The Fauns

Two Fauns representative of distinct ethnic groups. The man on the left comes from the West Takari Plainer tribe, while the woman on the right is of the tundraic Iacynivyri people.

Life-bearing planets are a rarity in the vast universe, and sapient lifeforms are even more scarce. Although the abundance of sophonts in the Fraternity, including ourselves (humanity), may indicate a vast quantity of sapient life in the galaxy, and the possession of warp technology does make the discovery of new life significantly easier, it has been estimated that the sophonts of the Fraternity may constitute a staggering 43% of all the sapient species that can hypothetically exist the Milky Way. Furthermore, according to the metrics of Fraternity historians, it can take anywhere from half a century to nearly a millennium for new sophont species to be discovered. Typically, a sophont-bearing planet harbored a single fully sapient species, with some extinct relatives and a few intellectually advanced animals.

Athyrmagaia stands out as an exception to this otherwise fairly consistent statistic—a pre-industrial "medieval" world hosting nearly a dozen closely related sapient species. Among these, the Fauns (Astutocentaurus cosmopolitans) stand out as the most prevalent. While not the largest or strongest of their kind, the Fauns hold a unique position as one of the most geographically dispersed peoples on Athyrmagaia, populating all known landmasses and thriving in various climates. Their regular encounters with human researchers also makes them the most extensively studied of the planet's diverse inhabitants. Over time, some Fauns have even ventured beyond their homeworld, becoming themselves members of the very Fraternity that discovered them. Their widespread presence makes it challenging to characterize them uniformly, given the diversity in their lifestyles, cultures, and appearances mirroring the lands they inhabit. Their vast distribution does little to inhibit their less populous cousins, however, as they are known to actively cooperate and even form joint societies with them.

Etymology

A mythological faun, as depicted by Hungarian painter Pál Szinyei Merse. 

The Fauns get their human-given name from the fauns of Roman mythology. In the context of these human myths, fauns were the lesser extensions of the Roman fertility god Faunus, and were originally depicted visually as naked men. As the Romans started adopting the Greek pantheon as their own, however, fauns were retroactively conflated with their Greek equivalents, the satyrs, being depicted with the upper body of a man and the legs and horns of a goat. The usage of the term "Faun" in reference to Astutocentaurus capiodon is more or less a result of perceived parallels with the fantasy creature, particularly their seeming preference to avoid conflict.

Fauns are known by an even wider variety of names on their home planet, too many to count. In some of their own tongues, they have been known to refer to themselves as r̊oivwoi (/ˈʁɔɪ̯βwɔɪ̯/, lit."lean-folk"), weu̯e̯wao̯a̯ˈwu (/weu̯e̯wao̯a̯ˈwu/, lit. "grass-people"), and dobastuyo (/doˌbastuˈjo/, lit. "collar-person"). The Uerco of the Heveccan Empire often demeaningly refer to them as c'aut'at'c'auda (/ǃɑ̰ˌǂa̰ǂǃɑ̰ˈda̰/, lit. "running-meat"), a slur that has roots in the Age of Terror, though more tolerant individuals prefer to call them c'aut'at'tzatdach (/ǃɑ̰ˈǂa̰ǂtz̰a̰tˈda̰ʧ/, lit. "running-people"). Shovelfolk, in their ancient tongue, refer to the Fauns as lichren (/ˈlicren/,lit. "tall-sibling"), a name that reflects the strong sociopolitical allegiance they have with the Takari Plainers; They even have gendered variants of the word, such as lichél (/licél/, lit. "tall-brother") and litré (/litré/, lit. "tall-sister").

Anatomy & Physiology

The Fauns trace their lineage back to a more recent, anatomically modern offshoot of Astutocentaurus that emerged approximately 400,000 years ago in the Borean Central Savannah. They share a more recent common ancestor with the Satyrs (Astutocentaurus gnathocornis) and Uerco (Astutocentaurus capiodon). Despite being a relatively young species, the Fauns are considered to be very good model organisms of the genus as a whole, showcasing traits present in most, if not all, other Astutocentaurus species. Therefore, we will delve into fairly detailed descriptions of their anatomy and physiology.

In general, Fauns typically boast tall statures, averaging between five to six feet in height when upright, exhibiting slender yet robust physiques. Their faces are rounded with a hint of leonine features, characterized by reduced brow ridges, prominent foreheads, and expressive eyes. Their auripods (equivalent to ears in Athyrmatherian anatomy) are large and highly emotive. Notably, they sport bone-cored keratinous horns or tusks protruding from their chins, serving as defensive weaponry. Their bodies are covered in a striped pelt of short, close-fitting fur, with sparsely furred patches on their faces, undersides, and extremities designed for efficient heat dissipation. Most Fauns exhibit longer hair or hackles on their heads, which they can style akin to human hair. An average Faun possesses eight hearts and lungs, each with corresponding pairs of spiracles. Their facial spiracles function as nostrils for scent detection, while the thoracic spiracles located on their necks' sides serve as their primary vocal organs.

Regarding their form and posture, Fauns definitely live up to their genus name. They are obligately quadrupedal hexapods, keeping their thorax in a "centauroid" posture and walking solely on their second and third pairs of locomotors. Their front locomotors, freed from acting exclusively as legs for walking, are their primary manipulators and terminate in highly dexterous tridactyl hands. However, they tend to support themselves on all six limbs when galloping at full speed and climbing, and particularly steep downward grades often make it necessary to clamber down backward. Indeed, they are highly cursorial creatures, having heavily calloused skin on the knuckles of their medial locomotors for extra traction, and hind locomotors that bear weight mainly on the first and second toes rather than the whole foot while running. Although they are rather front-heavy due to their erect posture, an especially flexible and stabilized "waist" characteristic of their genus allows them to easily shift their center of gravity to variations in terrain. In addition to being excellent runners, Fauns are also very good at climbing, as they evolved from an arboreal early ancestor.

The structure of their front locomotors somewhat mirrors the anatomy of the human shoulder girdle; their scapula bones are oriented at a lower position than those of non-sapient Simicentaureans, which makes them exceptional at throwing and hurling things, and the abundance of slow-twitch muscle fibers allows them to perform delicate, high-precision tasks. Their hands, while ungainly at first glance, are surprisingly nimble. The first and second fingers are biramous, with bifurcating distal phalanges that double as small pincers for grasping small, hard-to-reach objects. The middle phalanges also form a paired bone structure that allows the pincer-like fingertip to both pronate and supinate, like a forearm and wrist. In contrast, their third finger is uniramous and highly opposable, functioning as a thumb to allow for complex tool use and grasping. At the center of their sternum, Fauns have a smaller third arm called a "sternal claw," formed from two limb buds that fuse in the middle during pupal metamorphosis. The claw is commonly used for grooming, though Fauns have also been seen using it to hold and manipulate objects while their hands are already occupied.

 As Athyrmatherians, Fauns are colonial organisms, composites of four highly codependent zooids that can both detach and reattach at will, functioning in unison as a single complete organism. Although they are technically four individual organisms and have four separate nervous systems, a "single" Faun only has one personality and identity, with the entire system being interconnected by a series of neural conduits. The actual brain of the gestalt is housed within the cranial zooid, serving as the seat of their consciousness and personhood. That being said, however, their composite nervous system is still somewhat decentralized: In addition to the primary brain in the head, they also have a specialized thoracic ganglion, a sort of non-sapient "secondary brain" inside of their chest cavity which works closely in tandem with the former. The thoracic ganglion functions as a sort of "backup storage" for memory, and a secondary motor cortex for fine control over the voluntary functions of the other post-cranial zooids. It also has a rudimentary, animalistic consciousness, which only awakens when the cranial zooid is detached. If this somehow occurs, the thoracic ganglion will eerily commandeer the headless body to retrieve and re-attach the cranial zooid, returning to dormancy as soon as the head is correctly re-attached.

Diet

Fauns are generalist omnivores that descend from a frugivorous ancestor. A relatively large portion of their diet consists of red meat, starchy tubers, fruit, and Sphondamycete "fungi", supplemented by bioplastic foliage as a source of fiber. To process such a wide variety of foods, their labrum and gnathopods work together to act as a robust and tortoise-like beak used for cutting and nipping. Like the beaks of tortoises (and to some extent the teeth of rodents), the beaks of Fauns grow constantly, so they often keep this growth in check by chewing on "wood," bones, or using files. Just behind their beak lie their mandibles and hard palate, which bear hard, keratinous ceratodontes used for chewing. As is the case for most Athyrmatherians, Fauns also possess a crop preceding their stomach, which is used as a temporary storage compartment for food and plays a small role in pre-digestion. This adaptation benefits a plains-dwelling lifestyle, allowing them to stave off hunger between protein-dense meals by eating nutrient-poor roughage.

Biodiversity & Phenotypical Variation

Although they are a singular species, Fauns boast a surprisingly high physical and phenotypic variation due to their cosmopolitan distribution. Depending on geographic ancestry, different populations of the species exhibit adaptations in their external features that allow them to live more easily in climates that differ from their temperate, plains-dwelling baseline. In sociopolitical terms, these have often been referred to as "races," although just like the human equivalent, the perceived differences between Faunish races are purely skin-deep, not indicative of taxonomically or biologically distinct groups. Indeed, all of the variety expressed by Fauns exists within a single shared gene pool, and anyone of any race is capable of interbreeding without any complications.

The most immediately noticeable variations between Faunish peoples are their skin and pelt coloration. With each ethnic group, the quantity of dermal melanin increases or decreases depending on the amount of sun exposure in their native latitudes, and their fur patterning and color is usually influenced by a combination of environmental and cultural factors. For example, the ancestral condition, as seen in the temperate climate Takari Plainers, is a tan skin tone with white or blonde hackles, and brownish green-flecked fur with beige countershading and cream-colored stripes that allow for more effective camouflage in the tall star grasses of their home range. Tropical and subtropical populations, however, namely those living in the continent of Comedia, usually exhibit much darker skin tones for additional protection from the equatorial sunshine and tend to have larger quantities of biliverdin in their coats to blend into dense tropical foliage. Taiga-dwelling populations further north have paler complexions to maximize vitamin D synthesis in a less sun-exposed environment and tend to have monochromatic coats that are black and white.

Due to their tendency to associate and ally with their sister species, Fauns have a rather large quantity of introgressed DNA from other Astutocentaurines, both extant and extinct, due to interbreeding. Experts have likened this to the small amounts of introgressed Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in anatomically modern humans. For example, most populations have DNA inherited from Shovelfolk (Astutocentaurus alluvium), with the percentages being the largest in the Plainer tribes whose ranges regularly overlap with their diminutive kin. Faun populations living in Borea's northern forests tend to have introgressed genes from Satyrs (Astutocentaurus gnathocornis) and vice versa, and a variety of coastal cultures exhibit introgression from the Mer (Thalassocentaurus sirenius), despite the relatively distant relation of the latter compared to other Astutocentaurines.

The Fauns' propensity for diversity occurs not only on a broader population level, but also on a more personal individual basis. Fauns have a notable degree of variation in their facial features, with each person having a unique likeness that allows them to easily identify each other just by the looks of their faces. Features such as eye and hair color, eye width, brow and cheekbone definition, snout profile, and even auripod curvature have been known to vary considerably, determined in large part by genetic factors that are passed down from parent to child. This is extremely similar to the facial variety seen among humans, which evolved for more or less the same purpose.

Psychology, Senses, & Communication

Fauns, alongside their sister species, converge rather heavily with hominins in terms of psychology and sensory perception. They are very visually oriented creatures, possessing trichromatic vision with a visual acuity that tends to average at 20/20, and they are very good at recognizing and associating meaning to visual patterns and color combinations. They are also very good at recognizing faces, as it is one of the primary means by which they identify each other. Their hearing range tends to fall between 20 to 20,000 hertz, and they are also able to detect infrasound frequencies through their hind feet. The frontal connection surfaces of their zooids also have heat pits that provide a sort of thermal "vision", though these are only used when the zooids are detached from one another. Due to this, much of their learning, pattern-seeking, and communication ability relies primarily on the visual and audio spectrum.

Like humans, Fauns communicate primarily through spoken language. The vocal element of their speech is made possible by complex vocal structures situated within their thoracic spiracles, which allow them to produce a variety of sounds that can be used in different combinations to form words. They can even emulate human speech, a physical ability many other sophont aliens have difficulty with. A pair of synchronized ball muscles roughly approximate to tongues to produce lingual consonants, while well-muscled "lips" at the spiracular openings are used to produce plosives and modulate vowels. Their voices are noted to have a very broad range of tone; When speaking, they tend to do so in a sequence of gentle honking, hooting and bleating tones, which are often remarked as sounding vaguely like the vocals of caprines and panines arranged in a birdsong-like pattern. Much like human speech, however, the cadence of their speaking voices changes in accordance with mood.

As an inherently social species, they also have a variety of non-verbal vocalizations that they use to communicate their mood in a way that transcends language barriers; When outwardly agitated or annoyed, they utter a low growling noise not unlike that of a leopard, which gets louder and accompanied by hisses and beak claps if it escalates to outright anger. When displaying aggression or fighting, they may let out loud, hacking screams and roars, which are more than enough to scare off an unprepared human. When in a state of despair or mourning, they often emit subtle whining and whimpering sounds, with occasional outbursts of melancholy howls that seem to be analogous to a weep. Moments of contemplation and deep thought, however, are often accompanied by low, throaty hums and drums. They even have an equivalent to a laugh in the form of braying and hooting vocals that they emit when they are amused.

An expression chart displaying the basic facial expressions of Astutocentaurus. Despite the chart depicting a Shovelperson (Astutocentaurus alluvium), it is applicable to Fauns as well.

Although their communication is predominantly verbal, there is also a non-spoken, visual element to their communication. Spoken words are often supplemented by hand gestures and gaze direction to emphasize meaning, and much like hominins they express emotion through semi-involuntary facial expressions.

Sexes & Reproduction

A diagram of the Faun reproductive system, showcasing both the gonads and the frontal claspers.

Fauns exhibit a mild degree of sexual dimorphism, enough so that a casual observer can easily distinguish between the two sexes. Men and women tend to be similar in size, with the former bearing slightly more robust builds with longer tusks and the latter having shorter tusks and wider lower abdominal zooids. Men in particular tend to grow fringed hackles around their shoulders, which is seen as a sign of virility. Despite a convergently mammal-like appearance, Faun women entirely lack breasts or mammary glands, and do not lactate in a traditional sense. They do, however, secrete a sort of nutritious womb-milk to sustain developing larvae (more on that later). As is typical for Athyrmatherians, Faunish men and women have gonads that are internalized within a lower abdominal cloaca, with men having retractable lymphatic penises. In addition to their true gonads, however, the Fauns and their close kin also possess a set of forward-facing, secondarily erogenous organs on their upper abdominal zooids, right between their medial locomotors. While these aren't true sex organs like those of the lower abdominal zooid, these secondary erogenous zones nonetheless play a role in sexual stimulation in both reproductive and non-reproductive contexts. In men, the organ develops in the form of a bristly, foldable frontal clasper ("clavis"), whereas in women it invaginates into a corresponding clasper pouch ("clausura"). Due to the more frontal orientation of these false sex organs, Fauns and other Astutocentaurus often mate while lying down face-to-face, in an odd recapitulation of the human missionary pose.

The chrysalis of an infant Faun.

Fauns are ovoviviparous creatures with highly altricial young. Their particular strategy differs from other live-bearing Athyrmatherians, however, in the fact that they retain both a larval and a pupal stage, and the larval quadruplets hatch from separate eggs in-utero. After feeding on sufficient amounts of womb milk and joining together, the conjoined larvae molt to become a chrysalis, which is then "laid" like an egg to be looked after by the mother and her family. This strategy seems to have co-evolved with their social behaviors, as it encourages tightly-knit family bonds. The chrysalis is essentially a hard, baby-shaped shell of keratin-sheathed bone, containing a soup of liquefied tissue that progressively reorganizes itself into that of the imago stage. The fat accumulated by the larvae is used to develop the brain of the cranial zooid, while the calcified cores of the outer shell are gradually broken down to build the long bones of the developing limbs. As the chrysalis gets closer to hatching over a period of six months, the baby inside becomes progressively more active and aware of its surroundings, the caps over its eyes becoming transparent so that it can see and, therefore, imprint upon its caretakers. Eventually, the shell of the chrysalis becomes so thin that it splits open easily, allowing the small, kitten-like child (also known as a "cub" or "calf") to emerge. Although altricial, Faun babies are capable of eating solid food from the moment they are born, since they emerge with an already well-developed beak. They usually tend to eat the outer shell of their discarded chrysalis first.

Society

Fauns are naturally very communal creatures. In particular, their mode of social organization strongly resembles that of humans and other great apes. They live in complex, highly cooperative fusion-fission societies that range in scale from simple band societies to whole-scale feudal nations, each with their own distinct cultures and institutions. Larger communities usually exhibit a distinct social stratification and can be divided into different sub-groups based on labor specialization, wealth, reputation, and power. The degree of social mobility can vary rather widely, but it generally tends to fall within a range equivalent to that of human societies.

As is the case for humans, kinship is integral to the Faunish social organization. All societies associated with the species are known to classify social relationships based on consanguinity (children, siblings, parents, grandparents, etc.) and affinity (marriage), as well as fictive family connections. These familial ties are among the main determining factors for transmitting inheritance and status, as being the spouse, sibling, or child of someone makes one more likely to share or inherit the latter's status. Like all sapient species that recognize a family dynamic, Fauns also have incest taboos, and sexual exchanges between consanguineous and fictive relatives are almost universally regarded as unsavory. Uniquely, Fauns and other Astutocentaurines recognize an additional form of kinship: When two unrelated persons exchange zooids with each other, they are considered to be members of the same family on the basis that they now possess pieces of each other. These are known as "swap-relatives".

Being a sexually dimorphic species, Faun societies typically have concepts of gender. Abroad, the Faunish perspective of gender is primarily binary, distinguishing between characteristics that can be culturally perceived as masculine or feminine and setting different standards for acceptable behavior based on those attributes. Generally speaking, their particular gender binary is very comparable to that of H. sapiens, so terms such as "man" and "woman" are fairly appropriate terminologies. That being said, the swappable modularity of their bodies does give them additional mobility in terms of gender identity compared to other diecious species. A person who doesn't feel content with their body could easily change their sex by quite literally trading their abdominal zooids with another person who is facing similar issues. As such, stigmas against gender dysphoria within Faunish cultures are rare both in modernity and antiquity. Fauns tend to be patriarchal; men are expected to be the family breadwinners and have roles in leadership, whereas women, while not entirely barred from leadership or working roles, are often less dominant socially. Some countries, such as Tinria, have a much more egalitarian attitude toward gender roles, with men and women having much more equality in terms of job opportunities.

Like many Astutocentaurines, Faunish cultures utilize utility vessels, the still-living headless bodies of their deceased, to supplement their employed workforces as well as a source of medical implants. Although they are practically vegetables, the thoracic ganglion is sophisticated enough that utility vessels can be trained to perform basic tasks, and the individual zooids themselves are ideal donors for the implantation of limbs or even entire body segments. As such, when a person who has agreed to donate their body undergoes self-death, their remaining vessel is cached in a body shop with a multitude of others, where it awaits future use. Although this seems unethical on a surface level, in truth the practice is just as much of a funerary rite as it is a source of revenue. In most Faunish cultures, utility vessels are treated with the utmost respect and reverence and are often paid for their services in much the same way as a fully living employee would. Once the utility vessel finally passes on, it is often buried in the same grave as the person's head, and the money it has earned throughout its tenure is usually either inherited by the person's family or buried alongside them as a token of good fortune.

Religion

Due to their cosmopolitan distribution, Fauns have so many religions associated with their species that it is impossible to tar their belief systems under a single brush, as the range of diversity expressed by these ideologies is not unlike the variation of human religions. Their religions can be classified into larger groupings based on shared geographic origins and mythological commonalities, though even amongst these the variation is quite prominent.

The most widespread religions amongst Fauns, particularly those indigenous to the continent of Borea, are the Deleuewean religions. Although these religions have some significant disparities in terms of philosophy, they are grouped together by their shared pantheons and creation myths, as well as the mention of a figure named "Deleuewe" in their respective scriptures. Many gods exist in the Deleuewean pantheon, but creation is attributed to three principal deities. Irir-Ihurhuh, the unisex god of reality itself, is responsible for creating the universe and all of the planets within it. They are also the singular parent of the pantheon's two other principal deities, Irir-Iu and Irir-Iwiche. Irir-Iu, the eldest brother, is the god of the sun, the day and life, and is tasked with bringing light to the world and giving sustenance to all that live on it. Irir-Iu's dance is slow and graceful, and as he does his waltz, whatever side of the planet he occupies is lit by the radiance that glows from deep within him. Irir-Iwiche, the youngest brother, is the god of the sea, the moons and the night, and is tasked with bringing light to the night sky and keeping the oceans alive through waves, currents and tides. Irir-Iwiche's dance is faster than that of his older brother, and as he spins around with his bolas, he causes the oceans to rise at whatever side he's occupying, with the tides being at their highest when his bolas swings closest to the surface. While his own light is often overwhelmed by Iu's during the day, it lights up the night with a dim, yet beautiful glow. The cycles of day and night and the rising of tides are said to be caused by these brothers doing an eternal, circular dance around the planet, and it is through this process that life is sustained and renewed.

Tool Culture, Technology & Science

While the spacefaring Fauns of the Fraternity have access to advanced technology and spaceflight, those who remain on Athyrmagaia live in a perpetual pre-industrial era, ranging from small hunter-gatherer communities to larger-scale feudal nations. Overall, they and the other contemporary Astutocentaurines are considered to be in their own respective equivalent of the Renaissance era. However, this is a very rough comparison, as they also have rather novel materials, resources, and technologies that other pre-industrial aliens do not.

Like many sophonts, Fauns are natural tool users, and have a sophisticated tool culture. Some of their tools are easy to recognize, such as throwing spears, axes, hammers, knives and swords, which can come in one-handed or two-handed variants. They even make use of rather familiar-looking eating utensils that can be described as "spoons" and "forks". Unlike humans, of course, Fauns have a total five manipulatory appendages; Two arms, one sternal claw, and two medial locomotors that, while mostly used for walking, can also serve as hands if needed. This abundance of manipulatory limbs provides them with many more free hands with which to use tools, and indeed, many of their tools are designed around this anatomical quirk. Among such creations is a menagerie of unique "three-handed" tools. Some, such as the thrust hammer, puck hammer, and pole chisel, utilize the combined strength of both hands and one of the medial locomotors to add extra force and power when striking low objects. Others, such as hand-cranked drills, spring-loaded crossbows and various musical instruments, are wielded in both hands while the sternal claw adjusts the device's mechanisms.

Fauns and kin utilize a unique form of long-distance communication that, while restricted to the planetary surface, is nonetheless impressive in that it comes from an unexpected source. In place of manmade radio towers that require electricity to function, Fauns use ramblers, a selectively bred species of clonal vine-like plant that uses shortwave radio signals and sounds to relay information. Thanks to this, word gets around much quicker on Athyrmagaia than in most other pre-industrial societies. There are at least two known cultivars of rambler that see regular use. The "broadcast" cultivar operates similarly to a radio tower, with a larger, more dominant "listener" plant dispersing shortwave radio frequencies to a nearby scattered array of smaller "speaker" plants. The "communication" cultivar, however, functions more or less like a telephone, with two plants that function as both "listeners" and "speakers" transmitting messages to each other via a linear array of sprawling vine colonies. The communication cultivar is the most abundant, as it is often grown in long, continent-spanning arrays not too dissimilar to telephone lines. Ramblers, as effective as they are, do have some disadvantages compared to their mechanical counterparts, however. Although they grow very quickly and can take root in a broad range of soil qualities, they require regular maintenance to ensure that they function properly and do not endanger the ecosystem through overgrowth. Furthermore, although analogous to a radio, the broadcast cultivar is often locked onto a single frequency and cannot be tuned to different "channels." Individuals who specialize in the cultivation and maintenance of ramblers are referred to as "ramblesmiths".

Some examples of bioplastic tools and objects produced by Astutocentaurines.

Surface metal deposits are relatively sparse on Athyrmagaia, as many of them have been depleted by previous iterations of advanced civilization over the past 3 million years. As a result, metals such as iron, copper, silver, and gold are highly sought-after building materials among Astutocentaurines. The Fauns, of course, are no different. While they have enough access to metals that they could learn metallurgy from the Shovelfolk and use it regularly in construction and engineering, it is rare enough in nature that people are encouraged to recycle their metals as much as possible. To supplement the relative scarcity of metals on their planet, Fauns also use a rather surprising material: plastic. Their native plant life, the Olekirkophytes, naturally produces polylactic acid in their cuticles, a bioplastic that is normally manmade in most contexts. This has given the Fauns (as well as other Astutocentaurus) a significant head start in polymer science compared to other known pre-industrial aliens, and they harvest the material from plants to mold objects such as utensils, bottles, and even transparent food containers. Due to the high availability of such a material, a majority of known Faunish cultures have been known to practice plastic molding techniques or utilize bioplastic in at least some capacity, including the simplest of tribesfolk.

Despite their pre-industrial status, Fauns are surprisingly well-developed in their fields of science. By the time of first contact, they had already independently discovered the theory of evolution through observations of both extant life and their own fossil record, and had invented their own system of taxonomic ranking. This system is often referred to as "Nounian taxonomy", in honor of the late Tinrian biologist Noun Rich Rorhu, and it is vaguely similar to Linnaean taxonomy in terms of its arrangement of organisms into nested hierarchies. Although their phylogenetic tree has been greatly expanded upon through cooperative research with Fraternity researchers, the traditional Nounian system of classification very much remains dominant in Athyrmagaian academia. Their innovations in medical science are also noteworthy; They inherited their own equivalent of germ theory from the Shovelfolk, and although they are naturally capable of swapping their zooids, they are also competant surgeons, as they have learned how to transplant non-detachable components such as limbs, fingers, and even some organs. This is made possible thanks to a specialized cultivar of tumeofauna, which produces stem cells that are compatible with Astutocentaurine tissue. By applying the substance to a wound before re-attaching a lost limb, the severed nerves, muscles and blood vessels will reconnect twice as fast as they would under normal circumstances.

Domestication & Agriculture

A mock ox (Xenobos borealis). This animal is a direct ancestor to the domesticated shazoo (Xenobos borealis neodomesticus).

Throughout their tenure on the planet, Fauns have utilized a wide array of domesticated animals as companions, mounts, labor, clothing, and food, and continue to do so in the present day. Some of these animals are domesticates of their own creation, while others are more or less "hand-me-downs" from previous iterations of Athyrmagaian civilization.

Their most ancient companion is the beakhound, a dog-like Cynorhynchid that has ancient roots in the First Iteration. Much like our dogs, beakhounds have been selectively bred into a variety of morphs used for a multitude of purposes, such as hunting, guarding, or even just simple companionship. It is not entirely certain how beakhounds came to be domesticated by the Fauns, though evidence suggests that they were inherited simply as a result of how ubiquitous they were in ancient times.

Sedentary cultures are also known to make use of livestock; Depending on the region, one of the most common livestock animals is often the Shazoo, a Xenobovine not unlike our own cattle in terms of its utility. Although it does not produce milk, it is raised for its meat and skin, and in some cases it can even be used for physical labor and transport. The modern shazoo, as it is known in the context of Faunish civilization, is believed to have been developed through the domestication of the wild mock ox. Another common livestock animal is the crawpig, an omnivorous fauxungulate known for its broad diet and strong claws. Although they, too, are occasionally used as a source of meat, they are primarily raised for their unfertilized eggs. They are also rather useful in hunter-gatherer societies as aids in foraging. The Fauns inherited the crawpig from their oldest allies, the Shovelfolk.

Instead of motorized vehicles, Fauns rely on mounts for long-distance travel. The hippogriff is easily the most iconic of these mounts, a giant flightless pachyalatan that has exchanged its wings for powerful, hooved forelegs. Hippogriffs have been a staple of Athyrmagaian transportation since the First Iteration, and it's theorized that the Fauns obtained them through the re-domestication of feral populations. Like the Terran horse, the domestic hippogriff makes for a steadfast companion, forming a lifelong bond with its rider.

Like with any sapient species, the Faun's establishment of sedentary civilization is founded upon agriculture. It is believed that the Fauns inherited their understanding of the practice from the Shovelfolk, since they evolved in the same region and utilize many of the same crops. One of their most commonly grown crops is réhä, a starch-heavy species of star grass. Much like wheat, réhä is ground into a fine powder and used to make bread. Hetūt, an edible root, is also fairly common in their cuisine, being used as a side dish or an ingredient in more complex recipes. Zhėgel, a more aquatic herb, is grown for sugar that is used in pastries. Some cultures also cultivate edibles species of tumeofauna and sphondamycetes, with the former being a favorable substitute for slaughtered meat among cultures who abhor violence.

Interactions with Other Sophonts

Fauns are the latest sophont species to be legally established as citizens of the Fraternity. Unlike many other sophonts, however, the Fauns' introduction to the Fraternity was actually the result of a freak accident. Due to the notion that pre-industrial societies weren't "mature" enough to cope with alien contact, the human team sent by the Fraternity originally intended to study the planet discretely, to ensure that the civilizations of the planet advance in a natural fashion. This secrecy was maintained successfully during the first five or so years, but was cut short when a rogue piece of space debris struck a manned orbital craft, forcing it to make an emergency landing in Lakefront, Tinria. Although both the crew and others involved survived, the incident happened to occur during the merchant town's busiest hours, right before the eyes of hundreds of people. Culture shock quickly disseminated across the native populace as knowledge of alien life spread like wildfire. At this point, it was too late to ethically suppress the news that was spreading so rapidly, so it was decided that the Fraternity would make proper first contact with the species. Despite the language barriers at the time, and a less than favorable first impression, this more proper introduction went over very well, and the initial fear and uncertainty was quickly set aside by curiosity and enthusiasm. Eventually, both parties knew enough about each other that Fauns were seen as eligible for citizenship in the Fraternity, making them the very first pre-industrial aliens to do so.

Despite their pre-industrial heritage, Faunish immigrants were very quick to integrate and adapt to the interstellar, high-tech society of the Fraternity. Although they are a minority group compared to the Fraternity's other sophonts, they are not marginalized by law; Since the Fraternity's form of social stratification does not discriminate based on species, Fauns enjoy sociopolitical equality alongside the other client sophonts, and are granted the same job opportunities as their peers. Their status as a minority group is merely due to their relatively small interstellar population, as they have only become involved in the Fraternity rather recently.

As far as the Fraternity's social circles go, sociopolitical relations between humans and Fauns are perhaps the most idyllic. This is mostly due to the fact that it was humanity that they first made contact with, but it also has to do in part with their own physiology and social dynamic. Fauns are notable for the fact that they are among the few known extraterrestrial sophonts that have a DNA-based biochemistry like that of Terran organisms, and are known to thrive in Fraternity habitats that are otherwise made for a human majority. Barring the unique influences of their body modularity, their general social structure is also very similar to ours, which makes it much easier for the two species to comprehend the nuances of each other's cultures through comparison. It is also due to these factors that a majority of mixed-species marriages tend to be pairings between humans and Fauns.

Although Fraternity Fauns thrive among their alien allies, sociopolitical relations between homeworld Fauns and the Fraternity can be rather complicated. Due to the strictly anti-colonialist process by which sophonts join the Fraternity, the governments of Athyrmagaia maintain much of their political autonomy from the former, and many live their lives without heavy alien political influence. As such, many people planetside, despite being aware of the existence of aliens, are not entirely accustomed to interacting with them. Even amongst homeworlders who do regularly work and interact with aliens, there's a notable preference for working with humans or even fellow Fauns specifically, due to being the most familiar with them. As such, Fraternity researchers who are stationed on Athyrmagaia are often recommended to be issued with Faunish guises.

As for their interactions with the other sophonts of their own planet, the Fauns are noted to have a rather interesting and variable dynamic with their contemporaries. Although occasional bouts of interspecies violence are not unheard of, Fauns generally seem more prone to befriend their fellow Astutocentaurines than they are to war with them. Indeed, especially in modern contexts, they are known to form joint societies with these other species, living side by side under a shared cultural and ethnic identity. That being said, they do have rather strained relations with the Uerco (Astutocentaurus capiodon) of Hevecca, due to the latter's brutal acts of colonialism during the Age of Terror.

The Astutocentaurus, Death, & Utility Vessels

 Death is a very complicated subject for the Astutocentaurini. Since each person is made of four detachable zooids, their constituent living units almost never die at the same time, and the lifespan of each zooid is limited by the slow loss of their ability to exchange nutrients, oxygen, and nerve impulses with advanced age. To complicate things further, the cranial zooid always dies first, which often leaves the headless body alive to either live out the remainder of its life in constant care or starve to death in a fruitless zombie-like search for a replacement head (essentially any small object that radiates heat).

A basic diagram of Trinary Mortality

Such unorthodox physiology has resulted in an unconventional perspective of mortality. Unlike humans, who tend to see life and death as a duality, most Astutocentaurini cultures interpret this cycle as trinary. According to their belief, each person is composed of two interdependent entities, the "self" (the cranial zooid) and the "vessel" (the collective post-cranial zooids). As the name suggests, the self represents the core of a person's consciousness and identity, while the vessel is typically viewed as something along the lines of a mount "ridden" by the former. Due to this, they hold the belief that individuals live one life but experience two deaths: the death of the self ("self-death") and the death of the vessel ("vessel-death"), which can occur either separately or simultaneously depending on the circumstances of the expiration. As mentioned in the first paragraph, however, death of the self typically occurs first when it comes to age-related death, followed much later by death of the vessel. This ideology has many cultural variations, each with its own funerary rights for both the self and the vessel, respectively. In most cases, however, both will typically be buried in the same grave upon passing.

Illustrations outlining the basic types of utility vessels

But how are headless citizens dealt with while still alive? Following self-death, the vessel of an Athyrmatherian has the potential to live for a long time under controlled conditions, anywhere from a year to nearly a century, depending on the creature's species and age. The feudal societies of the world have thus converged on a similar solution: At some point in their adult life, a person will usually be required to sign a will in which they can either decline or agree to posthumously donate their vessels to society. These repurposed vessels are known as "utility vessels."

A utility vessel can be considered an archaic sort of biotechnology, an organic automaton that can be sold and used for various purposes. When awaiting ownership or rental by an employer, they are typically housed and maintained in storage facilities called "body shops," eerily reminiscent of auto shops in their presentation and purpose. They can even be modified surgically and "mechanically" to certain degrees if permitted by a will, although more extensive cases of body modification can be rather controversial. Despite this apparent commoditization, utility vessels are treated with an odd yet palpable sense of respect and reverence, which is culturally analogous to our respect for the dead. Indeed, the very shops they are sold by tend to be subsidiaries of the same funeral homes that house their deceased selves, and employers are legally obligated to return dead vessels so they can be buried in the same graves. With each use, utility vessels are paid in money for their services, and some laws and regulations advise against any particular uses that may be deemed indignant to the former persons. Furthermore, only adult individuals can be made into utility vessels, due to legal stigmas against child labor and exploitation. It is also common for utility vessels to be dressed in lavish and beautiful garbs or intricately carved bioplastic shells that match their cultural backgrounds. The centerpiece of these decorations is a custom-carved "persona," a fake head that, in addition to functioning as a feeding tube, serves as a symbolic reminder of the person the vessel used to be attached to.

Under native legal definitions, utility vessels are usually classified into three types based on their composition and functionality. Type "A" utility vessels consist of the thoracic, upper, and lower abdominal zooids, with the thoracic zooid housing a ganglion that makes them autonomous enough to perform specific tasks in response to certain stimuli. This allows them to haul or carry loads similar to pack animals, with the behaviors being conditioned through rhythmic ground vibrations and rewards of liquid food. Type "B" utility vessels consist of only the upper and lower abdominal zooids, and they lack autonomy outside metabolic regulation and basic righting and balancing. Due to this, they have to be pulled or pushed manually like living carts, and they are mostly used to carry lighter loads or to act as portable bases for more stationary equipment. Type "C" utility vessels are essentially any singular zooid that is separated from a composite, and they are typically relegated to use as a surgery stock for organ transplants, zooid replacements, and sometimes to "construct" more complete utility vessels.

The Shovelfolk

A male Shovelperson getting ready for some farmwork. Shovels are often passed down as family heirlooms in his culture.

The Shovelfolk (Astutocentaurus alluvium) are a humble and diminutive people native to the Takara Plains. This means they originated from the same homeland as the Fauns, although they come from a much earlier radiation of the genus. It is estimated that the Shovelfolk (or at the very least, the cultural identity of the Shovelfolk) have been around for well over 3.8 million years, and they retain many ancestral traits that are otherwise lost in younger species. Prominent brow ridges and a broad muzzle indicate that they split off from other Astutocentaurus reasonably early on, with little to no gene flow occurring with their contemporary sister species throughout their evolution, save for the Fauns. They also live a lot more conservatively than their other relatives, their societies being wholly tribal and clan-based rather than tribal-feudal, and they likely remained like this for millions of years. They rarely involve themselves in other species' matters, and most of them are content with keeping to themselves in their homeland. For this reason, they are a scarce sight in Tinria or any other mixed-species settlements, and about 81% of their global population lives exclusively in the Takara Plains.

The life of the Shovelfolk is closely associated with the river and the ground beneath their feet. Their species name, alluvium, comes from their apparent close association with the Takara River, as their permanent settlements are often the largest near the river's banks. The name given to them by the other natives, however, comes from the prominence of handmade shovels in their cultures, which they use for both agriculture and to forage for food. Though this name sounds derogatory, the Shovelfolk do not see it this way, as they take pride in their mastery of their namesake tool. Having lived such a way of life for so long has shaped their anatomies in more ways than just retaining primitive characteristics. Unlike the earliest Astutocentaurus, which were plains-dwelling nomads equally capable on both solid ground and in the treetops, the Shovelfolk are semi-fossorial and sedentary, having evolved stouter, more muscular limbs and a smaller body size to allow them to crawl through narrow tunnels, and a slower metabolism that will enable them to tolerate lower oxygen levels when digging particularly deep. They are also rather competent swimmers, which is a valuable trait to have when living in or near bodies of water. They can still climb, but they are rather poorly suited for it compared to their cousins, and being less adept at running, they have doubled down on camouflage, their pelts being decked in black, white, and green stripes to break up their silhouettes in tall grasses. While they don't have thick, strong claws for digging, they compensate with their reasonably liberal use of a wide variety of shovels, and their chin tusks are extra thick and sturdy to allow them to break apart packed, hardened soil and dried mud. Shovelfolk tend to be more crepuscular than their closest relatives, being mostly active in the morning and afternoon while sleeping at midday and midnight. They are also remarkably long-lived by Astutocentaurus standards, with the oldest growing to be 150 years old.

Although their larger snouts give the illusion of a smaller brain, the Shovelfolk are not by any means "less intelligent" than their more derived peers. Like many other cultures, they have both a spoken and written language, and they even have their own systems of measurement. All evidence suggests that their apparently primitive way of life is one they live by choice rather than consequence, and the fact that they retain such an atavistic anatomy is likely a result of this chosen conservatism. In fact, they are actually quite rich in their practices and traditions, and while their cultures are quite similar in their beliefs and values to each other due to their close proximity, they all have their own unique interpretations and versions of these ceremonies. One ceremony of note is the Spring Festival, in which they celebrate a successful growing period with a great party and a live performance to honor their fertility deities. Their technology, while primitive, is still fairly advanced by the standards of their lifestyle. They have managed to discover basic metallurgy fairly early on in their evolution, and often use it to forge tools such as shovel heads and sickles for their crops. They are also known to sift gold from the sediments of the river, which they then melt down to make piercings and jewelry. Metals such as iron are a bit harder to come by in their homeland, so such materials are typically gathered during annual pilgrimages to more metal-rich areas beyond the plains, namely active volcanoes. They also make tools out of plant-based bioplastics like most other advanced cultures, though their particular method is rather unusual. Rather than entirely melting down the plants into a melted plastic soup, they simply hold sticks and stems over an open flame to soften them, subsequently weaving them into shape like a sort of wicker. For their metal tools, they often make grips out of this plastic wicker, cutting cross-hatched marks on the surface for better friction.

A simplified infographic of how Shovelfolk develop their Warrens.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Shovelfolk culture is their architecture. Rather than building their homes above ground using traditional building materials, they quite literally dig and sculpt their homes out of the cliffs and hillsides of their river valley, forming maze-like subterranean communities. These underground villages are called "warrens", and they are rather similar to the underground cities in Cappadocia, Turkey, although rather than working with softer volcanic rock, the Shovelfolk have to bore through shale, limestone, dolomite, and sandstone. Since a warren can take literal centuries or even millennia to build, its size and complexity are often indicative of how old and well-established it is. Younger warrens appear fairly simple, consisting mostly of just small rock-carved cubbies arranged in neat rows, which are accessed via ladders and may or may not be interconnected internally. Older warrens, however, are much more baroque, with most of the vertical cliff being carved away to form elaborately sculpted entrances above ground, which lead to vast underground networks of interconnected rooms that fulfill a wide variety of amenities, including housing, food processing, and even education. Some of them even have living spaces designed to accommodate allied species (more on those guys later.) Not only have the Shovelfolk absolutely mastered their excavating techniques through this process, but they are known to have been building warrens like these since the First Iteration (3.8 MYA), back when they still retained a more lithe, cursorial build. Throughout deep time, they have been building warrens for so long that they have inadvertently terraformed the river valley itself, which has proven to be beneficial to both their descendants and the native wildlife. As older, abandoned warrens get eroded by the sands of time, they form smooth, rocky hills that can easily be scaled on foot, and abandoned underground tunnels are smoothed out to form intricate cave systems. This provides a larger amount of walkable ground for thirsty animals to access the river's drinkable water, and the tunnels (provided that they aren't filled up with dirt), are ideal for hibernating animals to sleep out the winter in. Furthermore, modern Shovelfolk are known to rediscover these fossilized warrens rather frequently, subsequently excavating and refurbishing them to reclaim as their own.

The Shovelfolk are sometimes regarded as the "inventors of agriculture" by the other native sapients. In addition to their surprisingly advanced metallurgic techniques and masonry, they have been farming for over 3 million years, countless eons before most of the other currently extant native sapients even came to be. Quite a few of the planet's most widely used crops, such as the wheat-like réhä used to make bread, are believed to have originally been invented by their people. Shovelfolk are similar to the more cosmopolitan Fauns in that they are omnivores, eating mostly starchy vegetation supplemented by some quantity of meat, eggs, and fruit. Due to the ample supply of water and minerals offered by the Takaran River, most Shovelfolk cultures are almost obligately agricultural, relying on both the running water of the river and the fertile land on the riverbank to grow their own food. Like many Astutocentaurine cultures, of course, there is a conspicuous lack of dairy in the diets of Shovelfolk, since none of the known animals on Athyrmagaia lactate in a mammalian fashion.

To disrupt the local ecosystem as little as possible, the majority of the crops they grow are derived from species native to the area. The most common crops in their daily regimen are réhä and hetūt, the former a grain-like species of star grass and the latter an edible root. Réhä is used in a similar manner as wheat, often being ground up and then baked to make bread, whereas hetūt is more akin to a potato or turnip and can be eaten either raw or cooked. They also use zhėgel, a more primitive, water-intensive plant vaguely similar to sugarcane, to make various simple sweet treats. In addition to terrestrial crops, they also use the mineral-rich waters of the Takara to cultivate various freshwater aquatic plants as a food source. The leaves of zhattrekekc aquaphytes are used in much the same way as the leaves of lettuce, and the seeds of secondarily aquatic hehhel plants are used as a peppercorn-like seasoning.

Although mainly farmers of locally grown produce, Shovelfolk have also been known to forage for food both near and beyond the riverbank, as well as engage in occasional trade with other cultures for more exotic ingredients. During their annual pilgrimages in search of resources, namely the metals found near volcanoes, they often either harvest (or purchase) foreign spices and herbs to bring home, including those used for medicines that cannot be found in their homeland. Those who live near the coasts often travel closer to shore to harvest sea salt as a condiment and a food preservative. When harvesting fruit, which is relatively rare in the Western Weave, they will rely on the help of allied Oliphaunts, since the only plants that bear palatable fruit in the region are enormous umbrynoids that are often too tall for the tiny Shovelfolk to scale on their own.

Unlike many other agricultural peoples, Shovelfolk do not raise livestock for meat. Their primary source of carnal cuisine is a selectively bred species of tumeofauna known locally as "mėbé." Although it is technically an animal, mėbé grows and behaves more like sessile fungi, which means it is considered a "crop" rather than a form of livestock. Mėbé is farmed underground within the warren in a special higher-humidity chamber, where it is kept fed by organic refuse. Mėbé nodes are usually either eaten raw or cooked, and are a common ingredient of more savory Shovelfolk meals. That being said, they do still make ample use of other animal products as food and resources. Their sole livestock animal, the crawpig, regularly lays infertile eggs that are often eaten as a delicacy and used to make dough, and some of their more unusual dishes are given flavor by being boiled in the animal's urine. Shovelfolk are also known to eat fish and insects, and they will often sun-dry worms to eat as a snack.

While the Shovelfolk live mostly outside of greater feudal society, they do have their fair share of alliances in the plains. They have managed to domesticate clawhogs, a species of pig-like Fauxungulate omnivores otherwise known for their foul temperament. They domesticated these creatures not for their meat, but for their keen ability to sniff out food, which has proven essential in foraging, as well as their eggs and urine which are both used in some of their cuisine. Almost in contradiction to their conservative lifestyle, the Shovelfolk have a very open-minded attitude towards other sophonts. They are on very good terms with the Plainers, a tribalistic ethnic group of Fauns that live a predominantly hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and upon meeting human explorers they were very quick to develop their very own English-based creole. Their most notable alliance, however, would likely be that which they formed with the grand Borean oliphaunts, which they tend to live in close association with and hold in high regard. Some of their cultures believe that they are great guardians created to protect their people, while others believe that they are demigods directly descended from their chief deity. Regardless of their perception, it isn't uncommon for Shovelfolk villages to have at least some degree of cohabitation with oliphaunts, with the latter often assisting their smaller comrades in tasks such as agriculture, construction, and even defense against rivals and predators. Unlike the relationship between men and beasts of burden, this is a dynamic that is very much mutual in nature, as both species are almost equally intelligent and directly exchange cultures and ideas with one another. Due to a long lifespan and the abundance of resources near the river, the Shovelfolk are usually pacifists, and they rarely ever declare war. They do construct weapons such as spears and knives, but these are used almost exclusively for self-defense against predators, as well as for hunting during the dry season when agriculture becomes less viable. In the rare cases in which they have declared war, however, they have been known to utilize their Oliphaunt allies as sapient war mounts, with some records even claiming that they would forge giant daggers for the latter to use as melee weapons.

With the Shovelfolk being around for well over 3.8 million years and the Oliphaunts being around even longer than that, not only have both species bore witness to all four previous iterations of societal and technological advancement on Athrymagaia, but both of them are among the very few cultures alive today that actually remember these ancient eras of prosperity, at least to some extent. Their own perception of these events has cemented itself within their cultures in the form of myths and legends, and while there are indeed fictitious elements in these tales, they are without a doubt directly inspired by the real-life setting and atmosphere of these times, as evidenced by the discovery of ancient technofossils that match the descriptions of some objects described in their mythos. For these reasons, scholars from across the continent often seek out these tribes to inquire about their myths, and often debate which elements of their stories can be correlated to real-world events. In particular, their retellings of the downfall of these old civilizations, while obviously dramatized to fantastical levels, have very dark implications about the real-life circumstances of these events.

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1. TBA

Tumeofauna

Cancer is one of the most feared diseases in the natural world, and animals from both Earth and Athyrmagaia are capable of falling victim to it. In short, cancer is an abnormal group of rogue body cells that start to grow and divide at an uncontrollable rate, to the point that it may potentially invade vital organs and kill the organism. Whether it be viral agents, radiation, or even just poor lifestyle choices, cancer can be caused by an innumerable amount of factors. Most cancers by themselves are non-contageous, but unfortunately this isn't always the case. Sometimes, albeit very rarely, a cancer can come to life, gaining the ability to spread between hosts without the aid of a virus. These are known as "clonally transmissible cancers", and they are essentially single-celled parasitic forms of the species they originated from. On Earth, they are known to plague a number of animals, such as dogs, bivalves, and Tasmanian devils. Some can even spread between two different species. In even rarer, more extreme cases, however, a transmissible tumor has the potential to evolve into its own dedicated animal clade. This is speculated to be the case for the myxosporeans, a clade of parasitic cnidarians that show evidence of having evolved from a variety of cnidarian transmissible tumor.

On Athyrmagaia, the most extreme case of this theoretical phenomenon has happened, and to a degree so unprecedented that it seems to defy the very laws of phylogenetics. About 230 MYA, a mass extinction occurred among the Heteropods of the Borea-Comedian landmasses, though the circumstances were unknown for quite a while since there were no indications of any sort of climatic shift that may have caused it. More complete remains from these strata, however, show signs of severe deformity, with various holes, bumps, and growths on the bones that seem to be directly responsible for the animal's deaths. Nearly all of the Heteropod remains from this rock layer, in all growth stages, share these deformities, and the growths themselves resemble a form of bone cancer. It stands to reason that the mass extinction that killed these animals was not caused by a climatic cataclysm (not directly, anyway), but by an extremely aberrant species of single-celled parasitic fauna. This parasite is believed to have originated from a type of Heteropod transmissible cancer that gained the ability to spread between different Heteropod species, speciating into an entirely new clade of aggressive, genetically chimeric parasites by quite literally stealing the homeobox genes and mitochondrial DNA of its hosts through horizontal gene transfer. This extinct family of transmissible Heteropod parasites is now known as "Catastrophically Mutagenic Heteropod Transmissible Tumor" (CMHTT), and while it is still unknown what caused such a malignant tumor to spread to such a catastrophic level, these parasites proved to be so devastating that virtually every single Heteropod in the northern and western hemisphere was wiped out. The sudden loss of megafaunal herbivores and predators resulted in the overgrowth of Olekirkophte flora, pumping the atmosphere full of oxygen to create a high-oxygen environment similar to Earth's Carboniferous Period. This era was called the Neocarbonic, and it lasted for well over 50 million years. These very conditions were what allowed for megacolonial stegospondyls to evolve into the first Athyrmatherians, which were quick to adjust to the lowering oxygen levels as they developed a more complex respiratory system. They, however, were not the only ones who benefited from such conditions. Though the original wave of CMHTT went extinct along with the original megafaunal Heteropods, it quite evidently managed to leave behind a perplexing legacy that would shape nearly all ecosystems to come.

Tumeofauna are an enigmatic, almost anomalous grouping of animals that are found in nearly all habitable regions of Athyrmagaia. As the systematic name implies, Tumeofauna are an offshoot of the same lineage of CMHTT that caused the Borea-Comedian mass extinction event, but they are so extremely derived from their forebears that they are considered a whole new form of animal life of their own. These organisms are very far removed from their carcinogenic ancestors, evolving from mere rogue body cells into multicellular, often colonial heterotrophs and mixotrophs, capable of reproducing independently of a host. Using homeobox genes stolen by their primordial ancestors, Tumeofauna have secondarily re-evolved the ability to form specialized tissues in an organized, non-abnormal manner, and possess a distinguishable body plan and archaic organ systems. Being descended from an HTC lineage, Tumeofauna are technically an aberrant offshoot of Heteropod, though their DNA is extremely chimeric as result of over millions of years of horizontal gene transfer from hosts, with genetic matches to innumerable Heteropod clades both extant and extinct, as well as various phyla of invertebrates, algae and even flora. Some species, most often parasites, even have Athyrmatherian DNA in their genome. Due to this, pinpointing their precise ancestry to any specific Heteropod order, family, or genus is practically impossible. Additionally, modern Tumeofauna also engage in horizontal gene transfer at a regular basis, sometimes with animals and plants, and most often with microbes and other species of Tumeofauna. As a result, their genome is so heavily mixed that it's difficult to determine if Tumeofauna are truly a unified clade or a paraphyletic group of organisms that evolved their current conditions independently from one another.

Typically, a single colony of Tumeofauna is comprised of multiple interconnected, radially symmetrical "nodules", each technically being its own individual animal. At the center of the mass is the central nodule, which branches outward into smaller "child" nodules which are linked together by either a carpet of tissue or a network of "internodular ligaments" where the circulatory and nervous systems of each nodule intertwine. The outside of each node is covered in an epidermis, which is perforated with spiracles that connect to a subdermal network of trachea used to passively respirate atmospheric oxygen. The integument of the epidermis often varies, ranging from bare, moist skin to scale-like plates made of chitin. Similar to fungi, some Tumeofauna protect themselves using toxins produced from glands in the epidermis. Their bodies are lined with layers and bands of of muscle, and most species can be observed visibly convulsing and contracting. Some larger species possess a solid, internal test made of hydroxyapatite, which serves as structural support. A rudimentary, nodular nerve net is scattered across the colony's biomass, which allows it to react and respond to external stimuli, and at the core of the mass is a blood-filled, heart-like hemocoel that branches out into blood vessels and smaller hemocoels across the body tissues. Surrounding the central "blood chamber" are specialized tissues called "factory tissues" that produce stem cells, which are released into the blood stream and distributed across the body as the organism grows. Tumeofauna often lack a proper digestive system, so they instead gain sustenance by absorbing nutrients through permeable, root-like tendrils on the underside. Most Tumeofauna propagate through a very novel form of asexual reproduction. Like a mold, it grows and spreads continuously through cell division, creating new child nodules. In most species, the child nodules are not clones, and and are genetically distinct from the central nodules thanks to a form of cellular automixis, allowing the organism to reproduce asexually while still maintaining genetic diversity. Some parasitic species, however, lack the ability to perform automixis, and instead reproduce "sexually" by stealing mitochondrial DNA from the cells of their animal hosts, using an invasive form of meiosis to self-replicate. In addition to this, Tumeofauna can propagate by forming fruiting bodies called "cysts" on various parts of their physical mass, using a similar process of automixis or meiosis to produce fertile, spore-like oocytes within the cysts ready for dispersal. Many species simply expel these gametes into the air like fungal spores, though others may rely on plants or animals to either passively or actively disperse them. Regardless of the method of dispersal, as soon as the oocyte finds a suitable place to live, it will begin to germinate and grow into an all-new colony of Tumeofauna.

Though the original CMHTT pandemic was almost certainly responsible for the 230 MYA mass extinction event, the Tumeofauna that descended from this infection are now some of the most ecologically important organisms on the planet, sharing many niches with the fungus-like Sphondamycetes. Tumeofauna are a very broad and variable bunch, with a vast diversity of species found on both the land and even the sea. Ecologically speaking, they can best be described as "semi-sentient, throbbing mushrooms". Being heterotrophs, they can grow essentially anywhere where a sufficient amount of sustenance is available, but they are especially abundant in moist environments. Tumeofauna, along with an unrelated phylum of fungi-convergent life forms, are often keystone species that play a major role in the decomposition of organic matter. There is an especially high abundance of species that are involved in the decomposition of carrion, growing on the outside and inside of animal cadavers while eating away at necrotic flesh with the assistance of bacteria and digestive enzymes. Tumeofauna also serve as a food source for a wide variety of animals. Some active predators opportunistically eat non-toxic Tumeofauna as an easily accessible source of meat, and there are even species of carnivorous "grazers" that feed on the fruiting bodies of Tumeofauna like a cow eats grass. Tumeofauna also frequently engage in symbiosis with other organisms. Multiple topical and substropical species have a mutualistic relationship with photosynthetic microbes that live in the upper layers of their skin, allowing them to become mixotrophs that gain energy from both the sun and organic substances. Similarly, some tumeofauna inhabit the gut microbiomes of certain herbivores, protecting their hosts from intestinal parasites. On the flip side, however, there are also a multitude of Tumeofauna that have secondarily regressed back into parasites. Many of these parasites are relatively non-lethal, simply feeding on either the blood and skin of an animal host or eating away at the cuticles and sap of Olekirkophytes. The deadliest parasitic Tumeofauna, however, have secondarily re-evolved a transmissible cancer-like lifestyle resembling a toned-down version of that exhibited by the extinct CMHTT. These parasites grow and spread in two ways; Some species use a symbiotic oncovirus to inject their DNA into surrounding cells, with the resulting growth of infected cancer cells making assimilation and clonal/non-clonal self-replication easier for the parasite. Other species, as mentioned in the paragraph above, do the inverse and use horizontal gene transfer to steal mitochondrial DNA from their host for cellular meiosis, growing budded "hybrid" offspring that are able to spread more freely across their host's tissues. Unlike their ancestors, these modern parasites are capable of infesting a wider variety of animals, including Athyrmatherians. Thankfully, for modern animal life on Athyrmagaia, this modern generation of carcinogenic parasites has not yet evolved to the same catastrophic degree as the CMHTT strain they descend from. Not yet, at least.