Yasha Cadera
Mom'alor
Akalenedat’ike (Little Ones of Hard Contact)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Unarmoured
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATIONIntent: To increase the playability of Noasis as a Mandalorian location & to enrich the culture of a custom planet to hone warriors’ naturalist skills.
To give the Mandalorian Empire another race to include & protect, while engaging in cultural exchange.
To give the Mandalorians a race to act as intel-gathering operatives.
Image Credit: (Armourless) Alchertron Phalangeriformes (Armoured) Disney's Moana Kakamora Movie Clip
Canon: N/A
Links:
GENERAL INFORMATION
Name: Akalenedat’ike (Little Ones of Hard Contact); “The Akale”
Designation: Semi-Sentient
Homeworld: Noasis (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/126239-noasis/)
Language: Akalenedi
Average Lifespan: 12 - 15 years
Estimated Population: Rare
Description: The Akale, as they have become known, are diminutive marsupials, who survived on Noasis for thousands of years through pluck, instinctive ingenuity and their ability to hide. Soft, down-like fur coats their bodies, and down their foot-long tails. Tufts of hair pop out the tops of their heads, yet most of their appearance is shielded beneath the coconuts they grow and wear as protective clothing. Although they are rarely seen, and most often as coconuts on the ground, Akalenedat'ike seem to the uninitiated as sapient coconuts, when in fact, they are marsupials in coconut clothing 'armour'.
PHYSICAL INFORMATION
Breathes: Type 1
Average height of adults: 0.6 m
Average length of adults: N/A
Skin color: Green, Brown, Purple, Orange, Tan
Hair color: Green, Brown, Purple, Orange, Tan
Distinctions: Akalenedat’ike have nothing in common appearance-wise with humanoids, besides from their bipedal travel. They are small, knee high to the average humanoid.
Races: The Akale have several fur colour and height variations (within 4 - 6 inches of average standard height) based on which of the archipelago of islands the Akale came from. Other than the difference in musical stylings, there is no distinct racial structure within the Akalenedat’ike.
Strengths:
- Easily Concealable: A scurrying creature by nature, Akalenedat’ike are the perfect infiltrators, when taught the directions they are to take.
- Musical Numbers & Long Memories: All Akalenedat’ike are naturally gifted in the arts of music, dance and coconut decor. Upon seeing or experiencing any event, the Akalenedat’ike put it to memory by creating songs and dances to incorporate to the First Song, which Chorister Sages continue to sing and dance in perpetua.
- Paltry Strength: The Akalenedat’ike are on average two foot tall semi-sapient, sentient beings, and have the strength of creatures their size. In fact, the fighting they can undergo is hilarious when considered from the perspective of Mandalorians, or any humanoid being.
- Ignorant & Incapable of Written Language: The Akalenedat’ike are so young in evolutionary development that they have no concept of written language, or higher education. Even Akale removed from Noasis and trained outside their homeworld (rare, but possible) have no capacity for cognizance of the written word.
Diet: Coconut, fish, small crustaceans, leaf matter & tropical fruit
Communication: Singing, musical whistles, percussive rhythm and the Akalenedi language.
Technology level: Analog based on the environmental factors. As the Akalenedat’ike have no metalsmiths, everything they make is stone, coconut or other natural materials. Most of their technology resides in the construction and care of musical instruments, and coconut-based clothing 'armour'.
Religion/Beliefs:
Tukka the Bard’s Big Song
Big Black Empty silence filled nothing, there was nothing but the big black empty silence.
Tukka the Bard clapped her hands. Over and over, Tukka clapped, until her palms warmed her arms and her arms warmed her body, and she could stomp and sing and dance.
The joy of Tukka’s song brought life and light into the Big Black Empty, and she alone noticed that the Big Black Empty was not empty at all. There were others like her, fourteen whom she gave the First Song. The light of their songs and rhythm of their dancing feet reverberated through the universe, and created a series of islands, and made the water wobble in waves and tides, and their breath created the wind, which all breathe. The universe was perfect, and all the Akalenedat’ike, who were born out of coconuts, lived an idyllic existence dancing and singing and celebrating in the universe’s first party.
All fifteen of the first choir continued their song and dance, in the light of the tropical sun, until Buppo and Kinter got tired and hot. Buppo and Kinter left the choir, to sit under a Lumbas Tree. They liked sitting under the cover of the Lumbas Tree, and when Tukka chided them. They threw sand and the hard spine-leaves of the Lumbas Tree at Tukka, cutting her hands and feet. Thus, the Lumbas Tree’s leaves are edged with red.
Buppo and Kinter threatened to end the song! They were tired! Yet, the Akalenedat’ike saw Buppo and Kinter cut Tukka. The more choristers who stopped to watch the altercation, the dimmer the sunlight became. Thus, the Akalenedat’ike experienced their first night.
In the darkness, Tukka bandaged her hands, and turned her eyes to the sky. Dots of light sang to her, praying to Tukka to keep dancing and let them expand and grow into the daylight they loved. Tukka began to clap, the fabric on her palms brittle and hot. It smoked, until Tukka created fire and threw the fabric off her hands to a pile of coconut husks the Akalenedat’ike had thrown away. The warmth of the first fire woke the Akalenedat’ike up from their fearful stupor!
Tukka urged them to bring back the daylight! But Buppo and Kinter threw leaves and rocks at Tukka! They didn’t want to sing and dance!
The Akalenedat’ike found the coconuts from which they were born, and crafted shields, helmets and armour to protect themselves from Buppo and Kinter! As Tukka and her choristers danced, and the sky turned away from the Big Black Empty of night, the Akalenedat’ike drove Buppo and Kinter through the coconut forests, up the mountain and rushed Buppo and Kinter into the hot, hot colourful water at the crest of the mountain! Buppo and Kinter can still be found, when the mountain throws up the hot, colourful rocks and water. Tukka and her choristers continued the Song around the husk fire, and will never allow it to stop until it’s time for the Big Black Empty to take over.
Of utmost import to the Akalenedat’ike is the practice of creating musical instruments and performing musical numbers, both instrumental and vocal, in groups. The Akalenedat’ike believe the act of performing music and creating songs is tantamount to continuing the universe. To become a musician is to become the most powerful bombad magicians in the galaxy. In honour of the Akalenedat’ike who foisted their coconuts and fought off Buppo and Kinter, all Akalenedat’ike fashion clothing and armour out of coconut shells, and decorate them with bits and bobs they find on the shore of their islands.
Hujo the Explorer left the Akale island in a boat fashioned from coconuts and driftwood, and returned with a coconut helmet made of a material which when struck, resonated! Like the shells they got in the ocean! But better!
The Akale discovered metal… and with that metal came the Large Metal Coconuts… Mandalorians.
General behavior: The entire Akale culture is surrounded by music, celebrations, remembering experiencing and the wearing of coconut armour. Born from eggs and hatched at equinoxes, all Akalenedat'ike are raised in a creche, knowing no mother, no father, only the Choristers and the collective of older, surviving members. All their building technology is based on coconuts, the driftwood and items which drift on the shores of their islands.
The Akalenedat'ike hunt small crustaceans, fish, and reptiles for food, and grow coconuts, and date palms. While the Mandalorians (who the Akale call ‘Metal Coconuts’ in their language) come round the islands for these things called ‘vay-cate-shuns’, the Akalenedat'ike hide in the undergrowth. Their buildings are tunnels underground, repurposed lava flows, and woven coconut husks and palm fronds. Their entire lives are spent hiding from the Metal Coconuts, yet once in a while an Akale is seen for what it is, a two foot tall marsupial with downy fur, dressed in coconuts.
Instead of a traditional school, the Akalenedat'ike learn how to sing, dance, remember, hunt and wear their coconut armour. After one of the Metal Coconuts took it upon herself to learn the Akalenedi language, the Akalenedat’ike renewed their religious belief that coconuts protected them, by also following (in their way) the Resol’nare.
Diurnal by nature, the Akalenedat’ike spend their nights singing and dancing in shifts, to help Tukka and her Choristers (who are somewhere still dancing their cares away) continue the First Song.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The Akalenedat’ike are a fairly new semi-sentient species in the Galactic field. A small population, and relatively few natural predators has created a situation where the Akalenedat’ike are in the middle of evolving into fully sentient beings.
Evolved from small burrowing marsupials on varying Noasisian islands, the Akalenedat’ike have no written record. Their entire history is oral, and usually performed in song and dance. Any Akale child can be asked to sing the songs of Tukka the Bard, Yeepe the Navigatrix, Gankatromania the Passive, Ted the Complicated and Hujo the Explorer. In fact, a group of Akale youths would frolic to the site, to perform their memorized musical numbers with choreography.
The only despised ones in Akalenedat’ike are the tone deaf. They are usually cast out to work the coconut groves, climbing unarmored up the trees to gnaw off the coconuts needed for everything they use to survive.
While the Akalenedat’ike are useless in a battle, and too small for much else, they are useful for their ability to observe and put into song anything they see or experience. Whether in their language or not, Akalenedat’ike are perfect analog recording units… if those who wish to learn what the Akalenedat’ike have seen are okay with their recon reports coming in the form of a musical number.
Akalenedat'ike, once found, take coaxing to become friendly. Usually capable of being coaxed out with the production of shiny objects and metals, or at the appearance of music or rhythm, Akalenedat'ike are hiding a natural curiosity to learn other beings' songs. Thus, they have began first contact with the Mandalorians, who consider them 'cute', 'useful', and 'smarter than a Strill'.
