Lycans (Race)



The Lycans or more rarely Wajshar, are a vaguely humanoid and sentient people hailing from the continent of Tangeass. They resemble the great wolves, and many scholars have speculated that they originate from the local Walfar from Wulf'arath forest. Alike the Ogres and the Grells, the Lycans are among the original inhabitants of Tangeass and their society has endured the test of time, even as other species came on their continent.

A truly martial people with a sophisticated tribalised society, the Lycans have built a powerful nation intimidating its neighbors, and have claimed a place of their own at the head of the world, alongside their old rivals turned allies: the Sehras. Even with the recent collapse of their empire and the beginning of the Lycan Civil War, the Lycans remain a force to be reckoned with.

Great warriors and skilled merchants, Lycans are omnipresent in Zaelian society and can be found anywhere where there is life and trade.

While their cunning is legend, what has forged their reputation as fearsome enemies is their occult religion and the very ambiguous nature of their worship of the goddess Cynis.

Lycans are known to be affected by the Ra-Tana ("blood curse").

Etymology
The naming "Lycan" (from Nayaki Lyca, wolf - "Wolflike") derives from the clear parenthood that was established between the wolfmen (as they are sometimes refered to) and the great wargs from Northern Tangeass. It was first formulated by human sailors hailing from Naïas, upon their first travel to the Far Land, and has since been commonly used to refer to what was formerly called the Wajshar people in earlier stages of history.

Significantly older, the appelation Wajshar (from old Lycan speech, Waj, folk and Shar, moon - "Moon-folks" or "Tribe of the Moon") has kept ceremonial and traditional value within modern Lycan society, all the while falling out of fashion in common speech. Some parts of the high political elite of the Lycan Empire have however favored the Wajshar naming, considering its reference to the merging of all tribes into one, united by their common worship of the Moon Goddess, Cynis.

History
[In construction]

The Ra-Tana
Lycans are known to be very commonly affected (over 90% of the population) by the Ra-Tana (Lycan speech, Blood-Curse), a neurological disease that has been the cause of spontaneous folly and dementia in a fairly important amount of acute cases. Considered a common fact of life in Lycan Society, the Ra-Tana has been assimilated to a curse born from the schyzophrenic folly of Cynis herself, who after seeing her conscience split in half (see Cynis/Lepith) during the Shattering of the Pantheon, passed on this fragmentation of the mind to her beloved children.