Grassland Ashigo
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Anatomy
The most common and plentiful subspecies of ashigos on Azailia. They have adapted to living in large valleys and mountain regions. They are herbivores, their diets mostly consist of mostly of fruit, vegetables and nuts. They use their strong jaws to crack and break hard skins/shells. They use the points in their mouth to grab ahold of the food to break it easily. They can give a nasty bite wound with their mouths.
Ashigos have dark sclera, this is help block out the bright light from the sun and helps them to have night vision so they can better navigate in the dark.
They have very thick warm fur to help keep themselves warm while high up in the mountains as being so high up can make it very cold. During the colder months, their fur becomes thicker and more insulating and when the warmer months come they shed their fur and it becomes thinner to help cool off and not overheat in the warm summer sun. This trait is exclusive to grassland ashigos.
Grassland ashigos can be very skittish by nature, due to their past of being a prey species on Azailia. These instincts are mostly useless now since the mass extinction event. They have excellent hearing to assist them in listening out for any threats, they typically have long ears to help them with this task.
Grassland ashigos are known for being excellent mountain climbers, they use their hooves to assist them with this task. They use their keen eyes and quick thinking to allow them to find the safest routes up the mountain. Most likely this trait developed as a way to avoid predators, by climbing up high to where they can't get them. They also have extra paw pads on their hands, this is help with gripping rocks when climbing up mountains, ashigos of all types have this, it is a link to their common ancestors.
Environment
Grassland ashigos are native to Azailia's mainland, the large expanding fields of grass and the large towering mountains are what grassland ashigos call home. Ashigos have developed towns and villages all over the mainland. They have fields and orchards that supply them with food and branching roads connects everything together for easy trading routes. Ashigos mostly build their homes from adobe, a material that is a mixture of dirt, straw and grass. It is dried into bricks in the sun and then used to create homes with branches and wood making up the rest of it. Grassland ashigos decorate their homes with flowers, fabrics and rocks. These homes are built close together and is what make up an ashigoian village. These villages are typically formed beside rivers, lakes, forests or any safe location from the elements. In rare cases, ashigos will form villages in underground caverns however, these are very rare.
Culture
Grassland ashigos are very social creatures, it is necessary for them to form groups. These groups tend to be villages, a collection of ashigo homes all tightly packed together for protection. The largest village being the City of Valen, named after the legendary hero Valentineos. It is a bustling city with countless ashigos. The city is located in a mountain valley that for hundreds of years was completely shut off from the rest of Azailia however, recently the ashigos of Valen have carved into the mountain to create bridges, tunnels and roads so that ashigos can more easily come in and out. Most smaller grassland ashigo villages work in the following way;
The Head - The leader of the village, the head of guards and the one responsible for ensuring that the ashigos of the village stay safe. They are elected to leadership by the guards.
The guards - Ashigos that are trained to protect and defend the village at all costs. Typically strong and athletic ashigos.
Village members - Ashigos that are trained in gathering, building, foraging and have basic combat skills. Their job is to gather and supply the village with food.
Trainees/Ashigolings - They are learning how the world works and will tag along with their parents /guardians to learn important life skills from them. Younger ashigolings stay in the village and play.
Retired - Ashigos who are too old to perform daily tasks
The head is the one who decides the rules, depending on the head and how badly a rule is broken an Ashigo can be exiled from the village, their horns are typically broken to show that they are untrustworthy and these ashigos then find it almost impossible to find another village that is willing to accept them. This causes them to be completely alone, the worst fate possible for the ashigo.
For ashigos wearing masks is very important to their culture. As in the past masks were the only thing that stopped them from getting the deadly disease known as crystal blinked. ( they would catch it from crystalline insects that would bite their faces, masks prevented this ) It would make the ashigo violently ill and cause crystals to grow all over their bodies, the survival rate is very low with only a few managing to survive. The survivors of the disease are exiled and treated like monsters because ashigos haven't realised that they are not contagious yet. However, in recent times, the crystalline insect that was responsible for spreading the disease has gone almost extinct. Only existing in the crystal caverns which is completely off limits. Ashigos still haven't stopped wearing masks, in fear that it will return and because they have been doing for so long, why stop now?
Grassland ashigos are also known to be very religious worshipping their gods Olma and Clesetion.
