- Physical look:
- Height (bipedal upright, heel to head): 1.3 - 1.6 meters
- Mass: 45-60 kg
- Head: The Klk'k head, viewed from above, is quite round, and broader at the bottom than the top, due to the outward slanting lower jaw (more teeth than upper jaw). Ears are mostly flush with the skull and water-tight. There is one on each side of the head, a curved ovoid region with a series of cartilage-analog ridges, rather than a distinct floppy protrusion, as in humans. Nasal openings are to the rear, similar to where, on a human would be just below and behind the earlobe.
- Nasal passages: The Klk'k air and digestive tracks are completely separate, the former being served by two separate openings on the back rear of the head. They are similar in some ways to cetacean blowholes. A Klk'k can comfortably swim face-down in water, breathing through the twin nasal passages facing up into the air. Each nasal passage has its own associated vocal-cord analogs, which can operate at independent pitch (harmonics play a large, and human-unreproducible role in Klk'k languages).
- Mouth: The mouth, while not connected to the air passageways, is set up as an echo chamber for clicks made by the two tongues against the roof and other parts of the mouth. Klk'k lips are thin, and the mouth grins very wide, extending "Joker-like" almost all the way back to the rear jawbones. Teeth are usually not shown. Thus, the Klk'k appear to be in a state of chronic Cheshire cat grinning.
- Eyes: With no nose, and a usually closed mouth, the upper portion of the Klk'k face is dominated by two large, staring eyes set in bony sockets. The Klk'k possess excellent forward stereo vision overlap and can also see up surprisingly well, which becomes forward when they are face-down on the surface of the water.
- Legs: Klk'k legs are a large portion of their total body mass, long, and very strong and muscular. The upper-most thigh portion, going forward, is very short in length, and the more visible, second knee bends to the rear. Klk'k will run, jump, and hop, as the terrain and desired speed of locomotion demands. They are exceptional jumpers and natural swimmers. When in a defensive posture, a Klk'k may squat, their legs bending behind them, ready to leap or turn and kick.
- Feet: Klk'k feet are extremely long, evoking comparisons with Kangaroos and providing excellent leverage when running and propulsion when swimming. The toes are only slightly shorter than the fingers, and are partially webbed. The toe tops terminate in short, thick nails, somewhat like the one on an ostrich toe.
- Arms: While their arms, like their legs, have one more segment than the human equivalent, in the arms, the additional segment has become so foreshortened that it has integrated into the shoulder assembly, giving a more familiar appearance than the legs. Klk'k arms are proportionately longer than those of humans, and tend more toward lithe, wiry builds than bulky weight lifter musculature, but muscle tone can frequently be seen - Klk'k are quite comfortable climbing about Ktah's tree-analogs.
- Hands: Each arm ends in a hand with four long, thin fingers, flanked on each side by opposable thumbs (2 thumbs, 4 fingers). The skin on their hands, and all but the last joint of their fingers is tougher, dry, and more heavily textured than the rest of their skin. This, along with the symmetric opposable thumbs provides them excellent grips on both tree-analogs and hand-caught river prey. Only the thumbs have nails.
- Tail: None
- Skin: Most Klk'k skin is hairless, subtly moist and oily, and tends toward mottled green-brown tones, in gradations between moss and dirt with subtle burgundy accents. Work surfaces (palms, feet) are more leathery and heavily textured (see hands). Klk'k from different regions of Ktah will tend to be more brown or more green, but the overall appearance is always a mottled mix. Klk'k skin is not nearly so porous as amphibian skin, but does dry out easily. A notable layer of subcutaneous fat helps make Klk'k skin supple and keeps them warmer in the water. Secondary sexual characteristics express themselves as thin, rosy-to-purplish highlights on the sides of the head, hips, wrists, and ankles.
- Tatoos: Traditional body-paintings and some tatoos are more common means of expressing individuality than choice in clothing. In particular, Amakakt tattoos are expected among those practicing the martial art. A Tklatl is tattooed on the upper left topforearm/shoulder area, with annotations denoting rank and record in Amakakt (the martial art heavily featuring said Tk’latl). The ranking is above the Tk’latl, and consists of a series of vertical bars of different color, denoting increasing ranks attained, from left to right. A history of the matches is recorded in colors corresponding to the rank of the opponents, and lies below the Tk’latl, with vetical bars for victories and horizontal bars for defeats.
- Torso: Compared to a human, a Klk'k seems all limbs and head - that is, the torso is proportionately smaller. Female Klk'k have slightly heftier torsos than males. Females who have born children may have visible scar tissue marks from the birthing blisters on their front abdominal area. Genders are otherwise difficult to discern to those unfamiliar with secondary sex coloration indicators. Discerning gender in immature Klk'k can be quite difficult for humans who do not spend much time with Klk'k.
- Other attributes: Pregnancy is extremely debilitating for Klk'k females and this is believed to have been one of the driving forces in the larger family-unit size of the Klk'k bond-set, relative to human pair-bonding. Klk’k have single fetus (with few exceptions) internal pregnancies, and exceptionally long gestation periods. The later stages of the pregnancy are extremely eventually leave the mother nearly immobile as the fetus grows to increasing size and the birthing blister migrates progressively closer to the surface. However, at birth, the newborn Klk’k can swim and consume normal food. The newborn Klk'k will be walking by the time the mother has recovered.
- Clothing: What John Jiminez has drawn is very good. May also wish to experiment with variants involving something with more of a tanktop cut around the neck, and also examine topless and mostly-topless options.
- What kind of people are they?
- Overview:
- One of only five extant species to have achieved some measure of space-flight prior to contact with other sentients, the Klk’k had what can be readily argued as the worst first-contact experience on record. Although the Andolian-backed Ktah Restoration Project did much to stem and repair the damage caused by the Lightbearers during their occupation of Ktah, nearly a quarter of the Klk’k species were killed by the Lightbearers, the majority of the deaths stemming from the Lightbearers retargetting their fusion-tipped anti-orbital defense missiles for ground impact and launching all batteries in a scorched-earth response to the Hoshino Uprising. While the laser-induced fusion warheads were exceptionally clean in the radiologic sense, the scale of the bombardment was such that there remain a number of areas of Ktah which have not fully recovered, even at more than two centuries remove. Currently, almost all Klk’k are citizens of the Andolian Protectorate. While the Klk’k are self-governing over their own colonies on domestic matters, with a government centered in Ktah, they defer to the Andolians on external affairs. A significant minority of the Klk’k population have become active adherents to the Andolian meme-group, living integrated existences networked into surrounding Andolian populations. Several mixed-species colonies featuring both Humans and Klk’k exist, and there is both a human and Klk’k presence on all Purth worlds. While few would easily mistake a Klk'k for a human, they are the most anthropoid of all of the sentient species humans have encountered, it is not difficult to build facilities for use by both Klk'k and humans.
- Homeworld:
- What the Klk'k consider the best portions of Ktah, a human would consider a bit too humid and a bit too warm, but otherwise quite livable. Of the three main landmasses, two are proximate. The Klk'k originated on the third landmass, much of which is criss-crossed by a multitude of rivers. While much of the planet was devastated by fusion warheads two centuries ago, the uninhabited areas fared better, and many of those that survived are stunningly preserved, even if bio-diversity has been set back a bit. The Ktah bayous have notable tourist traffic, and the Obelisk trees from which traditional Tklatls are made, remarkable in that, though long pre-dating contact, they are clearly non-native to Ktah, continue to attract the odd scholarly expedition or two at any given time.
- Role of technology:
- The Klk'k are comfortable with technology without worshiping it or holding it in any particularly separate regard. They are appreciative of what technology allows them to do, but most see the tools before them as tools, and not an end unto themselves. The tone of this has, however, changed somewhat with Andolian integration, increasing the value of technological progress relative to other aspects of life. The Klk'k are naturally curious, but their general acceptance of the universe as absurd limits their involvement in more passionate discourse on what the nature of the universe should be. The Klk'k have a great appreciation for "nature" in the sense of the outdoors, and are willing conservationists, but they have no particular attachment to preserving the natural order when it is inconvenient for more important priorities. Recreational activities often preserve antiquated technology or traditions for purely cultural reasons (such as in the martial art of Amakakt featuring the Tklatl (which was, along with the classical nasal-horn, one of the symbols of the overthrow of the theocracy). The traditional Tklatl vaguely resembles a cross between a kayak paddle and a monk's spade/Shaolin spade in that both ends are spade-like. Traditionally, for peasant usage, only the edge would be made of metal and could be unlatched for when it was used as a paddle, with the rest of wood from tree analogs, or, in the Old River Kingdoms, from the wood of the obelisk tree (which more closely resembles a carbon-fiber/resin composite than wood, but was hard to work)).
- Religion and philosophy:
- A few hundreds years before contact, a deeply oppressive theocracy ruled nearly two-thirds of the planet Ktah. The Klk'k equivalent of the Enlightenment was a long and bloody affair with the theocracy on the losing end, leaving behind a deep-seated antagonism to any form of organized religion. The revolution against the theocracy remains a key element in their cultural identity. The dominant philosophy of pre-contact modern Ktah bore some resemblance to Absurdism. This has morphed somewhat with interaction with the Andolians, with many placing more emphasis on the Andolian preoccupation with progress. Ancestor veneration of a limited sort is common, especially in the old River Kingdoms areas, but the modern ritualizations are extremely divorced from whatever spiritual significance they may once have had hundreds or thousands of years ago.
- Individualism:
- The natural unit of comfort for the Klk'k is the bond-set, similar in many ways to the human family. Culturally, post-theocracy, the Klk'k have a strong heritage of individual freedoms, and are remarkably open about speaking their mind. However, the speaking of their opinion seems somewhat decoupled from whether anyone is listening - the former is important and the latter often secondary.
- Technology level:
- Integrated politically with the Andolian Protectorate, the Klk'k have access to some of the most advanced technology possessed by humanity. Klk'k standards of living are generally superior to that of many other human meme-groups, although this is also largely due to a lower preferred population density.
- Diet and taboo:
- Klk'k are omnivorous in diet, with a heavy emphasis on freshwater aquaculture. Klk'k who pair-bond are considered sexually odd (a mature bond-set will usually feature at least 3 adults, usually 4-6), and the Klk'k mercilessly jest about human subcultures that place profound emphasis on pair-bonding. While Klk'k within a bond-set have very high fidelity within the bond-set, unbound Klk'k are sexual libertines and Klk'k culture as a whole is mostly lacking in notions of sexual guilt excepting situations involving pregnancy. Sex outside the species is considered a distinct kink, but not expressly taboo.
- Diplomacy:
- External affairs are handled by the Andolian Protectorate. The Klk'k government, seated on Ktah, works as frictionlessly as a democratically elected body can with the Andolian Protectorate on many matters, and the population is generally very supportive of the role they play within the Protectorate, wherein they have full citizenship, limited self-rule, and on several colonies are fully integrated into Andolian society. Diplomatic engagements with the Klk'k are sometimes made awkward for other parties, as the Klk'k amuse themselves by frequently changing the layout of their official flags and selecting obscure official anthems while continuing to internally use unofficial symbology that remains much more constant.
- Mood:
- Broadly, most Klk'k are somewhat easygoing due, in part, to touches of fatalism in their absurdist-tinged outlook. However, while it may be non-trivial to offend most Klk'k, once offended, they will often stay offended for quite some time. More strikingly, however, humor and irreverence in Klk'k society are innate to degrees unmatched in any human culture. In many cases, one can tell the issues most heartfelt to a Klk'k by what he or she jokes about most frequently. It is not that they cannot be serious about an issue, rather, it is that their sense of when humor is appropriate is rather alien to human standards. Klk'k will as likely joke of the dead at a funeral as of the professors at a dissertation, engage in horrible puns in the middle of passionate motivational speaking, and jest with even more frequently in the heat of battle with both ally and opponent. While this seeming irreverence on issues of great import can be off-putting, it is both the natural Klk'k demeanor and closely tied to their stress responses. Beware the Klk'k who for a long time cannot "laugh"(a raucous clicking of tongues and consonant-free tonal harmonies), for his silence is likely an indicator of rage beyond his ability to reason clearly. If a Klk'k jokes with you, it does not mean she is your friend, but if she is your friend, she will be certain to try to make you laugh.
- Construction aesthetics:
- Klk'k buildings vary greatly from region to region. Where the weather is amenable, Klk'k prefer relatively open structures. Water features are frequent, including fountains, waterfalls, misters, and artificial streams that will meander straight through building interiors. Lighting is often slightly dim by human standards. Pools and baths are found in every city. Privacy is usually at a fairly coarse granularity. A bond-set's home will be not be completely open to is neighbors' but within a home, much is communal. Low-rise buildings of adobe and cement and stucco are common and ground-cover landscaping and shade plants are frequently deployed. In bigger cities and less temperate areas, buildings are more enclosed (keeping humid air inside) and more steel, plastic, and glass employed. Public works are common, and there are usually public spaces at the entry levels of large private buildings. Fancier buildings, especially older ones, may have facings of carved stone, often integrated into water features. However, due to the nature of the bombing of much of the inhabited portions of Ktah, most buildings were rebuilt post-contact, leading to somewhat human-oriented construction around the port-cities and necessarily modest constructions of fast and simple build in the surrounding regions.
- Klk'k technology generally looks similar to Andolian technology in functional forms. However, while the Andolians showcase efficiency over aesthetics with nearly naked markers of mass production( think: Ford saying "Model T in any color, as long as it's black"), the Klk'k like to individualize large projects, covering their capital ships with strange, esoteric, humorous, or even obscene writings and images (think: major cooling lines labeled "This is not a pipe" ... in Aeran). In models of Klk'k or joint design, some allowances have been made to provide them with a sufficient platform to express themselves via surface features, while most internals remain fundamentally Andolian.
- The Klk'k take pride in their works, but they do not tend to build anything of substance over-ambitiously. What they believe they must build, they build with care and capable hands, but rarely without underlying purpose. That said, in constructions of negligible importance, the Klk'k will frequently indulge all manner of whimsy as long as they think it's funny.