Attachment 'ZebracultureperSwicked.html'
DownloadZebra Culture:
Most of this document is per Swicked via e-mail:
There are the three pillars of zebra culture: the lifelong journey of the glyphmark, the use of alchemy in literally all things, and the reverence of stories and artifacts of their endless pantheon.
Glyphmarks:
The first and most important thing to understanding their culture is their glyphmarks. A glyphmark marks a major commitment, accomplishment, or change in a zebra’s life. It can be a career if a zebra is particularly passionate about it, but they typically denote something more personal to them. There’s a wiki article on glyphmarks that goes into this, but the basic gist is that glyphmarks grow over the course of a full life, and those with larger glyph marks are correctly assumed to have a wider variety of experiences and, sometimes less-correctly assumed, a greater degree of wisdom. That said, few zebra are known to have their glyphmark extend beyond half their body, and only very few ever known to have become entirely covered in theirs.
An older zebra still sporting a simple glyph indicates either or a great commitment to a single way of life or, more likely, a vastly wasted potential.
Zebra are, therefore, encouraged to change. To expand in their interests and take on difficult challenges and quests for self-discovery. This doesn’t necessarily mean a change in occupation, but some change is expected. Few zebra go the way of the “Wives of Agra”, though, and become “professional adventurers”, seeking to do nothing BUT difficult challenges and quests.
Alchemy:
The second most important thing to understanding zebra culture is their reliance on alchemy. Alchemy is like the lifeblood of their society. Temporary (and, rarely, permanent) structures are often grown using it. Problems are typically tackled through it. Macro food production is common. Giant potatoes, pudding lakes (we saw one in Agister), and large cactus water towers with roots going deep into the ground to draw up water from the ground and store it for use. In the Magical Life Extension wiki page, it addresses the fact that life-extension alchemy is as common as vitamins for older zebra. The use of different potions from different alchemists, or even the exact same mix of potion for too long, can have some odd effects, though. Older zebra often start getting a stony or woody texture to their skin (including the occasional leaf or branch), for example, as they slowly begin to turn into something longer-lasting than a zebra.
Cooking with alchemy is extremely common. Something that only came up once (and in such a limited fashion that I doubt anyone noticed) is their pick of spices. Despite plants developing capsaicin to discourage non-birds from eating them, humans still do. Magical plants have developed similar defensive strategies that have similarly failed. Bitterbriar is one I wrote an article on and causes a sense of fear in those that consume it, an instant of fight-or-flight, with the intention of getting the eater to run away. The rush of adrenalin is exhilarating, though, once you’ve developed a tolerance to the initial response to the plant. Akasha made a meal of the stuff exactly once in the course of the RP, and it was for an NPC. Other magical plants, like poison joke, have been integrated into candies once their effects have been made temporary. Agister, with its pony governance, still kept plenty of mundane food around for ponies to consume, but the mundane is far from a staple of the zebra diet.
While Akasha constantly smoked and was open-minded about drugs, it’s more a sign of her immaturity than a reflection of zebras as a whole. Alchemy makes it easy to craft drugs, but that doesn’t mean you should.
Spiritualism:
Third most important thing would be a focus on spiritualism. Zebra also have a pantheon of gods and divine beings that is vast beyond recognition. Figures like Agra and Mahatma are widely known and Akasha’s stories so far have focused on them, but nearly every zebra has their own favorite story featuring their own favorite divine (which is the term I’ll be using to collectively cover gods demigods, heroes, villains, or otherwise figure from a legend or myth). The first story told in the RP was of Chorah Mugdha, the first vampire fruitbat, who invented alcohol. Another story told was of the mouse Kitava that outwitted a dragon into growing so large he couldn’t get out of his own cave after the mouse stole a great gem from him and ran. All of these figures have significance. Zebra don’t build temples, though. They venerate artifacts. There is a cave whose inner walls are covered in blues and reds and it’s venerated as Chorah’s cave where the first alcohol-laced party was held. There’s a large gem with a scratch across it that looks like that of a dragon’s and surrounded by tiny scratches similarly suggestive of a mouse that’s considered to be the one Kitava stole from the great dragon. Some of these kinds of artifacts have shrines built around them to maintain them, like one on the Hayminnow Islands built around a flame that never goes out, venerated as the flame that Mahatma first stole from the sun to give to the zebra. Others remain portable and in the possession of private zebras, like the magic window Akasha now carries, to be offered freely to others so that they may use it to consider the divine... but to then be returned and kept by their owners.
Whether curious items cause stories about them to come about, if stories cause these artifacts to be found or made, or if a particular legend is (mostly) true and the artifact said to have come about from it actually did so... that’s all a matter for scholarly debate on a case-by-case basis.
Draconic co-dwelling:
I also always imagined a lot of dragons living amongst them. Not due to any particularly strong co-dependence, but that all zebra live such long lives as to rival unicorns, which would be nice for dragons that live for such a long time too. Zebra buildings are also alchemically strengthened and very fire-resistant (again like unicorns), which is helpful for dragons again. Crystals and minerals make useful alchemical reagents so there’d be plenty of good dragon food. Dragons, themselves, can be very capable alchemists, too, with all their magic, intelligence, and thumbs.
So just a host of reasons. Zebra don’t have a particular reliance on d-mail, though, given zebra somniumancy (another wiki article).
...and I think that covers all aspects of zebra culture and society that I’d developed over the last couple years.
Government:
Oh, and regarding government, I don’t know. It depends on the area, like with ponies. Some places have nobility, others have warlords, and others have democracy. Nothing inherently good or bad about any of it.
Language:
Zebra also have their own language but, being very weak when it comes to languages, I’ve spent absolutely no time or brainpower toward speculating what it might be like. I am not a linguist. I just know it exists and it's been in the RP sparingly since we rarely ran across other zebra, let alone in situations where it'd have preferred usage over speaking plain Pony.
Attached Files
To refer to attachments on a page, use attachment:filename, as shown below in the list of files. Do NOT use the URL of the [get] link, since this is subject to change and can break easily.You are not allowed to attach a file to this page.