The Xalotli People (sha-LOT-li)

One of the few remaining communities of the people that still identify themselves with their origins in Ceth Tseket are the Xalotlin, an isolated ethnic group found exclusively in a single city in the New Federation. The Xalotli people one of the ethnic groups that constitute the Tseketlin, modern communities who have preserved their Tseketon heritage, largely through isolation from the world around them. For the Xalotlin, this had been ongoing for nearly three thousand years, with only sporadic periods of contact with the outside world interrupting their voluntary isolation, and it abruptly ended when the Queen of Toluca, Valissia ce'Xalotl, cultivated an alliance with the revolutionary government of the New Federation and opened up the city of Toluca to the world, establishing it as the heart of a neo-Tseketon empire, New Xalotl. The Xalotli people of Toluca revere Valissia as their spiritual and political leader, and they worship the three deities of the Tseketon faith.   Due to their long-term isolation, the Xalotlin are only distantly related to any other ethnic group of the area. Due to a period of cultural exchange with the Dimira people that occurred about five to six hundred years ago, the Xalotlin people have largely adopted the modern Common language, albeit a heavily dialected version of Common, and most remain fluent in the Xalotli dialect of Eldercommon. Their writing system, however, is nearly identical with Classical Eldercommon, and it is thus mutually unintelligible with the writing of modern Common.

Terminology

The term "Xalotli" is used as an adjective (e.g., "Xalotli people"). The noun variant is "Xalotlin" (e.g., "Xalotlin are..."). The root "Xalotl" refers to the historical province of the Ceth Tseket in which the Xalotli people originated.

Xalotli and Humanity

It is not clear that the Xalotlin are unambiguously human. While they are certainly neither elves nor orcs (neither of which appeared in the Ceth Tseket until shortly before its downfall, and both of which are absent from the Tolucan population), and they are not Otherborn (the prevalence of which among Tolucans appears to be zero), the Tolucan Xalotlin display certain characteristics that indicate some divergence from standard human physiology is standard among the population.   The Ceth Tseket had a well-established tradition of druidic transformation, in which the clerical and aristocratic classes would undergo rituals to take on characteristics of sacred animals, particularly snakes, jaguars, and falcons. Among the Tolucans, this tradition expanded early in the city's isolation, leading to the proliferation of minor transformation features among all levels of society. These magically-induced features appear to have become heritable at some point nearly two thousand years ago, as Tolucan birth records dating back to at least 1200 YW document births of infants with small patches of scales or feathers. It is estimated that about 70% of Tolucan Tseketli people have inborn characteristics traditionally associated with druidic transformation. Most common are those small patches of scales or feathers on the skin, which about 45% of the population possesses; about 35% have birdlike, snakelike, or jaguarlike eyes; and about 15% have serpentine or feline fangs. (Note that these numbers do not total 70% because these features often co-occur. Incidence rates of skin and eye features, eye and tooth features, and skin and tooth features are approximately 14%, 3%, and 5% respectively, and about 2% of the population show skin, eye, and tooth features. A negligible percentage have other serpentine, falconine, or feline features.)   As such, at least the Tolucan population of Tseketli people, and possibly the people of other Tseketli communities, show enough divergence from human physiology to warrant questions about whether or not they ought to be recognized as human. For the time being, however, there is no category, except perhaps "Tseketli," within which these individuals fit more precisely.