Tamijhiin

The Tamijhin have four arms with four hands and two legs. Along with half the vertebrates on Alter, they are hexapods, which diverged from the tetrapods early in the primordial era.   Their hands have four long digits including a distinct thumb. They have four toes on each large foot. Their limbs are long and they are renowned for their dexterity and endurance. They can run for many hours before they get tired and are excellent climbers also. Despite their deftness though, they are not strong.   Their skin is smooth and rubbery. They have no hair anywhere on their bodies. The dense layer of fat under their skin varies with thickness throughout the year to keep them warm so Tamijhiin in many communities find little use for clothes. Their skin also varies in colour seasonally in many populations to act as a kind of camouflage.   They have three eyes and see a much broader spectrum of colour than homo sapiens although with somewhat less definition. Their eyelids are transparent; hard to notice without paying close attention.   Their four large nostrils contribute to their exceptional sense of smell and taste; their most defining ability. The Tamijhiin gatherers roam enormous distances, smelling edible plants from many kilometres away when downwind. They recognise one another primarily by their smell. This means they are rarely lost, usually able to smell their home, even when it is a speck on the horizon.

The Tamijhiin reach sexual maturity after around 16 year but are not fully grown until around 26 years old. They become infertile after around 60 years old but remain strong after that for a further 30 years. They can live to 110 but their health will typically begin to decline once they are 90 years old.   The scholars of Vekirai, record that the oldest of the Tamijhiin was 170 years old, aided by powerful magic although this may be apocryphal; the Tamijhiin of M'dia mostly forbid magic. Legends amongst some Tamijhiin communities describe immortal shamans.

They are most well suited to a temperate seasonal forest biome although due to their chameleonic skin, they have adapted to make their homes in diverse climates. Of all the sentient races, the Tamijhiin are most wide spread.

They are entirely herbivorous. They gather much of their food, finding it with their exceptional sense of smell although there are some large communities that rely, in part, on farming. Much of Tamijhiin culture and tradition focuses on seeking out food due to the low calorific content of much of what they eat.   The largest Tamijhiin communities farm and gather their food over many hundreds of square kilometres of land.

The Tamijhiin have three eyes which are most commonly yellow/orange but can also be green or brown. Rarely, their eyes may be heterochromic.   They have four large nostrils which allow them an exceptional sense of smell. They find most of their food by smelling it from far away.   They're ears are large and pointed up and away from their face. They hear well from all directions which can be a hindrance in loud environments where Tamijhiin may wrap a head band around their ears to dampen the sound.

The Tamijhiin can be encountered all over M'dia and some of the nearby islands. The Tamijhiin are the most widely settled sentient race in Alter.

As mentioned above, the Tamijhiin have a highly developed sense of smell allowing them to find food which is too far away to see. They can also recognise one another by smell and use this ability to find there way home when they are lost. Their ability to communicate to smell goes beyond recognition though, with Tamijhiin often able to smell when their peers are ill, distressed, excited or alert, amongst other emotions, by scent cues.   As with all the sentient races of Alter, natural magical ability is an extremely rare ability amongst the Tamijhiin. Scholars in Vekirai estimate that only 1 in 10,000 Tamijhiin have any natural magical ability and those who do are unlikely to ever realise. In many Tamijhiin communities, magic is highly taboo so even where magically abilities are discovered, they are repressed.   There are many scholars who agree that the Tamijhiin have some natural affinity for spirits beyond the other races with Tamijhiin shamans able to communicate with spirits much more easily that Espiria scholars who attempt the feat.

The southern M'dian tradition, continued by many of the groups which migrated north is to name their children and birth, then have the children rename themselves around 16 and again at 32 and again finally at 64. It is fairly common for Tamijhiin following the southern tradition to be renamed after a great act or after death as a form of eulogy.   For example, Valuahan or 'he who strides across the roots' was named Imahasnim or 'he who reaches for the branches' soon after birth by his mother in the red forests of northern Bairek. At 16 he was renamed Susualim or 'he who climbs trees' by the shaman who took him as an apprentice and at 32, now a shaman in his own right, he renamed himself Valuahan.

The southern Tamijhiin speak the language called Tamijhiini. The word Tamijhiin means 'the chosen people' in southern tamijhiini. The Tamijhiin who migrated north and to the islands near the south coast continue to speak Tamijhiini although their dialects have diverged to various degree and different dialects have vastly different suites of loan words.   The Tamijhiin of North-East M'dia call themselves 'Damihiin' and speak a dialect of Tamijhiini with heavy borrowings from the Vekirati, Bairoki, Mirjiini and 'T'nge languages they have been exposed to. It is however possible for speakers of Damihiini to communicate with speakers of Tamijhiini as long as they speak slowly and avoid loan words or colloquialisms.

The Tamijhiin hail from the southernmost coast of the continent of M'dia. They live there in large communities and are abundant but are rare in the north of the continent where they are viewed with suspicion.   Some groups migrated northward over the last 1000 years and there are now communities across the continent and on some Island near the south coast of the continent.

The legend of the Opal City is told is all Tamijhiin communities. They Tamijhiin tell of a time when all the chosen people were united and lived in a paradise called the Opal City, ruled over by a divine spirit or god called the Opal Queen. Different legends have different interpretations of the reasons for the fall of the opal city and the dispersal of most of the Tamijhiin.

In northern M'dia, the Tamijhiin are viewed with suspicion. They are a minority in all of the northern kingdoms except Banyek and, although they have been there in small groups for over 500 years, they are still seen as outsiders by many.   The Tamijhiin are disproportionately taken as slaves by the Cyirosi and Baireki slave drivers. There lack of physically strength and traditions of non-violence have made them vulnerable to attack and kidnap. As slaves they are sold for much lower price than Espirion or Pirol slaves who are typically stronger and therefore considered more useful.