Roxaborian

Roxaborans stand between 5’6” and 6’1”, with slim to athletic builds designed for balance, speed, and flexibility. While lacking body fur, their skin is smooth and resilient, often marked by a light sheen of natural oils that protect it during long travel or exposure. Their most distinctive physical features include dual ears—a set of human ears plus a second mobile pair of feline ears atop the head—used for directional hearing and nonverbal expression. Many also have thin, retractable facial whiskers that heighten spatial sensitivity. Their eyes are catlike in structure, with vertical pupils and excellent low-light vision, giving them an edge in twilight or shadowed environments. Each individual possesses a long, prehensile tail that aids in balance and expression. Their reflexes are sharp, and their limb flexibility allows them to traverse broken terrain with ease.

Roxaborans reproduce sexually and follow a gestational cycle similar to that of humans, lasting roughly nine months. Whisker presence, tail length, and ear sensitivity vary by familial lines, though there are no rigid castes or genetic restrictions within the species. Children inherit traits in a loosely mixed manner, with some lineages maintaining particularly acute sensory profiles or stronger climbing limbs. While there is no official nobility, legacy and reputation—particularly when tied to famous adjudicators or dueling bloodlines—carry social weight across territories.

Roxaborans reproduce sexually and follow a gestational cycle similar to that of humans, lasting roughly nine months. Whisker presence, tail length, and ear sensitivity vary by familial lines, though there are no rigid castes or genetic restrictions within the species. Children inherit traits in a loosely mixed manner, with some lineages maintaining particularly acute sensory profiles or stronger climbing limbs. While there is no official nobility, legacy and reputation—particularly when tied to famous adjudicators or dueling bloodlines—carry social weight across territories.

Childhood is active and fast-paced, with young Roxaborans developing balance, language, and negotiation skills early. By age ten, many begin travel with family caravans or enter service with older Adjudicators, learning survival, reading of movement, and honor-based dispute resolution. Adolescents are expected to duel or negotiate their way through rites of passage, with adulthood recognized not by age but by successful completion of personal or social trials. Most Roxaborans live between 130 and 150 years, aging more slowly than humans but maintaining mobility and alertness well into their second century. With age, their furred traits—like ear tufts and tail color—may fade, but their reflexes and senses remain strong.

Roxaborans are deeply attuned to their environment, adapting to the open plains, steep cliffs, and forested regions of Roxabor. Their semi-nomadic culture follows migratory herds, wind patterns, and weather cycles. Urban centers such as Saevryn are built into cliffsides and tree-covered ridges, constructed to coexist with rather than dominate the land. Their dwellings are elevated, airy, and often modular—built for ease of disassembly and movement. In forested zones, arboreal platforms and concealed pathways link temporary camps and seasonal villages. Roxaboran harmony with nature is both practical and philosophical, reflected in how their movement rarely scars the land.

Roxaborans are omnivores, with a slight lean toward high-protein, energy-sustaining diets suited for long-distance travel and fast recovery. They eat small game, fish, roots, seasonal grains, and sharp, spicy herbs known to heighten sensory clarity. Meals are typically light and frequent, with food shared communally or bartered. Preservation methods focus on wind-drying, spicing, or tightly wrapping in leaf-based fibers. While many settlements boast local delicacies, true culinary culture in Roxabor lies with the nomads, who mix traditional flavors with what the land offers seasonally.

Roxaborans experience little biological disruption through seasonal change, but their activities closely track with climate shifts. Mating rituals and significant duels often occur during the windswept months of the Equinox, seen as symbolically neutral. Over time, aging brings gradual loss of tail flexibility and hearing precision, though most remain active far longer than human equivalents. Some traditions mark major life transitions—such as leaving the dueling circuit or retiring from adjudication—by the voluntary binding of the tail or ritual trimming of the whiskers, symbolizing one’s shift to a different form of presence in society.

Roxaborans are intensely individualistic and value both cleverness and emotional insight. They are social yet noncommittal, instinctively averse to being controlled or constrained. Eye contact, tail movement, and body posture are essential parts of communication, often replacing direct speech in tense or formal settings. Honor is not rigid or dogmatic—it is flexible, based on the keeping of one’s word, respect for opponents, and adaptability to circumstance. Sudden physical contact, especially grabbing, is considered deeply aggressive unless offered in intimacy or combat. Most disputes are settled through duel, barter, or arbitration, with raw authority holding little sway without earned respect.

Roxaboran society is decentralized, organized through a web of informal alliances, dueling reputations, caravan loyalties, and respected figures like Traveling Adjudicators. There are no formal noble houses, though legendary lineages earn cultural prestige. Social currency is based on how others speak of you—your word kept, your fights fought, and your contracts honored. Gender and family roles are fluid, often defined by skill rather than tradition. Communities are usually mobile, but larger cities host seasonal gatherings, trade forums, and judicial conclaves. Adjudicators, while not rulers, carry cultural authority across all social levels, their impartial judgment respected above local bias.

Roxabor produces rare herbal tinctures, stealth-ready armor, and signal tools based on motion-sensitive flora like Swaybloom. Roxaboran mercenaries, scouts, and emissaries are in high demand across the realms, particularly in dangerous or fluid diplomatic missions. Their Whisper-Fabric—lightweight, sound-dampening cloth—has become legendary among spies and couriers. While some factions have tried to exploit their adaptability or contract loyalty, Roxaborans are fiercely independent and often vanish from systems they feel overstep. Their labor and skills are traded, not taken, and attempts at coercion are typically met with swift retaliation—or withdrawal.

Roxaborans originate from Roxabor, the 34th Realm, and are rare outside of it except in roles as diplomats, mercenaries, or travelers. Within their realm, they spread across the Sunderswell Plains, the cliffs of Saevryn, and the forest enclaves of the east. Their culture is spread through mobility and memory, not territory, and they tend to avoid permanent settlements outside their homeland, preferring movement to rootedness.

Roxaborans possess high emotional and situational intelligence. Their society prizes quick wit, reading of body language, and strategic flexibility. While not always steeped in classical education, many are polyglots, contract-experts, and skilled improvisers. Their judgment is prized in disputes, and their ability to navigate complex social landscapes makes them exceptional negotiators and interpreters.

With their dual ears and sharp eyes, Roxaborans are finely attuned to movement, tone, and atmospheric shifts. They can separate layered sounds in chaotic environments and detect subtle tremors through their tail and feet. Their night vision is excellent, and they often prefer dusk or moonlight to full daylight. While not psionic or magical by nature, their reflexive awareness allows them to respond to danger almost instantaneously, making them difficult to ambush or deceive in person.

Roxaboran society lives in balanced proximity to native fauna. Velthounds, fox-sized agile creatures, are commonly used as scouts or alert companions. In deeper forests and cliffs, Roxaborans coexist with Glidebeasts—massive, slow-moving grazers with skin adapted to temperature changes. These are considered sacred in some traditions, and harming one without cause can lead to social exile. Roxaborans suffer few natural parasites, though tail injuries can become serious, as the tail is crucial to their balance and sensory input.

The most central institution is the order of Traveling Adjudicators—roaming arbiters who resolve disputes and enforce cultural law. Cities like Saevryn host dueling courts and regional forums, while caravans have their own hereditary leaders or elected guides. Mercenary guilds, merchant alliances, and storykeeping circles help organize trade, protection, and oral history.

Beauty among Roxaborans lies in movement, presence, and subtlety. Graceful posture, rhythmic walking, well-kept tails, and balanced expressions are valued more than facial symmetry or adornment. Tail articulation, voice tone, and refined ear positioning are considered markers of confidence and control. Expressiveness, not extravagance, is the hallmark of physical appeal.

Gender in Roxaboran society is fluid and function-based. Roles are often chosen or challenged rather than assigned, and personal merit determines status. Both masculine and feminine traits are equally honored, provided they are wielded with confidence and integrity. Parentage and partnership are flexible in structure and often based on long-term compatibility rather than traditional households.

Courtship is a game of quiet gestures, shared oaths, and daring exchanges. A common custom involves tail-binding, where two prospective partners wrap or knot their tails together during a public meal or caravan gathering. Duels fought for admiration, whispered poetry, or the completion of mutual tasks are all accepted forms of romantic expression. Flashy declarations are considered desperate; clever, quiet pursuit is romantic.

Roxaborans favor practical, mobile, and low-impact technology. Their tools are modular, often foldable or wearable, and crafted from local materials like wind-treated woods and hardened leathers. Their settlements use motion-based signaling, collapsible structures, and solar-kite sails. While not highly industrial, their craft is ingenious, subtle, and always designed with escape or relocation in mind.

Culture in Roxabor is oral, performative, and personal. Stories are currency, and lineage is remembered through tale and tone rather than written history. Songduels, tale-trades, and memory-feasts are common ways to share and preserve legacy. Every Roxaboran carries their culture in movement and voice, not monuments. Adjudicator paths are walked in cycles, marking sacred waypoints with ephemeral symbols and temporary cairns.

Major customs include the Duel of Names, where disputes over legacy are resolved by formal combat; the Adjudicator's Call, a multi-day journey where a community petitions a neutral judge to resolve a major issue; and the Thread-Feast, a mobile celebration of inter-caravan alliances. Whisper Feasts, quiet communal meals where stories are exchanged by gesture and tone, are sacred to many.

Lying under vow, severing a bound tail knot in anger, and interrupting an active duel or adjudication are among the greatest taboos. Taking physical control of another’s body—especially grabbing ears or tail—is seen as deeply violating unless within established trust. Breaking a trade-oath or refusing an agreed contract can lead to social exile, regardless of legal technicality.

Roxabor’s history is not written in stone, but carried in stories passed between caravans and across generations. Once home to fragmented enclaves and warring nomads, it slowly knit itself into coherence through need, respect, and the rise of the Adjudicators—neutral figures of judgment whose word became the closest thing the realm has to law. Though never ruled by any throne or empire, Roxaboran traditions have endured for millennia, thriving not through domination, but through flexibility and fiercely defended freedom.