Sergal

The Sergal ( English pronunciation: [ˈsɜɹˌɡʌl], Japanese: サーガル "Sāgaru"), is a fictional alien species created by Mick Ono and Kiki-UMA. They belong to the Eltus race, alongside the Nevrean and Agudner in the Vilous universe, a science-fantasy world created by Mick Ono and Kiki-UMA.

They often are referred to as a blanket term in descriptions of the official lore, the three Eltus races, composed of Sergals, Agudners, and Nevreans.

Species
A Sergal is a race of shark-like headed people from the world of the Vilous universe. They are living on the planet Tal, a completely alien planet populated by wondrous creatures and a strange flora, with sentient species of different origin interacting with one another. In the lost and ancient times, they appeared identical to Earth's humans, but due to an unspecified event, they had turned into their current form, a half-animal humanoid race. Important Note from Vilous Team, the presence of "Planet Eltus" formerly mentioned here has become an undecided element that is not sure to exist in the latest official lore. As the World of Vilous is an a-work-in-progress universe, all material, information, and sources are subject to change at any time with the further development of the Vilous setting.

While possessing individual personalities, they generally have simple-minded, easy-going, and optimistic character, which also sometimes shows an animalistic sensitive nature such as cowardice and a tendency to follow the crowd. Overall, they can be said to be sensuous people, usually depend on intuitive insights and sensuous feelings to consider and judgment something. Their simple-mindedness makes them focus on basic concerns, which leads to having poor awareness of the smaller details or the bigger picture. Noteworthy potential benefits of this are that they do not remember quarrels and not hold grudges, and easy to recover from shocking or sad happenings. Also, they tend to show comparatively equal and flat feelings to everything compared to the cases of other Eltus races, this feature helps them to function a pretty fair character that is lesser to have envy, jealousy, and strong emotional attachment for something. This nature is reflected in their usual behavior and manner, it's obviously contrasting from those of Agudners which tend to have strong emotional feelings and attachment including somewhat negative feelings such as envy and jealousy. However, due to their deeply religious nature and faithful mentality, they can behave with a mob mentality when influenced by a strong-willed or charismatic individual.

Comprehensively, they show the most animalistic natures in various aspects of their behaviors and abilities in comparison with other Eltus races, they provide the fastest running speed and strong leg strength, additionally superior intuition and susceptibility for nature.

Noteworthy, they have no obvious gender differences in their appearance and biological feature as they do not possess mammalian breasts and breastfeeding ability. Due to this, their physical strength, behavior, personality, and social role keep gender-neutral state basically.

Within the canon story, all Eltus races including Sergals consider and recognize themselves as "human". Because of this, they call each other "human" as a conceptual recognition. In addition, their civil rights are treated as "human rights".

Some people equated all Sergals to be akin to General Rain Silves, the most widely known Sergal, having a monstrously violent and sexually deviant nature. However, this behavior is generally confined to Rain and those under her influence. Because Sergals are designed to be a pretty friendly and peaceful race, the notorious stereotype for the species leads to deadly misunderstandings and misconceptions. Due to this, these stereotypes are distinctly denied by Vilous official because those are very harmful, not only to the species concept itself, but also to the species creators, Mick Ono, Kiki-UMA, and everyone on Vilous Team.

Design
The Sergal's design was influenced by a number of non-fictional animals but is not a hybrid. Mick has stated that the design was originally inspired by rabbits and fighter aircraft, while the feet were based on those of rabbits and kangaroos.

Biology
Sergals are predominantly biologically similar to mammals. Their noses are slim and pointy, as of the nose of a shark. They have rodent-like fingers, kangaroo's feet, and a noticeably raised breastbone which is apt to be mistaken for a lump of fluffy fur in the center of their chest. People often draw their ears the same as that of a cat, wolf, or fox. But they are like the Pokémon Pikachu or Umbreon, in that they don't have clearly visible external auditory meatuses on the outside. Strictly speaking, their meatuses are facing backwards (in relation to a dog/cat/fox's) In addition, due to their long fur, it is very difficult to see their meatuses at a side view as well.

Their eyes face outwards, such as a rabbits' or most reptiles', but all child and Northern Sergals' eyes face frontward. Generally, Sergal eyes, excluding those of Northen Sergals, grow to the sides of their heads as they age. However, only Northern Sergals keep their eyes on the front due to the alien environment of their home regions.

Due to their mouth and throat structure that is similar to those of avian and reptiles, prey such as small animals is able to be swallowed whole. When eating the meat of large animals they will cut them into chunks since their jaw structure and lack of molars makes their chewing ineffective. They can swallow piglets size things as the largest things that are able to be swallowed by them without cutting. Despite their shark-like face, damage from bite wounds is not so strong, because they have a very small amount of teeth (just 12 fangs that are similar to canine teeth) and their jaws are not as strong.

Some people may think that Sergals have forked tongues like that of a snake, however, this is not a natural feature, but a surgical cut made for fashion or ritual. Rain Silves was the first Sergal to be seen with a forked tongue, having had it was cut by some kind of unconfirmed reason. All other sergals with forked tongues are mimics of Rain. Hence, the tongue forking did not exist as a common culture until Rain appeared.

A Sergal may live between 50 and 60 years of age, but the average lifespan of most Sergals is currently 20 - 30 years due to the many threats from dangerous and alien wild creatures living in their surrounding environment. In safer and civilized regions such as Gold Ring, the largest and developed country in the south, they could live longer than Sergals living in other regions. Though, their lifespan is shortest in the three Eltus races.

The average height of a Sergal ranges from about 6 feet to 6.4 feet tall, though this average has shown to be increasing over the past several generations.

While Sergals are technically omnivorous creatures, the average individual's basic diet will typically consist of small animals and fish. In Mick Ono's Old Age canon novella writings, they have also shown to have cannibalistic traits due to Rain Silves; Sergals as a whole have often been misunderstood as monstrously bestial due to this. But keep in mind that this is uncommon behavior for a typical sergal, and confined to Rain Silves and her vassals particularly.

A Sergal's coat may be any range of colors with various styles of markings due to the fur-dying culture performed in the eastern and southern regions, however, as a natural feature, they possess a straightforward two-tone color pattern like that of a shark or many earthly mammals, and hues are limited within a range of Earth tone.

Irises, however, are limited in their color; either gray or grayish muted colors. However, there is at least one known case of mutation resulting in color changes, such as General Rain Silves' gold irises.

Newborn Sergals display grayish fur in almost all of the entire body regardless of their ethnicity, as a feature common to all Eltus races. Their fur will begin to take on its natural regional color upon reaching the equivalent of 2 years in age.

Female Sergals also possess a prehensile clitoral hood that covers their vulva. This hood has been described to "look like a tongue," and has been shown to be capable of grasping and manipulating objects, as well as entering the vagina, possibly to protect it. While they are covered in mammal-like fur, they are ovoviviparous and do not have breasts and/or Nipples or the ability to breastfeed their young. Sure, they can accumulate fat by virtue of forced obesity in their chest, but they would not turn out as well.

Meanwhile, people often draw a canines knot on the male Sergals, but they do not have it in the official canon. The canonical version of their penis possesses the head which is similar to that of Earth's humans but tapered at the tip. Worthy to notice, the shaft can be an uneven combination of slight bends, dents, and extrusions, each of these is different and unique for every Sergal. The structure of the penis is similar to canines where the penis is settled within a sheath while flaccid. When erect, the entire penis becomes exposed from the base to the tip. The testicles reside outside the body and are contained in a scrotum. Unlike females' clitoral hoods, males' penises are not prehensile.

Outdated design
The "Early New Age" canon introduced back around 2009 by Mick, was largely temporary and experimental (it included changes such as female Sergals having breasts, a feathery rear, Northern Sergal's ears are extremely short, etc.) As those "major features of the new Sergal" permeated, before very long some of those characteristics were discarded in the latest version of the official canon. Because of this, a confusing situation arose. This entry describes the information based on the New Age Canon and is the latest version at present. To find more about this in detail, read the Sergals Vilous official wiki's page.

Lifestyle
Sergal races differ by region- Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western. As a common feature that all Sergals share, their behavior, personality, and social roles keep gender-neutral state due to the little or no gender differences in their appearance and biological feature. These groups have civilizations of their own, and the world war was caused by General Rain, which had continued for a long time. The Shigu clan which General Rain leads, planned conquest of the whole of Tal.

Their animalistic natures and abilities appear on both their strong points and shortcomings. As strong points, it would turn as bravery and physical strength. Thereby, they are suitable for jobs that require exercise capacity and work extensively outdoors such as soldiers, hunters, and explorers. As for shortcomings, they are unsuitable for jobs that require logical thinking, concentration, and very accurate stereopsis such as crafting and engineering above a certain level. This is rooted in the structure of their brain and eyes. Sergals are generally unsuitable for technical jobs like mechanical engineering, however, they can still perform simple crafting or smith: Make basic armor or weapon from a material. But more complex work like carving, joining, and rasping is definitely a more line of work that is oriented for other races, such as Agudners and Nevreans, especially Agudners can exhibit the patience, dexterous hands, and steady stereopsis ability required to deal with the intricate nature of it all.

Worthy to notice, Sergals have strong intuition close to six sense and superior susceptibility to the natural environment. Due to this, they have the strongest capacity to deal with things that cannot be elucidated by logic and science such as supernatural phenomenon and shamanism.

Unlike Earth's humans, they generally do not stick to one partner and can accept flirting. Also, they do not have antipathy or aversion to homosexual relations because they value appearance most, do not mind about race differences and sex differences when they a romantic relationship with someone. Due to this, Their basic sexuality can be said to correspond to polyamory and pansexuality in the case of Earth.

They do not care about the blood relationships of their children as Sergals generally raise children in a large social group, and they consider their community to be one large "family". Especially, in the Eastern and Southern regions, due to historical symbiosis with Agudners, which is a different race who cannot reproduce or cross-breed between them, taking the adoption of non-biological children is very common in their society.

Sergals also share their home with a number of other species such as the Agudners, who are a sapient even-toed ungulates species. Sergals are close to Agudners and have a very long history and relationship with them, primarily Eastern Sergals and Southern Sergals. Sergals and Agudners can cooperate with each other like the engaged gears while making up for each shortcoming with each strong point. Sergals deal with wildlife and the natural environment while Agudners are taking the development of technology. Thanks to Agudenrs, Southern Sergals were able to raised in civilized and developed culture earliest by symbiosis with Agudners from the early stages of history. People often believe Southern Sergals live with Nevreans. They are a sapient feathered dinosaur species and are viewed below Sergals. Contact with Nevreans is limited to regions; Most Sergals did not know of Nevreans before Nevreans began emigrating to a southern city. The Nevrean's nation is both secluded and exclusive. Their homeland is located in the West. Western Sergals are less populous and considered a sub-species of Northern Sergals, and had a relationship with the secluded Nevreans. Western Sergals were almost destroyed by General Rain, and all alliances of Nevreans and Western Sergals were completely lost.

Combat style
Militant Sergals wear relatively light combat armor made of ceramic or metal armor. Southern Sergals wear metal; Eastern and Northern generally wear ceramic armor. This is rooted in the differences in available materials in each region. In ancient times, Eastern and Northern Sergals were also known to use bone armor.

Basically, Sergals love melee combat and are quite deadly at it. They prefer the use of polearms and bladed weapons as they find the most effective at dealing with Talyxian or even the occasional Eltus threats. Especially, blades also hold up a very distinct, spiritual meaning in lore as well as practical, which is why they are emphasized as the usual go-to solution, from the old-era all the way up to modern.

Sergals have a wide peripheral vision, superior dynamic visual acuity, and excellent situational awareness, however, their overall quality of vision is poor. Due to their eyesight working in conjunction with their brain structure, they are unable to focus on a single target well, and they cannot successfully use projectile weapons without assistance. However, they can practice simple long-range attack like a javelin at close range quite well. In addition, because currently within the Vilous setting there are fairly few firearms available, Sergals rarely use firearms.

Their main proficiency is in evasion and strong offensive abilities, featuring quick, dynamic movements and leveraging their strong jumping ability. Their strength is in close range combat, and they can quickly close the distance from mid-range engagements. They will take advantage of their high stamina to run long distances, chasing down their enemy or prey until they do not have the strength to escape. when Sergals assume a scatter or dispersal tactic, the distance between squads is quite open and vast, across wide ranges of land.

Due to their size, their agility is inferior to Nevreans, but once they are up to speed, they can move the fastest and furthest of any Eltus race.

They can disregard their own defense to a degree when facing off against an opponent. Sergals secrete a large amount of adrenaline during combat and can ignore minor injuries and distractions. Their sensitivity to pain is dulled and their focus is sharpened significantly. However, their critical thinking also deteriorates and they will behave like a pack of lemmings without sufficiently skilled leadership.

Types
The original species of them are Northern Sergals, and there are various regional differences who have derived from Northerners; Southern Sergals who got civilized culture earliest by symbiosis with Agudners from the early stages, Eastern Sergals who are a mixed breed of Northerners and Southerners, and Western Sergals who are an extinct race. But in the modern era of Tal, nationality such as Shigu, Reono, and Gold Ring takes up greater importance than race or subspecies because of the sheer amount of mixing gene pools by globalization.

Northern
Northern Sergals primarily live in the northern regions of Tal in primitive and rural areas near the forest, mainly Astna Plains. They have the longest history and are the closest type to the original Sergal concept.

They have long, fluffy manes, usually with white abdomens, somewhat short ears and a slightly thick face when compared to Southern Sergals. However, these parts do not still reach to very short and thick levels like those of Eastern Sergals. Their primary fur colors are gray, blue, bluish gray, and bluish violet. As a noticeable physical feature, they keep forward-facing eyes even after reach adults, unlike Sergals who are living in other regions. This is caused by their undeveloped and wild environment composed of alien Talyxian biomes, which produce the unidentified and unknown components in the atmosphere that affect growth.

They lived a primitive tribal lifestyle with an animistic belief system for a long time, due to their cowardly and deeply religious nature. Their minds are easily influenced, a weakness General Rain exploited.

After domination by General Rain, their lifestyle totally changed and most of them became combatants who are loyal to Rain. Then after the end of the war and reconstruction of Shigu, they finally got a civilized life.

Southern
Southern Sergals primarily live in the southern regions of Tal in rural areas, small towns, and Gold Ring, the largest and developed country built on the shore of the great salt lake, ColVilous. A large majority live in the Gold Ring.

Their appearance differs greatly from their northern counterparts. Southern Sergals are generally shorter, slimmer, and thinner-furred. Their primary fur colors are brown, beige, blonde, and orange.

Southern Sergals consider themselves to be much more civilized and cultured than northern Sergals. They value cultured and civilized behaviors greatly because they have lived with another species, Agudners, with whom they share their homes, jobs, and culture. Fashion is popular with Southerns, who enjoy dying their fur colorful hues. Gender differences do not still differ on the biological feature, but are more culturally apparent, with female Southern Sergals often having a more "feminine" fashion and behavior.

Eastern
Eastern Sergals are the most numerous type, are mixed of Northern Sergals and Southern Sergals, and primarily live in the middle east to the south of Planet Tal, covering Reono and Gold Ring.

They have longer, fluffy thicker fur more than those of Northern Sergals, and mainly deep colors like mixed colors; such as black, deep-gray, deep-brown, and deep-green. Their build is the biggest among all of the Sergals due to heterosis. They have the shortest ears and thickest faces.

They share their culture with Southern Sergals, specifically civilized and cultured sociality by a relationship with Agudners. Therefore fashion like fur dyeing is popular among them, too. However, they are somewhat rustic when compared to Southerners. Also, they have a very superior hunting technique, and because of this, there are many great hunters among them.

Western
Western Sergals are less numerous subspecies of Northern Sergals, living in the Northwest of Planet Tal, mainly the Vetla forest. Due to below lore reasons, their numbers are very low, although they are treated as an extinct species in official historical facts.

Their appearances are similar to Northern Sergals, with a slender body, and intermediate cold colored fur such as green-blue and purple mainly.

They share their culture with Native Nevreans, specifically strict and clean culture with music, poem, and dance. They value beauty and arts greatly. There are many poets among them.

They had maintained a peaceful civilization of their own, but they were almost destroyed by General Rain due to Rain's lust for beautiful things, and all history of them was completely lost. The few survivors took refuge in Gold Ring, a southern city.