Putoria Perdunsky

A precocious learner who uses humor to get by in life, Putoria Perdunsky (Pu to her friends) doesn't let the fact that her species is widely disliked for its odoriferous nature get her down. Yes, she's beastkin, a skunk hybrid specifically, in an empire dominated by humans that has only been integrated for about a generation. And yes, there aren't many skunks at Central Imperial University where the twenty-year-old Putoria is double majoring in journalism and pre-law.

But Putoria musters her charm and sense of humor to overcome interspecies social barriers, finding friends and perhaps lovers outside her own species despite the subltle but definitely present sulfurous, musky stink she gives off. She's gassy as well, and a single fart of hers is so intensely rancid it can clear a room in seconds. If you spend much time with her, you'll notice that her stomach gurgles frequently. She'll certainly have to fart at some point, and she'll probably be apologetic about it; if she eats something that gives her gas (and many kinds of food do), she will fart even more often. Putoria's flatulence is distinct from her skunk musk, the foul-smelling yellowish liquid stored in her anal scent glands that she is able to spray.

While she looks mostly human apart from her tail and ears, like any skunk, she can spray a putrid, oily musk that will mark anything it touches with a horrific stench--think rotten eggs and burning rubber at an intensity so strong it pulses and throbs--for weeks or months.

Pu is of average height and slim build, with B-cup breasts, violet eyes, and an infectious smile. She's about five feet, six inches tall and weighs about 120 pounds. She tends to dress casually. On warm days a short-sleeved top and jean shorts with tennis shoes is her preferred combination.

In centuries past, the human-dominated Svarjag Empire violently expanded across the continent they called Elsland, named for the chieftain Elwyn Svarjag who led the party that first landed there. Before the arrival of the human colonizers, the land was known by various names in the various native languages of the distinct beastkin species who occupied it and lived in federations and city-states spread across the continent.

The original Svarjag invaders saw the beastkin as inferior, and that bigoted attitude was passed down. An objective look at the primary sources suggests the Svarjag humans learned much about administration and statecraft from the beastkin societies they would eventually conquer and displace. To make a long story short, over time, the humans drove the beastkin away from their ancestral lands, eventually restricting them almost entirely to the Fiddlefern Mountains, a large, rugged range in the northern part of the continent.

The empire's human rulers rarely directly interfered in mountain life apart from directing mining and other resource extraction operations, often carried out by prison labor, that eventually impoverished much of region.

30 years ago Empress Wilhelmina III, called the Wise, promulgated an "integration" reform that allowed beastkin to move out of the mountains and into towns and cities, but the situation remains essentially an apartheid one. Segregation and discrimination heavily restrict beastkin opportunities and autnonomy, with some exceptions in border and frontier areas.

As part of her reforms, Wilhelmina renamed the capital city from Elwynsburgh to New Harmony. But among and between humans and beastkin, tensions, rivalries, social hierarchies, resentments, and outright discrimination remain.

Wilhelmina the Wise still rules as an absolute monarch. She consults an advisory council, but there is no parliament and no codified constitution. Only humans of noble rank sit on the advisory council. The empire does not recognize any of the traditional nobilities or social hierarchies of beastkin societies.

Beastkin languages include Vonjuga (native to skunks), Vulpine (foxes), Ululan (wolves), Ursine (bears), and many more. The larger languages have distinct dialects, some of which have died out. Before the conquest, a variety of skunk clans, several based in the Fiddlefern Mountains, had formed the largest political federation, making Vonjuga a common second language. Today Vonjuga often serves that purpose again in the Fiddlefern Quarter of New Harmony, the area on the outskirts of the city that the beastkin of the capital have largely been restricted to through deliberate policies of redlining. Mephitia, the skunk ghetto, is the largest neighborhood in the quarter and also home to the quarter's de facto "boss" and most influential powerbroker Violet, a six-foot tall, voluptuous demi-human skunk woman somewhere north of 50. Violet runs a variety of legal, quasi-legal, and illegal enterprises. Her influence extends well beyond the quarter.

Vonjuga is thus the most important beastkin language in the capital, useful as a second language so beastkin can communicate across species among themselves with little chance of human eavesdropping.

Many non-skunk beastkin in the Fiddlefern Quarter speak Vonjuga, the de facto beastkin lingua franca of the quarter, alongside Imperial Standard. Old clan feuds remain a problem in the mountains and sometimes in the quarter, particularly between the Vonjatchkovich and the Pukanovye, two mountain clans who have clashed over territory and resources for many generations.

Mephitia, the skunk ghetto, is located on the north end of the quarter on the Copper Run River. Along with the Sud, which flows into the city from the west, the Copper Run, which flows into the city from the north, form the borders of the quarter. There is only one bridge allowing access to and from the rest of New Harmony, and it is located to the south of the quarter, spanning the Sud near the confluence of the two rivers.

In its modern era, the Svarjag government has set policies designed to push beastkin toward assimilation despite never extending anything close to true equality. Beastkin languages are banned from instruction in imperial educational insitutions, including and especially the universities, and that means there have been no dictionaries, grammars, or language textbooks officially published in decades. Any that exist are considered banned literature according to the Office of the Imperial Censor.

Some learning materials exist in the underground economy and black markets--old, rare books, handwritten or typed samizdat, and illegally printed reprints. There are legitimate beastkin merchants and booksellers who have such things, but they won't show or sell them to just anyone. Access requires connections and trust, and/or consistently demonstrating respect for beastkin cultures over time.

There is other underground and censored beastkin literature, including histories that record the atrocities the approved, whitewashed histories leave out, and even revolutionary pamphlets and newspapers, some in beastkin languages and some in Imperial Standard. The beastkin underground possesses a few printing presses scattered across Elsland.

Speaking beastkin languages is legal. Performing in them is legal. What's illegal is any institutional teaching of the languages. Most beastkin still grow up speaking them natively, although in the capital, New Harmony (still called Elwynsburgh by overt human supremacists), with its variety of beastkin species ghettoes concentrated in the Fiddlefern Quarter, many young beastkin grow up speaking Imperial Standard better than the traditional languages of their people. This is what the empire wants; it seeks to achieve the erasure of beastkin cultures over time.

Some beastkin have a hybrid appearance, looking human with a few animal characteristics such as ears and tails. These are demi-humans. Other beastkin look much more like animals, though they are bipedal, sentient, and have opposoable thumbs. These beastkin are anthros. Yet other beastkin have a more in-between appearance. There is a spectrum among beastkin of looking largely human, with bare skin except for furred ears and tails, to looking much more animal-like. Those who look more human are often afforded better opportunities in a way that parallels the colorism in human racism.

Mephitia was once more than a ghetto, and still is to those who keep memory alive and observe some semblance of the old ways. Mephitia was the name of the once dominant skunk federation (with Clan Pukanovye and Clan Vonjatchkovich playing prominent roles). Mephitia is also the name of the goddess of traditional skunk worship, usually depicted with three tails (mirth, eros, wrath). Legend has it that Mephitia gave the skunks their gift of stink and that skunk beastkin with purple (amethyst, violet) eyes are her direct descendants.

All skunk clans and many non-skunk beastkin also venerate Mother Mountain, the largest peak in the Fiddlefern range. The beastkin pantheon is divided into gods of the sun/day and gods of the moon/night. Mephitia is a night goddess and a trickster, and regarded as the most sensual of the beastkin deities.

There are some peripheral parts of the empire where beastkin and human interactions are much more normalized than in New Harmony, and where, as is typical of borderlands, functional bilingualism is common even for humans. Small towns that exemplify this tendency include the coastal port and fishing town of Eastport on the east coast, and also Daggerswald, a friendly little hamlet tucked inside the foothills to the south of the Fiddlefern range, which has seen many beastkin pass through and some settle since the official restrictions were lifted.

Svarjag law bans both same-sex and human-beastkin relationships, but away from the imperial center, and even in the Fiddlefern Quarter, norms are looser and some laws can be ignored, especially by those protected by a powerful patron.