#xenogiology

[t34-mt]

qua'tuli and yarey'lu laying down in a sleeping room

beds can just be rugs on the floor with many pillows stuffed with juvenile feathers, stuffed mattresses on the floor, weaved sleeping mats, and so on. beds are generally on the floor, if not they could be a carved large hole in the wall to climb into. large family size hammocks are also appreciated, tho family-sized ones look more like a spider web than a typical hammock, a 1 person hammock is more for daily napping than sleeping through the night. Because yes, I've mentioned it once but maanuls and kyhuines typically nap during the hottest time of the day, and altuyur rotational period is 32 hours. within a day multiple solar eclipses happen because of the other gas giant moon (satmuh moon), while to us that is a crazy thing to witness to them, unless they're a little kid that just opened their eyes they do not freak out about it. It only lasts some minutes (apox 10-15 mins maybe)

But back to the sleeping stuff, beds could also have wooden (or other plant fiber material) "hood" that close off the bed from exterior things. A sort of cozy cocoon that i have yet to figure out how to draw properly. The best example to look at are rolluik bureaus, that have that wood door part that slides down to close it (I've got that type of desk lol!). Then again even those beds are not elevated like a typical European one would, beds stay on the floor unless its a hammock (obviously) or an elevated sleeping hole. Forgive me for the shirt art, but i haven't drawn the sleeping stuff yet , this is what id think the hole beds would look like, this one is more of a style like a large family, id think of the edges being really smoothed out

when sleeping they lightly curl up on themselves, if they have a kid that is small enough they almost wrap around them, closing the circle with their tail and head. since maanuls have a tuff of feathers at the end of their tail they usually cover their face with it, while kyhuines have a smooth tail end it doesn't stoop them from doing similar thing tho that skinny tail tip doesn't hide anything

i should one day draw real cave art of maanuls and kyhuines sleeping, i think of it as stylized so much that they become stupidly round balls, which is impossible for the to each in real life

[t34-mt]

northern winter uniform of GA soldiers, explanation on the history behind it under ->

21-06-23 edit:

Since GA is the first and last war altuyur had, well maanuls and kyhuines didn't know how to even battle properly. Many things related to that age have a sort of clumsy beginning, and so do uniforms. Firstly they used modified versions of the decorative armor that were originally used in theatrical plays, religious performances, and even sports. The modified versions had fewer metal pieces, and no decorations, but were completely inconvenient as they were not thought out for battle. Combined with the crazy temperature recorded in the battlegrounds (mostly in the southern desert) armors were just terrible! a literal oven. So quickly they abandoned the armor to just tissue, but uniforms stand out so much from how their clothing normally looks that looking back at them, it just feels alien to them. lifeless even. an example of an early armored uniform can be found here.

Now back to the northern uniform, when a small part of the north joined the red troupes by believing in their aggressive propaganda campaigns. They then had to make special uniforms for the recruits and soldiers, as in the north there are seasons when the temperatures get quite low. Much like what you have in western/central Europe, which makes the far north of altuyur stand out as the rest is hot with only 2 distinct seasons.

When making the northern winter uniforms they based it on already existing pieces of clothing (in this case basic northern winter hunting clothes with some pieces taken from dancing garments), but striping them off from any decoration, simplifying them to the bare minimum. Moving the ventilation holes to the side of the torso to protect the opperculums more, tho it makes them quite uncomfortable but recruits and soldiers just get used to it. The most "unique" thing about the uniforms is the patch on the arm with the person's name, and yet that piece is easily rippable, in case the owner dies so they can just rip it off and recycle it for new naive recruits that aren't even aware someone died in these clothes before.

They lack any creativity to them, for maanuls as well as a kyhuine these are soulless, as they highly value the art of crafting. There's no passion, no real purpose but a nonsensical war in these uniforms. Nothing to make them truly worthy in their culture. These are just morbid for them to look at during the silver age.

The maanul featured in this drawing is Qua'tuli, which easily translates to "one'whisker". He's a northeast maanul which explains his dark pelt, he has a singular whisker with a mole and is born without tahofahs which is a birth defect and also means he can't smell anything. Like many young influenceable people, he was tricked to join the red troupes thinking it would make him a hero for his people forever, that the war would just last a week, that they'll easily reach kaar'kchir in a week. And that after his service he will be granted special permissions (ex: being able to build his own fisherman's house, building permissions is a law that appeared in GA to force people to join the ranks). Although he started his service in the west as he was living there. When the north joined the war his division was then sent to the north.

here's a silly drawing to show the 3 layers

Fun fact, Monmartre and Qua'tuli meet as young recruits in the west. Enjoy monmartre that caught a cold.

[t34-mt]

maanul colony, a rough idea of how the build against the cliff parts looks like, the rest of the village is on top of the cliff. These are flexible plant fiber that creates platforms/structures, and there are also tunnel systems. also, black sand! More text and information under ->

this is a western colony (maak'thao), other colonies have that same similar structure but have regional differences in architecture/ the way of making certain things. This is just one side, id imagines it expanding widely on the side cliffs. Maybe kilometers long for the largest colony of each wind? (west, north, south, and East all have a "main colony" which is just the biggest of the region. Cardinal directions are called "the 4 winds" for maanuls.)

while a portion is on the side of the cliff, build against roots or just on the top of the cliffs as regular houses, a part of the structures is hidden. And is directly carved into the rock, as tunnel systems to access some specific parts easier. Carved storage rooms, small gathering places, rooms for religious practices like wall painting, and so on. this is roughly how the tunnel stuff would look like ->

id also imagine some tunnels being decorated with shells, sadly the examples I found are not the exact color I imagined because i think they would pick stupidly colorful ones since they are very fond of shiny things with color(like a magpie!). And once they start losing their color for x reason they would repaint the shells. A main tunnel leading to an important place would be highly decorated, while smaller narrow tunnels would have just a little bit of shells on the sides if none.

now with specific details id like to point out from the bottom part!

First, the statues (in yellow). The statues are placed all around in front of the habitations, they are deeply set in-ground and are lightly carved in, enough to tell a specific shape but still retain a square figure. here's a closer look at them, with additional text!

Now onto the roots (red) and the bottom platforms (white), these root-like structures are actually a sort of tree that grows down to the cliffs, not every colony has that these are mostly found in west and south. Colonies that don't have these growing around will have bottom platforms made out of wood and will be raised up from the sand floor.

The bottom platforms here are also made out of somewhat flexible but strong plant fiber. These large platforms are not made to live but more for some community gatherings. like for example teaching young ones about sea navigation! Down there is used to store some fishing equipment and boats. And when I say boats you should think of canoe-like ones, used for fishing.

And last is that large fish-net decoration in blue, that thing is used to attach many things, like sand down glass pieces that with the light give a fun colorful reflection effect around. But that fishnet thing can also be used to mourn. By that, I mean in the West if they lost a loved one to the ocean they can take a personal shiny belonging and attach it there. So they will always be remembered by everyone even if they didn't have a body and couldn't do the usual way of mourning.

now for the middle section, starting with these "flags"

the enormous "flag", takes decades to make and are a thing you find in each "main colony" of the 4 winds, the immense rope will harbor at least 3 of those and the things represented in it can sometimes be related to a local folkloric tale, symbolic drawings that each bring a good thing to the colony. Like for example one drawing of fish and waves to bring good luck to fishermen! these are much more like tapestries than flags.

extra images about the nest-like structures, id think of them being made out of leather, various plant fiber, and a bit of wood for support.

and a bit about the top layer, which extends much more but on this drawing you only see the beginning of it.

now with the high tide, there it does not get high enough to swim but still enough to take off to the sea with a canoe, id say it arrives at waist level for an adult maanul. Not every village/large colony have the tide flooding around like this, sometimes it might stops where the statues are placed. since altuyur has 2 moons (maanuls and kyhuines say 3 moons but in really the third, or also called "the infant" is an asteroid caught in the first moon, also called "night mother") i was thinking it would affect the tide cycle tho im not sure yet how it does that since im not that good at astrology.

thank you for reading!