Ungir
| Strain | Ungir |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | 🔊 ung-GEER |
| Scientific name | Homo Draconiculus |
| Plural | Ungir |
| Possessive | Ungir/Ungirsi |
| Substrains | Ustinde, Karangi, Usatin, Juzuu |
| Patron Deity | Wodenism |
| Eyesight | Lowlight |
| Lifespan | 100 years |
| Location | Ungir Federation |
| Language | Common, Ungir |
| Climate | Various |
| Terrain | Forests, Hills, Mountains, Cities |
| Height | 7-8 Kol (100-122 cm) |
| Weight | 3 Tas (20-30 kg) |
| Wingspan | 30 Tas (4.5m) (if wings are present) |
| Skin Color | Variable |
| Hair Color | Variable |
| Eye Color | Various |
| Build | Slight |
| Distinctions | Draconic facial features, scaly skin, and talon-like feet |
The Ungir (🔊 ung-GEER) are a highly gregarious and industrious people with a penchant for exploring the underground.
Overview
The Ungir (🔊 Un-geer) are, for the most part, a highly gregarious and industrious people with a penchant for exploring the underground. Their origins come from a combination of human and draconic ancestry, with mixtures of different flavors of Aydahar lineage as well. Over time the result of this great mélange of genetic experimentation led to the current Ungir, plus a few variants.
Variations of Ungir can range from timid to aggressive, inward to gregarious, yet most remain industrious. One will rarely find an Ungir who is not working on a project, be it a tunnel, a building, or nearly any enterprise imaginable. They are particularly noteworthy for their skill at building traps and preparing ambushes, and digging tunnels, the latter most often for the purposes of mining.
Physical Characteristics
The Ungir appear to be very short and slight humans, with draconic or perhaps reptilian-looking features. They stand between 3' and 4' (60cm – 90cm) tall, weighing 35 to 45 pounds (16 – 20kg). They have a small number of scales occurring on the hands and feet, with scaly spots appearing on various locations all over their bodies. The skin and scale colors vary with the variant of Ungir, but the two colors are rarely much different.
Compared to humans, their hands have considerably more robust claw-like nails, which adapt them to digging by hand (though they rarely dig this way). They also possess a crocodilian jaw, which gives away their draconic ancestry. On the back of their heads, they possess anywhere from two to four small white or tan horns, and lastly, they possess short dragon-like tails. Their tails are prehensile, but very few Ungir can manage tasks with their tails that require much dexterity.
Natural and Latent Abilities
Because of the draconic "seed" that infects their blood, the Ungir have some common abilities that humans do not. They have tougher skin, covered in small scales in most places. While these scales are flexible, they do resist cuts far better than skin. The Ungir can also see better in low light.
Their tails provide them with better balance, increasing their acrobatic capabilities, and their talon-like feet and relatively small size make them good at jumping. Lastly, the Usatin Ungir have wings... and can fly.
Society and Culture
The Ungir are four societies merged into one. Despite this, all four societies share a common background marked by persecution from other strains. There is no historical evidence to prove that Ungir and the Aydahar once shared common territory, but there are clues. The Aydahar language has nicknames and idioms that refer to "small dragons" that are present in their culture.
It is assumed by sophists in both cultures that the Ungir were driven out of Aydahar territory for a reason that would cause the same division today. That behavior is hoarding. The Ungir love to hoard, while the Aydahar find such behavior to be abhorrent. Dragons in Aydahar territory hoard, and this is a trait of dragons, not people, or so the Aydhar believe.
The Ungir love to hoard, and their society is dominated by those who are most successful at it. The Ungir with the largest hoard is made their king. Ungir who have provided great services to their people are awarded tokens, which can supplement their hoard, allowing a less wealthy Ungir to seize political power. Survival of their people is naturally more important than any hoard.
Meanwhile, the four distinct Ungir lifestyles developed mostly as survival tactics. The Ustinde culture lives above ground in keeping with Aydahar tradition. Due to their small size, they are more likely to create easily abandoned edifices with their hoards on indoor carts ready to roll.
Their Karangi cousins dig. They build deep underground to escape pursuers from above. The Karangi can collapse tunnels, make others too small to enter, and create elaborate traps to confound anyone crazy enough to pursue them in their underground homes.
The Juzuu took to the sea and created small settlements underwater. They continue to build temporary settlements on beaches adjacent to their underwater territory. These settlements enable the Ungir to trade with air-breathing traders. These settlements can be abandoned at the first hint of trouble with little cost to the Juzuu, who will replace them quickly when trouble has subsided.
The last of the cultures is the Ustinde, those Ungir who have sprouted wings. The Ustinde can fly and throughout most of their youth, are concerned with little else than flying. They "nest" in high places and won't begin to hoard until later in life, their preoccupation with flying being a large part of their daily life.
History
There are two important histories of the Ungir: the pre-history and written history. As with all strains, the pre-history is all that happened before the Great Erasure, which happened over 260 years in the past. While this little-understood erasure of history literally erased all memories and written documents, clues remain.
Ungir sophists and historians recognize the tell-tale signs of Ungir culture that exist throughout the Aydahar nation of Altinquor and in the surrounding nations as well. They surmise that they had a clear history of living with and trading with the Aydahar. With the Ungir all living in ceded Grendel lands post-Erasure,
Since the Great Erasure, the Ungir people have been finding their feet. They built up towns and cities out of essentially nothing in the gods forsaken lands they were given. With nothing of value on their lands, they were rarely harassed by any but faraway travelers who wandered too close.
It wasn't until the Grendel War that the Ungir took up arms in any serious way. Clashing over the human land grab, the Grendel felt penned in on all sides and declared war on humans, nearly overtaking the neighboring country of Soltustik. When the crown prince of Ortalyk got involved in the war, the Ungir dropped the gauntlet and invaded Ortalyk from the West.
The move in solidarity with the Grendel would cost the Ungir dearly, as their campaigns were disastrous. The Ungir, who are masters of defensive tactics, stalled when on the offense. With little plunder to add to their hordes, they eventually found themselves on the defensive by the war's end as their armies were pushed back. After the war, few nations would trade with them or offer any level of trust.
Racial Variants
Juzuu
The Juzuu (🔊 joo-ZOO-oo) are an aquatic variety of Ungir. They sport gills enabling them to live underwater indefinitely in underwater settlements.
The Juzuu are an aquatic variety of Ungir who are very rare indeed. They sport gills enabling them to live underwater indefinitely, which is inaccessible to many adventuring parties. Even in their underwater realms, however, they naturally seek to tunnel and build their abodes in underground caves and tunnels beneath the ocean floor.
Karangi
The Karangi (🔊 Kare-rahn-jee) are a dark-featured variety of the Ungir who prefer be continuously underground.
Usatin
Depending on the family line, roughly one in every dozen Ungir produce an Usatin (🔊 Oo-sah-tin). Regardless of their coloring or previous bloodline, they will differ fundamentally by having developed a fully articulated pair of wings. Even as infants, these natural-born tunnellers will seek the surface and take to the air like birds. They quickly attain a mastery of flight that rivals, if not exceeds that of any other sapient avians on Otan.
Ustinde
The Ustinde (🔊 Oo-stin-day) are the surface-dwelling Ungir most commonly known to other races.
Half-Ungir
There are probably few things more rare on or below the surface of Otan than a Half-Ungir.
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