Meet the Orokuhchee: The Bird People of Keera

The Orokuhchee the bird-like species of Keera, and are the other native sapient species besides the Basergo. They have light brown colored feathers. Their beaks are short and thick, good for their seed-and-fruit-based diet. The Orokuhchee can fly, which helps them travel around and influences their architecture. They usually wear an apron-like garment, which ties around the neck and below the wings. It is made so that the tail and wings have easy movement. The most common color to wear is red, but they also have other colors they can wear. Those colors are in mostly warmer tones, such as orange and yellow.

There is low sexual dimorphism between male and female Orokuhchee. This is different from as most birds on Earth, but it works out well enough for them. Below is an image of the average Orokuhchee:

However, some male Orokuhchee have brown spots on their faces that makes them look like they have eyebrows. For example, the Orokuhchee king that features prominently in the story has two spots that make him look angry to the humans due to how the spots are oriented on his face.

The Orokuhchee have shorter lifespans than the Basergo. They usually live until they are 90 to 120 years. However, due to the years on Keera being shorter than on Earth, that is less time than those numbers imply. Orokuhchee consider adulthood to start around 30 years. They also stop physically growing around that age. The Orokuhchee are much smaller than the Basergo, being about 2 ft 8 inches or 81 centimeters tall on average.

The in-world reason there are two sapient species on Keera is that they evolved on different continents. The Orokuhchee evolved on the smaller, forested continent to the south, then eventually spread north to the continent the Basergo evolved on. Some of the Orokuhchee colonies became their own countries, including the one the humans land at the border of. Due to the Basergo, the colonies never got much further north than the equator. Eventually I will go over maps, but that is for another day. Instead, in the next post I will finally talk about the protagonist and point of view character, Alami.