenets that they follow with absolute devotion. Each adolescent is forced to memorize this as soon as they can read.

• The Many Survives as a Whole (Translation: Communities stand strong against adversity)
• The Strength of the Many is your Strength (Translation: You are not alone)
• Bring a part of the Many with you, always. (Translation: Never go out alone.)
• The Old must give way to the New. (Translation: Do not stand grow old and stand in the way of progress)
• Only the Many can raise the New. (Translation: The village must raise the young, not the biological parents.)
• Never travel without the Mother (Translation: Only go out during the day.)
• Those that hold sway shall lead the Many. (Maro take charge, yo)
• Only the one who holds the greatest sway shall be named Disciple. (Translation: Horns denominate telepathic range, so the disciple must have the largest horns)
• The Disciple’s word is law (Translation: ‘Nuff said.)

The Baroka as a compound society have decidedly few traditions as a whole, but have plenty from commune to commune. These are too varied to mention in any sort of list, but the general traditions are easy enough to name. Yearly, when the “summer” solstice occurs, there is a mass congregation (For those that can make it) with the Maro leaders and the communes in the Three Brothers, three mountains that form an equilateral triangle and is where the seat of government is located. The mass congregation involves hymns, prayers, and the like for the coming year. Ceremonial artifacts generally tend to have focusing lenses in them for the purpose of gathering light, as much of their culture revolves around such an artifact. Lenses are usually a display of status and devotion, as it allows one to focus the Mother's energy into one point. Oftentimes, one will take an old, shed scale and burn their clan's symbol on it as a form of jewelery.

Barokan rule is bound to the Tenets. A heirarchy based on horn size is in place. There isn't much bureacracy to be had here, as those that try to break this structure are exiled (See: Crime), so there aren't any politicians. In other words, this is a religiously-defined monastic hierocracy.

The structure is very simple. It begins with the communes, which are close-nit groups of Baroka that function like a monastic collective, except usually a little larger. In population centers, these communes tend to live in the same general area of the city. At the head of these communes are the Maro, who direct their respective group in life and so on. At the very head of government, there is the Mother’s Disciple. The Disciple controls everything, including the Landkind and the Seabound. He is aided by two successors called the Initiate and the Proclaimant, and by a council of 10, which in turn are aided by whatever Maro leave their communes to join their efforts and receive direction. They are separated from the Landkind and Seabound, leaving daily matters and affairs to the Behemoth and Leviathan respectively, but the Disciple still gives direction to the entire society through the Proclaimant.

The Disciple is not elected. Rather, the one with the largest horns and sharpest mind wins the seat. Hands down. When there is a debate between whose horns are largest, the one with the sharper mind takes the reigns. A contest is held between many intelligent disciplines, decided on by the rulers of both the Seabound and Landkind, in order to determine the winner.

• Disciple: Subar’To
• Initiate (second in command): Borche'Bi
• Proclaimant (in charge of keeping contact between Land/Sea, among other things): Suqe'Ro
• Behemoth (ruler of the land): Numar'Tu
• Leviathan (ruler of the sea): Loma'Ga

There isn’t really any police force in the Baroka. Their survivalistic nature combined with semi-totalitarian rule, passiveness of the Barokans themselves, and a “biggest horns wins” rule pretty much sets their entire society on the track towards no standard crime.

Baroka do not kill each other. It goes against the communal instinct. Maro have less limits, and therefore have no problem putting their brethren in harm's way (usually for the sake of progress). This practice, while mostly frowned upon, is allowed if it advances knowledge in any way. The few Baroka that do not conform to traditional standards are either exiled or sent to the Disciple for testing purposes.

Because of their simplistic set of core guidelines, there is a lot that the Baroka simply don’t care about. Sex is not something done for pleasure in this society, and is the means to an end. The end being a child. Since children are raised by the village, the village tends to keep a close watch on the number of younglings at any given moment, Everything belongs to everybody, so the young are taught at a young age that nothing belongs to them, unless they are Marokan. Marokan are entitled to everything they see, so they are taught restraint instead.

There is the usual “Two parents raise one child” structure in place, but it quickly becomes “It takes a village to raise a child” after the hatchling stages.

In tandem with their deep, rumbling voices, their language has many lower tones. The “Ee” and other high-pitched vowel sounds are used sparingly, mainly because they usually cannot hear it. They distinguish between soft consonants like “R” in terms of pronunciation length.

Simple two-part system, with the family name coming after the given name. Monosyllabic given names and short family names are combined into one word. For the Maro, the names become disyllabic. Double “R” is an extended sound. Family names are from the particular commune that one hails from, rather than a multitude of families within a group. Family names are only used if one is away from home.

• T, G family names for Seabound (Subar’To, Torr’Ge, Vor’Te)
• R, B family names for Landkind ( Gite’Ra, Qor’be)

This section refers to fashion, architecture, and minor cultural details pertaining to style.

The Baroka don’t have much “fashion”. Mainly, the Landkind wear harnesses that they can hook a variety of storage type things up to, such as battery packs, backpacks, mining equipment, etc. The Seabound wear molebeast fur, if only to protect them from the hazardous weather of the flat ice oceans. The Maro tend to wear robes made out of molebeast skin with decoration from other creatures, based on whether they’re Landkind or Seabound. Though, for meetings with other communities, Representatives paint the symbol of their specific tribe on their bodies. Usually on the shoulder and the back of the neck. Both factions wear face-masks (Like warm muzzles except with more coverage) to shield their maws from the cold.

This has a clear discrepancy between the two different types of Baroka.

The Landkind architecture is simple and Spartan in nature. Since they are mainly forced to hollow out mountains in order to survive the more drastic cold of the night, the halls are narrow with many air pockets for wind to travel into and be kept from spreading. Molebeast fur is used for doors (or sealants) when rocks and metal aren’t, and there is usual a central antechamber where a church or temple is raised for their ceremony and congregation.

Igloos aren’t uncommon for the Seabound, with ice aplenty. However, they tend to build more massive ice “castles” just for the sake of protecting the full communes from the awful winds of the land. These castles aren’t like the European sort, but more like the Russian palaces with domes and curves all over to throw the wind off, and very few windows to speak of.

Barokan technology, like their religion, relies much on the sun for many things (Mostly solar power for electricity. Agriculture, on the other hand, is far more limited.

The Baroka farm a specific, highly nutritious and hardy) moss called yalla for a primary portion of their diet. The moss also helps with the construction of their solar panels. Mushrooms are also cultivated (by the landkind), though they haven’t figured out what to do with them besides eat them. Otherwise, they have few plants to speak of.

Because the few creatures above ground are as hardy or hardier than the Baroka, livestock is mainly limited to either large mole beasts that tunnel underground, or smaller, similar tunneling creatures that inhabit the paths the large ones make. The furs are used for clothing and for trades with the Seabound. Bones, due to their high density (tunneling requires sturdy bones) are modified for tools, handles, casings, and pretty much anything that can be used is use.. For the Seabound, their options are limited to fish, fish, and more fish. Holes are cut in the ice to do so, much like an eskimo would.

Solar Panels – A lack of geothermal power had led to a massive push in solar research, increasing efficiency and output greatly. This also came about as a solution to burning coal in the depths of the earth, where smoke would kill them from inhalation in the mining tunnels.

Capacitors - In addition to solar panels, the Baroka have developed advanced capacitors to store energies for future use in event of inclement weather or mechanical error, as well as portable use in mechanical tools.

Mining Lasers – Since commonly useable resources are so difficult to find on Barokaa, they have developed advanced lasers that rely on those capacitors so that the Landkind can mine deeply more easily

Landline communications – They haven’t bothered inventing wireless because landlines accomplish all they need easily.

Coal and oil heaters/furnaces – They can’t really make many vehicles because the oil might freeze overnight (if it isn't stored properly), but they do utilize coal and oil as heat and light sources underground. Where solar isn't used, of course. Oil and coal, given their dangerous carbon dioxide emissions, are generally not used very much unless a chimney is made, For the Seabound, this is more of a “how much can we get away with?” sort of deal, given the amount of ice they live on and around.

Fiber Optics – The Baroka have highly developed fiber optics, which are fully utilized in the pursuit of more efficient use of their solar paneling and mining lasers, among other minor uses.

Computing – The Baroka have very limited computers, mainly due to the lack of need. Essentially armed with the green-text IBM desktops of yore, but no internet yet. They use these computers to store collective information for research. Though, these can use the phone lines to transfer data between them.

In the early stages of the species, the commune structure was still in place, though Marokan were far less prevalent due to their curiosity getting them into deadly confrontations with the wildlife. This was before the big freeze, however. The species itself tended towards the more extreme climates above and below the equator, living in temperate and colder areas.

Multiple passing supermassive asteroids (Believed to be the Emptiness by an early civilized Barokans), prompted the creation of the tenets by the wisest of that era. As the planet grew colder and colder, the Baroka adapted, each successive generation possessing a thicker coating of scales than before. At some point, the ice was so solid that it could be lived upon, so the north most Barokan encampments expanded, becoming the first Seabound of their kind.

The Marokan, as written in by the Tenets, became more and more prominent in society, developing new methods for their people to survive. The first messenger methods involved digging tunnels between Landkind to survive both the few predators and the hazardous conditions. Eventually, when the Maro figured out how to make wire, telephone landlines were added into the tunnels. The Seabound took far longer to receive telecommunications, thanks to the dangers of the ice. A global government formed due to the traditions enshrined in the Tenets, and the Maro pooled their collective intelligence. Electricity was discovered mainly due to luck, and soon the Maro utilized their most prominent natural resources: light and moss. More experimentation with resources from the mines, and they discovered capacitors and batteries. Even more advancements to make things easier for the Baroka themselves, portable mining lasers and vehicles (Though very few vehicles exist – They are more like monitoring stations for the Maro that drive out and return.)

The Baroka made first contact with the Chelti, being given technology to study and reverse engineer. They've been doing so, progressing along toward the age of flight and hopefully into space travel…

This page was originally created on 2012/12/24 20:01 by Moogle.

This was approved by Wes on 2013/02/13¹⁾.