The Scoodlers

AFRICA || ASIA || AUSTRALIA || EUROPE || WESTERN || HISTORY
::Bioculture:: The Scoodlers descended from the ancestors of the Incans. They migrated to Antartica, using some of the early plastics designed to ameliorate cold weather conditions.

The language of the dominant ethnic group within the Scoodlers was simplified and imposed on the Scoodler populace. Scoodlers are thin-limbed and squat. They have large mouths and large heads covered with small bumps of hair. Scoodlers were the first to begin intensively experimenting on themselves with quicksilver. Just previous to WWII, a mutation spread through the scoodler population. This mutation allows their head and internal organs to be separated from their body. They must separate this way every few months in order to clean and maintain their internal organs. A scoodler is inhabited with a colony of neural protozoans similar to the ones used by the Yeziri, and these symbiotic organisms take over control of the scoodler's body when the head separates. The head and organ cluster is of course very vulnerable when separated, and the body is particularly clumsy since it lacks the full complement of sensory organs.

A scoodler will tattoo its body with a color pertaining to its role in society. As a scoodler moves into a more advanced role in will tattoo new, finer designs over the background colors. A scoodler's possessions will also be of this color.

Scoodlers are arguCalxive and expressive. They can only ingest a fluid diet, and they live off of hot soup.

::Totem:: The Scoodlers had made their Covenant with the penguin.

::Religion:: Managnosis is the religion of the Scoodlers. They believe that the mandala is evil, but only through communion with the mandala will true knowledge of the Spirit be revealed. This religion is the result of a relatively recent reworking of traditional shamanism after it came into contact with the Gnosticism of the Theocracy of Golgotha. Priests have all but forgotten how to access the wilderness of the Esoteric beyond the mandala, instead devoting their efforts as technicians maintaining Scoodler mandalaspace.

::Government:: Scoodlers are decadent communists. Antartica's geographic distance from everyone but the Incan Empire allowed them safety from the ravages of war, but it also made their society more stagnant. The prevailing social order is a modern version of the theocratic communalism that was the norm throughout the world prior to WWI. Citizens enjoy a high standard of living, but few civil liberties. Guilds.

The various orders of the priesthoods function as guilds. The Scoodlers were able to develop zeppelins fairly early, and were the first great mercantile power of the world. The Scoodler holy barges, more floating city than zeppelin, travel the world, transporting goods from one state to another, buying rare commodities for resale. At the center of these barges is the People's Holy Tradepilot, a high priest mutated beyond recognition by generations of experiCalxion with high doses of quicksilver.

The Scoodlers are particularly interested in new forms of entertainment, and this fuels much of their economy and desire for trade. The People's Holy Tradepilots will pirate Paneuropan video off the mandala and will use these as templates to make cheap knock-offs. During the cold winter that lasts eleven and a half months out of the year, most Scoodlers can be found sitting at home sucking at their mana distillers, imbibing the latest faux-European fare.

::Gender:: There is gender equality among the Scoodlers.

::Guilds:: The guilds enjoy great power in Paz society. There are many different guilds, the largest of which do a brisk trade in rare organisms and mandala surrogates.

::Military:: During WWI, the Scoodlers retained an elite cadre of soldiers used to eliminate enemy leadership (usually Incan) and to trump enemy forces (usually Incan) in critical military engagements the Scoodlers were able to resist invasion. They stayed out of World War II, but used their merchant fleet to buy arms and sell them to the theocracies around the world.

::Shashi:: Shashi are kept as pets.

::Geography:: The Scoodlers spans Antarctica.