The Twowi: Imperial Powerhouse
Overview
The Twowi empire is no monolith, but the people of its heartland comprise a grouping of cultures endemic to the Eastern and Southern Huhuchui mountains. Common physical traits in this region include gray or black spot coats, and blue, green or violet eyes. Coats are short and sleek in summer and visibly shaggy in the cold seasons.
Twowi territory historically encompassed harsh, mountainous terrain, though the coastal foothills and northern highlands afforded some arable land. At the northern end of the range lies a system of active volcanoes, considered sacred in the dominant religion of the region. The average inhabitant of the empire experiences approximately [number] hyperborean days of uninterrupted night in the winter. Archaological evidence suggests that lava tubes and hot springs in the volcanic region provided critical seasonal shelter for proto-Twowi in millenia past. Today, the heartland's capital city is Wraroweuik, located along the banks of Pwuk'poi coast. On the southern fringe of the volcanic region lies the holy city of Au-ek, a small but widely known stopover for clerics on pilgrimage to the grave of their creator god.
The Twowi are a matriarchal society, which is not unusual among birgs, but they have pushed the social division of gender common to North Landmass cultures to an extreme. Society is divided into majority female Clans, which display high social stratification, and the more egalitarian, male-dominated Guilds. Due to the peculiar nature of birg sexual determiation, these divisions are easily reinforced by providing fathers with larvae to rear within their guild at the end of the mating season. In the current era, the Clan-towns tend to be highly specialized in a single industry and operate as factories to the benefit of the empire. Guilds preform itinerant labor as required by their client Clans. A large cut of their product is claimed by the government's imperial storehouses and redistributed to other clan-towns as needed.
The Head of Twowi government is the Pentarch, a council of five induviduals that operate as a single executive entity. They are considered avatars of a god split into pieces, and all inferior positions are referred to by different body parts, in observation of their function as extremities of the Pentarch's will.
Twowic languages are right-voiced, meaning primary speech is issued from the right spiracle, while the left produces grammatical background drone. Watwuo, the language of the Imperial Clan, is the most common dialect in the current era. It is itself a creole of languages spoken by the tribes that merged to form the Pentarchy. Many dialects are specific to bachelor groups.