Creature:Kazea

{| width=100%



Physiology
The Kazea is a hexapodal land-living creature. It's covered in wool fabric-like fur with a thick mane and a furry tail. Four of the legs are used for walking, the front two are used for tools and balancing the upper body. The hands have three digits each, with the front hands weaker and more flexible. The Kazea is an omnivore, but prefers food it can easily bite off. It has no front teeth, just a beak-like jaw, with chewing teeth further in.

The Kazea is a dual-spined creature. It has two sets of ribs which protect the heart and the lungs. Less important organs are outside the inner rib-cage.

The eyes are not protected by the skull. Instead, they hang beneath it, protected only by two small bones. Behind the eyes are a gel-filled hollow, so if the eyes are hit, they are pushed into the hollow, hopefully avoiding damage.

Growth Cycle
The Kazea give birth to two or three larvae(although there's exceptions just like humans). These larvae(right) are very weak and their skeleton is not fully grown yet. These larvae require a lot of food, and when they're fat and healthy, they create a cocoon by secreting a hardening fluid from pores. Inside the cocoon, they develop their skeleton and grow more advanced. After a month or so the cocoon cracks and the infant Kazea(left) falls out.

Diet


Most vegetables grow under the ground to extract the very nutritious minerals in the Akazian soil. The Akazian grass is actually very large vegetables but only their straws grow above ground.

The Kazean people are hunter-gatherers, so hunting is an important part of their lives. During winter when a lot of the animals hibernate or migrate, the Kazean live on dried fruit and some dried meat they've saved from the summer.



Akaz


Akaz is the homeworld of the Kazea. Slightly larger than Earth but otherwise pretty similar, Akaz is a plain-covered temperate planet.



Classification


The hexapods all have two spines. They differ quite a bit, but they all give birth to live larvae. Most of them have fur and all of them have at least hair. Some are avians, some live in water, and some on land.

The jellyfilled are submarine animals for the most part. They are filled with jelly to withstand the pressure of the deep seas. They have no spines and not too many of them have brains. They lay eggs.

The quadropeds are similar to the hexapods. They both have two spines but, as you can see, the quadropeds have four legs only. Some quadropeds lay eggs, other give birth to larvae.

The quadsects are all small, like insects. They are predators, herbivores and scavengers on a small scale. They have proto-spines but they rely on their exoskeleton.

The nullopeds have no spine and no legs. If they need to rest, they grip something with their mouth and holds on to it. All nullopeds are avians, and most of them are poisonous. Some glow in the dark, like neon.

The nullocordatae have no spine, but four leg-like appendages which they use to move. Some have exoskeletons but their legs are still simple muscle stumps.

Then there are bacteria, viruses and worms, but that's not too interesting.

Examples
In the northern parts of the Amaran continent, some groups started to learn how to ride the lumbering Mosasoles. The Mosasole originates from the same ancestor as the Kazea, but its branch on the evolution tree split off long ago. Ideas spread fast among the Kazean groups, and riding is very valuable knowledge, so some groups traded Mosasoles to the southern groups for other resources.

The Imizin is a cave-dwelling creature used as livestock by some groups. The Kazea has learned to milk these creatures of their sweet milk. The Imizin are very slow, and almost without conciousness. Only by hiding out in caves were predators cannot reach them are they able to survive.

The Eshiiph(meaning "fast" in the language of the group which discovered it) are used for racing between groups in certain parts of Akaz. The Eshiiph are too weak to be used as beasts of burden.

The Caarr and the Cimor are actually closely related. The Cimor is a domesticated spieces, used by the Kazea as a herding animal(like a sheepdog) and later in their civilization as a pet.

During the First Religous War the Moon side conditionally trained Hakseas to attack the Hollow troops. By spraying the Haksea with water whenever it saw something green(the colour of the Hollow uniforms) they made it attack furiously everytime it saw something green. They also rewarded it when they showed Red or silver, which was the colour of the Moon side. The Hakseas are fast and have a nasty poisonous bite.

Kazea through Time
Here you can see how various things have developed throughout Kazea history.

Habitats
Here are some habitats through the ages. The first is a tribal hut, you've seen it before and it's nothing special, just protection from the nightly rain.

During the middle ages, not many Kazea lived in cities. These small farm buildings held a dozen Kazea at the most. They do not have glass in the windows but the hatches aren't needed during the mild summer months.

In the Empire, it was usual for three or four families to live in the same house. Poorer families lived in smaller houses, but the principle was the same for everybody.

In the modern age, the Empire multiple family construct started to disappear, but as the cities grew, the Kazea still preferred to live in conapts, the feeling of togetherness the same as the old Empire days.

In the bright future, the height you lived at was a status symbol. Therefor, huge skyrises could be constructed, as Kazea payed more for each floor higher they lived.

Cars
The first personal car was invented when the empire was at it's peak. Most people travelled with mosasole-pulled carts or wind-powered landships, but it was not nearly as effective as these new vehicles. The car went from steam-powered to jet powered(after the Kazea discovered electricity) and then to hover technology.



Tribal Life
The Kazea lives in groups of twelve, and no more. When a new Kazea is born in a full group, the eldest Kazea in the group is ritually banished and has to live a hermit's life till he dies or finds a mate to start a new group with. The average life expectancy of a Kazea is 33 years.

When competition for land, recourses or other things arise, the leaders of two groups are face each other, performing a complex set of threats and warnings. Each group has their own spoken language with approx. 400 words, but the only way for two different groups to understand eachother is by their ancient sign language. The group leader with the best "arguments" win, and the other group has to give away land or some item they posess.



Religion
The Kazea do not believe in a creator or a divine supremacy, but they have theories about the afterlife. There are very few non-believers.

There are two theories about the afterlife. The first says that the souls of the righteous and the brave go to the moon when they die. This belief was of course inspired by the large, silverly moon of Akez(Called Imur).

The second belief is much newer and was founded when the Kazea discovered that the planet was round. A theory then emerged which stated that Akez is actually hollow, and the souls of the Kazea go into the paradise-like earth-core when they die. It is also rumoured that there is an opening somewhere on the planet leading into Paradise.

These two belief systems come with their own sets of rules which are pretty similar but with a few differences which has had the Kazea fighting for hundreds of years. (See: The Great War)



Moons
Here's a (thankfully unharmed) Moon temple in the shanties outside a once-great moon city which was almost destroyed in the great war. Reconstruction work has begun, as you can see in the background, but it will be many years before the moon cities recover from the damage caused by the war.

Moon temples are often very round, inspired by the shape of Imur(that's the big silvery thing in the sky). Towers for moon-gazing are essential, and there are often hatches or windows in the ceiling so that you can see the moon at night. Two guards stand outside the temple, as vandalism based on prejudice between the Moon and the Hollow community is common.

Moon Cities
This shows another city by the shore, in the beginning of the Moon "golden age"(After the Great War). The skyrises are being constructed higher and higher. Hover traffic is becoming more and more popular, and hoverships travel at great speed by the coastline. The big grey ball building is a chem shelter from the disaster years. Since all the chemical waste has been cleaned up since two hundred years back, it's now used as a memorial building, with most of it's original crampy interior removed to make place for a spacous museum. Moon cites are high and huge. They are pretty colourful since the resource problems have disappeared and neoplastics can cover huge areas of the buildings.

Hollows
This is a hollow monastery. Hollow religous buildings often feature parks, since they remind the Kazea of the glory of Paradise. As you can see the Hollow architecture isn't as round as the Moon.

The First Religous War
The mighty armies of the Moons and the Hollows clashed on the huge fields of Miriz. This was the second largest war in Kazean history, with casualties rising as high as five hundred thousand. The Moon side won and formed the Holy Moon State.



Holy Moon State
The first super-power on Akaz was the Holy Moon State. It was formed after the first religious war between the medieval Moons and the medieval Hollows. The Hollows lost the war, and the nations who had fought under the Moon flag became the Holy Moon State. Although culture and living standards were much higher than in the neighbouring Hollow countries, you could never be safe from the Moon Inquisition, which did everything it could to prevent Hollow influence destroying their state.

Imperial Age
The empire was the world's super-power from the approximately 1700-1950 on Akez. It was the first kingdom with no state religion. The conflict between the Moons and the Hollows remained, however.



The Emperor
The Emperors are elected by the people and have to be non-religious. The first emperor was Hollow and the Empire almost collapsed in civil war. Emperors keep their job for their life unless the circumstances are exceptional. As you can see, he is very old. His skin has darkened and his mane faded. Around his tail is a string with the four knots, symbolizing truth, knowledge, tolerance and loyalty.

The Imperial Army
The Imperial Army was a huge and disciplined force, which seldom lost a battle.

Here 's a Kazea rifleman, from a time between Renaissance and Industrialism. The rifle is a gas-powered air gun, but much stronger than the air rifles we have on Earth. The Kazea in the picture has yet to reach manhood, which is one of the reasons he voulenteered. The imperial army of circa 1700-1800 Kazea Time was one of the most disciplined on Akez.

The First Empire Air Navy was feared by all enemies of the Emperor. These two-man airships served as transports, bombers and attack vessels. The idea of travelling to the moon was what got the Kazea to start flying, and the first Kazea to lift from the ground was a priest.

The Imperial pilot training was very hard and disciplined. Those few who made pilot were watched with envious eyes by the rest of the armies. Even though the mortality rate was much higher in the Air Navy, they received more applicants than any other branch of the Army.

This nasty invention is the Air Navy's foremost weapon. The bomb is basically a sack filled with marsh gas the Kazea has harvested. In one end there's an opening with a plug in it. Inside the sack are also some rocks for added momentum. When the sack hits the ground, the plug is pushed out. The plug then works as a match against the inside of the pipe it's inserted in.The sparks it creates ignites the marsh gas, which explodes, sending the spikes everywere. The airbomb was the first weapon developed with the civilian population in mind. The idea was to drop these bombs in the poorer areas of cities, causing huge fires(See: Tokyo bombings)



Exploration of Ezek
Ezek is the second largest continent of the two on Akez. It was not discovered until the 1850's.

In 1885, a rich salesman announces a contest. He will award the first Kazea to circumnavigate the planet with an airship an insane amount of Money. So far, no airship has dared to venture more than a few kilometres over open water, mostly because of superstition since it's technically possible to go further. A few brave souls apply, and on the second day of 1886, the airships start off the cliff face of Emern, which is calculated to be the closest route. The airships are filled to the brim with fuel to take them over the ocean, but all but one turn back on the way. Ic Ofaar is the only one who dares to continue. After a few days, he spots land, and he takes the ship down.

It is not the continent of Amaran he lands on however, it is Ezek. He soon understands that he has found a new land, and he puts the coordinates on his map and starts the journey home with exotic fruits in the cargo. Very few believe him when he comes home, as they all think he has simply turned back, but with the fruit as evidence he convinces the Emperor to send an Imperial Air Cruiser to investigate. After the new continent is confirmed, a colonization craze begins...





Life in general
The modern Kazea world is not too happy. There is a lot of prejudice, pollution is on the uprise, and the living standard is pretty low overall. Especially the old continent is poor and somewhat destitute. The overall political climate varies, but there are more dictatorships than democracies.



To the right is a border of one of the more than three hundred nations on Akaz at the time. The borders are often the source of trouble, from fugitives not being allowed in to guards opening fire into no-man's land. As you can see, the border is protected by a concrete wall with an electrified string. Guards patrol the area with tear gas and batons to use against refugees and guns in the case of conflict.

Here's a truck used by some nations to fight off protests. The water cannon on top uses compressed water from the tanks at the back but can be connected to the water supply. The rotating side cannons are the most dangerous though. Shooting normal BB pellets from the long barrels, they also carry a prototype pain gun. Sending low-energy plasma into the nervous system is never healthy, and Kazea with weak hearts could easily die of the shock.

Movies
A big part of Kazea culture in the post-war years were movies. They were not really movies, more like slideshows with sound and music. The important thing was to show as many things in each slide as possible, and the more beautiful, the better. Disaster movies were very popular too. The movie to the right is called "Daemon from the sea". The plot is inspired by modern day events; a submarine goes too far down, and with it's light, it awakens the Guardian of the Ocean.

Drugs
The Kazea are not unaware of stimulants. They never had a chemical drug age like we had, but they used natural drugs pretty extensively on and off during history.

Tourlim comes from the Tour plant. The plant "sweats" a lot of sweet Tourlim to attract animals. When an animal comes near enough, the primitive sensory organs on the Tour feels it and sprays it full of spores. Alarmed, the animal runs away, thus spreading the seed to more distant places. The Kazea keep these plants in greenhouses and wear protective clothes when they harvest the Tourlim. Tourlim is a mild intoxicant, much like beer.

The Acak is a much more dangerous. The blue seed can be ground into powder which the Kazea inhales, giving them a rush which lasts for hours. If the powder is not mixed properly with other powders, however, it's very poisonous.

The Bilprin seeds are swallowed whole. They distort the sensory outputof the eyes, giving the Kazea marvelous hallucinations.

All of these are regulated or forbidden in some way. They also have lots of nicknames.

Money
In the early ages, the Kazea used copper, silver, iron and aluminum to make tricoins. When the great Empire was formed, the new ball currency was invented. Small porcelain balls of different weights with intricate numbers, each symbolizing different values. When the Empire was defeated, the currency was gone with it. Soon, the new "bills" appeared. Made out of plastic and glass in a neat combination, the were both flexible and durable. Until the invention of moneychips(those on the right), this was the most used currency. The moneychips are like Kazea credit cards. The emit radio transmissions and are fairly intelligent, so shopping consists solely of picking up what you need. As the chips grow smaller, some Kazea implant them under their skin to keep track of them easier.



Journalism
In the 1880's (Kazea Time) the first newspaper was started. It was a huge hit, and the former "informer" service(Basically messengers send around to customers each day from a large corporation) went bankrupt almost over night. Pretty soon every city had a few newspapers. The Kazea newspapers give much more time to celebrities and statesmen and their private lives than to actual news. Most newspapers are split in two; A large Gossip part and a smaller News part.

Computers
At the peak of the Imperial Age, these home computers were sold in millions.

The Kazea language at that time had hundreds of letters,so a keyboard was out of the question. Those control rods are used to form words. They are operated by turning them up, down and pushing the three buttons on each handle. It works quite well(as anything you practice a lot at).







Space Invaders
Mysterious rumours goes around in the Kazea cities. Some mystic entity leaves cryptic messages in the fields and eye-witnesses swear they've seen spherical objects flying at impossible speeds.

The Disaster
Somewhere around 2100, a big asteroid crashes into a large Kazea city. This alone would have been disastrous, but the make it all worse, the asteroid was filled with mercury and other dangerous substances. This evaporated into the atmosphere and spread all around the globe. The area around the Ground Zero was of course most affected, but the entire planet received a fair share of toxins.

Here's a cleanout crew on a mission. The bright-red uniform of the cleaners were both an honor and a suicide mission to wear. Many, many cleaners died of deceases or got lost in the thick chemical fog and never made it back. The Disaster Years called for a new way of transportation, and the hover technology was invented.

A lot of Kazea and other animals died, and horrible birth defects were common. This is one of the reasons for the outrage over the genlab scandal three-hundred years later. The mutated Kazea then were very similar to those born during the Disaster Years. It took over fifty years to clean up the worst mess, and some parts were affected a long time after the cleanups.

The Great War


The great war starts in 2399 when tensions between Moons and Hollows once again reach the critical level. At the time, a large Hollow kingdom is the super power, but with a huge stream of Moon refugees the Moon break-out republic manages to create an army of their own. After 40 years of fierce battles and enormous losses on both sides, a peace treaty is signed by both sides. A Free Moon State is created, and the Moons immediately start their Space Program, planning to prove that their religion is right about souls going to Imur.



Genlab Scandal
In the time of the Space Program the Hollow side spent a lot of time and money on genetic engineering. DNA had just been discovered, and the Hollow side had plans to create super-soldiers to defeat the Moon State forever. The ultimate goal was to find the gene which caused the Kazea to believe in the Moon Religion. The experiments were very clumsy and poorly executed. Lot's of DNA was simply destroyed, and horrible mutations were common. After trying to experiment on Kazea children, the general public discovered what the BioDivision was doing, and they torched the labs and the research. Since then, no genetic experimentation has been conducted.

Space Pods


The Kazea space history is a very long one. The Moon side is solely responsible for the space advancement, all just to reach Imur one day... Here are some milestones:

2092 - Red Haksea - The first vessel to reach out of the atmosphere was this crude rocket, built by a science priest. It fell down pretty soon after the launch and burned in the atmosphere. The Hollows denied it's existence for more than a decade.

2195 - Imur Ranger - After the Disaster Years, the space program was put to a halt. 2195, 103 years after the Red Haksea, this bulky sensory pod rounded Imur for the first time. The equipment on board did not show any sign of souls on Imur, so the Moons decided that sensory equipment simply wasn't good enough at the time.

2235 - Adventurer 12 - The first pod to reach another planet, in this case the gas giant Olbog. It circled it's moons and took loads of photos and other readings.

2410 - Silver Spear 2 - This pod was sent to the far reaches of the Inzan system. After rounding Selso, the ice planet farthest from the sun, the pod continued out of the system and continued making observations for twenty years before it was hit by an asteroid.

2493 - Egg 3 - The Egg series was the first Hollow space program. After the Moon religion was crushed, they started exploring space for scientific reasons instead of theological. This pod was the first to reach another solar system. The Gaurchian system, 2,9 LY away, was reached after twenty-four years. Although the system itself was not very interesting, the technical achievement was great and it set the Hollow scientists on the path toward the first Ark Ship.

2600 - Searchers - These pods were mass-produced and launched at great speeds toward different ends of the galaxy. Inside the pods were all sort of contact and communication instruments imaginable. These pods were designed solely to contact alien life and to bring it to Akaz.

Moon Landing


The first Kazea to walk on the moon was a priest and Kazonaut named Ee Payi. On a noisy radiolink distorted by the thin atmosphere on Imur, he cited the first twelve verses of the Book of the Silvery Moon, the holy scripture of the Moons. This religious note upset the Hollows, who protested wildly in the Capital.

Soon, it was discovered, no souls actually travelled to Imur, or if they did they were undetectable by all instruments. It was a terrible blow for the Moons which they never recovered from.

Space Station


In the year 2495, the first Kazea Space Station was fully operational. It was not independent, as it needed water and foodstuff shutteled to it.

Ocean Exploration
After a long time of oceanophobia, the Kazea finally decide to start exploring the seas. Part of the idea is to see if the gate to Paradise is under the sea, since it has so far not been found on land. The first exploration submarine, called "Brave Diver", is a partially AI-controlled robot. It sends imagery and data to the surface. This happens after the first moon landing, which shows how little the Kazea care about the oceans.

Unknown deep-sea creatures swarm around this huge source of light. The Kazea scientists, certain that the pressure and the lack of light would make life impossible that far down, are proved wrong. Infrared eyes scan the vehicle as it goes beneath 2000 metres...

=See Also=
 * Spore Planet Gallery
 * }