Variations

The Variations, also called One Thousand Variations on a Deer, or (pejoratively) the Abandoned, are the descendents of the herd of deer Hask modified during her first years on Gaia. Hask's modifications were quite wide-ranging. Typical inclusions are an extended neck, arms, bird wings, and sometimes tentacles. Despite the variety, all can interbreed.

Society
Initially, the Variations organised under the command of their Prophet, the first deer modified (with arms) by Hask, and this heavily shapes their current society.

The Prophet expressed what may be characterised as a 'transdeerist' vision (ie, transhumanism, but for deer...). Reflecting extensive conversations with Hask, she heartily supported the goddess's artistic vision of deer using their changes to free themselves from the terror and starvation of the past. This lead to successful but expensive campaigns of violence against their former predators.

The Prophet died shortly before Sin came upon the Variations.

The Abandonment
The Variations feel themselves abandoned by their creator (as Hask vanished into the mountains), and were starving, having wrecked their local ecosystem and eaten most available food. The Prophet had always promised that they would be lead to still-greater things once they had killed the predators, and instead the Variations found themselves worse-off than ever before, beset by starvation and disease. A sizable faction of Variations laid the blame on Hask and her Prophet, and demanded revenge. Fortunately, Sin was there to grant it...

The Fortress, Anger
Sin commanded the Variations to create an enormous fortress in return for revenge on Hask. Although many deer saw this as a trap from another self-serving goddess and left into the forest, a large group of deer accepted Sin's command. Their fortress is named Anger, and spreads throughout multiple valleys in the foothills of the mountains, large enough to encompass extensive fields for a population of several thousand. Many portions of the walls are wooden, but slowly undergoing replacement by sandstone blocks.

Supporting agriculture leads to some problems. The river enters the fortress through a mesh of tree-trunks. The lower walls are filled with extensive drainage holes to accomodate the spring floods. To keep this system working, the drainage system must be dredged of silt following each flood. Deer engineers are struggling to find a way to divert the flood and reduce the difficulties of maintenance.

Social organisation and politics
In the time of the Prophet, her rule was absolute, but since her death the deer have splintered into multiple disagreeing factions. There are stories of warring and cannibalism after the Abandonment, but since Sin's bargain, the deer have mostly settled peacefully in Anger. The Variations tend to live communally, in large groups, rather than small family units.

Inside Anger, decisions are arrived at by a council, who meet regularly at the peak of the Quarried Hill - a stone platform cut from the surrounding rock during the construction of the fortress. The Hill may be accessed by ladders or by flight. The duties of the council include planning building work and agriculture, and settling disputes between Variations. Council-members are appointed by majority decision of the current members of the council (originally, the Prophet's advisors). Although many Variations do not feel their needs are properly addressed by the concil, no alternative systems have yet achieved widespread support.

Outside Anger, Variations continue to live in herds. Leadership of herds tends to be quite fluid - although in their unmodified state, male deer might fight with their antlers for dominance, this practice is generally regarded as part of the Suffering Past and a Variation who successfully kills the leader of a herd will generally be driven away from the group.

Warfare
The defenders of Anger usually possess some sort of ability to attack at range. Some can spit hot or poisonous fluid, and others are capable of hurling spears or stones with atlatls and slings. Bows are not common. Many defenders use the predators prowling outside the walls for target practice.

The Variations have not yet fought in a war, and their military is poorly organised. Most warriors are volunteers.

The grass-footed deer
A sub-category of the Variations have the odd property that grass grows wherever they step. They generally form a class of their own in deer society, and do not exhibit as much variation as the other deers - in particular, all have hooves, and most have particularly long necks. Longer-lived than most Variations, they are considered wise if quite incomprehensible. The grass-footed deer wander in a solitary fashion, occasionally visiting communities of other species. Although they did not participate in Sin's bargain, and none reside in Anger, the grass-footed deer assisted the citizens of Anger in setting up agriculture.

Sex and gender
The extensive variation in physical form has been accompanied by a lot of variety in gender expression. While deer herds would originally be characterised by extensive sexual dimorphism and very different behaviours in male and female deer, the boundaries between deer genders are now blurred and deer society as a whole has rejected binary gender. First-generation Variations will often identify with traditional binary deer gender (though not necessarily as assigned at birth), but later generations generally do not and in English should go by zie/zir pronouns.

The Variations have never had a tradition of monogamy, and their understanding of sexuality does not expect people to be exclusively attracted to one gender. Although most Variations reproduce in the usual mammalian way, some have become capable of parthenogenesis, and some lay eggs. Like unmodified deer, Variations grow quickly to adulthood.

Although characters such as Alue may express alarm and disgust at the extent of the variation in physical form exhibited by the Variations, I am going to request that people don't speak of deer gender variance and nonbinary gender in these terms.

Death
The lifespan of the Variations is typically about that of a deer, although the grass-footed deer have unusual longetivity. Prior to Sin's appearance, there were few widespread rituals surrounding death. Deer commerated those closest to them in a variety of ways.

Sin, however, commanded that the deer throw their dead over the walls of Anger to draw predators. This quickly became ritualised. Prior to being thrown over the walls, the corpse of a deer is painted in red spirals, and a bundle of incense is placed in their mouth. The corpse is then lowered onto the ground using a crane. As it's quite distressing to see ones loved ones decay and be eaten, the lowering-points are groves of trees which have been allowed to grow close to the walls, now called skull-groves. They are rarely visited due to the risks of scavengers.

The deer in Anger do not know why Sin wanted to gather the predators. Some of the defenders of the walls are happy to use them for target practice, so the predators usually hide in the trees.

Variations in the game
Hask created the first Variation by attaching arms from a monkey to a deer, who would later become the Prophet. Over the following years, she experimented with many other variations on the rest of the herd.

After their creation, the Variations expanded quickly and stripped the resources of the area where they were created. Predators such as wolves, which once preyed on the deer, were destroyed under the direction of their prophet. However, the Variations soon ran out of food, and began to starve. Hask realised her error, and resolved to solve it by modifying another species to keep the Variations in check. She set off up the mountains to seek such a species.

In this state of hunger, a group of Variations attacked Alue as she travelled across the valleys searching for her sisters. Alue used her flute to banish their minds permanently to the Dreamlands.

In Hask's absence, the Variations came to resent her for abandoning them. Sin encountered them, and offered them a deal: she would take revenge on Hask, making her feel betrayal as the Variations felt, and in return the Variations would build a fortress and throw their dead over its walls.

Hask met Alue in the mountains, and asked her for help creating a new species to control the Variations.

The Variations were noticed by Aktai'Parapon, who mentioned them to Kalamar. Kalamar was excited to hear about them, and Aktai'Parapon briefly recounted their history to Kalamar - and at this, the two gods set out to meet them.