[tantric]

I did lots of satyrs in my world...

And just for the halibut, my centaur creation myth

The Starweb Nations are a multirace civilization inhabiting the sweeping grasslands of the Thunderfields. There are eleven major nations, seven of which are purely nomadic, and several smaller tribes. The People of the Stars are Centaurs, Coyotes, Gray Foxes, Badgers, Ringtails, Bobcats, Blackfooted Ferrets, Spotted Skunks and White-Necked Ravens. Unlike the Shifters found in other parts of Worldstree, the Starweb Shifters were cannot shapeshift - the stay in hybrid form throughout their lives.

The People of the Stars share a common creation myth. In the distant past a powerful and cruel race held dominion over all the Thunderfields and beyond, and kept the Shifters as slaves and vassals. The Forebearers were part of a triune Equine Race along with the Pegasi and Unicorns. They had the bodies of horses with enormously strong humanoid arms extending from their shoulders, along with the teeth and talons of carnivores. The Forebearers were full Immortals with powerful magic, which they used to build cities of stone.

Over time the practice of keeping slaves blackened their hearts, and the other Herd Spirits left them. The Forebearers tried to trap the other Equines and make them slaves, or raise them as slaves when their females gave birth to Pegasi or Unicorns. But the other two races need freedom to live even if they did not need food and thus withered and died in captivity. Soon the Unicorns and Pegasi stopped coming to the mating rituals in the Thunderfields. Instead, the Pegasi went directly to the forests to seek out unicorn mates. The Forebears needed the other two races to reproduce, but the other Equine Races did not need the Forebearers.

When the Forebearers realized their self-made doom, their society went into a kind of auto-cannibalistic psychosis. They built weapons that could destroy whole cities and set to using them with a will. The Shifter slaves knew the end was near - they no longer believed they could escape, for soon all the plains would burn and die. They prayed to their culture-hero, Grandmother Spider, to save them from the madness of their masters. She did, but at a price.

In the Time Before, Eaglemoon uplifted the Shifters from mere animals, giving them souls that would be born again and again and the ability to assume a mannish form to unite them. The Forebearers were Faeries, spirt with unaging bodies that died forever together with their flesh. Grandmother Spider proposed to take a bit of the Souls of the Shifters and give to the Forebears, and heal their madness, and take a bit of their Spirits and give back to the Shifters, making them one people. In this way both would survive as would the Thunderfields, but it would be a hard choice, to mingle with their hideous masters....

Grandmother Spider wove her net of stars that night, and caught the souls of all the Male shifters who perished in the burning cities. Come dawn she carried the souls bits and placed them in the barren wombs of the Forebearers. Stole the useless seed of the male Forebearers and gave it to the matrons of the Shifters.

The first generation of Centaurs, beings with both Spirits and Souls, were born, and they swore themselves into the servitude of the Shifters. The Shifters, who knew the horror of slavery, permitted this only long enough to tear down the great cities of the Forebearers, and banish all traces of their civilization.

On the Night of Falling Stars Brother Raven became entranced with on the soul-gems in Grandmother Spider's web and tried to steal it. He succeeded, but also became trapped in the web. Now all the Ravens of the Thunderfields bear the white star on their throats and have become part of the cycle of life, death and rebirth.

Outsiders call the civilization that arose from this creation "Starweb" after a ritual common to all the various cultures. The Peoples of the Starweb call themselves 'Iyakhizu' - 'joined'. Raven, biped, centaur - they are one people building a new way of life on the ashes of the old.

I have a fairly well developed culture for the Iyakhizu (which is a Lakota word), PM me if you want the whole shebang.