Crisis Cycles

Culture Name: The Nation of Koonkia

Banner Colour: Pale Green

Government and Leader: Votu Sapeni Ibisu - A great-grand-daughter descendant of Matriarch Kotol Ibisu, young and spirited and violent. She took control of the leadership of Koonkia with her pack's support, and pushed for the movement of returning to the surface world, finding a way to break past the seals and carving new entrances to the surface. Koonkia still has a slight matriarchal bent, but leadership is more based on who can be convinced to follow who rather than any respect for the position itself. Votu herself claimed leadership of the movement of Koonkia by murdering rival leaders of note of the rest of the younger generations until all followed her pack eventually, to form a great enough movement behind her. Despite that, when it comes to violence and fights, she doesn't hold too much of a grudge and is personable enough, enjoying a good laugh and scrap and takes set-backs on the chin with a grin.

Society: Koon's back baby! And they're super ready to cause problems on purpose. Especially for their old enemies of the Republic. As a culture, they rely heavily on meeting during the night, preparing to hide underground or in dark, isolated places during the day. They tend to live in packs, emotionally tight groups of 4-5 running about the land, spreading word of mouth through to other packs of their culture and the words of Koonkia. They still loath the republic and what it stands for though, holding an inherited grudge for the intent of how they were forced beneath the surface, even if they have become stronger for it. Their culture has lost much of their music and art in the brutal underworld, only retaining any value to the beauty of motion and battle. Works are valued by the effort and struggle shown in them, and that which destroys the old to make way for the new.

The nation of Koonkia is a branch of the main colony of Koon that remains below, although the proportion of the split population-wise favours Koonkia to Koon. There is no real grudge between the new nations though, as both are merely following their 'freedom' and pursuing destinies. 

At the moment, the branch of Koonkia would be considered, fairly warlike and confident and brazen in their culture, but they see this as more of just a common way of living and are looking more to just explore the world above again and enjoy themselves.

Species: Elves (Ghouls) Oh boy, how have these fellas changed over the decades. It's been grim down here. Still long-lived, still tall and delicate seeming with excenuated features, large eyes and wide smiles. Their features now have a much more feral age than their 'low elves' ancestors, with many jagged teeth. Their eyes have turned oily black with red and orange and pink irises and their hair has left them entirely revealing worn, tea green, frayed and battered and rough and pallid looking skin. Their stance is a little more stooped and limbs a little more elongated, with long large hands, and sharp looking talonish black fingernails. A smell of death and rot permuates them and parts of their flesh seems necrotic and deadish, with even strong, jerking, organic-slick tendons visible to the naked air. They'd look most unfriendly indeed if not for at least their very, very wide and toothy grins and unblinking eye-contact. They're very good at eye-contact. Also gone is their ability to work magic to any real degree, faded away with their conversion to this, to be fair, incredibly, frightening resilient and swift and strong physical form. The ability to metabolise practically any form of meat and flesh, be it heavily rotted, poisoned or just plain weird has been blessed upon them too. Beyond the stench of their bodies, there is also almost an aura of dust about them that can mark their presence, that builds up quickly if they remain anywhere too long that hangs in the air easily and can lead to coughing fits easily.

Stances on the three changes:
-DISCOVERY - Yes. This is actually something they're pretty into now. They figure with a couple of new generations past now, it's time for their return to the surface world rather than being trapped underground and hiding out down here, there's been some interesting stuff certainly, but for now, they'd rather come back up to see what's changed and to see the stars again, feeling a calling in their blood to do so, it's time to carve themselves a slice of the surface and enjoy the night life.

-GHOULS - Er...Yes. They're very much in favour of ghouls actually, and are super flattered by this literature being handed around too. Really helps counter some of this negative PR they were expecting. They aren't ashamed of their state at all, the younger brood anyway and believe that throwing off the old way of life is a sensible path for those that choose to take it. This is a way of increasing some chaos in the world, and adding a little more wonder to things surely.

-HALF-ism - Complicated, but learning towards No. With the decline of their magical abilities, their ability to partake in visions naturally seems to have withered with it, where potent elixers and drugs used to work on them, over time, and with the strange mutations and potions they used to try and make themselves survive underground, now only through the consumption of fresh flesh and blood does any spark of magic or vision shine in their souls.
Some other beliefs from other ghouls outside of Koonkia think that Half-ism could be a way to lead to an ideal form, where they return to the beauty and magical power both of their ancestors and of the fiction depicting them, and rumours spread throughout Koonkia of Elves/Ghouls that have reached this ideal state, being able to wield magical power, to not always feel cold and itchy, to be beautiful to all and to be able to keep down veggies and be omnivores again as well as being a brutal face wrecker, except even more so! This is more valued by some of the older Elves of Koonkia though. The younger ones have adopted a newer philosophy from the origins of Half-ism and ancient Koon beliefs of taking in disease and growing from struggle. They believe that they have already ascended in a manner, feeding on blood and flesh like the mosquito's they once bonded with, surviving the brutal existence of the underground, the conquering of spirit over flesh to create their new undead-ish existence, beginning to throw off the slavery of mortality to a degree with the realisation that this world is but a dream of a universal mind all sentience is a fraction of.

Major cultural influence: Free Koonibisu Matriarchate - They still respect the mentalities of seeking individual freedom, the strength that grows from struggle and disease and plagues and disasters, and fuck the Republic in particular anyway!