Name: harinni [har-EE-nee] (Note: the harinni, many harinni, one harin [har-EEN].)
Homeworld: Har'ni
Height/Length/Weight: The harinni are a decent-sized people, standing 2.5-3' high at the medial shoulder and 5-5.5' high at the upper shoulder, 6-6.5' tall overall. They're approximately 8-9.5' long, plus another 7-8' of tail, and they weigh between 400-500 lbs.
Physical Description: The harinni are tauroid, musteline mammals. They have sleek, dense pelts that are thicker/longer along their backs, flanks, and shoulders/haunches. Their heads are somewhat humanoid, flat-faced with two vertical nostril slits, large eyes, long whiskers, and sharp civet-like teeth. They have internal ears and longish necks that attach to the back, rather than the base, of the skull. Their bodies are long, streamlined, and leanly muscled but still lithe and supple; they don't hold their upper torsos perfectly upright, nor do they keep them parallel the ground - they curve at a reasonable angle. Their upper torsos have an indented ridge along the chest and stomach from collarbone to the beginning of their lower chests, making them seem almost segmented left-to-right. All six limbs are proportionally short (they are fairly low-slung in build), toned, and smooth; their hands are clawed and have two fingers, one thumb. Their paws are also clawed and mustelid in shape/dexterity (think ferret). Their tails are long, thick, and lithe, used to balance their upper torsos and also useful in swimming. Harinni males have external genitalia, and females have slightly visible teats along their lower stomachs (noticeably larger when pregnant or nursing).
Senses/Capabilities: Harinni are extremely well-rounded in their senses. Their eyesight is fairly long-range and keen with static detail during the day; at night, they still see quite well, but their range is reduced and they become much more motion-based. They have a sensitive nose and a solid sense of hearing to complement their adaptable vision. Harinni are swift runners and most can hold a gallop at 40 mph for a short while; some can sprint up to 50 mph for a few minutes. More notably, however, is how dexterious they are; harinni are extremely flexible and agile, excellent climbers and decent swimmers, wonderful at navigating through dense brush and difficult terrain. Their endurance is average, as is their strength (given their long, streamlined build).
Coloration/Clothing: Harinni don't typically wear clothing, though they'll don a cloak-blanket in very cold weather, and many are willing to wear thinner cloak-blankets to shield themselves from sun or storm. (Cloak-blanket: a very long sleeveless garment, clasped around the neck, the upper waist just above the medial shoulders, and the lower waist just before the haunches, long enough to wrap around the upper torso and drape to the lower torso's chest/belly. Hood and/or pockets optional; typically made of furs or tightly-woven cloth, depending on its function.) Harinni have a truly impressive range of colorations, as well as markings, which can range from shading, points, spots, stripes, patches, rosettes, streaks, dappling, mottling, or any combination thereof. They can be virtually any shade of brown (including yellow-browns and red-browns) and grey (including white and black); they also have a moderate range of greens (natural shades - nothing neon or incredibly vivid), blues (nothing neon, often somewhat greyed, includes violet tinges), and metallic colors (primarily the gold-bronze-copper set, as silver/iron/steel hues are considered simply shades of grey). Most harinni have two or three colors at least, sometimes up to five or six; likewise, most have one or two forms of markings, with some having an intricate mixed pattern over their entire bodies. Harinni have just as many eye colors as they do fur colors and often have two eyes of different colors (usually matching their fur near the eye); their claws can be matte black, medium grey, or translucent white, depending on fur color near the toes, and few harinni actually have all claws of the same color.
Races/Breeds: The harinni have a variety of ethnicities, typically regional in origin and distinguishable by appearance, as well as mannerisms and culture. Unlike many species, who name their ethnicities by visual traits (often color or size), harinni maintain terminology that is locale-based, hailing each other not as brown or red harinni, but as Angeul Mountain harinni and Teurf River Valley harinni. There are well over a dozen primary races of harinni, which can then be broken down further by specific location within the region - far too many to actually list here.
Language: The 'official' language of the harinni is rinua, the particular language from a region that produced most of the original harinni travelling merchants, but many regions still hold to their old languages that have outlasted globalization. Every harin knows rinua, and most know a few others - often vocan, Lo'ken, and/or their local oldtongue. Rinua itself is an inconsistent, dialect- and slang-filled, structurally complex language that often poses a challenge to non-Har'nians who wish to learn it, simply because it has few unbroken linguistic rules and a wide vocabulary, as well as multiple forms of pronunciation (depending on where you are on Har'ni). In sound, rinua is fairly smooth, expressive, and easy to speak, whether the speaker has a muzzle or a simian mouth; it's almost reminiscent of how vocan sounds.
Technology: Harinni use limited technology; very few truck with metallurgy and smithying. Most harinni settlements are content to be woodworkers and potters, working primarily with wood, clay/adobe, and stone to construct tools and buildings and weapons. Despite their fairly low technological level, harinni are quite civilized, using tools extensively and collecting together in well-constructed settlements.
Magic: Harinni have a strong inclination towards druidic magics and are educated on sensing and measuring the flow and expenditure of magical energy around them. Many harinni continue their magical education and become true druids, able to communicate with the spirits of the flora and fauna around them, and sometimes able to manipulate elemental energies and work weather magic. A minority of harinni branch away from pure druidry into crossovers, becoming elemental mages, berserkers, bards, or even rangers or monks.
Values: Harinni typically value ability. Be that ability related to sensing magic or making it, related to woodworking or stoneworking, related to hunting or fishing or farming, it is valued - for it is an individual's abilities that earn it kira (credit) in society, and only with kira can one achieve a comfortable life. Similarly, harinni who leave Har'ni still must use their own individual skills and talents to earn them a place among the traders or those who live on other worlds. Harinni who have no particular skill and/or no drive to improve their abilities are generally seen as broken individuals, pitiable lost causes.
Social Groups/Society: Harinni live in a communal society. Each harin provides some service to help the community thrive, and in turn, it receives kira, an abstract form of currency closer to credit than coin. Having kira enables a harin to earn a home, acquire goods and food that it doesn't make/gather/hunt itself, and live in reasonable luxury. Harinni don't have strong hierarchal tendencies; they are cooperative more than dominating, and their social structure reflects that. Experienced harinni teach and train the inexperienced, and those of different skillsets and professions work together as equals, rather than keeping to their own clannish guilds. A large harinni city is often an exceedingly complex web of social and professional connections and interactions, baffling and overwhelming many outsiders.
Reproduction/Aging: Harinni are a startlingly gender-neutral people. While they acknowledge that only a male-female pairing can reproduce, reproduction is not a primary concern of theirs - enough mates have litters (of up to six kits!) that most harinni don't need to worry about their species surviving. As a result, gender ceases to matter in a cultural and societal sense. Males and females are complete equals in every regard, and since harinni choose mates based on love and personal (rather than physical) compatability, many harinni have mates of their own gender. This isn't seen as anything out of the ordinary by harinni; many same-sex mated pairs will help out different-sex mated pairs in the family with their kits. Harinni give birth to litters of three to six kits after a gestation of seven months; kits are walking and talking within a year, reach adolescence at five, and are considered adults between six and seven years of age. Most parents will have two or three litters in their lifetime, essentially enabling most harinni to go about their lives without any pressure to reproduce for the species' sake. Harinni cease being fertile at around fifty years and most don't live past their seventies.
Habitat/Settlements: Harinni are fairly adaptable in where they can live. Though they don't necessarily do as well in deserts or cold, high mountains as they do in plainslands and deciduous forests, they can still survive quite well there. Harinni have adapted to live in nearly any terrain and climate, barring the hottest, coldest, and driest of them. They typically live in clustered settlements, such as cities or villages, and hold no delineated territories outside of the communal buildable areas. The Druidic Coalition governs where and how much a city can build, keeping them from expanding too much and becoming too dense. In most cities, harinni have an abstract currency system and thus a low-key economy.
Religion/Beliefs: Harinni are polytheistic; they have regional pantheons of deities - some based on animals and plants, others abstract concepts like love and war, and some on legendary figures. Unlike many gods in the universe, most Har'ni deities make no appearance and offer no concrete, measurable evidence of their existences. As a result, harinni interaction with their gods is limited to prayer and small symbolic offerings; harinni actually communicate and work with individual spirits (of flora and fauna) far more often. Individual belief systems and forms of worship vary across the regions, as do specific gods.
Interaction w/ Other Species: Harinni are quite amiable to other species. They generally have fast friendships with the har ka and aralahari, coexisting peacefully and fruitfully with their fellow Har'nians. Even off-worlders are greeted genially. The harinni also have a lot of respect and affection for the Lo'hês and often aid the Loi whenever they can be of assistance, whether on or off Har'ni itself.
