Arzuli

"Relatively humble in size, stout of spirit, tricky in nature, hands of a thief, forgiving in temper - and warm with heart" - every-day opinion on Arzuli among Yaraga

Arsul as one - is a pety thief, a sturdy dealer and a loyal family warden. Love for a friend, care for a neighbor, and a hand at all market crafts are one within Arzuli.Yet still, clan always goes first, clan always comes before everything else - a rule and art these beings learned ages ago in harsh deserts of their homelands. If an Arsul is busy with his own things - either everything around is good enough already, or that thing is meant for someone else.
Thus, their whole society is built on helping a neighbor, barely thinking of personal good. Find a thing in one's home, that is not a tool or a trophy - and that is not his thing. It is either given, or taken, for they rarely have purely personal belongings at all. And those belongings are also often given to someone.

Thus, life in their clans is always hectic, always moving and always boiling: while one brings down a tree for a neighbor, busy with building a house - other one is all about mending and tilling soil for a garden to feed many - master of that garden does not touch bounties of his work, for they are meant for others - and later on, when house is built and people are fed, whole crowd will rejoin in joy of a finished work to find out that that first one of them, who was cutting a tree... has no roof of his own - and now a master of a newly-built house will gather up everyone again to erect a new home for a neighbor.

One is a friend to another, shoulder holds shoulder...

Biology

Arzuli - are warmblood mammals from dry deserts of South.

They say that they come from deserts of Sha Vi, yet Yaraga, their new neighbors, in their craving for world's yore, brought them bitter taste of doubt. To their honor, Arzuli never cast away their future to turn to the past and kept on going with their heads lifted high.

It is easy to tell a man from a woman - men have pointy scale plates on most of their bodies that make them look like some kind of a spiky sea cliff. Women have their scales smooth through years, covering their bodies in elegant plating.

Little ones come to be curled in a ball of fluff and fur with no scales at all. Soon, these hairs will start to fuse into solid plates, shaping future scales. Yet still, Yaraga love describing Arzuli in their more recent tales, like "cone-seeds", from which people of sands come to life. And they indeed grow for good - average Arsul is almost as tall as a Yaraga, if one stretches straight.

Their hands are a curiosity as well - plating on their knuckles grows thicker fast and becomes almost as firm as iron. Their fists can blast many stones into dust and shards, and blacksmiths tend to bring rough shapes to metals with their bare hands. These hands can even stand heat of blazing coals - Arzuli's fur is surprisingly resistant to common fire.

Among other things, Yaraga were also baffled by how much Arzuli can drink. And still stay sober.
Alcohol compounds are an important part of Arsul's metabolism and hormones, especially in the neural system. One can barely get drunk, if at all - "fun" is achieved through different curious berries and weeds - spirits are their daily bread. Sober Arsul - is a sad Arsul.

Thus, no matter how and when, somehow they always tend to get something that has a "kick" to it to keep them in a good shape - and oh so many tried and are still trying to prevail in the art of brewing against Arzuli... yet no one could and no one ever will, most likely. Even Seven Families still can't compete with people of sands.

Grand Clans

Arzuli are divided into two "Great Clans" - Hatoy and Hazati.
Hatoy - are those, who migrated to the North into the lands of Arrothgan (prior to them even getting that name). Hazati - are those, who remained in Sha Vi deserts.

Once, long ago, Arzuli were a huge mass of shattered clans and families, nomads of their deserts.
Passion for arts and love for beauty brought them together, being way greater than any pety spoils of strife and scorn - and it's also kind of a challenge to pursue progress, when you dingle from side to side on a caravan mount's back all day... With time, families and clans were absorbing smaller communes, growing as one - and started to seek for a place to catch some rest in their endless wantering across sands. A good talk, an exchange, advice shared, thoughts told...

And so, scattering of many families and packs fused into two giant clans: those, who had something against a huge mass of organized people - and those, who had something against themselves, a bit less organized. First ones were bound by ideas, others - by desire not to be part of those first ones, nothing more.

Yet, Arzuli had no intentions to bring sharp metal and blood into their sundered society - not only is it a... questionable sport, but it is also boring to just beat up your adversary to pillage whatever you wish after. A dogmatic idea that keeps them together as one to this very day...

Rights and fates of both clans were decided through means of common people - competitions in three general "every-day-arts": Arzuli have three main "crafts" with their own rules and demands. Craftsmen and all those who are not part of any of these arts are called "blood of the clan", "commoners" with no special privileges (hor.:graza):

One for warriors - is to be first in jousts between two Clans. Hundred from each side each year.
One for Wayfarers, lesser leaders of "inside" clans - politicians, pretty much - is a "trial of sands", crossing Sha Vi deserts alone on a condition to unite no less than ten nomads by your side.
Given that Wayfarers are quite like half-settled caravan-bashi, such challenge is both a trial and a training.

Clan traders have two demands to fulfill.

First: with nothing more than you had when born, wander off to a distant land - usually, one of Arrothgan Provinces - and from that "nothing" you have... do "something", a small fortune.

And second: find a spine to return and give that to your Clan, not taking anything to yourself - for a true merchant must know no greed.

These clan trials were held for three whole years straight - and in the end, one clan ended up conceding, leaving off to the North (yet-to-be Arrothgan, to where Yaraga will come later on), with words to follow them: build up a spine - return - and let's repeat. For those clan games were a joy to all, more bonding than sundering - and all were in favor of such a tradition.

Yet, one Clan achieved dominance over Sha Vi deserts.

Though expelled ones were not too quick to return, seeing their new lands as welcoming enough to stay - green, fruitful, fish and boons of forest lands - yet this tradition of yearly clan competitions settled in firmly, known as "Trials of Twin-Stars" (or, sometimes, "Rahshiya's Games") through each Star Circle, welcoming both Arzuli and Yaraga people to join - even Ayleri, at times. Seven Families themselves take part in these festivities, seeing them as both world-wide celebrations - and a mean to root their hands into matters of the world as well.

Rahshiya - Rahshiya the Limping  - was a clan leader of old, head of a relatively big commune - it is his name that a city, that housed the very first Trials, has. A place, where Arzuli managed to grow a sort of "sport village" along the years of the first Trials - and still a source of curios and trinkets of old. All is in sand, all is in stones, not an easy task to unearth a sliver of yore - but still, at any given moment someone is poking soil and rocks with pickaxes and shovels in attempts to find a bit of the past...

Rahshiya's fame came to him as that of one who found a place for the coming Trials to happen. Clans could not decide where to head, all fitting places were quite distant - while Rahshiya, with his murmurs of "let's go to my place, I have such a nice garden behind my tent" managed to bring everyone to a boiling point eventually - and clans agreed, after all, promising to stick Rahshiya into a nearest termite hill, if things won't play out as one told. As it turns out, Rahshiya grew to know all water veins around better than his own scales, living in sands from very birth - and when clanleaders arrived to "garden behind tent", he broke several rocks - and a geyser of underground water ruptured into the skies.

Culture

Arsuli live in warmth of each other's caring hands, their story is written by their whole race. And even though people of sands are anything but soft-spines, they scorn over blood, spilled for gain.

An Arsul is always happy to have a guest, always eager to show that one is not aiming for a fight. Otherwise, one will try to stay away from sight completely, for not to give a reason - yet if an Arsul is heading straight towards someone with clenched fists... Yaraga learned those heavy lessons of their iron fists at the very beginning of their story in Arrothgan.

A curious tradition it is to be asked to bake bread, if you are new to an Arsul.

It is a way to see one's intentions. Say, it is only possible to make a proper bread with heart, free of scorn and malice - and one who bears evil can not think of anything else. A guest will have anything one needs at hand, and even be guided through the whole magic of baking said bread, should you happen not to be a cook - most important thing is to see how one handles dough, how one's hands hold that bread. That is why Arzuli learn the art of baking from very youth, how to listen to the oven, how to feel the grain.

That is where Yaraga's modern proverb comes from: "arzuli's bread" - a sudden solution, that appeases all sides of a conflict.

A common thing it is for people of sands to speak in riddles - or, fairly speaking, it is mostly Yaraga who see their speech as trickster's play. It is a pard of Arsuli philosophy - "two-sides". Everything has two sides, everything has "there" and "here", "this" and "that", but you yourself - you are always in the middle. And the better you can balance between these two sides - firmer you stand in the middle of the world, balancing between its edges.

That's why Arsuli tend to answer in twisted manners. What's the day today?

Well, not yesterday, for sure. And tomorrow is not yet here - but it should be. And if not - it surely won't be today that comes instead.

It is how Clans' words are like between them: "And then something will happen. Or something else will happen not".

Same as Yaraga, Arzuli see the sun as a sacred symbol, yet for them it has different shapes and meanings. While Yarag see it as an unknown "something", that gives light and warmth, but can not be known or reached - Arzuli see the sun as a part of the world, as it is sunlight itself that became all and everything. Nothing is to be seen in darkness - for there is no light there - thus, there is nothing in there. And when the sun appears - light comes with it, and everything comes to be as should.

It is one of the oldest rituals among people of sands - welcoming the sun in the morning. Also happens to be a way to wake up the whole clan - a woman, who keeps the gong, comes to her spot before sunrise to start her song, a hymn of her family clan. Each long breath taken ends with a strike against metal - it is how those, who live beneath, "give their songs" to the sun so it can hear.

And that is why gong keepers grow deaf pretty fast, spending hours each day close to their sacred gongs.

Yet Yaraga discovered their neighbors' rich culture for the first time not through songs and tales - but in what Arzuli call the "art of owning".

To own - is not to have in your hands. It is when everyone has it - and no one in particular. Yet they have it.

If it was yours - and I took it... I do not own it. For it is yours.

But you do not have it, for I took it.

Thus, this art of taking things grew into a form of sport, culture and ritual among Arzuli. One does not need others' belongings - one barely has anything of their own, except for the family canteen.

And thus, Arzuli are always on a lookout to yoink something from something - not to own it, not because they want it, but to show they can. And they know someone will snitch something from them as well.

Less to say, Yaraga were... surprised with their neighbors' customs, when they found several unfinished houses literally taken apart to the ground in just one night - and hills of goods and trifles piled in their cellars.

Arsul won't ever tough something that really matters to the owner or has a cost of a fortune - usually, it is something small from house utilities or trinkets. Same goes for merchants, who always compete to get a little more from customers or each other - yet again, not to satisfy greed. It is a competition for them, a form of sport - twist one around own finger, tie and trick with words and riddles, but not to rob, not to gain. It is easy to swap an apple for a pear. But can it be swapped for a pear - and a handful of nuts?

There is even a specific profession among Yaraga, who deal with Arzuli on everyday terms - "chief of comfort". It is pretty much a cellmaster, who also sticks different small things here and there so that Arzuli always have something to snith. Usually those are vials with spirits.

In older days it was how things were traded and spread - good, things, words, rites, secrets, what was adding heat to trading and exchange... And now it is also a sport of swapping things, that "do not belong" to anyone.

The only thing that is off-limits and never to be touched - is their flask.

Each Arzul gets his own canteen when his fists grow sturdy. A smaller gift comes from family, greater - from the whole Clan. These flagsks bear symbols of one's family, clan, commune, names and words, traits and wishes. An insignia of being a part of something dear. The greatest gift and honor one can know from an Arzul - is a gift of that flagon, holding its previous owner's most favorite spirit.

Families

Arzuli's families are tight and bound forever, strong is stones from which they once came to be, as said in their folklore.

A man, a woman - and their child. Unlike Yaraga, who's offspring is tied to their ancestors the most, Arzuli tend to rise and uplift their children in a more communal manner. Of course, it is still and always a loving mother, a caring father and a beloved child - it is said uplifting that is held by the whole commune in traditions of "all are one, all for one" dogmates. Still, children are free to choose their desired paths on their on, they are always free to wish - it is most important to understand that concept of "not-owning" and priority of their Clan in the first place.

Thus, it is quite common for Arzuli to adopt Yaraga children, should doom happen upon child's family. Arzuli are caring parents, for whom neighbors - are neighbors in the first place, and their children matter just as much. Be it good and warmth that live in their hearth - so it will in ours.

At times, families happen between Arzuli and Yaraga as well.

Of course, there can be no offspring, but that does not mean two can't be together. Usually, Yaraga tend to adopt Arzuli traditions, receding from own polygamous relations.

Here comes a life lesson: if Arsul stole something, and you can still see one - ignore that. If there are several of them - ignore even more. And when new things start to appear around your home later - never let them stay.

It is a way to compete with those, who grew to like someone all together.

An Arsul found someone one likes - but one will not show affection. They are best when given some time to "mature".

Spiky thief will spread a word among one's king about one's passion - and soon several scaled muzzles will stick from one window. One has competitors now. Someone who will try as hard as possible to over-do others in attempts to win a favor.

And they will start to race - one will steal something that is harder to snitch, other will bring in something that seems more valuable. And if "victim" of such attention accepts something from these "gifts" - "author" gets authority above competitors.

In the end, someone stays. One most skilled in their craft and passion to pursue the goal.

Though those, who ended up behind, usually become close friends of the family.