RE: Fantastic Mastermind
08-03-2019, 05:32 AM
"The Thuuip? Those fluffy little buggers? Those little dudes who dance when they talk? The nerds of the Harmonious Jungle? They're D.I.S.C.I.P.L.I.N.E?" Well, yeah. Duh, or as they would say, p-p-pthp-pop.
The Thuuip are bipedal anteater-lookin' folk. They don't got no teeth, so their language sounds a whole lot like, thhwooop-p-**aapk, *'s being whistles, of course. They commonly know a form of sign language which, in fast conversation, makes them a little wobbley, forcing them to shift around a little to keep momentum without tripping themselves up. This results in conversations that look, to an outsider, like the most adorable little dance.
One looks at one of these little dudes and thinks "Oh they have such long fluffy tails, and sweet faces, and cute little robes, and they're all so dorky lookin'- how cute!" And then one opens their oft-closed fists, revealing the several inches of giant claws on each of their four fingers, and they go, "Oh! That's why nobody's conquered this nice little island since they settled here." Which is the correct assumption to make. Diggin' claws, from the ancient days of clobbering the tops of ant hills to get their sweet prizes, chiseling termite mounds for grub, ripping tree trunks apart (slowly) for their precious precious treats. Gone are those days, and thank goodness, but they still manage to have a little threat up their sleeves if the need arises. Not that that's how they prefer to take care of trouble, very uncivilized- right, they're also known for being a bit (and don't DARE say this to their faces) snooty. There is a perfect angle to a beautiful stripe, there are perfect curves in branches and perfect burrows for ants, there are perfect shapes and perfect color combinations, and so help them, there is a perfect way to handle magic! It is so irritating that so much of the world can't get on board with it! The politics of the greater world are a chore, but there were already too many H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. aligned polities, and, well, the PERFECT alignments would all be to a side and remove the NEED for sides, but in the circumstances of the Euphomet's change to H.A.R.M.O.N.Y... This was the second-best thing. It is QUITE POSSIBLE they will unalign when the balance of HARMONY and DISCIPLINE changes.
The Harmonious Jungle, "Pka*", is their home, a forested island. It is called the Harmonious jungle, funny enough, in the sense that harmony can mean nothing is amiss, and here, it is not. Each and every building, the vast ant-farms, and the plant life- they are all perfectly symmetrical, and laid out in a pattern over the snowflake-like island. Water in the in-between spots and all. This did not all naturally grow that way, of course, but with techniques akin to bonzai nudging and a specialty in Structural Magics, the Thuuuip have managed to 'tame' their jungle, into... I mean it's still a jungle, but a PERFECT, p e r f e c t, jungle. In the center is a mass that looks like a volcano from far away, but is actually the Central Ant Farm, whose caverns reach deep under the surface, and which houses the Scholar's Crystal, a gigantic and not-technically-magical thing from which the Thuuip learned the Structural Magics. Crystal structure, in concept and practice, taught them all the things they've become famous for with its intense study, like Thuuipa Runework (the perfect alignments of their shapes have varied minor magics to them), and Crystomancy, which, through creating perfect structures in certain (crystalline) configurations, allows them to make other things structure themselves in those manners. Sounds confusing, but in effect they can just kinda make non-living things adhere to a strict locking structure, which allows them great feats of construction. People might say "Hey, doesn't that mostly sound kind of hippy-dippy naturey, just, in an annoying kind of way?" But the Thuuip say Thw***pow, which is a very rude word for telling some uneducated bonemuncher to be quiet and chew their wheat or something. Definitely a big mageocracy, with the head Rune Smith and Crystomancer running the place. Most of their exports are unneeded ores and crystals from the Central Ant Farm, which in addition to the double duty of housing that crystal, does triple duty by being a huge deep mine. Kinda important spot.
The Thuuip are bipedal anteater-lookin' folk. They don't got no teeth, so their language sounds a whole lot like, thhwooop-p-**aapk, *'s being whistles, of course. They commonly know a form of sign language which, in fast conversation, makes them a little wobbley, forcing them to shift around a little to keep momentum without tripping themselves up. This results in conversations that look, to an outsider, like the most adorable little dance.
One looks at one of these little dudes and thinks "Oh they have such long fluffy tails, and sweet faces, and cute little robes, and they're all so dorky lookin'- how cute!" And then one opens their oft-closed fists, revealing the several inches of giant claws on each of their four fingers, and they go, "Oh! That's why nobody's conquered this nice little island since they settled here." Which is the correct assumption to make. Diggin' claws, from the ancient days of clobbering the tops of ant hills to get their sweet prizes, chiseling termite mounds for grub, ripping tree trunks apart (slowly) for their precious precious treats. Gone are those days, and thank goodness, but they still manage to have a little threat up their sleeves if the need arises. Not that that's how they prefer to take care of trouble, very uncivilized- right, they're also known for being a bit (and don't DARE say this to their faces) snooty. There is a perfect angle to a beautiful stripe, there are perfect curves in branches and perfect burrows for ants, there are perfect shapes and perfect color combinations, and so help them, there is a perfect way to handle magic! It is so irritating that so much of the world can't get on board with it! The politics of the greater world are a chore, but there were already too many H.A.R.M.O.N.Y. aligned polities, and, well, the PERFECT alignments would all be to a side and remove the NEED for sides, but in the circumstances of the Euphomet's change to H.A.R.M.O.N.Y... This was the second-best thing. It is QUITE POSSIBLE they will unalign when the balance of HARMONY and DISCIPLINE changes.
The Harmonious Jungle, "Pka*", is their home, a forested island. It is called the Harmonious jungle, funny enough, in the sense that harmony can mean nothing is amiss, and here, it is not. Each and every building, the vast ant-farms, and the plant life- they are all perfectly symmetrical, and laid out in a pattern over the snowflake-like island. Water in the in-between spots and all. This did not all naturally grow that way, of course, but with techniques akin to bonzai nudging and a specialty in Structural Magics, the Thuuuip have managed to 'tame' their jungle, into... I mean it's still a jungle, but a PERFECT, p e r f e c t, jungle. In the center is a mass that looks like a volcano from far away, but is actually the Central Ant Farm, whose caverns reach deep under the surface, and which houses the Scholar's Crystal, a gigantic and not-technically-magical thing from which the Thuuip learned the Structural Magics. Crystal structure, in concept and practice, taught them all the things they've become famous for with its intense study, like Thuuipa Runework (the perfect alignments of their shapes have varied minor magics to them), and Crystomancy, which, through creating perfect structures in certain (crystalline) configurations, allows them to make other things structure themselves in those manners. Sounds confusing, but in effect they can just kinda make non-living things adhere to a strict locking structure, which allows them great feats of construction. People might say "Hey, doesn't that mostly sound kind of hippy-dippy naturey, just, in an annoying kind of way?" But the Thuuip say Thw***pow, which is a very rude word for telling some uneducated bonemuncher to be quiet and chew their wheat or something. Definitely a big mageocracy, with the head Rune Smith and Crystomancer running the place. Most of their exports are unneeded ores and crystals from the Central Ant Farm, which in addition to the double duty of housing that crystal, does triple duty by being a huge deep mine. Kinda important spot.