#yautja retiree | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

justbeforethedarkness · 3 years

Text

Headcanon Glossary

Aatro’pa Bloodline / “Unturned” / “Undenied”

The Aatro’pas were a bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan that at several times held the clan leadership, though are now extinct.

During their original reign, they came to blows with the Kujhade-ryk’ta family, and thus entered the Rom’ijul period of Half-Heart Clan history, where they continually lost the leadership to them and won it back, leading to political chaos and public unrest as new Leaders and Matriarchs were being killed as quickly as they were introduced.

Eventually, the families had whittled each other down to critical endangerment, with the Aatro’pas reclaiming the leadership once again, and dying in combat with the last of the Kujhade-ryk’tas, wiping both of them out.

As the clan’s currently topmost Ancient, the Aatro’pa-coronated Cinderhand Rubiha was inducted as the new Clan Matriarch in lieu of no existing Aatro’pa Clan Heirs to end the turmoil and restabilize the clan. She soon after appointed her own Clan Heir and defected from the leadership, leading to her bloodline carrying on the clan leadership responsibly.

They have gone down in history as once proud, but had brought themselves low to their rivals’ level, becoming mythically petty, arrogant, and foolish.

Afterlife

Honorable Yautja, especially those who die in an honorable way (such as slain in battle) are taken by their god of death, Cetanu, to the afterlife. Those who are dishonored, like Bad Bloods, or die in shameful ways do not get to see an afterlife.

Unworthy souls blip out of existence, not only being denied a chance at reincarnation, but any kind of afterlife. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t feel good, either.

The Agoge / Palaestra

The Agoge is the term used to refer to the school of training all young Yautja receive before they reach a Young Blood status. Even Unblooded adults receive this education.

Once Yautja pups are old enough walk and talk, they are taken out of the home and sent to day-long classes in local arenas with Elder/Elite/Retiree teachers, sometimes community volunteers, and taught basic combat, as well as melee weapon wielding. Parents of students are allowed to join in as assistants, or sit in on classes and observe their children’s progress.

Stealing food kept nearby is encouraged, but being caught doing so results in punishment by lashes, in order to promote stealth. Juveniles are whipped until all promised lashes are given or until they break and cry for mercy.

Slots of the day are also dedicated to educational, cultural, and artistic enrichment, often by an Ancient. The students sit in the benches with stone slabs and styluses as the Ancient in the arena walks them through stories, history, art, and religion. There are also recreational breaks where juveniles can freely eat, draw, play, or continue practice fights.

If their parents are not present at the arena when the day concludes at dusk, juveniles often walk themselves back home. Those punished are let go later than everyone else.

Call-ins are not necessary for students to miss class without penalty, the class will carry on without them. Often this is done if the parents themselves wish to tutor their child at home, though it can easily be because of family troubles or illness.

Quitting the Agoge is also not very proactive. The child simply ceases to show up, often in exchange for personal tutoring by a hired Hunter or their very own relatives. Usually a child disappearing from class is not cause for alarm, due to how the members within the Agoge will see them outside of class, but teachers may perform welfare checks in case they don’t, or if concerns are brought to them.

The Agoge ends for juveniles when they reach Young Blood status, after which they undergo intensive training under Leaders (often Elders) and go on practice-Hunts and Exchanges.

Analog Discus / “Ra”

A traditional metal discus with no technology attached. Technically still a viable choice for the Hunt, though mainly used for practice, sport, or competitions for leisure on Yautja Prime.

Ancestral Catacombs

Locations designated for the burial of Yautja remains, separated by family. When a Yautja dies, a space is constructed with effigies of them, filled with their belongings, and their body is kept in a sarcophagus within the room. If a body is unable to be recovered (such as a self-destruction), a cenotaph is interred. Cenotaphs are exactly the same as a normal tomb, but with an empty sarcophagus.

Catacombs can be constructed as part of its corresponding family’s home, typically via underground levels, or as a separate building, usually built into a mountain side.

Ancestral Homes

At least in the Half-Heart Clan, Yautja pass their stone and metal dwellings down through the generations and do not move out. Generations are born in, grow up in, manage and maintain, and may die in, their ancestral homes.

Females sometimes leave to join their mates at the males’ respective ancestral homes, while others travel between locations and continue living at their ancestral home. Those who move out and die are still buried in their corresponding ancestral catacomb.

All Yautja homes are built large to accommodate their offspring numbers.

Ankarinium

A metal ore exclusive to the Yautja Prime deserts, the outskirts of which lies the Half-Heart Clan. It can be smelted with the Yautja material d’lex to keep its crystalline flexibility with none of the brittleness.

Appraisal (Pups)

The practice when Yautja pups are born, the father and his other mates will take turns holding them, and make predictions of their future skills based upon traits such as the strength of their grip, movements and movement speed, the thickness of their limbs and the flexibility of their joints.

This is also done to compliment the parents on their job well done making a promising pup.

Pups are often named during this process, based upon their findings.

Appraisal (Trophies)

The practice of examining the quality of Hunt trophies. Such factors considered are the care taken in cleaning them, presentation, the story of obtaining the trophy and the difficulty of doing so, and if the trophy is used creatively such as skulls as joint-pads or bones carved into tools, the (or any) extra purpose the trophy has been given and how well it accomplishes this task.

Damage to the trophy doesn’t necessarily negate its value, particularly if the damage was taken while the prey was still alive and not a mistake made during cleaning. Still, a skull/spinal column or tanned skin free of injury is considered very impressive and the expected level of quality of most trophies.

Trophy appraisal is often done by the families of the trophy maker, their superiors overseeing their Hunt, Hunt-brothers, as well as the maker’s potential mates assessing their prowess.

Atla Bloodline

A obscure bloodline of indiscernible origin, either of desert or mothership descent. They pass down through the generations a family saying that “an Atla carries the (night) sky on their shoulders”, reflecting their identifying trait of iridescent white scales along, most prominently, their shoulders and back.

Butcher Quasar descends from this bloodline and is very proud of his lineage, to the point of foregoing pauldrons in order to display his starry shoulders.

Whether from the desert or growing up on a mothership, Quasar became a scientific jack of all trades, but engaged in unethical experiments and acts of arson, leading to his expulsion from his original clan. This is all he divulges aside from hyperspecific stories while other details are kept frustratingly vague, such as his family, not even revealing their names to his friends as he deems the detail “unimportant” to the story.

While disowning his clan, he still clearly reveres his lineage in general, but speaks little of close relatives beyond nameless anecdotes.

He had several bastard Atla children with Bad Blood women before his eventual demise at the hands of M’hsi the Six-man Hunter.

It’s unknown what the Atlas are doing nowadays, or how they feel about Quasar.

Awu-asakh’r / Armored (Flesh-eating) Beetles

Various species of carnivorous beetles living in and around the Yautja Prime deserts, including Half-Heart Clan territory.

They are hardy insectoid creatures with nearly impenetrable exoskeletons, making them impossible to kill via typical crushing. These exoskeletons are often shiny and metallic, coming in primary colors, as well as a dark green and shades of black and silver. A certain species lacks luster and appears a dusty coal black.

Armored beetles are solitary, but not entirely independent, swarming creatures. Though it is very common to find one on its own, they are capable of roaming in swarms like armies. They will eat anything with meat, especially Yautja. One poses little threat to a Yautja or other large animal, but many can overwhelm an individual and slowly kill them. Afterwards, they will strip the body of all its flesh and organs, and even consume leather and similar organic materials, leaving a meticulously clean skeleton.

They will also crowd around pools of spilled blood to sip from it, like ants to a Caprisun.

A single bite, or even several bites from an armored beetle may pinch and bleed, but do not cause any swelling, itching, or discomfort uncommon to any other ordinary flesh wound.

They have become normalized in desert clan cultures, often seen as a harmless albeit inconvenient pest, due to their few numbers and appearances in civilization. A lone armored beetle in the heart of a clan may not even bite when crawling on a living being, intelligent enough to realize an uphill battle, typically scavenging on trashed or already prepared food. Due to being a desert species, other clans often express discomfort at the armored beetle’s existence, and often become victims to its bites, or less commonly, fall prey to swarms.

An urban legend surrounding armored beetles is that if a Yautja were to unfortunately ingest a still-live beetle, it would wreak havoc and agony upon them, and even if discovered to be the cause, cannot be removed due to the beetle moving around the body too fast, leaving the inflicted to slowly die as they are eaten from the inside out, and the beetle only being removed postmortem.

As armored beetles cannot be squished, typically they are removed by being taken off by hand and thrown as far away as possible, or to definitively kill them, peel and pull them apart.

Halomare Luar-ke, in addition to her botany and medicinal hobbies, also breeds armored beetles in her rooms in the Odd Crest ancestral home. They are still carnivorous, but evidently adore their caretaker and her associates.

Bad Bloods / “Ic’jit”

Bad Bloods are any Yautja that has turned against their own kind and severely violated aspects of the Yautja Honor Code— intentionally or not. Even those forced by extenuating circumstances, brainwashed, possessed, or infected with parasites or diseases that cause them to break code are not spared this judgment.

Offenders range from murderers of fellow Yautja (outside of deathmatches or self-defense cases), cannibals, Hunters of children/the pregnant/ill/unarmed, Hunters who “allow” their technology to fall into human hands, and users of illegal weapons of warfare in times of peace.

The contexts and justifications for any of these actions can be considered (often for the closest fitting punishment), but are largely unimportant in the grand scheme of indictment.

If an individual has severely violated the Yautja Code of Honor, they are to be branded a Bad Blood. Only very high ranked Hunters/members of society, or very low ranked novices, such as Unblooded and New Bloods, are permitted the most of what little leeway is possible.

The judgment itself is held as the offender is given punishment, often a sentence of temporary exile, or execution. Accepting their options with dignity and humility is smiled upon, and they will not be known as Bad Blood when their punishments are carried out, those executed dying with a tarnished but considerably more intact honor.

Those temporarily exiled must survive their banishment in the area/planet of their officials’ choosing, after which they are taken back and must work to restore their honor, often by fixing the mistake that got them banished in the first place.

If the individual flees before accepting punishment, they are declared Bad Blood and considered outlaws. As such, they are considered free game for Hunting, something that the Honor Code normally doesn’t allow, as they are now dishonorable and not considered “fellow Yautja”. Other, honorable Yautja are allowed to eliminate the outcasts on sight, Enforcers as a career as well as volunteers as almost a hobby.

Bad Bloods are never accepted back into Yautja society with incredibly rare exceptions. Children born to Bad Bloods, often with other Bad Bloods, are considered bastards and “not true members” of the Bad Bloods’ official bloodlines. Depending on if they have themselves committed no crime of honor, bastard children may be taken into their family of origin and reassessed as a true member.

Wandering aimlessly on the run, some Bad Bloods have been known to hunt and slay anything alive, especially still-honorable members of Yautja society. Bad Bloods are generally seen as more hostile and “mentally unstable”. Often they are loners or band together in small roaming groups. These sadistic hunters still use skills taught to them during training, but use them dishonorably and purely for their own personal gain.

There are Bad Bloods with more sympathetic contexts for their crimes, or even unsympathetic Bad Bloods who come to deeply regret their crimes, who act more considerately and may even strike back against the crueller Bad Bloods, generally minding their business living in solitude in the wilderness.

Backwards

Revande’s epithet. It makes little to no reference to his violation of the Honor Code, rather being an extrapolated insult about his actions, based upon his appearance, having backward-facing bottom mandibles.

The phrase is so generic, despite the event being relatively recent, that the use of the phrase without Revande’s name may not bring anything to mind as desired.

Battered Sweet Bloodline

A bloodline within the Antarctic Hunting Party. They are known for their splattered and drizzled pigmentation.

Battered Sweet Dondurma mated with Crescent Eye Eclipse and was his noted favorite. Together, they had six pups before his untimely departure from the clan.

Betrayer

An epithet often appended to the names of Yautja who commit unlawful murder, specifically with an unpredictable blow to the back.

It is seen as a high show of cowardice to not only murder someone outside of a duel, but to strike when they are completely unaware and unable to defend themselves, assuming they are safe with their back to the betrayer.

This is Mata’qi’s more serious epithet, but it is an unfortunately not uncommon occurrence, so it is hardly exclusive to him.

Big-hearted

A very derisive euphemism for a z’skvy-de, the emergence of a Xenomorph implanted by a facehugger. Used as an insult towards those foolish and careless enough to allow themselves to become infected, as well as allowing the chestburster to grow to maturity.

This is Visor’s epithet for doing just that. The event happens often enough that its use without an attached name doesn’t necessarily evoke Visor’s image in Half-Heart clanmates’ minds.

Bitter Midnight / “Shii Than-guan”

Yautja Prime has two moons, one giving off red light. The height of the red moon is known as Bitter Midnight because of it’s resemblance to human blood, which is believed to be bitter.

(Yautja don’t really... perceive color, but they perceive the light the same way they perceive human blood.)

Bitter Moon / “Shii Luar-ke”

The Yautja red moon goddess, the eldest of the Satellites. She was born from the Great Father’s severed fingers along with her sister, brothers, and many siblings.

Bitter Moon is emotional and described as “loveful”, as well as wise. She wears clothing made of fur, hides, and skin.

Bleached Bone Clan

The Bleached Bone Clan is a desert clan on Yautja Prime, lying on the opposite edge of the very same desert that the Half-Heart Clan sits by.

Bleached Bones’ end of the desert is lined with black volcanic sand, speckled with the white bones of fauna and perished Yautja. This lends to their iconic style of mostly black outfits/armor, weapons, and buildings with white bone accessories. This causes them to often be likened to Cetanu the Black Warrior and his army of the dead, which they take with humor and honor.

Their topmost Ancient is Pallich, who leans entirely into the dark and grim aesthetics of the clan, both to wield as a weapon of reputation and out of genuine belief that she can tap into the desert’s hidden power.

Blooding Class System

The Yautja class/social system is not based upon money (which they do not have), instead around their practice of the Hunt.

Sucklings are Yautja pups who breastfeed.

“Pup” is the general term for a very young Yautja. All sucklings are pups, but not all pups are sucklings.

A juvenile is older than a pup, similar to an older child, preteen, even young teen. They are recognized as still being children, but treated as mature and begin enduring more serious training in the Agoge.

Young Bloods are older adolescents, close to the cusp of adulthood. Specifically, Young Bloods are in the later echelons of training to become Blooded.

“Unblooded” is a wide range of people, generally children (all mentioned above), but also includes adults who underwent training but did not complete the Blooding ritual, usually by choice in regards to a different desired career. Their completion of basic training is acknowledged so they are not treated as children, but are encouraged to finish.

The Unblooded have a special advantage, that being if a Yautja does not Blood themself, and defeats a Blooded Yautja in combat, then that Blooded Yautja will be demoted to Unblooded once more, because it shows that they did not deserve their rank, as a Blooded should not be defeated by an Unblooded.

The Blooding Ritual is the Young Blood’s rite of passage into adulthood and the career of a Hunter. It involves being taken, usually along siblings/half-siblings their age, to a Blooding temple on another planet and fighting Xenomorphs spawned there (often with disadvantageous weapons). Once an Unblooded Yautja kills a Xenomorph, they are Blooded and commemorate their victory by using their kill’s acid blood to mark themselves and/or their mask with their clan symbol, or any other significant image (usually of religious importance). The newly Blooded or New Bloods are given the right to use plasmacasters after this.

“Blooded” consists of a wide range of talents. Seasoned Hunters who have been so for 300 years are just as Blooded as an adolescent who was Blooded the day before. Blooded Hunters travel to planets around the galaxy to Hunt, alone or in trios, intelligent species in line with their Code of Honor and return to their ship/Yautja Prime once the Hunt is over, or if they have been discovered. At the top of the Blooded echelons are Elites, the most skilled of the skilled. Often the best Elites are referred to as Champions of the current Clan leader and may serve as a guard for them.

Elders, also known as Veterans, are aged Hunters. Often kept on-planet to assist in government affairs, they are also looked up to as teachers of juveniles and Young Bloods, as well as one-man armies trusted to contain freak accidents such as Xenomorph infestations or Predaliens. Elders are very commonly Clan Leaders, but the titles are not interchangeable.

The Retired class of Hunters are those who have given up the life of a Hunter. Often this is due to age, or a career-ending injury, or sometimes a personal decision to quit while they are ahead. Retired Yautja often assume other jobs to occupy their time and assist their clans, such as technicians, teachers/tutors, and shipworkers. They are respected because they had chosen to give up the Hunt, and many can still continue it if they wished. Retirees are often Elders, but the terms are not interchangeable.

Ancient is the rank granted to wise Yautja who reach the age of 1,000. They do not have to be Blooded, but those Blooded who reach 1,000 are greatly desired. They are recommended to Clan Leaders by other Ancients before their millennium age, and on that day are coronated as Ancients with a ceremonial pauldron and cape donning by the Clan Leader they will serve. This elevates them to advisors of Clan Leaders as well as supreme spiritual leaders, like head priests. They conduct religious ceremonies, philosophize, and are patrons of the arts.

Ancients are also part of the Council of Ancients, the ultimate authority on Yautja Prime, capable of declaring war on other worlds. Clan Leaders and Ancients switch roles when attending the council; whereas Clan Leaders are attended to by Ancients, the Leaders instead stand by the Ancient during the council and attend to them silently.

Retired Clan Leaders and Matriarchs who reach 1,000 are able to become Ancients if so desired by the Leader after them. Most Ancients are women.

The Butchers / “Ro’anedhi”

The Butchers are one of the many triads within the Bad Blood clan known as the Skullbacks.

The planet they were given jurisdiction over was designated “The Butchershop” (Ro’anedha), thus the trio that came into possession of it were accordingly referred to as Butchers.

There have been several “generations” of Butchers, as Bad Bloods who hunt on its grounds were eventually, at least mostly, bested by their prey and the planet being assigned to a new triad. There is little kinship between generations of Butchers, usually the newcomers considering their predecessors to be scrubs or paying them no mind.

The most recent Butcher triad consists of Leader Eclipse, Fleshmender/Technician Quasar, and Tracker/Beastmaster Dust. They were wiped out by Odd Crest Matriarch M’hsi and her family after they kidnapped her for a Hunt.

Cave Grubs

A species of scavenging worms on the planet NV-39W. They are large milky-white grubs that can grow up to a nok (13 inches) long. They and their counterpart species, the Unseen, coexist in the tunnel systems. While the Unseen subsist off of grubs, the grubs feast upon Unseen carcasses, as well as the scraps of other beings left behind by the Unseen. While the Unseen avoid collapsed caverns, grubs can survive them quite easily and work their way through crevices.

Grubs are very high in protein and with a consistent supply, a Yautja could live off of them near-indefinitely. They are attracted to injured bodies, spilled blood, and corpses.

Mad Ghost survived for so long without touching Tieri’s corpse thanks to grubs working their way through into their enclosure, however, the grubs eventually stopped coming.

Cetanu, the Black Warrior

The Yautja god of death, sleep, dreams, and the species-wide singular psychopomp. He was the second god willed into existence by the Great Father, right after his older sibling Paya.

As Death, Cetanu is the inherent enemy of all Hunters, and is feared for this. At the same time, he is deeply respected for his prowess in battle, for every fight he will win, eventually. His skill is said to be equal to Paya’s, as they are the god of Hunters, although immortal like Cetanu. He is younger than his sibling, because death only follows.

Cetanu manages the afterlife and personally ushers every soul dead from an honorable death to his realm. He can call upon any of the dead to accompany him as his entourage, and travel into the dreams of the living to deliver messages.

Though feared and often seen as a merciless warrior, he is also a god of blessings in disguise. While Yautja seek death with open arms, it is still a negative experience overall, therefore a god of something negative will bring positives that appear at first to be negatives. Near-death experiences and their various effects after survival are often viewed as this trait in play.

Cetanu’s appearance is often contested between Ancients recording myths, and conflicting reports of those near-death who claimed to have had visions of him. It is generally accepted that he wears all-black armor that potentially covers all of his body (very unusual for the Yautja). He is often depicted with a skull superimposed over a mask, but some say the skull is, in fact, his real face.

Among his various epithets are He Whose Feet Do Not Touch The Ground, debatedly interpreted in modern Yautja forums as either his physical form hovering above the ground, or a teleportation ability where he seems to walk long distances without ever using his legs, given another epithet is He Who Walks Without Moving. Many assume Cetanu is capable of doing either, rather than exclusively one, as Yautja are reluctant to place limits on their perception of their gods’ abilities.

Cetanu is the only figure, other than symbolic depictions of the dead, who is allowed to be depicted in art and plays with a Yautja skull over his face. Bad Bloods are known to wear the bones of Blooded Hunters they kill, thus it is a dishonorable and blasphemous trait among anyone who is not Cetanu.

As Cetanu is a figure who is prayed against, or counteracted by prayer to Paya and the Great Father, he has very few devoted followers. All Yautja believe in him, and pay respect to him, but do not declare him patron of their bloodlines or any such lofty, beloved positions. Usually, only the desperate will resort to asking him for mercy, often in the form of bargaining, as death is inevitable. To properly represent him, to show the respect he deserves, he has temples dedicated to his worship, but they are typically empty.

A form of observance to Cetanu is to intentionally induce hypothermic unconsciousness in oneself, called heatlessness by the Yautja. This state is considered closer to death than ordinary sleep, as well as being harmless and easy to control.

It is unwise to ask Cetanu to smite your enemies for you. The only exception is asking him for guidance as you enter a battle.

—

On the day that Halkrath’s sons perished, Cetanu decided that after millennia of maligning the Odd Crests, and taking twelve Odd Crest lives in a single day, he would not take the planned thirteenth— Halkrath himself. Instead, he spared his life and took only his right limbs as payment. This would put into motion the redemption of the entire Odd Crest bloodline by Halkrath’s daughter, M'hsi, who Cetanu watched over.

When seen in a vision, Cetanu appears as a stark white Yautja skull on a body entirely clad in black armor that does not shine, making him appear to be a floating white skull against the black nothingness of the dream. Details on his body vary depending on the history of the person he appears to, with fatal damage dealt to their loved ones or enemies (either in the past or in the future) reflected as missing pieces of his armor, revealing pale white hide. As such, Cetanu tends to appear slightly different for everyone. An aura of cold precedes his arrival and lasts during his stay, as does the sweet stench of rotting Yautja flesh that follows him.

To Halkrath, he first appeared as an all-black figure with a white skull face, then as he disappeared, had a pale right arm and leg bearing Halkrath’s armor (having taken Halkrath’s limbs instead of his life).

To M’hsi Cetanu appeared in the same state of bare right arm and leg, flanked on both sides by her deceased brothers. As she declined to join him, he revealed Halkrath’s armor to her, scaring her into realizing who they were (and that potentially Halkrath was dead).

Cetanu’s Tears / Tears of Cetanu / Cauterization Agent

The blue vial Hunters carry in their Medicomps. It is a strong chemical solvent that must be diluted and heated in order to be safely applied to bullet wounds, amputations, and other open wounds to seal them closed.

Not included in every issued Medicomp.

See also: Decomposition Fluid

Channeling

Spirits of ancestors can be called upon via Ancients. Only blood relatives of the deceased can actually channel the spirit, the process only overseen and managed by the Ancient, therefore at least one relative of the desired ancestor must give their consent to call upon them.

Once the dead are called to a living body, their memories will resume from the point they last inhabited a body, generally the moments before their death, and thus they usually do not realize they are dead and need to be exposited and calmed down.

They are also known to have an undead hunger that needs immediate satiation as the dead haven’t been able to eat since passing to the astral plane. It is both a practice of common courtesy (offering a meal to visitors who have come a long way) and ancestor worship (leaving offerings to the departed), and avoids the often-held worry that if the living does not feed the dead, then the dead will feed on the living.

Channeled dead, in reality, often have the presence of mind to seek other sources of food as if they’re still alive, instead of mindlessly attacking like zombies as often imagined, but rarely is a meal absent at all for the aforementioned reasons.

Giving the channeled dead c’ntlip is extremely discouraged. If one so greatly desires a drink, they are only allowed one cup, and no more than that. A channeled dead becoming drunk is extremely dangerous and unpredictable.

It is recommended to keep mirrors and other reflective surfaces away from the channeled, to keep them from becoming stuck, confused, or irate, as a result of seeing a reflection that doesn’t look like them. Prolonged exposure is to be avoided, sudden glimpses may shock them but will likely not have adverse effects.

Multiple Ancients can oversee a channeling but the particular Ancient who summoned the spirit must be the one to dismiss them. This is done once the purpose of the channeling is fulfilled and the channeled are at peace.

Channeling is traditionally done to access information that has evaded the Yautja race’s meticulous recording.

The cannibalism of another Yautja would grant the eater the blood of the victim, and thus the ability to channel them. Tough meat consumption is outlawed, so it is unknown if it can make them capable of channeling the entire victim’s bloodline, or only the individual.

Cinderhand Bloodline

The Cinderhands are a well-respected middling family within the Half-Heart Clan. Their name is derived from their charcoal black and gray hides, with cracks of red underneath, most prominent on the palms of their hands. Mythically, this is attributed to their ancestors tending to fires on the Heart-Half Temple. Cinderhand women are also historically known for their high incidence rate of being maidens.

Their main claim to fame was the Ancient Rubiha, who became Matriarch in the aftermath of the Rom’ijul period, where the feuding Aatro’pa (her original appointers) and Kujhade-ryk’ta bloodlines wiped each other out to claim the clan leadership. Rubiha had been the sitting Ancient the entire period, and once the final Leader and their challenger had died, she reluctantly took up the mantle, being the next most prominent authority.

After settling the political chaos, Rubiha abdicated the leadership to her granddaughter Vech, who through being the daughter of maidens, retained her grandmother’s bloodline name. Though Rubiha was the most popular one, the following Cinderhand Leaders were all well-liked. The clan leadership made the jump to an adjacent family peacefully, through the then-Leader’s nibling.

Vuma, one of Ku’toka’s cronies and M’hsi’s classmates, is a Cinderhand.

Clan Heir

In accordance with the Half-Heart Clan leadership system, the named heir is referred to as the Clan Heir. The title is removed from the holder once they become Clan Leader, or the title is taken by someone else who defeated the leader in mortal combat.

Cloak / Active Camouflage Mass Law

The cloak is a passive electrical field emitted by a Hunter’s wristcom that refracts light around the wearer, making them virtually invisible, with only a bend of the scenery behind them along their silhouette.

Exposure to any amount of water will cause the effect to short out, resulting in a no longer passive field of visible electrical waves as the cloak short-circuits. As Yautja are immune to electricity, the field harmlessly passes through and around their body, but the shock could electrocute a human or even cook them if in contact long enough.

Gasoline and similar flammable liquids could also short out the cloak, causing an immediate combustion when the short-circuiting field makes contact with the gasoline. Though it may not harm the Hunter, it can very well blind them temporarily and catch them off guard.

Blood, human and Yautja, does not short it out, but may not be covered by the cloak.

Anything a cloaked Yautja carries will be subsumed into the cloak, as long as the object is of a less than, or equal to, mass of the Yautja (including their armor and other carry-ons) and as long as the object is not touching something of greater mass, such as a tree, or the ground.

Once the cloak has accepted the object, they can be put back down on the ground. However, the camouflaged Hunter must maintain physical contact with the object or else the cloak will leave it.

Therefore, a Yautja could pick up another Yautja, or human, or even a small vehicle to take it into its cloak, then put it back down and keep them hidden as long as contact is not broken, or the cloak is not shorted out.

Crosshook Bloodline / “Kruk-hak”

An admired bloodline that exists within the Half-Heart Clan. They are a long line of famed wrestlers, boxers, fighters, warriors, and Hunters with a hereditary muscular shape, but no signifying crest.

A successfully Blooded daughter of the Crosshooks, Vosandi, was a promising upcomer who had made her reputation with an unflinching and constantly updating list of grudges against any who wrong her. Though later, against her family’s approval, she mated with Odd Crest Patriarch Halkrath and had a daughter, M’hsi

Crossed Swords Clan

A clan of Yautja whose territory lies just outside Yautja Prime jungles. Sword training is mandatory among all its members, but does not require Blooded Hunters to make use of swords on their Hunts.

Their clan symbol is four swords crossed in a W formation. Crossed Swords typically blood themselves not on their foreheads, but on the backs of their sword-wielding hand (Yautja are naturally ambidextrous, but do have a preferred hand, most often the left). The symbol is also often etched into their masks with a sword, not with Xenomorph blood.

The current Clan Leader is Lurker, who was kidnapped by American extraterrestrial researchers along with a New Blood pack he was leading on a Hunt around New Mexico. His rescue led by M’hsi of the Half-Heart Clan endeared and indebted him and his clan to her and her clan. Afterwards, they have stayed in contact.

The Crossed Swords Clan is also the original clan of Butcher Dust, who fled from judgment and found refuge in a jury-rigged Bad Blood clan, the Skullbacks. After an honorable death at the hands of M’hsi, she sent his body and decapitated head back to his clan, telling them to treat his body with impunity for his crimes.

Crescent Eyes Bloodline / “S’kaari Dekna”

A small bloodline within the Antarctic Hunting Party. They are characterized by their large tusks that appear to grow from their brows.

The bloodline had spawned a chimera, whose pigmentation over-manifested on his right side, and bore no pigment on his left, with eyes of the dead. He was named Eclipse and he became a well-respected Auxiliary Enforcer of the clan, with multiple children sired.

During an outing on Earth, Eclipse was shot in the left side of his head with buckshot by a human, which left him in a long sleep for weeks, after which he was not the same. After a few more weeks of normalcy, Eclipse attacked a fellow Enforcer and fled the clan with his Enforcer equipment, never to be seen or heard from again by the Crescent Eyes. The Crescent Eyes did not know what to make of his abandonment, and they reluctantly disowned him. Still trusting him, many of them chose to believe that he had gone on a vigilante one-man Enforcing mission against the Skullbacks and possibly perished or was otherwise unable to return.

Eclipse’s children, some who exhibited forms of chimerism as he did, were cared for by other Crescent Eyes as well as their respective non-Crescent Eye mothers.

Eclipse joined the Skullback Clan of Bad Bloods and was given jurisdiction over CS-94Y as the leader of his own Hunting triad. Decades down the line, he and his triad, the Butchers, were destroyed by Six-man Hunter M’hsi.

Before his presumed demise, he had also fathered several children with fellow Bad Blood mates, at least one being from the Skullback Matriarch, those of which are bastard Crescent Eyes as well.

CS-94Y “Ro’anedha” / “Anedha” / The Butchershop

The planet that the Butchers were given jurisdiction over by the Skullbacks. It is about equidistant from both Yautja Prime and Earth.

Ro’anedha’s atmosphere is similar to Earth, having been populated with earth soil and genetically engineered earth flora, as well as Yautja plants hardy enough to exist in Earth’s atmosphere (which contains less oxygen than Yautja Prime’s). The constant supply of dead bodies, particularly Yautja ones, keep the plant life thriving.

Its topography is hilly and varied, mostly covered in jungle, with rivers and other bodies of drinkable freshwater. Among the flora are both edible fruit-bearing plants from both Yautja Prime and earth, as well as poisonous ones. Earth fungi is also present, as well as desert succulents from Yautja Prime.

The planet’s by-name is a portmanteau of “ro’anu” and “amedha”, referring to the butchering of meat. The triad was named after the planet, not the other way around.

Day of No Suns / “Taan h’H’ko-gheh”

The whispered derogatory term for the Twelve Incident of the Half-Heart Clan, where all twelve sons of Odd Crest Patriarch Halkrath died in a xenomorph invasion.

While the English wordplay is clear, in Yautja, this is a reference to the suns of Yautja Prime, which are mythologically the male children of the Great Father.

Decomposition Fluid

The same blue vial of cauterization agent that Hunters carry in their Medicomps. In this context, Cetanu’s Tears are used as a weapon or for cover-up, undiluted and unheated. Any organic material in contact with even a small amount of undiluted fluid will rapidly decompose into unidentifiable mush of a greatly decreased mass.

Only to be used for cleaning up Xenomorph infestations and (failed) Yautja presences on Hunting grounds to preserve secrecy.

Discus / “Chakt-ra”

The Smart Disc weapon. The traditional choice to be taken on a hunt rather than its analog counterpart.

Divine Strike / Hand of Paya

The Power Punch Glove weapon. I like to imagine it’s a weapon available to only higher-level Hunters, like Elites and Elders.

DNA Tracker and Thresholds

A feature of wristcoms. Samples of DNA can be taken and dropped into a slot by the wrist-end, which activates a special vision mode in the connected bio-helmet, highlighting all detected traces of the sampled DNA.

The tracker is traditionally used for the purpose of Xenomorph cleanups, where liquid used to contain facehuggers or other Xenomorphic specimens can be used to sample their DNA and thus highlight their trail should any escape.

The DNA threshold refers to the setting that alters what percentage of DNA similarities the vision mode will highlight. A 50% threshold will scan for material that has at least half similar content as the sampled DNA.

With the DNA threshold, the tracker can also be used to locate relatives of an individual, should their blood or other sample be given.

Missy used hers on a 50% threshold when visiting an abandoned Blooding temple to locate and pay respect at her brothers’ deathplaces and father’s disgrace. This as well allowed her to recover Ruthless’ body from the nest pit.

Entertainment / Fiction / Theater

Entertainment within the Half-Heart Clan is wide and varied.

Arenas exist all over the clan territory where Yautja can watch or participate in duels, deathmatches, as well as animal fights. Sport matches and displays such as discus/javelin/shot-put/axe throwing, wrestling, or footracing are also held in these arenas. Fights for the clan leadership are held in the largest arena in the center of the territory, by the Heart-Half Temple. These events are often overseen by Ancients, and on occasion, the Clan Leader(s) themselves, where they can comment on and dictate the fate of a match.

—

Theater is a deeply ingrained facet of Half-Heart life, about as common and ubiquitous to them as movie theaters are to humans. Amphitheaters designed for stageplays a la Greek theater are somewhat less common than arenas, but no Half-Hearter is ever too far from one. These are public theaters with often a devoted group of frequent participants, but all accept volunteers or even seek locals for parts that the troupe think they would be perfect for. Engineers, artisans like seamstresses/costumers, sculptors, and metalworkers (who all double as actors) all form troupes to portray their hearty wealth of history and mythos.

In an inverse of Greek theater, where men play all roles, most Yautja actors are women and play many genders, due to their desired size as a physical depiction of the characters’ greatness or general accuracy of the character’s purported size. This is also for the audience’s benefit, as Yautja have poor eyesight and will see larger actors better.

Yautja theater traditionally seeks to emulate the feel and spirit of the stories, rather than meticulous accuracy except dialogue and the story. Generally, effects, costuming and the actual delivery of lines (kept devotedly unchanged) are at each person’s discretion. Costumes are only as accurate as specified, such as a figure in history described as “white-quilled and dull-armored”, but separate theaters having different versions of that interpretation despite both having white quills and dull armor.

Yautja plays consist of a narrating chorus, and on-hand Ancients to voice the Great Father if he is in a story, portrayed either with lighting effects or a large 2D puppet at the back of the stage. Pits at the side of the stage as well as behind the curtains provide lighting/sounding effects, music, cues, and receive exiting actors in need of costume changes. Scenery, both purely for aesthetic and ones for actors to interact with are also kept off to the side, for cloaked Yautja to add and remove as needed.

Characters themselves are often portrayed in nonconventional clothing as per the lack of need for accuracy, or practicality. As a result, Yautja figures are often shown in flowing cloth rather than what was in reality only scantily clad cloth and sparse armor. This is done for presence, as well as the more practical hiding of props and effects. Props are fake and fighting is staged, but the skill displayed is real.

They wear analog masks with the exaggerated face of their character and emotional state best fitting the scene. Some actors freely exchange between the two in view of the audience, others obscure the potentially immersion breaking action and subsequently lead to creative direction. Wigs are often but not always donned to further exaggerate their appearance for the sake of far-seated patrons, or for accurate quill colors. The physical acting as well is far removed from reality and cartoonishly, but just as often subtly, exaggerated (e.g. an eavesdropping character being well within sight, leaning over and dramatically reaching a hand to their ear).

Blood in Yautja theater is not real, sometimes a substitute liquid crafted by the crew and dumped discreetly by cloaked members via buckets or squibs on actors. More artistic alternatives include ribbons thrown by actors with one end held to their bodies. No one goes to a play to be splashed by real blood; if they wanted to, they would go to an arena to watch someone die for real.

Theater is not a required activity among Yautja, merely a community activity to participate in or enjoy. Many Yautja solely do one or the other, but volunteering at least once is considered a personal must among those who aren’t lasting members of the amphitheatre crew. Some abstain from theater entirely, and this is a trait considered not of anyone’s concern.

Half-Hearters take their practice of theater with great pride and joy, but also great seriousness. Foreigners are welcome to watch, but hesitantly accepted as volunteers, and any interference of Half-Heart theater practices (even if just a verbal suggestion) from an outsider would make the entire troupe pause their work and stare disapprovingly.

Exchanges

Clans in different biomes with good relations will send Young Blood packs to train in the other’s territories. Those who have grown up in the desert will learn how to survive and navigate in a jungle setting, and vice versa. Occasionally, they are held on other planets for training in biomes that do not exist on Yautja Prime.

Packs can be small, like a triad, to large, such as 20 Young Bloods, all accompanied by a teacher, typically an Elder, with an Adjutant from the opposite clan as assistant.

A common challenge issued to exchange Young Bloods is to, either specifically in groups or alone, kill something bigger than them and bring the heads back to camp.

Those who die from failing to heed the environmental cautions are shipped back to their families at the end of the exchange, as the living classmates return home triumphant and learned. Guarding the deceased is considered a high priority when possible. Succeeding in this is seen as an honorable trait.

Desert Young Bloods often accidentally hang themselves on vines or drown, while Jungle Young Bloods tend to die of dehydration or lose limbs in tar pits.

Eyes of the Dead / “Dekna h’na Thei-de”

The colloquial term for having blue or white irises, particularly unusual light shades of blue. These eye colors are a rare sight among Yautja, blue being more common than white irises, and are often taken as an omen should a pup be born with these sorts of eye colors. They are considered off-putting, generally.

On top of being an undesirable trait, it is usually interpreted that they will either cause or be the subject of a great tragedy/atrocity.

Mata’qi the Open-Minded and Eclipse the Two-Faced both have blue eyes.

“Eyes of the dead” is not to be confused with the phrase “deadeye” or “death glare”, though the phrases make use of the same words.

Flaying Knives

Hand-held versions of the blades installed into wristblade gauntlets. This is the equipment with which Yautja cut off the clothing, gut, and flay their lesser trophies with out in the field. If not issued with an accompanying whetting stone, they can be sharpened against one another. Though able to be used in combat, they are not intended to be used so.

M’hsi dual-wields flaying knives as her main melee weapon, at first out of her limited options, then by choice later in life. They are named Shii and Thei, Bitter and Sweet.

Flying Hammer Bloodline

A bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan. The Flying Hammers are named as such for their tradition of hammer wielding, passed down through every generation.

Flying Hammer Bru’hi inherited the clan leadership and became the 389th Clan Matriarch. She later abdicated the position to her Clan Heir without dying or being challenged for it, introducing the Half-Heart tradition of Clan Leader retirement, as long as the position is inherited.

Gloriccade

The Gloriccade is the Half-Heart Clan’s version of a Bacchanalia, a great festival and celebration, dedicated to revelry, sportsmanship, and culture.

For nine days and eight nights, ending at dusk of the ninth day, the streets of the clan are filled with vendors and performers, as well as ordinary shopkeeps offering goods outside of their shops rather than customers coming in to browse. Dancing is also granted some societal leniency to be done in public rather than remaining restricted to important religious ceremonies.

Special c’ntlip dispensers walk the streets to top off celebrators in need of drink. A large percentage of partygoers remain drunk for the length of the festival, or alternate every other day.

Plays about Gloriccade stories from past celebrations, as well as its origins, and the clan’s founding myths are put on daily and nightly. Audience participation and cast/crew volunteering is encouraged.

Sports competitions are held all over the clan territory in arenas, including axe-throwing, javelin tossing, shot-put, discus throwing, wrestling, fighting animals, footracing, and swordfighting. Anyone is allowed to jump in and join before a game starts, or else wait until it’s over and before the next one begins. The results are officially kept and broadcasted after the end of Gloriccade. Smaller, unofficial games are often set up around the streets, simple ones like hopscotch and hacky-sack, typically played by juveniles.

Half-Heart Hunters will rarely if ever miss a Gloriccade, as Hunts are organized so they will remain on-planet for the celebration as a courtesy by their leaders.

The Clan Leader(s) and the Primordial bloodline will often walk the streets with their family as any other celebrant, though often set aside time to overview the Gloriccade games, an Ancient often fulfilling that role if they cannot. They will helm the celebration on a float on the final day with speeches, and count with the public as night comes and the Gloriccade comes to an end.

A several day clean-up of the event’s aftermath is then enacted by members of the public as well as Ancients and the Clan Leaderships as a form of humility, to enforce the idea that the Gloriccade is not a show of extravagance, luxury, hubris, or power, just a clanwide expression of their collective dear love of life and their clan.

“Godless sleep” / “H’kopaya dhi’ki”

A term referring to unnatural, or dreamless sleep.

As Cetanu is the god of sleep and dreams, sleep that is caused by something other than his influence, such as magic, non-divine spirits, or artificial causes like hypersleep, is noticed as sleep occurring despite his absence.

Cetanu and the dead (who are in his domain) send visions through dreams, so sleep without dreams is also noticed as a form of absence, although “natural sleep” can also be dreamless.

This phrase is used neutrally, as things like hypersleep or ordinary sleep without dreams are not inherently negative experiences or omens. Any interpretation of such an experience considers context and timing, as if the lack of dreams could itself be a message from Cetanu, perhaps as a sign of his disfavor.

The phrase is also far more metaphorical than most phrases, as it is more like a superstition or old wives’ tale. It’s just a saying, a way of expressing “I didn’t have any dreams last night”. Dreamless sleep is often recognized as the randomized nature of the brain when in REM sleep. Sometimes it is taken seriously as a spiritual sign, or dismissed as a bad night’s rest, it all comes down to context to make this judgment.

Heatlessness is not considered godless sleep as it is a slow and natural descent into unconsciousness, and a union of sleep and death, Cetanu’s domains. It is in fact, very holy rest.

Grass Cutter Bloodline

A prestigious bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan, named for their proficiency in bladed weapons, fabled to have the ability to cut through anything like grass with just the wind force of their swipes.

Grass Cutter Qan-set inherited the position from her mother, and after centuries of rule, abdicated the leadership.

Her named Clan Heir was her sister’s son Kachare, conceived with a Mandorla man. As such, the clan leadership was peacefully transferred from the Grass Cutters to the Mandorlas.

Great Ones / “Ethea-de”

The Great Ones are the genderless/many-gendered deities born from the countless droplets of blood spilled from the Great Father’s severed fingers, spread across the galaxy in the form of stars.

They are highly specific minor deities whose domains are often relegated to select concepts and even singular natural bodies such as one river compared to another nearby. There is no Great One god of rivers, or of water, but there are many for any prominent body of water.

Most any concept nameable is assumed to have a patron Great One, sometimes with their own separate name, or whose name is identical to their domain.

There may be Great Ones for every species of flora and fauna within the deserts of Yautja Prime, perhaps even a Great One of sand as a whole, but there is notably no Great One of deserts, or any for each desert on the planet. They are considered empty.

It is taboo to name a Yautja pup Ethea-de, but using the specific name of any Great One is considered making that deity the pup’s patron or guardian angel, so to speak.

They are considered to be mischievous, and flighty in mood. They often help more than hurt, depending on their domain, but their anger will turn the tide.

It is rumored that occasionally a Great One will replace citizens of the Half-Heart Clan and assume their place for nine days before returning. As they are so far removed from mortal and ordinary life, they are considerably bad at their masquerade in all but appearance and voice, but it is respectful to ignore all discrepancies, treat them nicely, and placate their misguidance to avoid embarrassing such a lofty being and their wrath. The replaced individual will return unharmed and unaware regardless.

Not all stars are Great Ones, as while many were made at once, they do not grow in number. Newer stars are viewed as orbs of plasma, like the bodies Great Ones fashion for themselves but without sentience.

Gtaulu

Gtaulu is an anti-intoxication agent created from boiling the otherwise useless flesh of the Unseen species of NV-93W. The denatured proteins of the Unseen muscles and spinal venom turn the water into a glossy black mixture.

Its consistency is incredibly thick, subject to gravity but often needs convincing to pour from one container to another. As such, it may be cut with culinary shears or manipulated with spatulas. Often, feast halls and bars provide pressurized dispensers of gtaulu to sober up those drunk on c’ntlip.

The taste is unpleasant enough, somehow tasteless but also bitter to the point of pain and a hint of rotting meat, but the consistency creates the sensation of something large and slug-like crawling down the drinker’s throat, often causing choking fits. Aftertaste and breath have a noted chemical quality to them.

As such, most merry-makers prefer to naturally sleep off their intoxication. Those short on time, however, will have to stomach it.

Many joke that gtaulu has no physical effect, its only sobering property being its sheer foulness.

Half-Heart Clan / “K’tera-za”

A desert-adjacent clan of Yautja, built over the fabled resting place of a severed piece of a forgotten god’s heart. First founded by the clan’s first Matriarch and Ancient, Ran’ukshi.

It has adopted some Human Greco-Roman culture and customs into its own. The Half-Hearts are known to take in non-Bad Blood outsiders and act as gatekeepers to the section of Yautja desert within their territory (as well as chaperones for trips/Exchanges into it).

Their clan mark is the Yautja triad symbol, with half a heart shape curling around the bottom-left dot. This is often burned into masks, foreheads, chests, and backs with Xenomorph blood.

They have a high number of Ancients than most clans due to their relative support for career paths other than Hunting. As such, many more Half-Hearters (K’tera-za’de) are living into their millennium age than the Yautja average.

Half-Heart Clan Leadership System

The Half-Heart Clan was originally founded on a strictly hereditary ruling lineage, the Primordials. The eldest child of the Leader would take the leadership once their predecessor dies.

However, the Fifteenth Leader Sythr’na was slain in combat by Razor Fringe M’naki, who supplanted the position as the Sixteenth Leader and passed the leadership within his bloodline until his family, too, was later overthrown from the leadership by a defeat in mortal combat by another bloodline.

These events were the precedent for the current system:

Clan Leader/Matriarch is a hereditary position, passing from them to their chosen heir, who must be related to them, through death (or retirement after the historic abdication of Clan Matriarch Bru’hi). The inheritance process is interrupted when someone, challenges the Leader to a deathmatch for the title.

If the Leader wins and kills the challenger, they have successfully defended their title and their position will continue down their bloodline; but if the challenger wins and kills the Leader, they replace the late Leader, their bloodline, and name a new Clan Heir of their own. The usurpation is effective immediately after the conclusion of the fight.

Challengers can be anyone. Typically strangers who disagree with the Leader/their bloodline’s actions, but members of the Leader’s own family can challenge them. Most often, these kinds of challengers are members who were not named Clan Heir and wish to usurp the title before the Heir can get it, thus nullifying the Heir’s claim and securing the power for themselves.

Even Clan Heirs are allowed to challenge Leaders in order to take the leadership prematurely. This was the case with Mandorla Leaders Kachare and his son Kandore. This process is fully within the law, but is largely considered a sign of impulsivity and a somewhat scummy move.

Half-Heart Greeting / “Gkaun-yte K’tera-za”

A form of physical no-contact greeting within the Half-Heart Clan, with the same behavioral roots as a human handshake.

The greeter crosses their arms across just below their chest, with their hands open and palms facing down. Then they rotate their arms and expose their palms, often with a well-meaning cock of the head.

The tradition started as a way to show that one was unarmed. Their arms are in no position to grab a weapon, nothing is on the underside of their arms, and they have nothing in their hands.

Naturally, this is somewhat empty and antiquated due to Yautja always carrying weapons on their person, but remains as a show of goodwill, peace, and respect to superiors, same as how humans continue shaking hands despite rarely ever keeping weapons in their sleeves as they did long ago.

Drink toasting is another practice both species share along with its origins, though toasting is more widespread on Yautja Prime than just the Half-Heart Clan.

The Half-Shadow / “Na Halkrath-za” / “Na T’sha’re-za”

Halkrath’s epithet, referring to his disgrace resulting in the loss of nearly half his body, leaving him a shadow of his former self. Halkrath is also the Yautja word for “shadow”.

The phrase is never used within earshot of Halkrath himself, and especially not around other Odd Crests or their associates, lest a fight breaks out.

The event is so recent, and the name so specific, that its use is immediately understood among Half-Heart clanmates as a reference to Halkrath.

Halomare Bloodline

The Halomare are a humble but well-respected bloodline in the Half-Heart Clan. This family often raises fleshmenders, medics, and apothecaries, as well as botanists and various scientific field professionals. The Halomare bloodline has a higher occurrence of spawning Ancients than most other Half-Heart families.

Their crests, which start out as a solid sheet of bone at the top of their head, thin and collapse in adulthood to reveal a circle, their titular “halo”. Through this hole, the moons of Yautja Prime are often framed perfectly by Halomare Ancients as proof of their enlightenment, spiritual power, and attunement to nature and the divine.

With their lunar associations, many, many, many Halomares bear the name luar-ke, moon. Generally, nighttime celestial names such as tzime are also very common.

They possess an ancient tradition of braiding quills to evoke the shape of tears, passing down from parents to children. The tradition supposedly started as a tribute to the moon goddesses crying onto Yautja Prime and imbuing the Yautja with their knowledge.

Halomare Luar-ke is a quadruple-duty botanist/medic/herbalist/insect breeder as hobbies and interests. She uses her expertise to care for her current mate, Odd Crest Patriarch Halkrath, for his acid burns by preparing him medicinal baths to soak in. She also dispenses medicine and herbs to locals who seek her advice, as well as volunteers at nearby infirmaries.

Her son with Halkrath, the Odd Crest Lo’bane, carries on the braid tradition, but has only a perfect odd crest. Only in his 200s will his topmost horn hollow out and form a triangular halo.

The Heart Half Temple

The steppe-pyramid built in the dead-center of Half-Heart territory. It symbolically stands over the fabled heart piece the clan is named after. It is a deeply holy place for Yautja, climbed and populated by pious worshippers, those seeking council, and run by Ancients of the clan who are not assigned to attend to the Clan Leader.

There, at the top of the structure, the Ancients partake of vapors to commune with spirits and the gods, and foretell the future. Those Ancients will also take those seeking council aside to give them guidance.

Chambers for each of the trinity of major Yautja gods, as well as lesser gods and spirits exist for those who observe them and wish to pray to them, or give offerings or thanks. The Cetanu chamber is typically empty at most if not all times. Paya’s is the most active.

Within the temple, underneath the steps are many rooms for relic-keeping and Ancient corpse entombing. Ancients are given a choice of final resting place, in the Tomb of Leaders with their coronating Leader, their ancestral catacombs, or the catacombs present within the temple.

Those seeking the heart-half will be disappointed to find there exist no pathways to it. The heart had never been unearthed, only its general location predicted, with the clan being built over it to keep it safe. It is unknown how large the heart is, nor where exactly it lies within the territory, depending on that size. The temple being built in the exact center of Half-Heart Clan territory is merely a gesture of symbolism.

Coronations of Ancients can be held in the Clan Leader quarters, or at the top of the Heart Half Temple.

Heatlessness

Heatlessness is a form of hypothermia experienced by Yautja.

As cold-blooded organisms, when in an environment of lower temperatures than their optimal functioning range, Yautja first enter a state of lethargy, followed by eventual loss of consciousness and inactivity similar to hibernation or cryostasis. They also either curl into the Yautja fetal position, or assume a corpse-like pose.

If temperatures remain stable, their metabolism will slow in such a way that will allow them to survive extended periods of heatlessness; but if temperatures continue to lower, then they may perish.

The purpose of a Hunter’s fishnets are as thermal netting on planets with colder climates: conductive metal mesh that constantly radiate heat to moderate their body temperature for them. Even the lowest setting is uncomfortable for humans.

As a religious observance of Cetanu, some Yautja intentionally induce heatlessness to become close to him, closer to death than ordinary sleep would allow. Mild heatlessness such as this purposeful invocation have little to no side effects from the experience.

He Who Is Not Named / Great Father / “Extraterrestrial Odin”

The ubiquitously worshipped head god of the Yautja pantheon. He created Yautja Prime, Paya and Cetanu (with the power of his thought), the first Yautja, as well as the three suns, two moons, and the countless stars (with his severed fingers and blood spatter) that surround the planet. He had also created a fourth god, but had split them into countless pieces cast across the galaxy, half of the heart landing just outside the Yautja Prime deserts.

Among his unspoken strengths and powers, he is most famously known to wield lightning bolts from his hands. As a result, he is often represented via a lightning bolt symbol.

His name is not spoken and he has few epithets to limit references to him. Worship of He Who Is Not Named is generally done via effigies and repeated depictions of his symbols, often as part of Blooding temple construction. No single Yautja is allowed to portray him in plays, instead being relegated to shadow puppetry as part of the background. The voice, should he have any lines, is typically provided by an Ancient off-stage; otherwise he is not given words to speak, instead his actions are narrated by the chorus.

As He Who is Not Named wields lightning from his hands, the Yautja had sought to emulate such a power out of reverence, creating plasmacasters and energy flechettes to metaphorically shoot lightning at will. Plasmacasters are highly valued and gifted to newly Blooded Hunters for this reason.

Because he is worshipped species-wide, his lightning bolt symbol is an acceptable Blooding mark in all clans. It is considered a sign of great humility and a species-wide sense of unity, regardless of clan, to bear the mark of He Who is Not Named.

The triad symbol as well as the Yautja tendency to hunt in triads comes from the trinity formed by him, Paya, and Cetanu. The top dot represents his standing over the pair of Paya and Cetanu.

Ho’rah’s Hand / Ho’rah

A legendary heroine of Half-Heart origin. A warrior with such prowess, it was believed she was personally created by, or descended from, Paya themself. In search of power unattainable, she channeled all of her mortal fear into her left hand and severed it, freeing her from one shackle of mortality and rendering her fearless.

Ho’rah was believed to have lived twice as long as any Yautja after that. She was a real person who had borne many children with any man she wanted. Upon her death in battle, the recovered pieces of her body, sans the left hand, were discreetly buried in a tomb on the other side of a Half-Heart mountain range with her brother Mi’rah.

The hand itself is a real relic kept in the bowels of the Heart-Half Temple, one of its many mystical tenants with alleged powers. Among the rumors are that a new holder of the hand can be granted up to five wishes, one for each of its fingers, but the wishes may be twisted if impure or imprecise. The Ancients of the temple insist it has no such powers, but admit the hand looks exquisitely fresh for its age.

Other rumors say making contact with the hand will fill them with all the fear Ho’rah had not felt over her nearly 4,000 years of life, driving them mad, comatose, or even aging them to death.

Humor

While typically stoic at all times, the Yautja race are capable of levity. The rapid clicking of their mandibles is their equivalent to a hearty chuckle.

Yautja love physical humor, particularly scaring others. Getting someone to flinch, jump back, or yelp is considered extremely amusing.

While a tenant of human humor is getting the joke without explanation, Yautja verbal humor hinges on the explanation. Stating the obvious one or two beats after a clever set-up and punchline is essentially a second punchline, as well as clarifying the purpose of the joke in its listeners’ minds, who may misunderstand or simply don’t get it. Therefore, a Yautja joke will get everyone laughing at one part or the other, while a human one will miss out on part of its audience.

Yautja are not very receptive to human humor not only because of the language barrier and their stoicism, but because they’re waiting for the explanation.

The Kicking Game

A game invented by the Butchers.

It starts with the abduction of a human, Blooded Yautja, or other desired Hunting target, or the recapture of an already abducted target from their game preserve planet. They are then incapacitated and buried up to their neck. The game starts when they reawaken.

The trio then take turns kicking the prey in the face; the first and foremost goal being to decapitate them, and see how far, both by height and distance, they can kick it.

Knocking the prey out in a single kick, particularly if they are a masked Yautja, is considered impressive though not a win condition. Partial decapitation is still considered a win, but sloppier than a neck-up dismemberment. Killing the prey without detaching their head is considered a foul and a very unsatisfying end to the game.

Quasar is often made to go last after Eclipse and Dust have their turns, as he has the highest success rate of entirely decapitating the target.

Kujhade-ryk’ta Bloodline / “Wolfsbane”

The Kujhade-ryk’tas were a bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan that at several times held the clan leadership, though are now extinct.

During the original Aatro’pa reign, they came to blows with them and sought to challenge them for the leadership, and thus entered the Rom’ijul period of Half-Heart Clan history, where they continually lost the leadership to them and won it back, leading to political chaos and public unrest as new Leaders and Matriarchs were being killed as quickly as they were introduced.

Eventually, the families had whittled each other down to critical endangerment, with the last of the Kujhade-ryk’tas dying in mortal combat with the final Aatro’pa Clan Leader, wiping both of them out.

As the clan’s currently topmost Ancient, Cinderhand Rubiha was inducted as the new Clan Matriarch in lieu of no existing Clan Heirs to end the turmoil and restabilize the clan. She soon after appointed her own Clan Heir and defected from the leadership, leading to her bloodline carrying on the clan leadership responsibly.

They have gone down in history as mythically petty, headstrong, and foolish.

Last Resorts / Last Resort Shots

A prefilled syringe included in some, but not all Medicomps.

Often consisting of a single shot or as part of a larger set, these needles are filled with an adrenaline-like hormone, to be only used if the user is desperate enough to consider it.

Usually, they are recommended in situations where a Hunter is “fading” from a thousand cuts or even fatal wounds and needs a boost, or as a form of rudimentary painkiller to pull them through the last legs of a Hunt.

Last Resorts are not made with the intention to administer more than one shot at a time. The stress incurred from an overdose could cause a heart rupture, with the numbing properties combined with the extreme physical activity causing muscle and bone damage throughout the body.

Technically speaking, the shots are the penultimate resort, as opposed to the true last resort of suicide, specifically using the wristcom’s self-destruct.

Even a single Last Resort would kill a human.

“The Las Vegas Ripper” / “The Las Vegas Stripper”

In the Earth year 2019, Odd Crest Matriarch M’hsi, who was merely a Young Blood, accepted a challenge by Half-Heart Clan Leader Kandore. To atone for her bloodline’s past mistakes, she was given six locations, the first being Las Vegas, and six kill quotas to meet, one for each disgraced member of her family.

Attracted to the firearm-carrying organized crime element of the city, she killed and claimed trophies, the human public interpreting the aftermath as the work of a deranged serial killer. The public would come to call M’hsi “the Las Vegas Ripper”, based on the torn up and despined bodies in her wake. More reputable news sources also adopted the moniker.

Less reputable ones, tabloids, adopted the racier “Las Vegas Stripper” as a play on the Vegas Strip, the abundance of strippers working there, the common serial killer term ripper, and the skinned bodies M’hsi left hanging from ceilings and billboards. Later eyewitness accounts that reported her wearing fishnets and little else solidified the alias.

Just as quickly as panic and unease built up in the city, the appearance of bodies petered off. While it seemed the Ripper had ceased their activities, M’hsi had merely moved onto her other targets, down the west coast of the U.S., through Central and into South America.

Because M’hsi never truly stopped and only moved, some speculated that cases in the five other locations are the work of the (no longer Las Vegas) Ripper; others connect the identical M.O.s to the Los Angeles Avenger, internet theorists alleging that the Ripper was a copycat, or that the two are one and the same, not realizing how close to the truth they really were.

The Living Whip

A legendary weapon of Cetanu’s, as well as a taboo weapon concept that exists only in theory.

In myth, it is one of many choices in Cetanu’s arsenal, a whip whose thong is comprised of a Yautja quill with its pulp intact, handle made of bone, and the heel knot a still-beating heart, its blood vessels connecting to the quill and forming the ring knot. The heart provides a pulse, cycling blood in and out of the quill, thus making it a “Living Whip” and granting the whip its fabled power. As it is alive, the quill grows like hair, albeit very slowly.

Killing the whip through popping its weak point, the heart, will still fail and backfire on whomever tries; as with the last of the whip’s power, Cetanu will lay waste to its killer and use their heart as its replacement. Contrary to Yautja perspective, being turned into the whip’s power source is considered an unspeakably horrible punishment, on par with oblivion.

While the Living Whip likely would not “survive” long in reality, it hasn’t stopped Yautja, honorable and Bad Blood alike from attempting to recreate it. Usually, these all (unsuccessful) attempts are heavily looked down upon as blasphemous and disrespectful. It is wordlessly assumed Cetanu’s Living Whip lives on due to his powers over life and death that no mortal Yautja can exert.

Lockjaw Bloodline

A bloodline existing within the Half-Heart Clan, characterized by powerful mandibles bearing wisdom fangs at a higher rate than most Yautja.

Through Lockjaw Ansabe, they had relations with the Odd Crests via sister and brother Ansari and Halkrath, born between her and Odd Crest Patriarch Veran’te.

Only Halkrath made it past Blooding and would go on to have Odd Crest children with Lockjaw traits.

Ansabe would stray from the Odd Crests as Yautja customarily do and continued to have children with other bloodlines within the Half-Heart Clan aboard a Half-Heart mothership. She remained in contact with her surviving son’s siblings (unrelated to her) but became estranged from her own child, with purposeful distancing upon his disgrace.

Decades later, she would return to Yautja Prime, and reunite and reconcile with Halkrath.

Loligo Bloodline

A thinly-spread but well-respected bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan. They are characterized by their sparsely decorated heads, spare for two structures by the top of their crests, like squid fins.

Late Loligo Patriarch K’r-mir-qamoh mated with Saba’niroh and had full-blooded siblings Onykia and Gha’eshinde.

Navigator and later accomplished Whip Master by trade, Gha’eshinde, later known as Zazin, would bear witness to the third disgrace of the Odd Crests within recent history, being one of the Hunters who found Axe Master Mad Ghost eating his dead Hunt-brother’s leg and helped restrain him. He later testified on Mad Ghost’s behalf when asked for his account.

Zazin would outlive most of his family, including his progeny such as Miktla and Cdolkoth. When he reached his millennium age, Zazin was coronated as an Ancient by Mandorla Clan Leader Kachare.

The longstanding Loligo Patriarch maintained his Ancient status and advisor role underneath the next Clan Leader, Kandore.

“The Los Angeles Avenger”

In 1997, Los Angeles was in the grip of a heatwave and a three-way war between the LAPD, Colombian gangs, and Jamaican voodoo posses.

A Lost Tribe New Blood named Ghost conducted a lone Hunt on his tribe’s claimed Hunting ground of Los Angeles, his targets originally encompassing the criminal factions of the drug war due to attraction to their conflict, including beheading the leader of the posse. During these conflicts, Ghost took notice of detective Mike Harrigan and was taken with his bravery and kill streak, desiring him to be his crown trophy.

As Harrigan and other LAPD officers moved in on investigating its ritualistic murders, Ghost would proceed to claim some of their numbers, using a trophy claimed from Harrigan’s partner to call him to action, and killing a new recruit on the subway along with armed civilians. After which, Harrigan would pursue him all the way back to the Lost Tribe’s mothership and slay him in combat. Ghost’s body was escorted out by his clanmates and Harrigan was in turn rewarded with the Lost Tribe Leader’s treasured pistol. The mothership consequently shot out and escaped its underground hideout, and left Earth now that its existence and location was known.

These events, the murder of Colombian gangsters, Jamaican drug lords, LAPD officers, and the subway massacre, would be superficially reported by news outlets as the work of a singular entity, either a group or a single man, dubbed “the Los Angeles Avenger”, due to the original victims seeming to be targeted for their criminal activity. This cover story was supported and spread by government and para-government organizations that had been observing the Hunt the whole time and interfering with the LAPD in order to access Yautja technology.

In 2019, the Lost Tribe had returned once more and its champion Elite, King, conducted a lone Hunt in the area, and including the intrusion of Half-Heart Young Blood M'hsi, reignited worries that the Avenger (or a copycat) had returned.

Lost Tribe

The Lost Tribe is a contradictorily well-known but elusive clan of Yautja that had cut off all contact with larger Yautja society.

Long ago, the clan parted ways from all outsider contact, yet continued code-conductive activities on Earth. They are known to frequent Los Angeles as their particular Hunting ground, though attempts to reach out and find them often fail. This is part them actively hiding and part wider society knowing they do not want to be bothered and knowing that they are still honorable, respect that wish and do not try to seek them out.

Their current Clan Leader is the Elder Greyback, with his most recent champion being King, and members including Borg, Boar, Warden, Scout, Shaman, Serpent, Stalker, and Gladiator.

In 1997, a New Blood from the tribe, named Ghost, conducted a lone Hunt in Los Angeles, his targets coincidentally encompassing mostly gang members and drug dealers. Though slain in combat by detective Mike Harrigan, Ghost’s Hunt would go down in human history as the work of the Los Angeles Avenger. His clanmates recovered his body and Greyback rewarded Harrigan’s victory with his prized pistol before their mothership retreated from Los Angeles and Earth entirely.

In 2019, the tribe had returned once more and its champion Elite King conducted a lone Hunt. During this time, Kandore, Clan Leader of the Half-Hearts, attempted communication with them to receive permission for sharing Hunting grounds, to no avail.

King came into conflict with M’hsi of the Half-Heart Clan after she slew his desired target, and was slain himself in the ensuing battle to decide who had the right of game. She later returned his head and belongings to do right by the Lost Tribe, and was given both tough love and right of game from Greyback.

Lurigo

Lurigo are a native inhabiting species of squid-like creatures living in the waters of Yautja Prime. They are a near opalescent off-white, and turn purple when cooked due to their activated chromatophores.

Their strongly flavored, rubbery flesh is a Yautja delicacy, often shredded into noodles and marinated or drizzled with their own blood. Olannr blood is also a highly recommended pairing.

Lurigo flesh is structured and pulls apart in striations like poultry.

Maidens

As “lesbian” is an Earth word derived from a human woman from Lesbos, Yautja do not share that term. “Maiden” is used to describe Yautja women who do not mate with men, whether they prefer the company of other women, or abstain from any relations at all of any gender.

In English, “maiden” has connotations of purity and abstinence from sex, often religious piety, as well as youth and beauty, but “maiden” in Yautja has no such implications. It is purely their word for lesbians and aspec women. A Yautja maiden can be sexually active, old, or unattractive, and don’t have be a priestess or Ancient.

M’hsi confessed that she thought “maiden” meant a beautiful woman and wasn’t aware of the actual definition.

Mammary Glands

While Yautja are largely reptilian, they also give live birth and possess mammary glands. Unlike humans, these glands do not develop permanently with the onset of adolescence, instead only becoming prominent during breeding seasons or pregnancy in anticipation of feeding sucklings. The sight of a Yautja with visible breasts is a sign of their collective estrus, an upcoming pregnancy, or that they had recently given birth. Any female Hunters typically abstain from Hunting during these times and thus are very rare to see in such a state off-planet.

Shirts, bras, or any chest-coverings are not required for female Yautja to be decent in public, not even with developed breasts, but exist for their comfort should they desire it.

As they are still reptilian, Yautja breasts do not have nipples. Thus, when sucklings are born, they use their teeth to break the hide to get to the milk, suction their mouth to the breast, and keep it in place with their mandibles.

Allowing a pup to breastfeed without expressing pain is considered the trait of a great warrior, and mother. Breastfeeding is not seen as shameful or indecent, but typically done privately because pups are kept at home until they can walk, and because the process is bloody and messy.

As a few years pass and the pup is weaned off milk, the breasts will completely recede.

I came up with this headcanon primarily because, while I prefer Yautja to remain breastless, I just felt the need to compromise with the parts of AVP canon that say Yautja women have breasts. Some say they always don’t, some say they always do? My compromise: they sometimes do. Also, the writers’ desire to keep alien women looking like human women but also keeping them reptilian and without nipples opens up a suitably gnarly (and unfortunately for those writers, decidedly unsexy) conclusion that feels very on-brand and honestly inevitable for Yautja.

Mandorla Bloodline

The Mandorlas are a thriving bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan, being in current possession of the clan leadership.

They are characterized and named for their almond-shaped crests. It is a quite common head shape within the clan but is noted for being unique for the consistent colored waved edge and lack of variation.

Matriarch Qan-Set was not a Mandorla, instead being a Grass Cutter, but had a Mandorla nephew she named her Clan Heir, Kachare. Since her abdication of the leadership, it had passed from her bloodline to the Mandorlas, with Kachare’s declaration of his son Kandore as his heir. Kandore later challenged him for the position at a historically young age and earned it with his father’s death by his hand.

Kandore is now the current Half-Heart Clan Leader, having ruled about 200 years with no named heir, but having sired 76 Mandorla children.

Matriarchs

Matriarchs are the female equivalent of Clan Leaders. The same position and power, the term only changing with gender. A clan can have one or the other, or both at one time. In most clans, Clan Leaders handle off-planet affairs while Matriarchs manage society on Yautja Prime.

Within the Half-Heart Clan, whoever inherits or fights for the position of Clan Leader is the one who manages on-planet affairs, and their most trusted mate can be named an off-planet Leader/Matriarch. If no counterpart is named, then the responsibilities are shared between Clan Leader and their closest Ancient.

Mesh’in’ga / “The Battle Dreamtime”

The haze of focus, blind rage, or bloodlust in the heat of battle, where everything other than the opponent fades away, time is distorted, and nothing feels real. Sometimes it is perceived as a blackout or out-of-body experience with the dreamer coming to, as if waking up, once all is said and done.

Good mesh’in’ga is a controlled focus and valiant show of determination and grace, while bad mesh’in’ga is a wild fury that can cause great pain and destruction should a third party enter a certain radius of the dreamer’s rampage, or the dreamer is approached by someone who is not the focused opponent.

While the word and translation are canon, the meaning I’ve ascribed to it is headcanon.

Mi’rah / “Na Kshuhr h’Esha-ta” / The Papers of Cessation

Mi’rah was a litter brother of Ho’rah, who was only an average warrior utilizing above-average subterfuge in comparison with his wartide-changing sister.

Not privy to her plan, Mi’rah witnessed Ho’rah severing her hand, and ran to cradle her mutilated limb. After looking up at Ho’rah to ask why she would do such a thing, her hand filled with her mortal fear drove him mad. He was confined to their ancestral home, paralyzed with fear and besieged by nightmares.

Some time later, he broke out of his sleep paralysis and used the family’s imported papyrus to scrawl with an unknown substance his frenzied divinations of the nature of fear, mortality, death, the afterlife and Cetanu. Morning come, Mi’rah was found dead atop his work, aged several millennia. He was buried in a discreet tomb on the other side of a Half-Heart mountain range.

The 87 pages of sloppily-scripted papyrus were deemed the Papers of Cessation. Those able to decipher the inane ramblings, unprepared for the truths it held, would become ill or even starve to death by choice if they were to read it in its entirety, as if it were a proxy for the effects of Ho’rah’s Hand. The family and servants who beheld it upon Mi’rah’s discovery only read a few pages before ceasing due to its vulgarity.

Ho’rah turned over the papers to Cetanu himself, who disappeared into the ether with them.

The papers are said to be now entombed in the Heart-Half Temple, where the Ancients desensitize themselves to death by reading excerpts. Although kept safely in a temperate and dry location, by the nature of papyrus and being handled every so often has resulted in its slow but certain deterioration. It is rumored that any Ancient able to read every line of every page in succession without stopping or perishing will become zazin, or enlightened.

The Papers of Cessation are seen as a necessary evil of a religious work, holding important truths about life and death so powerful it could kill those unprepared for the existential questions it incurs in the reader. Select quotes from the papers have been handed down as acceptable phrases to use or reference during funerary practices.

While at least motivated by the divine and supernatural, the papers have no real anomalous properties. The suicidal effects they arouse in their readers is purely due to their words being the most convincing essay ever put to page on why one should give into fear and give up on life.

Mida Bloodline / “Golden”

The now greatly watered-down bloodline originating from Half-Heart heroine Ho’rah and her close relatives.

Ho’rah, as a proactive lover, is considered the official start of this bloodline although she was preceded by her parents, their parents, and so on so forth. Though long-lived, her exploits and progeny were had millennia ago, and thus were integrated into other bloodlines over clan history.

The Midas were mainly absorbed by high-standing bloodlines such as the Primordials. Many who can claim a small percentage of relation do so with great fervor, if only for the reputation and to keep the antiquated name alive.

Mi’rah had no children before his untimely demise.

Naming Conventions

Names in Yautja culture can be given at birth, but can be changed by public perception later in life, as well as personal choices to adopt different names.

Masculine names end in -e, feminine names end in -i. Names that end in anything else are considered gender neutral. These are less strict guides, and more chosen to have particular cadences. They can also have their spellings changed in order to change its connotations.

Ex. Tichinde (masculine), Hashori (feminine), Vk’leita (gender neutral) Ex 2. Tieri (feminine but given to a man), Ro’nan’de (masculine but given to a woman) Ex 3. Kiore (masculine) to Kiori (feminine) to Kioru (gender neutral)

Names given at birth/early childhood are often based off physical or obvious behavioral traits, or named after traits their parents wish them to develop as they grow older.

Ex. “Two-Stripes” for a pup with stripes on its head, “Fire” for a very feisty pup, “Shadow” for a pup that the parents wish to be stealthy

In a similar vein, pups are often named after groups that Yautja admire, resulting in Hunters named Celtic, Viking, Spartan, etc. This is also done to bestow their pups with the traits of the group they are invoking.

Names can be changed by the public via nicknames based upon newer traits, such as injuries received.

Ex. Yeyinde (Brave One) received a mandible injury and was thenceforth known as Dachande (Different Knife) Ex 2. Gha’eshinde (Dreamer) being renowned for his intelligence and wisdom, thus becoming widely known as Zazin (Enlightened), effectively changing his name

It is also not uncommon for pups to be named in accordance to family needs.

Ex. M’hsi (Luck) was named so to invite good fortune to her family Ex 2. Lo’bane (Promising One) was named in hopes of him redeeming his family one day

Nrak’ytari

A legendary vosandi rumored to dwell within the Half-Heart Clan territory. She appears as the severed upper torso of a Yautja, with long quills, no eyes like a Serpent, and her spine dangling out the gore like a tail. She uses her arms or prehensile quills to move around at unexpected speeds, as well as handle weapons.

She cannot see, so she hunts her prey, via sound, smell, as well as quills long and sensitive like whiskers. Her sweet breath is said to bring great illness upon those it rolls over.

Nrak’ytari lives within a cave in the mountains on the edge of the Half-Heart territory, killing all who intrude there. She is hostile in her safe space only due to most who encounter her deliberately seek her out in order to slay her, but none who manage to return have brought tales of victory. Nrak’ytari defends her personal space and claimed territory fiercely, but rarely leaves it. Only on Sweet Midnights does the chance emerge that she may leave the mountains to roam the streets.

When Nrak’ytari is found, only appearing out in the open to sun herself, she is often perched, concealing her missing legs and eyes. The correct conduct after noticing her presence is to pass by without remark or prolonged staring. Striking a conversation or extended silence (absent of passing footsteps) will get her attention.

Speaking-volume comments will net no response, dismissive noises/one-word replies, and as long as the volume level has remained low, her eventual retreat into her cave. Prolonged staring past a certain length of time will cause her to bellow and hiss increasingly before lifting herself up as a final warning.

Her gruesome appearance, revealed via a shift of position or her lifting herself up purposely, causes nearly all to scream, which is her trigger. Any loud noises, worst of all is screaming, will cause her to charge and launch herself at the source and chase until she finds the person responsible and personally rips their throat out. Then the body is dragged back to her hovel and never seen again.

Her only considerable weakness is her exposed spine, which can be stepped on like a tail to cause pain. Although, this causes her to scream and unleash miasma, so it is an unwise move without further planning and evasion.

She was originally an ordinary female Hunter who had engaged in an intense chase through the mountains, up to a cliff face. As she approached to track her quarry from overhead, someone behind her shrieked, scaring her over the edge, where she was bisected at the waist on the rocks below. With her last breath, she spoke her intention to find whoever had done this to her.

While her spirit festered with increasing rage, the fauna in the area ate her corpse’s eyes. Days later, her temper flared and reanimated her torso, reshaping it into a functional state, crawling off to lash out blindly at anyone who screams in search of the original impetus.

Cetanu extends no power over her despite having died, because she still resides within flesh that can’t be any deader than it already is. She is a corpse who happens to have not stopped moving.

Nrak’ytari’s legend persists today due to the verifiable recovery of the skeletonized remains of a pair of legs, with no located torso counterpart, at a cliff base in the region. Her original identity is unknown, as such, the legs aren’t confirmed to be hers, but they are nonetheless kept as a relic in the Heart-Half Temple.

NV-39W “Inviida”

A planet several systems over from Yautja Prime, under Half-Heart jurisdiction. Water and an atmosphere theoretically viable for Yautja needs exist on it. However, NV exists so closely to its nearest sun, which orbits around it and not the other way around, that the heat and radiation necessitate visiting Hunters to wear masks and breathing apparatuses. The hostile environment had spawned at least two species that live underground in cavern systems. Within the cavern system is enough circulating and non-irradiated air and water for a Yautja to sustain themself without a mask.

NV-39W was the site of a Half-Heart catastrophe: the death and subsequent cannibalization of Tieri by Mad Ghost. The two had been left behind in a pocket beneath a cave-in for over a month until a rescue party was sent out to retrieve what they assumed would be two dead bodies. A living Mad Ghost was captured during the excavation as well as recovering a deceased Tieri and their scattered equipment such as Mad Ghost’s mask and axe.

Out of respect, Hunting on NV-39W was banned for a century after the incident. Hunting has since resumed, in slowly increasing frequency as time marches on.

Odd Crest Bloodline

An endangered bloodline from the Half-Heart Clan. They are characterized by their small crests consisting only of an odd number of horns, between the numbers of 1 to 9. Three, five, and seven are the most often reoccurring numbers, while one and nine are more rare.

The odd crest gene is an extremely dominant one, as almost every pup born with an Odd Crest parent will have an odd crest, though as they grow older, their recessive crest genes from the other parent will become more visible.

Unlike most patrilineally traced bloodlines, Odd Crests consider any offspring with a crest like theirs as family, even if belonging to another bloodline due to being fathered by an outsider.

Though more tragedies have befallen the family before, such as their short-lived claim to the clan leadership with 546th Clan Leader Yiba-ke, within the last 2,000 years, six patriarchs had brought great dishonors upon the family, causing them great struggle.

Pale Serpent had seemingly betrayed his party for a human and died along with the human and two-thirds of his party; Visor had failed to self-terminate after infection by a facehugger and gave birth to an abomination (which killed him); Mad Ghost had eaten another Yautja and fled, for this he was declared Bad Blood and is still on the run 600 years later; Mata’qi had murdered a rival outside of combat and fled, but was quickly shot down before he was declared Bad Blood, and Revande died in exile for allowing his technology to fall into human hands.

Current patriarch and the sixth disgrace, Halkrath, allowed a Xenomorph infestation to grow out of control, and failed to kill himself in order to use the detonation as a means of solving the problem. Said infestation had destroyed his 12 sons, leaving only a daughter and unborn son at the time. After the catastrophe, the only Odd Crests left were those three and Mad Ghost. Though, Halkrath has surviving siblings with offspring, but they do not associate with his family unit anymore.

He has since fathered two unborn children with two other women.

The surviving daughter, M’hsi, would go on to undertake a six-man Hunt challenge in order to lift the disgrace from her bloodline. Her success in turn somewhat repaired the family’s reputation, and resulted in Mad Ghost’s Bad Blood status being revoked.

After M’hsi’s six-man Hunt, Halkrath would continue having children, such as those two unborn pups, and so would his children when grown up, saving the Odd Crests from dying out.

Mad Ghost would go on to become an Ancient of the Half-Heart Clan, and sleeping with the head Ancient at the time, Zazin. The son who was unborn at the time of Halkrath’s disgrace, Lo’bane, would go on to reclaim the clan leadership for the Odd Crests.

Olannr

Olannr are a livestock species on Yautja Prime who consume large amounts of sodium. Their blood is treasured as a delicious sauce, dressing, and savory drink intended to stave off hunger between meals.

Their blood is a dark rust-orange with a shimmer. It coats the throat when drunk, having a greasy quality which makes it a meddlesome stain to clean off cloth. Due to the olannr’s high-sodium diets, the taste is salty and meaty with an identical strong scent.

Though the taste and coat that resemble a larger meal are utilized in drinks to make one feel full to hold them over, the sodium also saps the water out of the consumer’s system, leaving them gradually more and more thirsty. Thus, their blood is considered among the last options for sustenance when lost in space or the desert.

Olannr meat is likewise salty and rugged. Once drained of blood, a slaughtered olannr’s meat may be dried even more and rendered into strips of jerky.

Open-minded

Mata’qi’s epithet, aside from “the Betrayer”. It is a very tongue-in-cheek reference to the way he died, and nothing to do with his ideals.

After being taken to face trial for the unlawful murder of another Yautja, he had slipped from his escorting guards’ grasps and ran down the hall in a bid to escape. Unlike the previous Mad Ghost who had succeeded in escaping and avoiding recapture, Mata’qi was swiftly shot in the back of the head by a plasmacaster, creating a searing hole replacing a quarter of his cranium and blowing his brain matter all over the walls.

The phrase is unique to Mata’qi, and its use without a accompanying name is still interpreted as a reference to him, to this day.

Parthens

The term “Parthen” is used to describe Yautja men who do not mate with women, whether they prefer the company of other men, or abstain from any relations at all of any gender.

Derived from parthenos, Greek for “virgin”, as an equivalent to “maiden”, Yautja for lesbian or an aspec woman. Though a masculine equivalent to maiden, which in English carries implications of purity and abstinence from sex, often religious piety, as well as youth and beauty, “parthen” carries none of those to Yautja. It is purely their word for gay and aspec men. A Yautja parthen can be sexually active, old, or unattractive, and don’t have be a priest or Ancient.

Paya

Paya is the Yautja god of the Hunt, and patron to all honorable Yautja. They were the first god created by the Great Father, merely willed into existence.

Paya is credited to have taught the Yautja how to craft weapons, created the Yautja Code of Honor, as well as the Yautja language.

In order to repay Paya for their patronage, the first Yautja devoted their lives to the Hunt, and this way of life has been passed down to all of Yautjakind ever since. As a token of their gratitude, paya was made their word for both “god” and “warrior”.

They have no gender and are said to appear in the form of a giant in golden armor. Sometimes Paya is depicted with four arms, often wielding a different weapon in each hand.

They are by far the most popular god among Yautja, as Cetanu is traditionally prayed against, and both he and the Great Father are often considered to unsafe or tapu/taboo to pray to.

Perfect Crest

A term used within the Odd Crest family. A pattern of horns on an Odd Crest member is considered “perfect” if all the horns are on the very edge of their crest instead of growing out of their foreheads or brows. For example, Halkrath, M’hsi, and Lo’bane all have perfect crests, but Mata’qi and Revande do not. The jury is still out on R’ka-Lukoran.

Just as the number of horns an Odd Crest can have is not genetic and is, in fact, random, so too is the arrangement of their horns.

Pineapples / “Kiore”

A fruit that had evolved completely separate from the Earth fruit pineapple on Yautja Prime, but through convergent evolution resembles them exactly. There was no trade or introduction, no planet of origin that one gave pineapples to the other, although Yautja pineapples have existed for longer.

A Yautja pineapple looks, tastes, smells, feels, and has all properties (such as meat enzymes) as one from Earth. The one difference being a greater average size and weight, due to the atmospheric and solar differences.

A human can eat a Yautja pineapple with no ill effects, and vice versa.

Because the juice of pineapples contains meat-dissolving enzymes as they do on Earth, Yautja often hold pain competitions, where they hold onto a mouthful of pineapple juice as long as they can while it breaks down their flesh, causing it to become raw and sting.

It is a staple of diet in the tropical areas of Yautja Prime, shared as a more occasional treat to clans in other biomes.

P’nqamb / Stone-eating Gastropods

Various species of snail-like creatures found all over Yautja Prime, most frequently on mountain ranges and the desert; places with exposed stone. They are typically half to two-thirds the length of a forearm with a nearly flat but multilayered shell.

They are soft-bodied creatures who slide on their bellies, equipped with radula abrasive enough to quickly erode even the toughest stone. Instead of leaving a trail of slime like earth snails, they leave behind a groove etched into whatever surface they crawl upon.

Upon older stone dwellings, it is common to find sprawling almost Art Nouveau-esque patterns at their foundations, accumulated trails of past p’nqambs. P’nqamb are known to rarely partake of metal due to its resistance to erosion. Still, when left to wander in the vicinity of it, they do manage to strip metal of its outermost layer, especially painted or rusted metal (usually belonging to human objects).

If left to crawl on exposed Yautja flesh, they would, after a very long delay, cause some discomfort and eventual minor blood vessel-piercing abrasion, similar to a scraped knee, especially if allowed to double-back. Even a human wouldn’t be significantly hurt by p’nqamb radula, which is only considerably rougher than a cat’s tongue. Death by p’nqamb would be slow and ineffective enough to the point of impracticality.

Though not bred like beetles or other livestock, they can be plucked from nature and “trained” to help art and architecture, as they will often follow along colored lines of paint or chalk, thus, for example, making the first etches of a relief a sculptor is carving into a building face. Their scarring properties are even used as a form of hide-tattooing in clans where p’nqamb can be found.

P’nqamb eggs are considered a delicacy in select clans, as their eggs are small and many must be collected in order to constitute a meal, much like earth caviar. The occasional unusually large egg is called a p’nqamb heart (they do not have a pump-muscle based circulatory system).

Primordial Bloodline

The Primordial Bloodline is a prestigious family within the Half-Heart Clan. They trace their lineage straight to the first Half-Heart Clan Leader Ran’ukshi. Eighth Matriarch Ha’kshari pioneered the use of desert resources into refining d’lex, a process still used today in Yautja manufacturing. They have also intermingled with the legendary Mida Bloodline.

Despite never regaining the title of Clan Leader since the upheaval of Fifteenth Leader Sythr’na, they still enjoy privileges of such ancestral honor like Elite tutors and training which keeps them on the upside of society. They have continued to be appraised as if they were still Clan Leaders during events like Gloriccade.

They have a rivalry with the Razor Fringe Bloodline, the family that took the Clan Leadership from Sythr’na. Relations were hostile millennia ago, but has since simmered into average, if not ancient, contempt.

Quills

Yautja hair (heretofore called quills) are large, often inch-diametered singular tubes of flesh from cuticles/follicles lined across the edge of their crests and the back of their head.

They grow with a thick off-black flesh over sensitive insides, containing large amounts of both viscera and free-flowing blood. Like the cochlea in humans, this helps them retain their amazing balance in addition to normal fine motor control, thus making them far more agile than many other species.

Quill decoration and braiding is a staple of Yautja culture. Bloodline-specific hairstyles are often passed down through generations, as well as trends based on popular public figures rising and falling. It is a familial bonding activity to do each other’s hair, as well as general hair stroking.

Yautja have hairstyles such as braids, pigtails/ponytails (referred to as Payatails), topknots, bunched Payatails, twin-Payatails, twin braids, etc.

Depending on the clan, quills can be pierced with metal plates, equivalent to ear piercings. One might choose to wear them for aesthetic, or receive them as a form of marking of the end of a successful Hunt. It is also a test of pain tolerance and endurance, as the process is often aborted and started all over again if the Yautja being pierced shows too much discomfort. Non-piercing plates can be used as hairties.

Sometimes the notches along a Yautja hair are not metal plates, but shed cuticles. Within the Yautja populations that experience this, when a certain length of hair has passed through a cuticle, it will detach from the head, marking it as if it were a ring in a tree. This is generally painless and a new cuticle will grow to take its place, and detach all the same once the same length passes through it as well.

Long hair is seen as desirable in both men and women, but men especially. Short hair is conversely seen as not very attractive. Yautja generally have shoulder to shoulder blade or even waist-length hair, but much shorter and much longer are entirely possible.

The touching of others’ hair is a sign of respect, admiration, or affection. When one is complimented by their superior, those of the same rank of the one being complimented will stroke their hair in recognition of their feats. It’s like a kiss on the hand— it can be romantic, but also a sign of platonic submission and flattery to a superior if any physical contact is allowed (as some Leaders and their respective guardians despise such familiarities, especially from the lower-ranked). If two stroke the others’ quills at the same time, it is functionally like a handshake, even a gesture of mutual friendship.

Practices vary from clan to clan, but quills are universally important and integrated into societal conventions. In every clan, it is still very rude to touch the quills of someone you don’t know without a proper social catalyst.

While the skin of the hair is traditionally black, it is most often an off-black with an undertone, or more rarely, another color altogether. Common undertones are blue, purple, brown, or colorless (gray). Quills can be entirely different colors of varying brightnesses like red, white, brown, blue, etc.

Yautja quills naturally turn gray and then white with age, often reaching the millennial milestone with prominent pigment loss. Their claws go through a similar process, though more often turning a dark brown from their original tar black.

The “hair” that sprouts on their bodies are called “spines”, and are much tougher and cuticle-less due to their smaller size. They often grow in the same places where Yautja’s hide pigments are most active. Spines often do not grow on albinal hide.

Facial hair beyond crest, brow, and mandible joint spines are rare, but both spines and quills can manifest from places like the bottom jaw similar to human whiskers or beards.

The outer flesh of a quill won’t decay after death, instead the innards will rot and leave behind a hollow shell. Though it can be more easily pulled out, the flesh retains its durability and usually continues its attachment to the cuticle/skull, and resisting damage from scavengers or the elements. Skulls of tar pit victims are known to still carry most, if not all, of the quills they had in life.

Quills can also fossilize along with the skeleton if left in the proper conditions.

Quill Injuries

A quill’s skin is tough to protect its valuable insides. The skin is tough enough to not only be unaffected by temperatures over 300°F, but keep the blood inside them from boiling. A long enough Yautja quill could be a deadly weapon in the hands of anyone who wields it: human, Yautja, or Bad Blood.

If a quill’s skin were to be pierced, blood would leak slowly but steadily. In a controlled event, such as a plate piercing, this is common and nonfatal. A gunshot even from relatively primitive human artillery would be enough force to cause the structure to burst, causing the shredded innards to hang and slough out of the broken skin as blood pours. This alone usually won’t kill a Yautja, but the amount of blood carried within quills is great and thus the disorientation of exsanguination can take hold afterwards.

If left alone, quills will heal on their own, though often being misshaped and developing an ungraceful rough black flesh patch flush to the surface of the wounds. This also applies to quills breeched and compromised by acid damage.

Quill dislocation is the tearing of the black flesh coating a quill from the cuticle. A dislocation ranges from a millimeter separation between the flesh and the cuticle, all the way to several inches of exposed quill innards. Though very painful, it is an easy injury to fix, with the flesh being firmly pushed back up the innards and into the cuticle, then bandaged into place, where the flesh will take and reform its bonds.

This is a very common injury for Yautja pups to inflict on those handling them, as they love to grab and pull things, and don’t know their strength. Dislocations are similarly common in fights, typically unplanned scraps that break out in streets or public places, though hair-pulling is considered a very low-class move.

Quill degloving is the complete removal of the flesh coat of a quill, all in one piece. It is a deeply agonizing injury, as well as harrowing. The exposed nerves and inner structures of the hair are hyperreactive to outside stimuli like passing gusts, air pressure, and any movement. It is often very difficult to fix a degloving as it is often impossible to reglove as is, due to the pure torment, as well as the limp structure not sliding back in due to friction and its limp consistency. Often, the flesh needs to be cut open longways and wrapped back in place like a jacket, where it is then bandaged closed and set firmly back in the cuticle. After which, the flesh will reestablish its connections, though scars may form.

Degloving may also occur when handling a Yautja pup, though is much rarer than a dislocation. Deglovings are also common in fights.

Quill shortening and removal is rare among Yautja. They typically abstain from keeping their hair short and simply tie it up for convenience, as short hair will make them undesirable for mating. If they become caught by them, Yautja may cut their quills to escape. Short quills do not impede their granted agility, but entirely removed quills will affect their balance.

More often than not, complete hair removal is often involuntary due to accidents, emergencies, or human experimentation. Yautja subject to human whims often have their hair pulled out for study and to see their reaction, which will be the Yautja subjects being very off-balance and experiencing seemingly unending vertigo. As a result, they often have to combat nausea. Eventually, a Yautja that once had quills but no longer does will readjust but never reach their previous peak performance.

Quill Succulents

In the cracks in rocks and the ground of the Yautja deserts grow various species of black, white, or purple-skinned succulent plants resembling massive up-spurts of Yautja quills. Some species are packed with a gel that contains their supply of water that can be harvested for consumption, others contain pastes more suited to medicinal use instead of nutrition.

Mad Ghost often evaded detection and capture by squeezing into a crevice and lying prone, causing his unusually massive amount of quills to appear as a giant succulent.

Razor Fringe Bloodline

A particularly antiquated Half-Heart bloodline. They are characterized with their many quills, lifted scales, and horns along their crests, often appearing like shrapnel laurel wreaths.

During the reign of Sythr’na, M’naki of the Razor Fringes defeated him in mortal combat and took the leadership for himself, becoming regarded as a Leader to respect and fear. It was then passed down through their bloodline until they themselves were upheaved in a similar fashion, having created the political system the Half-Hearts still follow now.

They particularly no longer have an issue with the Primordials, rather the Primordials have an issue with them for dethroning them. Any resentment from their side comes from how although M’naki bested Sythr’na, the Primordials are still considered a higher class than the Razor Fringes.

Reincarnation

A randomized process that a Yautja soul can go through after death. Souls that achieve a spot in the afterlife through an honorable death typically stay there for eternity, but sometimes a soul will be sent back down to a living body before its birth. This can be random or by Cetanu’s will.

The reincarnated do not retain memories from past lives, instead exhibiting traits that act as learned experiences from them. For example, if the past life was ended during their Blooding ritual, the second life will express greater than average anxiety at their Blooding despite not remembering anything.

They also retain some physical and behavioral/personality attributes but are different individuals. The differences become greater as they age and come into their own as separate people.

It is a superstition amongst Yautja that “new”, or not reincarnated pups will cry when their parent dons a mask due to not having object permanence, but “old” or reincarnated pups will not because they remember the trick.

Once dead again, the soul can recall both lives, but the new life will manifest separately as their own person. Souls that have reincarnated before are able to do it again, but not at will.

In the children following Lo’bane, Halkrath came to suspect that his new children (including Lo’bane) were reincarnations of his twelve deceased sons. When told to others, his theory was dismissed because the chances of twelve individuals dying and being reborn, in original birth order, to their same parent are so unlikely, it would suggest intelligent design and purpose, therefore suggesting Cetanu himself is putting them there. Which was considered ludicrous.

Rerun Kids

The Rerun Kids are the newer litters of Odd Crest Patriarch Halkrath, after the birth of his first daughter M’hsi and the deaths of his first twelve sons.

Fearless, Gouger, Shriek, Spartan, Hookclaw, Sly, Sniper, Ruthless, Dusk, Crisis, Abyss, and Kudos were Halkrath’s children who all perished during the latter four’s Blooding Ritual. Before this, Halkrath had impregnated his new mate, Halomare Luar-ke. Soon after the incident, Fearless was reincarnated into the male pup Luar-ke gave birth to, as his own half-brother Lo’bane.

With a fifty-year gap between his birth and Halkrath attracting more mates, he impregnated Tareshi and Jh’adire with Gouger and Shriek, born into the bodies of a daughter and nonbinary pup named Ro’anu-de and Chanta. It was watching the new littermates grow up that made Halkrath recognize this pattern of his new pups displaying idiosyncrasies of his late sons and look for these in his upcoming progeny. One sign was them sharing the same number of horns as their past life, the other a test of preserved object permanence which all but Ro’anu-de passed.

Over time, with the bloodline’s regained honor, more of the original twelve found new bodies to experience their reformed father’s love: Spartan as K’tera-hadhi, Hookclaw as S’kaari, Sly as Kiori, Sniper as Bon’tei, Ruthless as Enko-min-che, Dusk as Taan-kal’gheh, Crisis as Kaa’ril’na, and Abyss as Guan.

Notably, Toranqi, the original mother of Kudos, returned to Halkrath’s side and bore the twelfth and final Rerun Kid, also named Kudos in his late brother’s honor.

His suspicions confirmed and documented, Halkrath attempted to notify his ex-mates of his discovery, but none listened. Those of his loyal family he told more politely dismissed the idea. Still, Halkrath took Lo’bane aside and carefully outlined his beliefs, wanting to wait for the others to mature into their own people before sharing “the truth”.

As M’hsi was born well before her brothers’ deaths, she is not a reincarnation of them. Halkrath suspected she could be his litter sister Ansari reborn, but dismissed the thought because they don’t share the same number of horns. After all twelve were born, Halkrath’s future children were “original souls” like M’hsi.

Restless nerves / “Ch’hkt-a”

“Restless nerves” also known as “hungry nerves” is a diagnosis for hyperactivity, inattentiveness, and memory/focus issues in Yautja, their cultural equivalent to ADHD.

This hereditary but also spontaneous condition is named for the fidgeting and stimulation-seeking behavior of those afflicted. There is no medicine or cure, it is only moderated with physical activity to “feed their nerves”. As Yautja are nearly all physically active, with sports and hunting/Hunting as pillars of their society, this aspect is well-treated. Disrupted sleep cycles are corrected effectively through third party awakenings.

Restless nerves also often causes emotional imbalances and disproportionate reactions, which often prompt the patient and their associates to seek a diagnosis, but are usually not addressed or treated due to wider Yautja society not concerning itself with vulnerable emotions like sadness or seeing a problem with aggression, as long as it is pointed in a productive direction.

Medical centers and Ancient temples are both viable ways of acquiring a diagnosis, for oneself or a relative, even a friend. Patients are taken through “trials” where their ability to stay still, memory, and impulsivity is observed, questioned about their routine and problems, then diagnosis concluded.

In the Half-Heart Clan, this consists of a labyrinth made of mirrored halls leading to a final examination room.

In the case of juveniles and under, they may not be told of their condition, nor even aware of the nature of the test, to be shared with their guardians to handle and disclose at their discretion.

The Rom’ijul Period

A tumultuous time in Half-Heart Clan leadership history.

Two formerly prosperous and respected bloodlines, the Aatro’pa, the contemporary clan leadership holder, and another, the Kujhade-ryk’ta, came to blows. One continually challenged the other for the leadership, either succeed, or fail and keep sending more members to challenge until they succeeded, assumed the leadership, and be immediately challenged by the unseated family as revenge for this horrible slight.

Because there was no grace period forbidding another challenge after the leadership was won over by a newcomer, deathmatches between the days-tenured Clan Leaders, declared by the opposite family, were occurring almost weekly and almost more often at times.

The Clan Leaders and Matriarchs during the Rom’ijul Period rarely had the position longer than a week before being supplanted. Very little governing happened during this time. Public unrest grew as infrastructure decayed in the absence of meaningful leadership, with Ancients scrambling to assume, unassume, and reassume duties as Leaders would appear and disappear just as quickly.

Many, many, many Yautja considered underhanded assassination, just to make the feud stop. The deathmatches happened too quickly to effectively assassinate anyone in a way that mattered, however.

The back and forth continued until the two families’ last members had killed each other in mortal combat, rendering their bloodlines extinct. The Rom’ijul Period was officially brought to an end when in an unconventional but necessary move, the topmost Ancient of the clan was declared the new Leader, due to her Aatro’pa predecessor having no next of kin.

The following rule was perfectly competent, seen through rosy lenses due to the previous turmoil. The Ancient in question, Cinderhand Rubiha, didn’t really want the position, but was appointed to it by the Council of Ancients. After her abdication, her granddaughter Vech became the next Matriarch and the Cinderhand bloodline through her continued the normal Half-Heart Clan leadership system.

Though this occurred millennia ago, Half-Heart members are taught of this period, and they all collectively cringe at how stupid it was.

There are still no laws to prevent the Rom’ijul Period from occurring again, only prevented by everyone having common sense. Having experienced it once, no one will ever try it again.

Rusted Blade Bloodline

A bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan, named for their background in metalwork, engineering, and design.

They produced the 865th Clan Matriarch Noqure, who continued her family work and created the 540S-300 Senkoth among many other ships still made and used today.

Now no longer in possession of the clan leadership, they maintain smithies around the Half-Heart territory and train retirees. Their work processes are also available to be observed by passerby.

Satellites / Material Gods

The Satellites are the collective name for the gods and goddesses that make up Yautja Prime’s suns and moons. They were created from the severed fingers of the Great Father’s hand, and assume bodies made of rock and magma, or plasma to aid life on the planet below.

The blood from this action spattered across the cosmos, creating the genderless Great Ones who became the stars around Yautja Prime, but they are not part of the Satellites.

Because the fingers weren’t all severed at the same time, they are considered to be differing ages.

The first cut off was the Great Father’s little finger, which became goddess Shii Luar-ke, the smaller red moon.

The ring, middle, and pointer fingers respectively became the triplet gods Klaatu, Barada, and Nikto, the three suns Yautja Prime orbits around.

Finally, the thumb became goddess Thei Luar-ke, the larger green moon.

While Klaatu holds seniority over his brothers, Shii Luar-ke as the eldest overall has the authority to command all of the Satellites. Yet still, all Satellites answer to their older siblings Paya and Cetanu, and all are outranked by their father.

Serpent’s Hands / Serpent Hands

While Serpent is canonically the term Yautja use to refer to Xenomorphs, Serpent’s Hands is my headcanon term for facehuggers.

The term is intentionally contradictory.

Shock Whip

A Yautja whip constructed from conductive metal, intended for use on humans or otherwise non-Yautja beings. The whip is segmented but smooth unlike a razor whip, but it has a vesica piscis shape with knife-sharp ends. A button on the non-conductive handle activates the power source which sends electricity down the whip to the entangled target for electrocution.

The shock feature cannot be used on Yautja, who are immune to electrical damage. The manual use of the whip is still effective against other Yautja, however. Because of the lack of serrated edges, it cannot cut a target to pieces when surrounded and pulled, but can gash them deeply.

King had one, and after so many Hunts on Earth and thus used to human prey, mistakenly used the shock function on M'hsi, who was left unaffected and ready to counter. She lifted it off his body after she killed him.

Six-Man Hunt

The phrase used to describe M’hsi’s pre-Blooding mission. Instead of a singular Hunt, M’hsi must do six in a row, one successful Hunt for each failed Hunt by her disgraced forefathers, and then Blood herself. The phrase also refers to her doing the work of six men, having to out-do each ancestor. Six-Man Hunt does not refer to the killing of six individuals.

Skullback Clan (WIP)

The Skullback Clan...

Skuorr’m (WIP)

The Skuorr’m is a deep-ground and/or aquatic salamander

Soap Opera Generation

My nickname for the generation of Mata’qi the Betrayer, as well as his murder victim, Qu-kan, and the woman they fought over, Darochi.

The murderer and victim had once been friends but then became rivals, and almost enemies who would constantly spite one another. Fights occurred shockingly intermittently, due to Mata’qi’s habit of running away instead of pursuing fights despite constant goading on Qu-kan’s part. The rivalry reached a head when through unclear (undoubtedly underhanded) methods, Qu-kan stole Mata’qi’s life-long mate, Darochi, from him.

Darochi had vowed to never leave Mata’qi and they would be life-long mates. They were both open to see anyone they wanted, but they would never be apart, with the very specific exception of Qu-kan; Darochi was free to mate with anyone except for Mata’qi’s archenemy. By leaving Mata’qi and their son Revande and into the arms of Qu-kan, Darochi had forsaken this sacred promise she chose to make.

It is unclear if Mata’qi ever had conflict with Darochi over this, only that it increased the amount of skirmishes between him and Qu-kan.

Their feud over this continued without proper resolution for a year, until after an argument in an alley outside Qu-kan’s house, which ended with Qu-kan telling Mata’qi to run away as he always does without ever taking action, the two turned their backs to each other to leave. In the middle of storming off, Mata’qi suddenly paused, then turned around and shot Qu-kan in the back, killing him almost instantly.

Mata’qi never made it to trial, instead having his head blown open from behind during his escape in the process of being brought to trial, therefore the truth of the matter was left in the dark.

It is unclear if Darochi had any hand in the event, though it is possible that she may have seen Mata’qi in private and asked him to kill Qu-kan for her. She was never brought to trial or investigated.

Darochi had children by the both of them, bloodlines that continue to this day. The hostility/avoidance between them was resolved by the current patriarch of Qu-kan’s bloodline, An’ko, not giving a shit about the event, instead bonding with the Odd Crests over their shared heritage.

Darochi has since receded from the public eye, reportedly living full-time in the Heart-Half Temple as a priestess.

Because of the drama, I call them the Soap Opera Generation.

Splicer Clan

The Splicers are a relatively small clan of mothership-bound Yautja that have gone rogue and into what most would consider Bad Blood territory with cybernetic and DNA experimentation, often on unwilling subjects.

Their experiments include cloning, wetware cyborgs in emulation of Drukathi technology, aquatic variants of Yautja, the crossing of Yautja and Yautja Prime animals such as their Hell-Hounds, and one deadly cocktail of the most prized beings’ DNA in a Yautja shell, as well as a human-Yautja splice to be used as a DNA blood bag to keep him stable.

They have meddled with their own DNA for so long, none of them are purely Yautja anymore. The Yautja Code of Honor is no longer taught within the clan as the pursuit of knowledge and the supreme form are valued over honor and ethics. Experiments raised in the clan do not even know what the code or Bad Bloods are.

Standing Torture

A task and punishment often doled out during the Agoge and Young Blood exchanges.

The victims/students are directed to stand in place, disallowed from shifting their weight for comfort, for as long as specified. Sometimes no time limit is given, only to be left to the torturer’s whims.

This typically lasts weeks, with the more lenient allowing the victims/students not to rest, but to instead walk a designated path for an hour to even a day, before resuming standing still. The less lenient often include heavy objects for the victims/students to shoulder in part or whole of the exercise.

Standing torture is typically done at least once to every Agoge student as a test of endurance. Further instances are usually done as collective punishment, or even on an individual basis for infractions.

Sun Disc Bloodline / “Ra-gheh”

The Sun Discs are a bloodline from the Crossed Swords Clan. They are characterized by their vibrant brown, red, orange, and yellow coloring along with a near perfect round crest with rays emanating from their forehead.

They had a Young Blood son named Dust who had murdered his Hunt-brother during their Blooding ritual and fled, being branded Bad Blood.

Though initially disowning him, his parents eventually realized their hand in the incident, and forcing Dust along the path of a Hunter.

Dust’s body was sent back to them holding its own head and was buried with his belongings in the Sun Disc catacombs per his dispatcher, M’hsi’s, request (which was honored by Clan Leader Lurker).

Sun Gods / Klaatu, Barada, Nikto / Assailant, Barricade, Celerite

Klaatu, Barada and Nikto are the triplet gods of Yautja Prime’s three suns, formed from the middle three fingers severed from the Great Father’s hand. Because they were not all severed at once, the first cut off is considered oldest, and the last youngest.

Klaatu (Assailant) is the hottest and highest sun in the sky, oldest brother, and their leader, only superseded by the Trinitites. With a sword in hand, he leads his younger brothers into battle, striking with overwhelming force. Despite a fiery temper, disregard for caution, brutish attitude, and persecutory habits, Klaatu loves his brothers and provides a flashy distraction for enemies who may otherwise gun for the two.

His presentation in the mythos has instilled many juveniles with ideas of machismo equaling better reputation, good leadership or successful Hunting. Many neglect to consider that the trio as a whole represent the pros and cons of approaches to battle and that moderation of their three traits is what leads to success.

Barada (Barricade) is the dimmest sun, hovering between the other two in the sky, and middle brother. Armed with a shield, he defends his brothers even if at great risk to himself. Quiet and simple in needs, he does nothing but look out for everyone but himself, even at the insistence of Nikto and even Klaatu to express some self-preservation.

Klaatu’s recklessness vexes Barada, spending most battles covering for him. Evidentially, he doesn’t hold it against his older brother, given there is no telling whose side he will take when Klaatu and Nikto argue (which is frequent).

Various interpretations by some Ancients allege that Barada’s shield really refers to impenetrable hide, thus literally throwing himself between enemies and his brothers. Most decline this, saying narratively this does him a disservice, to imply that he is not sacrificing his safety everytime he puts himself in harm’s way because he cannot even be hurt.

Nikto (Celerite) is the lowest but fastest sun in the sky, and youngest brother. He is the quickest of his brothers, on foot and of wit. While Klaatu dives into enemy forces, Nikto commands a chariot to gather them in one area, and dismounts to pick them off from their flanks with a whip. During war (which is rare), he even infiltrates opposing entities in a mortal guise, committing sabotage, gathering intel, or quelling the conflict at its source by assassinating their leaders.

His status as a morally ambiguous figure comes from what society may deem underhanded tactics, as well as the culture of elder respect/priority. Showing up his older brother Klaatu by succeeding when he fails, as well as disregarding his orders/deviating from his plans is seen as rude. The more generous and optimistic claim that because they are on the same team, Nikto’s success is the trio’s success, and his insubordination should be overlooked if it worked.

Questioning his older brother’s commands suggests ego, even though Nikto is generally presented as humble but pragmatic. He does not tout his intelligence and prefers to learn new information over flexing what he already knows. He is also prone to catastrophizing or being unable to see others’ perspectives, taking extreme or overcomplicated precautions to even simple situations. A friendly gesture will be interpreted as a strategic manipulation or outright trap.

Sunning Room

The quarters in any desert Yautja family dwelling with a hole in the roof to allow in sunlight where Yautja sun themselves on rocks like lizards. Often includes a pond to swim and sun in. The equivalent to having an indoor pool/hot tub. Similar to a communal bath within the home, but it’s usually separate from where they freshen up. The roof openings are sealable to keep out the occasional rainstorm.

Sweet Midnight / “Thei Than-guan”

The height of Yautja Prime’s second moon, which gives off green light. The light bathes everything in a way that makes it seem like Yautja gore has been spilled everywhere. Has the same psychological effect on the Yautja as full moons tend to do on Earth (i.e. scare people indoors and make a few others act like lunatics). The name comes from the smell and taste of Yautja blood, which is sweet. So, it sounds very cute without context but it’s kind of objectively terrifying.

Sweet Moon / “Thei Luar-ke”

The Yautja green moon goddess. She was born from the Great Father’s severed fingers along with her sister, brothers, and many siblings.

She is associated with madness and unrest, as well as being notoriously bloodthirsty and warmongering. She wears a skirt of Yautja quills.

Odd Crest Mad Ghost, other than his cannibalism, is known for often reprising her role in plays at his local amphitheater, even when well into his millennium age.

Sweet-toothed / “Thei’ande”

A euphemism for a Yautja with cannibalistic tendencies.

Within the Half-Heart Clan, it is widely known as Mad Ghost’s epithet due to his infamy, but “sweet-toothed” is a term that can apply to anyone else guilty of his crime.

Talah’ria Bloodline / “Swift Wing” / “Winged Heel”

An average bloodline within the Half-Heart Clan, known for siring quick, lithe, and youthful looking Hunters. They also pass down bladed shoe weapons that deploy with the stamp of the feet or click of the heels.

This is the bloodline that gave rise to Roseran and his son born from Lucocaze, the forgotten-to-time Tieri. Tieri would famously die in a cave-in on NV-39W and be cannibalized by his surviving Hunt-brother, Odd Crest Patriarch Mad Ghost.

After this mangling of Tieri’s corpse, the Talah’rias swore off all contact with the Odd Crests and became one of many families to often dissent against the sullied bloodline to the Clan Leaders. They were extremely devastated by Mad Ghost’s escape from justice and became the most vocal of supporters for his tracking, capture, and conviction.

Many modern Talah’rias firmly believe Tieri was killed for the purpose of consumption, despite existing testimony from witnesses to the contrary. At the time of the incident, even if some Talah’rias did not think Mad Ghost himself killed Tieri, they found the subsequent desecration and partaking of tough meat to be completely unforgivable.

Even in current day, they turn their gaze away from Odd Crests should they rear their heads within sight. They would alert Enforcers or complain right to the Clan Leader if an Odd Crest attempted to visit their ancestral home.

A maternal connection from the Talah’rias led to Lark’eth, the current Temple Guard of Clan Leader Kandore, who had inherited the Winged Heels weapon the bloodline is known for despite being considered a member of a different family.

Tar Pits

The deserts of Yautja Prime contain pockets of boiling tar in areas of solid ground, free of thick sand dunes. Though powered by geothermal activity in Yautja Prime’s crust, during the day, they are kept relatively thin and boiling by the intense sunlight of the three suns the planet orbits.

At night, they slowly cool and harden, and very late in the night, can reach a viscosity where one could feasibly run across them. However, they are still boiling and hot (at a slower pace than in the day), thus they cannot be walked over, lest the cooled surface stretch downwards into the soft tar underneath from the weight and break open, or reheat and envelop your foot.

Quicksand does not exist in Yautja Prime deserts (only in its jungles), but tar pits are a similar hazard. Walking into a tar pit functions like quicksand, but faster and worse. As it envelops and sticks to your body, it will broil you alive the entire time. Limbs sunk into tar pits and pulled out are generally amputated; bodies that remain on the surface can be fished out, but neither can have the caked tar removed without extensive work and a lot of destructive peeling. Many tar pits contain the remains of Bad Bloods, Enforcers, and exchange Young Bloods alike, and occasionally resurface due to convection currents in the tar.

Yautja quills have thick enough skin to not develop burns from exposure to even daytime tar, meaning they are often well preserved when someone is burned or dies in a tar pit.

Mad Ghost spent his later years in the desert dyeing his aging and sun-bleached quills by dipping them into tar pits and allowing them to cake. After a while of the quills flexing, the tar would flake off and he would dye it again.

Thought Children

An epithet used to describe Paya and Cetanu, as part of a differentiation from the Satellites, Material Gods who were made from matter, the Great Father’s flesh and blood.

Their older siblings were created first by their father merely willing them into existence. The mythology often euphemistically refers to the trio as “he and his thought children”.

While Satellites take tangible forms as suns and moons, Paya and Cetanu remain omnipresent, conceptual and abstract. While capable of assuming “real” bodies or visible, singular forms, even able to commandeer preexisting beings, they do not regularly occupy the mortal plane.

Tlega Oasis / Flayed Thing

An allegedly cursed spot of vegetation in the desert off the outskirts of the Bleached Bone Clan. Despite being such a convenient respite from the harsh climate and suns, all travelers are warned from entering, at least too far into the oasis. It is said those who go too deep come back changed, and unlike gods who impersonate mortals, who relinquish when the original mortal returns, they stay changed. Those who keep their distance and return well report a voice in its depths.

Tlega Oasis was said to have been placed there by the gods themselves long ago, not as a gift to the people, but the consequence of them punishing a wayward Ancient, Tlega. For his pursuit of power that did not belong to him, he was flayed by Paya and cursed not to die by Cetanu, trapped under the ground, his blood feeding the ordinarily dry soil and raising an oasis above his prison. The voice heard is Tlega begging for reprieve, not a true victim of a fall as one may think. Said the gods, “the flayed one will remain there for eternity.”

Hidden in the oasis’ verdure is a crevasse, from which a whispery voice begs for help, unresponsive to questions. The cautious will recognize someone truly in distress would likely be yelling and avoid the trap, but the compassionate few may wish to help someone too weak to raise their volume. When the victim makes their way down, the sweet smell of a rotting Yautja will waft, along with smears of luminescent blood around the cavern.

The occupant of this space is an entirely flayed, quills included, Yautja with a cut throat, who will emerge and ambush the victim. With an abnormally grown claw on its left middle finger, the Flayed Thing similarly flays the newcomer before slashing their throat. As the newcomer reels, the Flayed Thing picks up the pristine hide and slips it on as if it were cloth, the flesh sealing as if never cut.

Now appearing exactly as the newcomer, the former Flayed Thing has the strength to escape the pit and resume normal life under the newcomer’s identity. Meanwhile, the newcomer, body essentially stolen, takes its place as the Flayed Thing; with throat cut and in such a state of pain, they can only weakly beg for anyone to come down, so that they may steal the next newcomer’s hide and free themself of the curse they had been handed.

Each Flayed Thing was once a Yautja unfortunate enough to be lured into the chasm, who must now deal what they had been dealt, passing their pain onto the next one, a process that can take centuries as they cannot die. Desperate enough to escape the endless pain, they pursue their desire to continue their natural life, even if under a different face and name, even if stealing it from someone else innocent.

With the last of the power that was never his, Tlega had exploited a loophole in the gods’ command by casting his own spell. He could not break the curse, but instead pass it on.

Tlega grew himself a weapon in the form of an extended claw that can cut through nearly all things, with which the passerby, young Aganon, was flayed, and cursing him to near-silence, Tlega cut his throat. Finally, his spell allowed him to wear the hide of his reluctant rescuer; in doing so, Tlega both escaped punishment and his natural death, living the rest of his young and healthy replacement’s days.

This was allowed to occur because of the gods’ exact wording: the eternal punishment is not broken as long as any “flayed one” remains down there, not Tlega himself.

However, humbled by his millennia of torture, Tlega ensured his spell would also pass to his replacement, so that they may escape as he did. Once skinned by the Flayed Thing, their victims will grow a talon with which to silence their replacement and steal their visage. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

The spell makes the Thing’s muscles, skeleton, blood, eye color, voice, sex— everything, become indistinguishable from their replacement’s. It is irreversible, to everyone’s chagrin. Even when they die, they will take their replacement’s place in the afterlife, only identifiable via the stolen life and name. Tlega, never having escaped as “Tlega”, known to everyone only as “Aganon”, evaded the gods’ attention this way.

Those who had been the Flayed Thing do not speak of it, and quietly live out their replacement’s life. It would be difficult to, under Tlega’s curse of silence. It is unwise for any former Flayed Thing to confess otherwise, for fear of retribution.

A former Flayed Thing returning to the crevasse cannot be attacked by the current Thing. The claw cannot pierce flesh already cut by it, as that would undo the work of its own spell.

Tomb of Leaders

The Half-Heart Clan mausoleum made for the entombment of former Clan Leaders. Since the death of the very first Half-Heart Clan Leader Ran’ukshi, and the tomb’s subsequent construction by her son and second Clan Leader Karanta-ka, every Clan Leader has been buried there.

In cases where no body is retrievable, a cenotaph is interred. Cenotaphs are interred in the Leaders’ ancestral catacombs while their actual bodies are kept in the Tomb of Leaders.

Most of the Rom’ijul Leaders are buried in the same chamber, due to the massive amount of leaders being killed regularly and only so much room to house them. This room is split into halves, where the rival families are given a side of the room away from the other.

Tough Meat / “Yautja Amedha”

In accordance with the canon slang phrases for Xenomorph (kiande amedha, hard meat) and Humans (pyode amedha, soft meat), tough meat (yautja amedha) is slang for Yautja in the context of both the Hunting and/or consumption of fellow Yautja. The term has the same inherent contradiction as the culinary term “long pig” (human flesh), in that, ideally, this is a phrase that should not exist and its use and further implications of Yautja turning on other Yautja makes everyone deeply uncomfortable.

The consumption of tough meat is forbidden by the Yautja Code of Honor, even if the meat is obtained without the explicit murder of the victim. If a chunk of flesh is ripped off during a fight via a bite, then it must be spat out.

Training Biomasks

Young Bloods are issued identical masks in order to hone their use of Hunt technology. They only receive unique masks just before their Blooding ritual, after which, they use them for the rest of their Hunting career for as long as the masks are operable. Some Hunters choose to keep their training masks and use them both during and after their Blooding.

M’hsi put aside her training mask and received her Blooded mask before her Six-Man Hunt, crafted by Bu’kali, commissioned by Kandore. The design was decided by the two of them, with no input from M’hsi and her family other than provided measurements.

Tractor Beam / “The Concussor”

The Butchers’ ship, the Hook, is equipped with a powerful piece of Bad Blood engineering: a tractor beam they call “The Concussor”. It functions closely to the typical human media perception of alien tractor beams.

It is a large tower of pipes and wires, with a large dish embedded in its bottom, parallel to the floor, sitting in the ceiling of the Hook’s storage sector. When the Butchers prime the Concussor, the tower lowers halfway, and has a straight shot to the ground below the ship, strategically placed over their target of interest.

When activated, it blasts a ray of blinding light and directed sound so loud and deep it renders the target unconscious instantaneously, starting by stunning them into paralysis.

The beam then pulls on the target by their center of gravity, who travels up the ray of light into the ship and into the Butchers’ waiting arms, as one of the three closes the bay doors, shuts off the Concussor, and steers the ship back home.

Those who have been Concussed remain in their state for days, which is often prolonged even up to weeks due to interference from the Butchers. When they awake, there is typical grogginess but no mental delay or damage aside from some memory blackout.

The Concussor is primarily used to abduct their prey of interest without trouble. They keep their captives under as long as it takes to bring them to their game preserve planet Ro’anedha, the Butchers allowing them to wake just before or in the middle of their descent to the ground from their airborne ship.

Trajectory cursors / Caster trine / Laser sight

A caster trine is represented by the triangular pattern of sides devoid of vertices inside the visor of a Yautja’s biomask. Its location is tracked through analysis of the eye movements made by the biomask’s wearer, though differences in programming can make it predictive.

This is not to be confused with a laser sight, which is both the triangular pattern of vertices without sides projected externally with harmless lasers before firing, as well as the physical structure built into the mask that projects it.

Witnessing an object’s movement and effect on the environment in the 3D space before it, the visor display can calculate its approximate location of origin. It does this by first following with the trine, which despawns and is replaced with the actual trajectory cursor, a large slash mark. This then traces and spans from the object’s final location to its predicted starting point, the trine reconfiguring around it.

Trinity / Triads / Trinitites

The number three, specifically arranged in a triangle, is a nigh-universal importance to the Yautja. It is to have a power, even considered by some to be good luck.

This is in reverence to their pantheon’s trinity: the Great Father standing above Paya and Cetanu, his thought-children. A member of this trinity is known as a Trinitite. Invoking their imagery is said to, interpreted both literally or figuratively, lend one their power (strength-wise, or other powers such as true sight and any known abilities that the triad is being evoked through)

So important three is, it is the universal form laser sights and crosshairs are given. Unless alone, or in a large group like a class or party, Hunters are rarely united in any numbers other than three.

Nine is a similarly revered number, for being a trio of threes. The Gloriccade festival of the Half-Heart Clan lasts nine days for this reason.

Tongues

Yautja tongues are forked and function just as an Earth snake’s. The tongue is not anchored in the bottom jaw behind the teeth like a human’s, instead recoiling into the Yautja’s throat and flicking outwards through the orifice.

Sometime if a cursory scan with a biomask yields no results, a Hunter may unmask and flick their tongue through the unfiltered air to pick up a scent.

Tunzwa

A livestock species on Yautja Prime kept for their hides, meat, and trophy uses. They have creased black skin, wavy cream-colored fur, four eyes and six muscular hooved legs. The males have curled horns like rams, while the females have larger straight horns that, depending on the individual, point forwards or back.

While originally from the poles of the planet, hence the presence of fur, tunzwa had been brought to other biomes, and domesticated into variant breeds that prioritize their thriving in unnatural heat, and secondarily, what product the particular flock is meant to turn over.

Tunzwa skin and fur have unique heat-soaking capabilities that make them popular for Hunts conducted in colder climates. A controlled population is maintained on the Antarctic Hunting Party’s mothership for primarily this reason.

Their horns make excellent accessories and material for trophy-making. High in olivine, the shale-like horn exterior can be polished into a fancy-looking finish to be set into the handle of a comb, back of a hand mirror, etc. They are often kept whole and polished, either for decoration, furniture detailing, or even refurbished into instruments and war horns. Male tunzwa horns are used exclusively for the latter due to their more compact size.

While most of a tunzwa’s flesh is edible and indeed eaten, their prized feature are their thick, muscular legs. Both the thighs and the shanks are taken and roasted whole together. It is common practice at a feast for those who are close together to split a tunzwa leg, breaking the hock. At the daily buffet for Enforcers, the hock is already pre-split to cut down on cooking time.

The back legs are the most powerful, and thus highly sought for their larger volume of proportional meat. Meat from fur or horn flocks is considered lower-grade meat, while high-grade is from flocks that prioritize their muscular development.

While Yautja are able to and enjoy consuming raw meat, tunzwa muscle is considered most delicious when thoroughly cooked. The taste and texture is comparable to mutton on the bone. Olannr blood is a popular marinade for tunzwa.

The Twelve Incident

A disaster that occurred in the Earth year of 1975 in the northwestern forests of South America, where all twelve sons of Odd Crest Patriarch Halkrath perished.

Halkrath’s adolescent litter of four, triplets Dusk, Crisis, Abyss, and lone child Kudos were nearing Blooding age, and so it was arranged to take place at a temple built for such on Earth. Halkrath’s adult children, under his supervision, made preparations and collected the sacrifices to be placed in the sacrificial chamber in order to provide the needed xenomorphs. Seven humans were chosen to produce seven xenomorphs, so the four would not be outnumbered 2:1, but given a decent challenge.

Halkrath’s only daughter and youngest child at the time, M’hsi, wished to attend as the other adult children did, but her mother Vosandi made her stay, as she was too young and would see them back soon.

The Unblooded four would personally enter the temple for their trial, and their Blooded siblings and Halkrath would observe remotely from a nearby facility through their biomask feeds.

Through still unknown means, the sacrifices produced far more than seven xenomorphs, resulting in the Unblooded becoming overrun and outmatched. Halkrath then led his Blooded children into battle on a rescue mission, abort the trial, and kill the Queen and her nest to investigate the cause and stop the invasive species from spreading to the human-populated areas.

With his newly-acquired plasmacaster, Dusk shot at xenomorph drones running down a hall, fatally hitting a hidden Sly, whose body then avoided any xenomorph desecration or injury. During this, Kudos was impaled from behind through the chest by a drone, that Crisis then killed. No longer fit to fight, Kudos clung to Crisis and convinced him to stay and defend him until they had the clear to escape, hunkering down behind some temple architecture.

Shriek armed his wrist-nuke and began running the opposite way from the Queen chamber and exit, using his call to attract as many drones as possible, with Sniper picking off the crowd rushing after Shriek. During so, Sniper was ambushed from behind and dragged off to the nest, and the growing swarm of xenomorphs began to overwhelm Shriek.

Halkrath commanded Hookclaw, with Dusk as his back-up, to destroy the nest and Queen. As Halkrath sent his sons Fearless, Gouger, Spartan, Ruthless, and Abyss to maintain exit control, Ruthless was impaled before his father’s eyes and taken into a serpent vent to the nest, where he fell from the platform and onto a cluster of ovomorphs, dying of acid damage.

Hookclaw confronted the Queen while Dusk slew the defending drones. Dusk was overwhelmed and torn apart by the growing numbers as Hookclaw was impaled by the partially freed Queen. By then, Shriek’s wrist-nuke activated, vaporizing him and the surrounding drones, destroying the temple wing he was in, and billowing down the halls until the blast radius hit the Queen chamber, engulfing Sniper (who was still alive), Dusk’s body, some of the drones, Hookclaw, the Queen, Ruthless’ body, and the nest.

As the explosion distracted the two, Crisis was impaled through the chest and thrown across the room by a drone, dying in the corner. Kudos was ignored by the rushing numbers of xenomorphs past him, as he slowly bled out.

Meanwhile, Halkrath and his surviving children were outside on temple grounds to contain the infestation and secure exits, which was abandoned as xenomorphs surpassed their roadblocks and escaped onto the grounds and surrounding forest. The group scrambled all over the ground to catch and kill any drones they saw, gathering in smaller pairs to back each other up.

Spartan was sprayed with acid while attending to Halkrath, before being stabbed from behind and torn away from his side. Weakened, he couldn’t prevent the swarming drones from killing him with a pharyngeal jaw to the cranium.

Shriek’s explosion destroyed the left wing of the temple, causing structural collapse, the debris from which crushed Abyss, and rained down upon the combatants, Yautja and xenomorph alike. In the chaos, Gouger was headbitten from behind.

The lone two, Halkrath bore witness to Fearless attending him, only to be impaled from behind and torn in two at the waist. Halkrath, furious, attacked the offending drone which then bled all over his right side before expiring, being buried along with the patriarch in rubble.

After the initial reports and radio silence, Half-Heart sent a recovery team as well as clean-up effort to investigate, where Halkrath was found clinging to life underneath rubble, missing both his right limbs, body marred with acid burns and partially melted to the floor. He was taken for medical attention as the clean-up focused on hunting the escaped xenomorphs before any could attack a human settlement or establish a new nest.

Over time, the bodies of the twelve and their masks were removed, if and when possible, from the ruins of the temple, which was then condemned. Ruthless’s body, which was still acidic, was left in place in wait of a time when he would be safe to handle.

A clanwide service was thrown for the twelve, despite the Odd Crests being an unpopular family, for the great loss of Half-Heart life.

The events of that day was pieced together by authorities through salvaged mask feeds and what information Halkrath could offer in his gravely injured and near-catatonic state.

As other clan territories and Hunters were already pre-established near the site of the disaster, the procedure afterwards was a matter of many clans and individuals, resulting in the Council of Ancients taking part in the matter. Half-Heart Clan Leader Kandore advocated for Halkrath as not being the cause of the incident, with further research leading to the conclusion that it was likely due to a mutation in the ovomorphs laid by the Queen already captive in the temple long before the Odd Crests arrived. These mutations possibly made the facehuggers implant multiple viable chestbursters instead of the standard one per sacrifice. Kandore insisted that neither Halkrath nor his sons were responsible for, or could have known about this, or prevented it. Saved on a whim due to already being alive, Halkrath was kept so with his future fate undecided, to be based on the findings.

With that conclusion, the Ancients agreed with Kandore and no further punishment was handed down by them or Kandore to the disgraced patriarch. Despite this acknowledgement of his futility in the cause of the incident, Halkrath was in command of the operation and oversaw the precautions taken, and most importantly to the council, failed to contain the problem when made aware of it. Thus, he was held responsible for the disaster’s development and his mishandling of its containment.

The twelve were buried in their designated tombs underneath the Odd Crest home, and the recoverable masks hung in their living area. All but two mates left Halkrath in the aftermath, those who stayed were the mother of his only surviving child M’hsi, and the other pregnant with his next and now only son.

Halkrath the Half-Shadow was cemented in the infamous history of the Odd Crest Bloodline as its sixth most recent disgrace. Unable to Hunt, he is currently Retired and works as a hardware technician and consultant.

Ruthless’s body would lay on Earth for fifty more years, considered a low priority, until his grown half-sister M’hsi recovered him personally and left him for a scout ship to take him for proper burial.

Investigation is still on-going.

Underhand Blades

An uncommon wristblade gauntlet variant and the choice weapon of Mata’qi the Betrayer. Rather than two upright blades that curve over the back of the hand and knuckles, underhand blade gauntlets have a single straight sword-like blade that shoots out from under their palm.

They are seen as weapons of the untrustworthy, hence their name— underhand referring to the location of the blade, as well as the underhanded tactic of the concealed blade, as opposed to ordinary wristblades or scimitars which are plainly visible. While use in combat can be done honorably, it is a common melee choice of assassins.

The Unseen / “Hadhi”

A species of blind cave-dwelling quadrupeds on the planet NV-39W. Their skin is pale, soft, and soggy due to lack of exposure to sunlight and the condensation present in their tunnels. Only tough skin grows on the edges of their extremities from burrowing through stone. On their back and joints are reversible black venom-tipped barbs that cause burning pain to any creatures that are not other Unseen.

Their social structure and intelligence is similar to that of Xenomorphs, but without a queen and higher sapience. They subsist themselves on cave grubs and any other creatures that escape the heat of NV-39W by invading their tunnel system.

Their flesh is considered undesirable due to its fattiness and tendency to fall apart during the flaying process. Their meat is likewise maligned and they are subsequently not hunted for food. In some clans, use for the bad flesh is found in the production of gtaulu, a drink formed from boiled Unseen remains that sobers up those intoxicated on c’ntlip. Unseen skulls, spines, and various scavenged bones are common decorations, worn accessories, or construction material for things like weapons within the Half-Heart Clan.

Yautja use Unseen barbs as weapon or armor accents, or to guard objects from unsolicited touching.

They are known as hadhi or hadhi amedha in the Yautja language.

Visions vs. Dreams vs. Daydreams

Much like humans, when Yautja sleep they enter REM phase and dream. However, their language about the experience differs from human phrasing and can lead to confusion.

The experience of seeing things in their sleep is referred to as having visions. Humans call this dreaming.

The experience of zoning out while awake to think about other things is referred to as dreaming. Humans call this daydreaming.

Despite the more formal name, visions are not always important, and the eventless or nonsensical ones are dismissed as the rapid eye movement and brain firing they are. Though, if the contents of a vision seem real or correspond greatly to real life events that have occurred, are happening, or will come to pass, as well as containing the deceased or distressed acting in-character, they are considered very seriously to be messages from spirits or the gods.

Ancients seeing past and future events through their vapors is referred to as sighting, not “having visions”. However, the practice is also called “dreaming” because they are awake when it happens.

Vocal Mimicry vs. Vocal Playback

Yautja are capable using their masks to record and play back audio they overhear. They use this in conjunction with their latent ability of vocal mimicry.

While their mask can play back the audio almost flawlessly, using their actual mouths and throat to replicate the sound will always start out distorted, but gain clarity on each repeat. By listening to an audio clip of a voice over and over, a Yautja can learn to mimic the phrase as flawlessly as the playback quality, extrapolate its context, and use the phrase in a correct context. They can even speak the phrase with their own voice after enough practice, essentially learning pieces of the human language.

Mimicry is with their mouth, playback is with their mask.

If they are speaking in a human voice without a mask on their face, it is mimicry. If they have a mask on, it can be either mimicry from underneath the mask, or playback via the mask.

Voliga Bloodline (WIP)

The Voliga bloodline...

Vosandi / “Spectres” / “Vengeful Spirits”

Similar to the human concept of onryos, vosandi, or “spectres” are the spirits of Yautja who are overcome with negative emotions and may act on them if channeled, or in legend, may even affect the physical world without a mortal vessel through sheer willpower.

Spectres are not comparable to demons— they have not transformed into a new kind of being, rather being a specific term under the broader umbrella of bhu’ja (ghost, spirit, soul). An otherwise completely normal Yautja ghost being labelled a “vosandi” only indicates the spirit is troubled and dangerous if given an outlet. They are so overcome with grief or rage that it commands most if not all their actions; a simple pissed off or upset bhu’ja is not a vosandi even if their mood does not improve.

Channeling is a dangerous activity for spectres to undergo, because their unrest makes them incredibly difficult to dismiss even by a seasoned Ancient, and a physical body allows them much easier ways of incurring collateral damage as they go rogue and seek aimless, fruitless (often to the point of near-delusional) revenge.

In legend, they are known to incur karma as vengeance for their often wrongful deaths, such as causing their murderers to fall on their own weapons or having their ships fall apart while leaving orbit with no discernible ordinary cause.

Vosandi are described as being capable of travelling endlessly over deserts, jungles, and oceans to pursue the target of their undying wrath. Nothing can stop them other than the veil between the realm of the dead and the mortal plane.

Vosandi, mother of M’hsi, is named after them due to her never letting go of grudges and eventually always exacting vengeance. This is a trait her daughter has also at least partially adopted.

Vyy’antyr

The lost-to-time third thought-child of the Great Father, after Paya and Cetanu, as well as the patron goddess and creator of the Xenomorph (Serpent) species. She wore nothing and had the head of a Predalien.

While the Great Father created the Yautja in his and his elder children’s image, Vyy’antyr created the Serpents in her image.

The Great Father was disgusted at the breech of protocol, vanity, and the havoc these abominations brought to his world. He was most all appalled by their parasitic life-cycle. Whereas Yautja alkaline blood would grant life and prosperity, Serpent blood prevented new life. They destroyed and violated his creations, his beloved Yautja. The hatred was nauseating.

Great Father admonished her and commanded her to revoke their existence, lest he destroy them all. Vyy’antyr in turn rebelled. This was short-lived as Great Father’s cleaved her in two with a lightning strike. He cut the fallen god into as many pieces as there were stars in the sky, casting them across the universe so they may never reconstitute.

After, the Great Father begrudgingly allowed the Serpents to exist, due to Paya’s acceptance of their strength and cunning as prey, and so he may watch his creations best them, over and over. The two were ordered to never meet. Thus, Abominations (Xenomorphs spawned from Yautja hosts) were to be destroyed by all means, at any cost.

One half of Vyy’antyr’s heart landed in the outskirts of a Yautja Prime desert, upon which formed the Half-Heart Clan. Their main temple was built over the supposed resting place of the heart piece, and the coming-of-age ceremony requires all Half-Hearters to pledge their lives to protecting it from all who mean harm. Its exact location within the clan territory is unknown.

One piece had embedded itself underneath Bouvet Island, on Earth, in the South Atlantic.

Vyy’antyr’s image is nonexistent. Depictions of her are forbidden, as opposed to Xenomorph statues that are made out of begrudging respect.

Cetanu has, at times, been mistakenly syncretized with Vyy’antyr. His image of being an all-black armored harbinger of death lends to the image of a black Serpent with armor who brings anti-life.

War Songs / Hunt Songs

Music is a much less prevalent facet of Yautja culture as it is for humans, and the interactions between the two have resulted in (relatively recent) cultural adaptions.

Yautja had few times before heard the concept of “war songs”, songs made explicitly for when armies move to fight, to lift spirits. As they are attracted to heat and conflict, Yautja have long heard human war songs preceding the humans exhibiting great valor and strength.

Intrigued, Yautja have slowly adopted these war songs through mimicry and in more rare occasions, actual translation. Understanding implicitly what the songs are for, to rally spirits and sing about what you fight for, Yautja came to admire this curiosity. Similar to an army that sings at what may be their final supper, or as they prepare for war, Yautja Hunters may sing the same songs as they do the same for a Hunt.

Some human songs not meant for war were adopted for Hunt songs by Yautja mistakenly, overheard before conflict arose.

Among Hunt songs within the Half-Heart Clan, who often fought with the Ancient Greeks, was the Greek poem Song For A Young Girl. This was the favorite of Odd Crest Patriarch Halkrath’s twelve sons who often sang it preceding their Hunts or Blooding rituals.

Odd Crest Matriarch M’hsi continued the tradition on her Six-man Hunt while self and weapon repairing.

White Whip

A metal whip constructed like the shock variant, except constructed explicitly for use on other Yautja. Instead of a current of electricity, the metal conducts an intense and concentrated level of heat not even Yautja (who hail from a planet of deserts and jungles, with three suns) can stand.

White whips were created exclusively to be used on Bad Bloods. They are forbidden to be carried by ordinary Hunters, only for the use of Enforcers and volunteers. Use of the whip on non-Bad Bloods, or Yautja not engaging in code-breaking behavior (who have not been declared Bad Blood yet) is considered itself, a violation of the Code of Honor.

Named for its glowing white appearance when operating, both in thermal vision and outside it.

Wisdom Fangs

Wisdom fangs are the addition teeth that may grow out of various parts of Yautja mouths. They tend to grow out of the cheek or jawbones, above or below the mandible, or harmlessly out of the mandible joints.

They typically emerge past adolescence, when a Yautja is in their 200s. Occasionally, emergence can be delayed well into their 400s. Sometimes, though quite rarely, a Yautja pup can be born with their wisdom fangs already exposed.

Having wisdom fangs is a dominant genetic trait, as well as the location they sprout from. A Yautja with a parent who has wisdom fangs on top of their mandibles will likely grow theirs in the same, if not mirrored, location in young adulthood.

Witnesses / “Witness Me”

The killing of another Yautja is expressly forbidden, except in cases of self-defense and official deathmatches.

To regulate spontaneous fights where death may happen but is not the objective, such as bar brawls, it is customary to ask a bystander to witness you. This turns them into a legal witness, essentially a referee of sorts, turning the fight into a more official and legal duel even if very sudden and without a pre-issued challenge as both fatal and nonfatal duels normally have. Witnesses keep track of events as they unfold until Enforcers arrive or the fight ends.

Crowding around fights in the streets is recommended to expand the pool of witnesses in order to build an accurate picture of the skirmish should a report be needed, as the case is if anyone dies.

The phrase once had more gravitas to it in every use, but nowadays is the Yautja version of “hold my drink/jacket/purse/etc.” before someone throws a punch.

Zy’janu / “Briarbind”

A Yautja colloquialism for a syzygy, a three-part eclipse, as opposed to two parts.

The origin is a legend said to have taken place during a civil war on Yautja Prime millennia ago that divided the heavens as much as the warring clans. This was before the gods had sworn off personally meddling in mortal affairs.

The sun gods and moon goddesses had taken opposite sides of the war, the brothers and Helinos Clan winning by day, the sisters and Iluuva Clan by night. Sweet Moon and Bitter Moon had egged the war on to feed Sweet’s bloodlust, and Bitter Moon had declared the bloodshed would not end until the opposing side was wiped off the map, or until the moons themselves would align with Prime.

The latter was impossible, as the moon goddesses commanded their own orbits, said only as cruel mockery by Bitter Moon. However, the sun triplets schemed to make it a reality. Beseeching to the suffering nature gods on Yautja Prime, they concentrated their efforts into creating vines long enough to reach the sky, strong enough to hold a god, and fashioned with thorns to prevent a struggle.

As middle brother Barada was the last to set, he lassoed the sisters in the vines and the triplets altogether pulled the moons into position. In the resulting light, said to have been almost as bright as day, the Iluuva Clan was razed to the ground.

As a show of Bitter’s appreciation to being outwitted, lunar briarbinds are still common occurrences on Yautja Prime, though they are far less bright. The name has even been appended to other combinations of suns and moons aligning with the planet.

#text #lore #glossary

93 notes · View notes