Ovrelin

An ovrelin typically applies a greathouse marque to his or her body in some permanent way upon reaching maturity as a way of displaying loyalty to, and association with, the greathouse they come from. Rostrans who become the head of a household within the greathouse will also apply this mark to their body in some permanent way upon attaining that position. Commonly a small tattoo or brand, the marque is a form of familial identification which also might serve to establish a sort of 'chain of command' during family emergencies. This relation of authority is ideally rarely used, being an emergency power, but exists to leverage the respective advantages of Rostran intellectual prowess and ovinex physical prowess to best serve their shared commensal interests.   A marked ovrelin knows that a marked patriarch or matriarch has the seniority and sagacity of age required to exhibit good judgement when it comes to medical, financial, or legal affairs affecting family members. Rostrans bearing the greathouse marque are expected to take care of ovrelin in the same manner as one would a family member, providing food, shelter, and support when the ovrelin cannot do so on their own. A marked Rostran will also take legal responsibility for the actions of any ovrelin who carries out orders on their behalf; many an inter-house feud has ended when the elders of the feuding greathouses, not the relin footsoldiers, faced punishment for the ensuing mayhem. Likewise, the marked Rostran knows that an ovrelin bearing this symbol can be called upon to exert great physical strength to protect the interests of the family in times of trouble, such as prying people out of rubble after a tsunami, swiftly delivering a message to the authorities, or bearing a sick family member to the hospital. Members of the relin class are often instrumental in the care of elderly Rostrans of the same marque who cannot go out and handle their affairs in person due to physical infirmity.   While the original motivations are receding into the mists of history for most, the fact of ovrelin existing in society has become so embedded into the shared Rostran and Civil Ovinex culture over the centuries that few question it. Outsiders, especially Elovisians who have historical reasons to be hyper-acute with regards to social power dynamics, often misconstrue ovrelin as a servitor or slave class - a misconception not helped the actually oppressive conditions under which some ovinex struggle in places like Still Atoll or where the Avarix Corps holds sway. However, many Rostrans view ovrelin as almost indistinguishable from siblings, as in the case of Arxid Sagan and his ovrelin A'adekpf "Iodex" Sagan, and would balk at the suggestion that the social association is anything but consensual for all involved.

Ovrelin emerged as a class within Civil Ovinex society as a means of bearing out the peace achieved at the end of the Rostran-Ovinex War. Among Native Ovinex, wars conclude with the exchange of breeding-age individuals (mostly females) between warring tribes, with the winning tribe taking the lion's share of the exchanged individuals. These 'hostages' take identification with their new tribe, become integrated into the tribe's culture and, by later blending into the families thereof as mates, cement diplomatic ties; it is much harder to wage war against a group made up in significant part by one's own kin.   Ovinex slaving raids against Rostrans in the times leading up to the war were part of a misunderstanding that the Native Ovinex held that Rostran psychology functioned similarly to their own. The Rostran admiralty, however, did recognize the difference at the conclusion of the war, wherein the armies of Warlord Burla'asin ceded several tribes' worth of hostages to the advancing Rostrans. Rostrans and ovinex are not biologically compatible, however, so the function of establishing bonds of consanguinity would not work. Instead, the victorious Rostrans opted to 'adopt' the ovinex, treating them and their descendants' bloodlines as part of their own greathouses' bloodlines and establishing the new familial relation of relin to formalize this connection.

Though they are often trained with ba'amba, ovrelin may also carry fighting oars emblazoned with their marques when out on official family business. Ovrelin are often seen going about with bundles or baskets slung across their backs for carrying various loads and are also the progenitors of 'cargo shorts' in the Manifold Sky, as fully-encompassing clothing with many pockets become uncomfortably hot for wool-bearing creatures working under the hot Rostral Tesseract sun.

Though they do the best they can to support their Rostran kin, ovrelin are ovinex and, as such, are generally not very intellectual barring those which belong to the Baxbr movement. This is a biological consideration rather than a cultural one, as the ovinex as a species are relatively new to sentience and, as a result, are still adapted to solving problems through sharp senses and physical prowess alone. For this reason, many ovrelin serve in physical support roles for their adoptive greathouse, whether that be as bodyguards, footsoldiers, construction workers, movers, or messengers. The title of 'relin' certainly carries an air of militarism, as ovrelin often go about armed, are prompt to protect family members with physical force, and are prone to speaking their minds about rival families in ways that polite Rostrans would never do, but, in peace time and when there are few feuds between greathouse families, these aspects of the role are seldom required.