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bonefall · 8 months

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Can we hear about the Guardians too? I forget if you've already talked about them, but what about their afterlife? Where'd they come from? What're their ideas about gender, culturally?

Anon you got me feeling like an elder telling stories to kits again lmao. All righty. Elder Bones gonna teach you a bit about the Guardians.

Troutfur and I are building out a rough draft for their language too so I'll give you a preview of that, too. Let's start there, in fact.

GUARDMEW

Is an SVO order language, just like English. We Cultivate Roses. Subject, Verb, Object. This is going to come up a lot in BB!ASC when Berryheart, the Evil Educator, critiques a ton of Sunbeam's grammar.

Unlike Clanmew with each verb morpheme being used in full to describe a past action and shortened for present tense (pabrpabrpabr vs pabrpabr) Guardmew uses suffixes, also just like English. Sunbeam picked up the habit from her mentor, and Berryheart HATES that she will say "Pabrpabryr" instead of "Pabrpabrpabr."

But anyway, forget the setup we've got going for ASC. Let's just talk a little more about Guardmew.

It is in the same lingustic family as Clanmew, descending from Lakemew. Of all the living languages, Guardmew is closest to the ancestral form, since it was born directly from refugees fleeing eastward, from the tyranny of Holly Leaves.

They also have the concept of Threat Level, with pronouns built around skill for people, and benignness for everything else. That means, they have completely separate pronouns for cats, but classify plants and animals based on how they act on the environment.

For examples, their leader Spiresight shares the same pronouns as their "elders" and most experienced craftsmen. The building they live in will use the "respected object" pronoun. A plant with an infectious mold, or an invasive weed, will have a "malignant" pronoun.

CULTIVATION CULTURE

While Tribe cats encourage traveling, Guardians are the opposite. They believe in the value of setting down roots, and cultivating your homespace. If you go somewhere, they expect you to take care of it well.

The Church that Dovewing found is not the only place where Guardians live in that geographic region. They tend to name their groups after a major landmark-- she found the Guardians of the Spire.

They manage their land in a way that attracts wild animals, and then attempt to selectively hunt the animals that live on that range. In a way, it's like a carnivore's approach to agriculture.

If the Clans have a specialty in combat, and the Tribe has a specialty in hunting, Guardians can be considered to have a specialty in construction.

AFTERLIFE SYSTEM

If they have a Hell, it was made by Sol. But I'm not sure if they have one of those.

They DO have a heaven though-- they call it The Firmament.

The Firmament is the ground, but it's specifically your home soil. To Guardians, the more people who are buried somewhere, the more power that ground has. They believe that buried bones are proof that the soul still remains within the Firmament, and remains are NEVER to be disturbed.

They try to avoid the graveyards of humans and bury their prey neatly in "mass graves," pits dug neatly and only totally covered bi-weekly. Because there's such a strong taboo against disturbing remains, they are VERY careful about where Guardians are buried, and try to cover them with carefully arranged stones and woody plants so these graves are not disturbed.

After death, the flesh of the body must rot away into soil. They believe that this allows you to experience The Firmament TRULY, as a mole or an earthworm does. It becomes a new world, and you no longer see dirt, but the connections between everything.

You could describe this as "Monotheistic." They believe that when your flesh melts away, you join The Firmament. Your bones are like a conduit of the wishes you have for your loved ones still above the ground... but, these too will someday melt away! That's part of it too!

The Sky, in contrast, is a terrible, almost evil thing. In English we may say, "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." A Guardian would say, "When the sky rains, the firmament grows mushrooms." Weather is something to be anticipated and handled, ESPECIALLY storms.

New spirits are made from what the mother eats of the Firmament. Berries feed the mice, mice feed the cats, cats return to the Firmament. A cycle, forever.

LEADER POWER

NOTE: I should rename this BB concept, "leader power." Not all cats with these unique abilities, given by an Afterlife System are political leaders-- they're spiritual ones.

One example of this is the Groundskeeper of the Guardians. They are thought to fully reincarnate, taking new bodies over and over. When a Groundskeeper dies, they are put into the same grave as their previous incarnation, and it is believed they gain more power with each death and rebirth.

But, they are not given political authority. They have CONSTRUCTIVE authority-- advising new projects and acting as a liasion between the Firmament and the living.

Cats who are identified as Groundskeeper change their name to their old incarnation. Spiresight is the leader of the Guardians of the Spire. They're identified on their birthday, so all Groundskeepers begin at exactly 1 year old, at least 1 year after the death of the old incarnation.

Spiresight is able to "see" the world as an interred skeleton does, he is in a permanent state between life and death in their eyes.

He can "feel" when something new enters his Firmament, gage it based on its paws, weight, movement. He can can tell when a plant is sick based on how strong its roots are, or if something is being pulled up. He knows where all the skeletons are, feels the worms in the dirt, and can tell the weather from the sway of the plants above.

He can tell if a plant is sick, but not animals. Because of this, the Groundskeeper is NOT INCLUDED IN MEDICAL PROCEDURES. He may point a doctor in the way of good herbs, but all Guardians are expected to know medical knowledge significantly beyond first aid.

The Groundskeeper leads religious ceremonies, funerals, and new projects. He is socially expected to not leave the center of the territory too often, especially during storms. That aside, the Groundskeeper is allowed to have a life and family of their own, including adopting kits and having mates.

OTHER THINGS

Time for a closing list of random facts.

An adult member of the Guardians, fully trained, is called a Gardener.

They have an extreme and severe taboo against other supernatural entities. They believe that they are "of the sky" and harshly reject anything "unnatural."

This is likely because of Holly Leaves, who tried to force a star-based religion upon their ancestors.

The Guardians, like all societies, have their problems too. They don't welcome cats who return after a wander and heavily discourage leaving.

If you're going to leave, leave permanently. A dandelion seed does not return on the wind.

So returning cats, traders, and repeat visitors are treated more coldly on subsequent visits. Not always hostile-- but the welcome is not gracious.

Cats who do have to leave on a quest or for some reason have a "quarantine" period when they return. A cleansing ritual.

Kittens are named by their families, usually after consulting with the Groundskeeper. Names are often reused through generations.

A name carries association with whoever had it last; it's not quite a reincarnation so much as it is a "continuation"

Because of this, there's very rarely any new names. A cat who enters the Guardians keeps their old name, and it is entered into their "list" after they die.

This is how they get some weird ones, like Boots and Cinnamon.

When a Guardian does something awful, they're buried beyond the Firmament and their name is no longer used.

I haven't worked out their gender systems yet.

#Now try to go back to canon where they don't actually have any of this lmaoooooo #Hate how they never build out other cat cultures because they have to make the clans The Correct Way To Live #And oooough its so amazing and perfect and nothing else can compare #Shut up. Touch Firmament.#The Guardians wc #Better bones au #Man I need a tag for Cultural Overhauls #Like for all the outside groups im overhauling #In line with the spirituality overhauls #Heartstar's Rise

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