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The Yanar are the embodiment of living nature, an attempt by Estel herself to create a race of her own in order to balance out the Shendar who serve the Archdemon. Yanar are like innocence given form, in that they mean good, peacefully devoting themselves to protecting nature. And yet, Yanar can be corrupted by that which the Shendar have unleashed upon them, a fungal curse that twists and perverts their being into hating everything they made to love and steward. As a relatively young race, Yanar have had trouble identifying themselves as a people, instead of preferring to integrate into other societies.
| Yanar | |
|---|---|
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| Race | |
| Pronunciation | Yah-nar |
| Classification | Florae. |
| Subraces | Human Seedling, Dargan Seedling, Nelfin Seedling, Naylar Seedling, Gorr Seedling, Mer Seedling, Wulong Seedling, Dwarf Seedling. |
| Common Nicknames | Plant-People, Children of the Forest, Forestfolk. |
| Languages | Elven and Common. |
| Naming Customs | Elven |
| Racial Traits | |
Physical Characteristics
Yanar resemble humanoid plant-like beings with two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head. The proportions of a pure Yanar are similar to that of an Altalar, having longer limbs and a more lithe body frame. Yanar do not have hair, rather they have plant like structures that resemble hair; the only thing on them that does not look plantlike are their eyes. All Yanar eyes have a halo ring on the outer edge of their iris with varying colors similar to Altalar and purple or yellow eye whites. One Yanar may have brown eyes, while the next could be blue. Their skin is often a mixture of plantlike materials and hardened surfaces. It is not uncommon for their shoulders or back to grow additional plant like objects, sometimes growing flowers or even fruits. Yanar range from Orc sized to Dwarf sized beings, some having additional appendages or looking different depending on their parentage. Perhaps the most unique aspect about Yanar is that they are agender, meaning they aren’t male or female. Yanar are traditionally born with both reproductive organs. Although a Yanar may have a bassy low voice, they might consider themselves female, or similarly, a small thin Yanar with female facial features may actually consider themselves male. Finally, Yanar cannot digest meat.
More on Yanar Physical Characteristics.
Mental Characteristics
Yanar are by nature peaceful, organized, and thoughtful. They often spend hours just listening to people, never interjecting, and tend to wait for others to make the first move before deciding on anything. This has caused them to be seen as indecisive, though they prefer to be seen as careful. Yanar often undergo a personal identity crisis early on in their life that does not occur in other races, in which they decide which gender they wish to portray themselves as. Furthermore, Yanar are inquisitive by nature, curious about everything they do not know, but still careful about running into trouble. Additionally, no Yanar has been observed to die of old age yet, implying they could live for really long times. Due to longevity however, their mind usually starts failing at around 100 years, after which a period of rapid worsening memory takes place. After a few months, their maximum memory span may only be 10 years, or in some bad cases only two. When this occurs, most Yanars simply separate themselves from everything else and live isolated in the wild. The memory loss is not absolute however, and some Yanar have found ways around losing their memories by "whispering" them to seeding plants and flowers. The process isn't entirely understood, but ancient Yanar often attach their memories to plants around them before they lose them, and then their memory becomes a garden around their home. Yanars of advanced age usually lose their skill based memories as they can only attach historical memories to plants and flowers, retaining only a basic understanding of whatever magic skill they may have had before they started losing their memory.
More on Yanar Mental Characteristics.
History
Yanar arrived in 40 BC on the eve of the Void invasion. Estel again attempted to warn her followers of impending doom. Elven priests of the Nenye temples watched as the Nenye grew giant flowers as large as full-grown horses. The flowers rapidly wilted, shed their petals, and bore fruit that slowly bent to the floor. The first Yanar burst from them and lay eyes on the world. Elven priests tried to heed the warning these Yanar delivered but could not persuade their leaders.
As the Void Invasion commenced, the Yanar wandered. Estel then bestowed them with the gift of Nenye speech, a magical way to speak to trees and plantlife, and the Yanar used this gift to turn the natural world against the voidlings. However, the Archdemon moved swiftly and the Shendar infiltrated the Nenye temples. On the Night of the Fallen Star, with fire and axe they first cut down the priests and then the trees themselves. Some fled, but most of these colossuses moved too slowly to escape. It is said that the forest itself wept and cried out that night as the trees fell one by one. As the Yanar were tied to the Nenye, they became confused and lost, and when Estel fell, so did the Yanar.
They wandered the land for nearly 200 years, diminishing in number, existing in a fog-like uncertainty, and becoming merely a fable to Humans. Yet as magic slowly returned, so did the Yanar return to their senses and their original mission. Perceiving them as a threat, Shendar pursued a solution and were blessed with the fungal curse, the Essiphualë. Many Yanar succumbed to the corruption. Presently, they persist as caretakers of nature, but they do so as part of the Ailor, Elven, and Tigran populations.
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Society
Yanar don’t necessarily have a society of their own—they simply integrate with other societies. Perhaps a more accurate way of describing it is that they attach themselves to other groups of people, invited or not, and simply tend to the plant life around that group. They eventually assimilate into that group and adopt whatever culture they have.
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Politics
Yanar politics do not formally exist as all Yanar are naturally submissive and don’t group together, preferring living among other races. If one takes the past into consideration, Yanar lived in an effective monarchy, with Estel as their head and the Nenye trees as their aristocracy. This in itself caused them to be paralyzed when away from their purpose for nearly 200 years, similarly to how the Regalian Empirewould collapse if all nobility died overnight.
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Culture
Yanar don’t have their own culture. They adopt the culture of whatever group they attach themselves, be it Tigran, Elven, or Human. However, they do have common trends that resemble a form of culture. Their love for flowers results in flowers often being central in their clothing or close to where they live. Their houses are often overgrown with plants. Additionally, they prefer herbal and nature tending occupations over other physical labor. They also all share their general pacifist nature, meaning they do not engage in warfare.
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Religion
Yanars exclusively worship Estel still, in the same way as the Elves did before the Cataclysm. Additionally, the Yanar pray to the eight Virtues in the hope that they will restore Estel to the throne of nature. However, Yanar aren't prone to one single form of worship when praying to the Pantheon, instead choosing whichever cultural inclination for worship of an Attribate which they find appropriate. For instance, a Yanar who worships Serenity might prefer the Cielothars' means of praising the Virtue over an Altalar's.
More on Yanar Religion.
Economy and Technology
Yanars do not have an effective economy and possess no technology at all. They do not value currency and otherwise only handle it out of pure necessity rather than actual desire to gather wealth. They will use their money to buy plants and other materials they need to tend to their gardens or the forests around them and may sell the tended plants or products carefully extracted from the plantlife to afford their purchases. Whatever technology they handle is often just from the people they follow around. Yanar prefer to work with Magic, Nenye speech in particular, where they use a magical flow of Exist energy to communicate with the plants around them. Every Yanar has the basic ability to use Nenye speech, but not all can to the same degree, though they have lost their ability to instruct and otherwise command plantlife. This ability is normally learned around the age of 15, the same time the Yanar decides upon what gender they will portray the rest of their life.
More on Yanar Economy and Technology.
More on Nenye Speech.
Combat and Warfare
Yanars do not engage in combat or warfare due to their pacifist nature. In ages past, they did ride large plant formed beasts into combat, but they never directly inflicted harm, simply telling the plants to do it for them.
More on Yanar Combat and Warfare.
Subraces
Yanar reproduction is peculiar in that they are able to reproduce with anyone from any sentient race. Through a practice that is more ritualistic in nature than it is intercourse, the Yanar retrieve genetic information and create a seedling. The information they retrieve must be liquid. Enough saliva, blood, or other bodily liquids to fill a strawberry will suffice. A part of them will absorb the material and, over the span of a couple days, form into a small berry (reminiscent of a strawberry). This seedling is then attached to a tree, where it will mature over the period of a month before the child Yanar is born. Uniquely to the race of the non-Yanar parent, the seedling may have different characteristics. Yanar are not able to reproduce with those of their own kind, resulting in the largest population of Yanar being the product of a Yanar and an Elf. This is considered the standard, default Yanar, and everything else deviates from it. When a child is born, their Yanar-parent's seedling makes no difference. Only the other race will dictate the kind of seedling they become.
If a seedling doesn't specify a certain trait, assume it's the default mentioned in mental or physical characteristics above. Template:Racetable
Trivia
- Sometimes when many Yanar gather in a small area, they all use the same tree to “hang” their seedlings in. One such tree was accidentally set on fire once in Daenshore, resulting in the immediate death of 212 unborn seedlings, an event called “the little falling star night”.
- Many people incorrectly believe that bark giants are Yanar, while they are not. Bark giants are often Nenyerina mages creating an unliving object, resembling a living beast.
- Not all Yanar decide on a gender, which usually happens before the age of 15. Some Yanar have been known to go through life simply referred to as “it” or "they."
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