The Zarth

The general idea is nailed down, details are flexible.

The Zarth are the gender mirror to The Fayrie. They live mostly underground, have a hierarchical authority structure, thrive on struggle and conflict, and craft massive mechanical structures.

Morphology

• Some of the Zarth can be large eel-like or snake-like creatures. Their females would be like mermaids, with shorter tails. This allows good gender distinction, and exclusion of the females from wrestling (the main zarth form of competition)
• Some of the Zarth can be dwarven (perhaps with four arms?)
• Some of the Zarth should be diggers, creatures that can bore or tunnel through the earth naturally.

Zarth Culture

The Zarth are organized in regiments and live by authority and obidience. A Zarth's level of authority (counted in steps from The Victor) determines most of his social abilities. Dominance is decided by contests of skill and strength.

It is not unusual for Zarth communites to be organized across species lines. Although morphologically different the mer-men and dwarven archetypes share numerous social and philosophical ideals. They get along splendidly.--Hugh 01:00, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Advancement

A Zarth always has a job to do. The specific job relates to the regiment he is in. A Zarth will place himself under the command of someone he admires in order to learn his job better. When a Zarth has subordinates, he is called a Leader. Every Leader chooses how many subordinates he will allow, usually this is about 12. Most Leaders have a full rank of subordinates, since open positions invite those from further down the structure to advance without competition. Allowing more subordinates shows status, and makes it easier to win competitions, but it also increases the teaching burden on the leader, and may cause him to lose his edge and be defeated.

Competition

Every regiment has a standard competition, or type of competition. The challenger gets to decide the type of challenge, but the defender may choose the regiment standard competition instead. The subordinates of both competitors and the defender's peers judge the competition, giving scores. The highest score wins. Because of loyalties and close outcomes, judging may convert to a brawl, in which case victory is awarded by submission.

If a Zarth is good at his job, he will probably be able to win competitions. The winner takes the looser's place, and the looser becomes his subordinate. When a leader wins or looses a competition, all of his subordinates remain under him. Because of subordinate limitations, this usually sparks off a series of competitions, as the looser finds his level in the new structure possibly ousting one of the winner's old subordinates.

Technology

The zarth live deep in the earth, close to the flow of adamant and the origin of the air. They have access to many ores, stones, and gems found no where else in TwinWorld. Their mobile creations run off of super high strength springs, wound by stone flow or wind power.

Mating Practices

The info here is in a state of flux, everything can be changed!

Once a year, the zarth have a mating competition, essentially a huge brawl. The winners get to stay with the females, everyone else has to go back to work.

are the difforent kinds of zarth all compatible with eachother....in which case you would get some crazy mixtures :)--Zack 20:22, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of Zarth having females. Their culture has a whole demonstrates masculine traits rather than their species being entirely male. However if we do go with endogenous reproduction here's an idea: Zarth must carve a symbol from a special rock and then embue it with their own life force through a sacred type of mechamagic. The stone grows into another zarth. Once it is fully mature the "father" dies. Zarth may embue several stones simultaneously in order to multiply. This number is limited to two, or for great zarth, three. Higher numbers often lead to a premature death and and underdeveloped offspring. --Hugh 00:47, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The Venerable Dignified Colloquium on Reality

Luke and I came up with the idea of a group of Fay who get together and try to figure out magic. In Faierie, magic doesn't make sense so they just come up with a whole lot of useless theories. Probably end up poking fun at intelectuals.

A quote from the Colloquium, "Our theory states that there are four fundamental axioms of magic. We have thus far assigned names to three of them."

It might be good if they were near to Adamant, and thus never changed their minds about anything. Perhaps they are even stationary, a cluster of boulders in a passageway somewhere, discussing the nature of magic.

Because they never change their minds their theories become increasingly convoluted and absurd although always self consistent. --Hugh 01:01, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

See also: Category:Zarth