So I knew I had talked about Trishenko and its people a few times, and I’ve had nebulous ideas in my head, but, of course, did not write anything concrete down in a central location. I am fairly certain I have missed a few folk in the below. Regardless, thought I’d lend you a hand, @insomn14 , as we start meeting (we hope!) more of the Trishenki.
Feel free to improv with (or tweak, or simplify) any of the below, or ask more guiding questions if that’s helpful.
The Village
I imagine Trishenko as a village, around 100-200 people / 40 families of various sizes (decreasing over the last decade-plus – it could be much smaller at this point, if that makes more sense). There are (have been) a wide array of animalkin types there, from “wildlife” to “domesticated.” The animalkin build family groups around base species (insert handwaving “consanguinity / gene pool” discussion) but live communally / collaboratively, dividing the trades and labor, etc. Village duties and trades tend to stay with families, by tradition, but there can be exceptions.
Note that all adults (and most kids) also do farming, almost all of which these days is crops; there is very little surviving livestock (insert handwaving “talking vs non-talking animals” discussion). While there are carnivores and herbivores and omnivores (and occasional insectivores), there is no internal predation (at least against other talking animals). Trishenko is close enough to the coast that there was, at least once, probably fish on the menu. There may still have been supplies of salt cod in various root cellars in the village.
Kin species include raccoon, badger, deer, fox, cat, dog, rabbit, beaver, marmot, NOT squirrels, sheep, wolf, cow, horse, capybara, and goat. Pretty sure they are all mammals. In some cases, there has been some adjustment of size (a minimum brain size is required, if nothing else), but there are still significant size disparities between the different kin.
Think Zootopia but on a Fiddler on the Roof Anatevka scale.
The Families
The Trimaldis [raccoonkin]
- Poley (paterfamilias) - tinker
- Annie (materfamilias) - keeper of recipes
- Shiny, Tiny, Whiny (the TBs)
- Dolly, Polly, Lolly (younger sisters)
- Jack, Jock, Chuck (younger brothers)
- Roley (uncle to the TBs, unmarried, lives on own) - weaver
- Abbie (aunt to the TBs) - helps Eloise
The Brimalfis [raccoonkin] - the other raccoonkin family in town. (“We don’t get along, so they changed their name. They say we changed ours, but that’s not right.”) (I added these folk in for a variety of RP reasons, none of which are essential if we don’t want a substantial percentage of the population to be raccoons.)
- Soley (uncle to the TBs) - clockmaker
- Judie (wife of Soley) - keeper of other recipes
- several kits
The Meels [badgerkin]
- Brannith (father) - carpenter, friend of Poley
- Kenda (mother) - thatcher
- 2 kits
Of the above, only the Trimaldis and Meels are strictly canon. I don’t think anyone else has been named or kin type established.
The Departed
The Cervonis [deerkin] (left Trishenko over the past 3-5 years)
- Bentil (paterfamilias; widower, now dead) - bladesmith, knife sharpener
- Ella (materfamilias; dead)
- Donal (eldest son) - left for New Thule first
- Eleen (eldest daughter) - led the surviving kids to New Thule in search of Donal
- Josh (younger son)
- Della (younger daughter) - told jokes
Other cultural notes
Trishenko culture is shaped by a few factors.
First off, of course, they are animalkin. While it’s established that such exist elsewhere in the world (most notably in the Delmars), and are known well enough that people don’t point and gawk at the TBs (or at Saraid, for that matter), they are still a distinct minority. (There may be folk who think they were originally created by the Archmagus, which is kinda true for one kin, at least.)
Regardless, Trishenko is pretty isolated, and likely was even before the Great Snows. Lubeck made a comment that might imply there were other animalkin settlements in Near Daran, even in Lost Thule; that’s not quite how I envisioned it, but that can be part of the fog of lost history.
So isolated by type, as well as, over the past years, by the depopulation of Near Daran and the encroaching snows … that’s going to have an impact – a bit of insularity, a bit of self-reliance / “us against the world” (in a gumption sort of way, not nationalist/xenophobic), solidarity in helping each other – while life in a small village has its drawbacks (even without an ecological crisis), Trishenko is, or was, sort of an idealized version of How People Should Co-exist Together, at least in my mind.
There’s always going to be conflict wherever there’s sentience, but I see it being dealt with mostly through social pressures, the need for the community to hang together, escalating to ostracism and, in the worst cases, actual banishment (the worst punishment of all); that last hasn’t happened in the memories of the TBs, but there might be a case from further back that the grups recall.
Trishenko operates as a consensual democracy – maybe by household (and that does not mean that Papa makes all the decisions), if not by all adults. Actual voting is rare; usually it’s more getting a sense of the room at town meetings. I think (but could not find the reference) that there’s probably a mayor or headman or elder or something who acts as a coordinator for such meetings and helps deal with any conflicts. It’s likely a rotating position that nobody much likes to have to take on in addition to their “real jobs.”
I imagine there’s a cultural impact from their origins – the body-changed castaway survivors of Research Craft 32. It’s been many generations, but that would still add to at least a sense of being “other.”
The Trishenki remember next to nothing specific of their origin, though, just mangled bits that filter through their folk tales, such as …
Which melds bits of imagery and lore of the lost spaceship and its doomed voyage / crash landing here.
Since it (sort of) came up this last time – we haven’t really touched on religious / spiritual themes in the game, aside from the metaphysics of souls and rebirths and things like that, but apparently there is an actual (primordial) deity running around out there, Khyrrsz. That (and those like the Big K) would certainly play some role, especially as times have gotten worse. Khyrrsz, as described, disdains supplicants but rewards the self-reliant, which I suppose could be comforting, but as a being and embodiment of the Northern Wastes, K strikes me as a pretty scary being, best not encountered at all.
By implication, there are other such deities (or beings effectively treated as such) out there.
In a world of magic and powerful beings, the lines between religion and folklore and common sense tend to blur. I’ve mentioned (albeit in a humor thread) weekly religious services – I imagine those more as town meetings with some sing-along spiritualism thrown in (esp. expressing hopes for better days and for good things from more beneficent powers) than formal church services.
A last thought. When communities come under stress like Trishenko has, especially if mortality and emigration impact the population numbers, culture can start to fray and crumble – communal memory gets gaps and tears, traditions break down, conflict and selfishness go up. I’d rather think that Trishenko is, mostly, a counter-example, pitching in together even harder for everyone’s mutual survival. Maybe that’s a cultural legacy of their ancestors’ ship-bound life and ability to survive after the crash. Not a bad legacy, then.