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Sootoches, the arboreal denizens of Tochy forests, are one of the most populous races of the Younger World on account of their plentiful homeland. In Earth terms, a sootoch is something like a combination of a marten, a squirrel, and a New World monkey, made the size of an excpetionally small human.
The primary and original realm of the sootoches is the Highwood. Many also reside in the Lowwoods. Other populations are present on the Coast of Ziz, in Vintrap, in the Kingdom of Ron, and even living among savaks on the Savaki Steppe, though their cumbersome terrestrial movement and temperate preference generally prevents them from establishing large populatioms beyond their native range.
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Sootoches possess a long, flexible, and gracile body, with a near-prehensile tail about three quarters of their body length. They stand bipedally with plantigrade feet, though on the rare occasion they must run usually choose to do so quadrupedally. Their faces are round and flat, with equally round ears, and no whiskers. They have flat molar teeth, with bottom canines slightly sharper than a human's and almost beaver-like top incisor teeth.
Like monkeys, their hands and feet are both prehensile, as is needed for their arboreal life style, and both have impressive grip strength. They are exceptional climbers able to traverse the treetops remarkably quickly.
Sootoches are covered in a layer of coarse, dog-like fur, which is softer at their heads and tails. Their hands and feet are however bare pink skin. Their fur is usually solid reddish brown (varying slightly in hue and shade ) with white front and sometimes tailtip, though melanistic and leucistic individuals exist, and in some populations spotted or rosette patterns exist as well.
Their senses are overall quite average, although their vision is exceptional, as is their balance.
Sootoches have no obvious sexual dimorphism, with the exception that females are on average slightly larger.
Most sootoch communities are sedentary and based around agriculture, especially of the starchy plantain-like vine fruit which features in many of their dishes. They live in the trees and rarely visit the ground, relying on the bounty of the branches for all their needs.
Most sootoch homes are single-room platforms attached to a tree with a slanted or gable roof made from dried leaves and twigs. In villages, most homes have no or one wall, instead having nets, curtains, and open sides, with fully walled houses being considered eccentric, though fully walled houses are more common in cities. Doors are rarely lockable if present.
Buildings are nearly entirly wood and other plant materials, as other materials are uncommon for sootoches, but important buildings or those built by particularly wealthy sootoches can be built with traded for bone, ivory, leather, or stone accents.They rely on branches and other natural features of the trees for support.
Sootoch architecture often features decorative carving of animals, sootoches, and mythical characters or events.
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Sootoch food is generally plant based, as meat is a rare commodity since they have no animal agriculture. Vine plantains are the staple crop, and are eaten boiled, mashed, steamed, roasted, and occasionally raw and diced. They are accompanied by various farmed and foraged fruits, berries, herbs, and spices, fresh, cooked, or dried.
Thanks to the lush array of vines and epiphytes in the tochy woods, all sootoch farming happens in the trees. A single tochy tree can play host to a number of different crops. When harvest time comes, a long-handled scythe able to reach much further above than a sootoch can alone is used to cut the crops from the branches.
As most sootoch settlements have no access to ground or river water, water generally comes from collected rain and dew. However, since this is somewhat precious, it is rarely used alone for drinking and instead saved for bathing and cleaning. Instead, fruit juices and alcohol sometimes mixed with water is drunk.
As they already have fur, their clothing does not need to be insulating in their temperate environment. Sootoches generally wear clothing for privacy and protection from parasites, dirt, and injury as opposed to warmth. The material used is primarily an airy fabric similar to linen and woven of thread spun from the shredded leaves of a particular epiphyte. While initially rough, it becomes quite soft and comfortable after enough wear and washing. Undyed, it is a light, neutral beige colour with some dark speckles, and may bleach slightly in the sun. It is normally worn undyed but sometimes dyed with natural red, green, yellow, and purple dyes. Undyed clothing is usually dyed once it has become stained and worn to increase its lifespan. Dyed scarves or sashes can be worn over the clothes particularly on special occasions.
Sootoch clothing is usually draped and tied around the body, with stitching generally being minimal. The cloths used to form clothing is this very versatile and so a sootoch may only have one or a few of them per body part, as even a simple undyed cloth can be made into a wide variety of casual and formal styles. Stitching and other forms of permanent attachments are usually reserved for clothing which must stand up to great amounts of movement, such as those for sporting and harvesting, but sewn clothing is not considered particularly elegant or stylish.
Sootoches are quite conservative with their accessories. Wooden bands and rings, often made from scrap wood, are worn around the arms, fingers, and tails. They are sometimes carved with images and patterns. Beaded necklaces and bracelets are sometimes worn too.
Most Sootoch music is acapella, with instrumentation restricted to percussion from wooden blocks, drums, and sticks. It is sung by a choir of 5 or more, or by a crowd, and often features wide ranges of voices and sounds at once for a layered, texture sound that is uniquely Sootoch. Much of their music is practical, sung during the making of nets, weaving of cloth, harvesting of crops, and other such communal work, or while traveling, as they can become seperated quite easily in the thick vegetation of the woods and so sing to signify they are near enough the group to be heard. These songs tend to be quite upbeat and rhythmic, with less complex sound than purely artistic music, and lyrics which often make reference to myth and religion.
Those songs which are intended for the choir sometimes are similar to working songs, but often are abstract and at first strange sounding. Many Sootoches consider such songs to be pretentious.
Visual art is, most often, in the form of wood carvings. These can be on other practical objects or stand alone on a slab.