Excerpted from "A Catalog of Races of the Starmourn Sector"
The Nusriza are a fierce race with perhaps the most difficult language among the core Starmourn species.
| Home System | Frixion |
| Homeworld | Frixion VI |
| Capital City | Mir |
| Lifespan | About 160 years. |
| Family structure | They live in Throngs, where after the egg hatches it is raised communally by others in the Throng, which consists of multiple families, unrelated by blood. |
| How do they view kith users? | They have a fairly equal mix of void and star kith users, but they're a new race to kith. The Echanine religion prohibited its use until the Schism. |
| Preferred foods | Aside from algerion meat, they're carnivores with a strong love of grubs, worms, and small insects. They eat these in a thousand different variations, full of spices. They might be fried, baked, roasted, eaten raw, poached, boiled, or any number of methods. They also enjoy smoking a substance made from the dried skins of tiny grubs called 'leesa' that gets them very mildly high, but is mainly about social lubrication - it's nothing like the drugs the Nabia peddle. |
Male Nusriza wielding vibroknives.
A female Nusriza wielding a kithblade.
| How do they treat 'others' within their society? | Largely with disdain, though they do venerate their elders. |
| Notable rituals | On the age of maturity of a Nusriza - 17 - their relatives hold a celebration that involves a 2 day event called, translated of course, called Seventeen Mirrors. In the first day, 17 people spend time with the young Nusriza in a ritualistic circle, speaking the truth about the shortcomings of the young one with the aid of an intoxicant they brew from the shells of their eggs called 'poivirn'. On the second day, the virtues of the person coming-of-age are extolled and gifts are presented by each of the 17 to the subject of the ritual. At the end, that Nusriza is formally welcomed as a full member of the Throng. |
| Entertainment | Their language - Nusrizan - is renowed for its musicality and the difficulty with which non-natives speak it. It's both a tonal and gesture language, with 14 different distinct tones lending shading to the meaning of words, and a wide variety of subtle hand gestures that shade the meaning of those toned words further. The result is that those who can't move both their hands sound 'flat' to Nusrizan ears - their meaning can certainly be understood, but to them it is like listening to someone speak without inflection, tone, or variation in pacing. They are similarly skilled singers, and vocal competitions are very popular with the Nusrizans. |
| Government | Monarchy. Ruler is titled the "Tajhan". It's a hereditary post, though there have been times in its history where the ruling family was wiped out by accident or assassination, typically leading to war among the Throngs until a new power structure emerges that is capable of choosing a leader strong enough to hold onto the position. |
|---|---|
| Current Tajhan | Abelin Artunduaga (m). |
| When did they achieve spaceflight? | About 24,000 years ago. |
| Sources of wealth | They're experts in sensor technology. |
| Religion | They have a monotheistic religion called Echanism that worships a single god they call Echanine, but it is by no means believed in by all Nusriza. It is a warrior, protector God, and much of their race lost faith in it during the Bushraki Wars, when it became clear that Echanine either wouldn't protect them, couldn't protect them, or didn't exist, and they joined into the Song Dominion with several other races. Echanism prohibited fraternization with other races until then, as well as the use of kith, both of which were restrictions large swathes of Nusrizan society were sick of and, under threat during the wars, rejected completely. This led to the Echanine Schism, which took place from 31 A.E. to 35 A.E. This internal religious war split their society, and over time those who reject Echanine have come to dominate Nusrizan culture and leadership. |
| Architecture | Their buildings have large open portals to the outside for young Nusriza to fly in and out of, and they also build large living environments above the clouds, supported on huge, rigid supports. |
Architecture on the Nusriza homeworld.
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