Hyotyl Lore Thread

I hope Hylotl are peaceful, rather than dominant.

 

lol

 

I am almost sure they are not desert dwellers. More likely costal or swampy dweller. Their armour ability is to breathe underwater and their physiology is more like that of a fish or amphibian. Not sure where people got the whole desert thing from.

 

'Help, we've fallen and we can't get up!'

 

Well, I would assume the desert idea came about due to the axolotl creature we know and love being naturally exclusive to two lakes in Mexico, and that there is a misconception that Mexico is entirely made of desert, hot, and cactus. Mexico in reality has a lot of ecological variation ranging from wetlands and lush forests, to deserts and urban centrals.

Also, as for the fall? It's rare in nature, but sometimes axolotls actually do go through a metamorphosis which causes them to shed their gills and become a terrestrial salamander, this is usually do to a genetic bump in the individual animal, or an overabundance of certain hormones. Perhaps the fall is in relation to a sorts of metamorphosis that certain members of the species underwent, causing them to become terrestrial and thus be thrown out of their culture?

 

Why do people think that just because the name is based of off some thing it means the creature is the basis from which the race as a whole came from?

With this logic you could ask why aren't the hylotl culture based off of mexico? It's just a weird frame of mind to have. All we know right now is their based off oriental culture, are most likely amphibians rather than fish mostly because it seems they cannot stay underwater indefinetly.

As for the fall, I actually am going to be RPing quite a bit and made some placeholder lore. I say in my story that the Hylotl world has a lot of similarities to feudal japan. Civil wars, warring factions under different emperors, but i make it on a global scale. If anything, feudal orient culture will be the main inspiration for the Hylotl society.

OR, I could be making some crazy accusations, but meh, it's not any better then saying the whole hylotl race in many aspects is based off of one amphibian species. It's like saying the avians are only based off of pidgeons or eagles. Theyre obviously based on the whole general species of birds itself. Hope I'm not coming off as rude!

 

Uhm, because it was already stated that the physiology of the species is based-off, and similar to the axolotl creature (a completely aquatic amphibian)... I understand their culture is mixed Asian cultures, yes, but the creature is physiologically a sentient, civilized, bipedal axolotl... it wasn't a crazy accusation, people were merely trying to piece things together.

You may not want to come off as rude, but you did come off as fairly... I dunno, it seemed a fair bit argumentative.

 

Sorry! But where is it stated? I remember reading their name was based off of it, or at least we thought it was. I would love to see a source?

EDIT: after looking at my post again, I really shouldn't be apologetic towards my accusations. I'm being argumentative? No, I just don't see where the idea that they are based off of that exact species of animal when in fact the Hylotl have many differing aspects to the axlotl. One being that the Hylotl cannot breath underwater, if they could then they would be more of a fish-like race. These are obviously amphibians, because amphibians (in most cases) cannot breath underwater. Some salamanders, like the axlotl can, but seeing as how the hylotl can't breath underwater it seems as if they do not have gills, or if they do, gameplay-canon says that they "start with gear that helps them to breath underwater". This statement seems to say that the Hylotl have no tendency towards water above the other races unless you count their starter gear. Also, you clearly see that the hylotl have choices of fins and/or tentacle things which i could see being based off of an axlotls frill things on the sides of their heads, but I see that as a point not being that strong of a case. I would say physically, they are between an amphibian and fish, but more or less an amphibian.

Asking questions, even if they are challenging to what you think you already know, are only being asked because i've looked quite a bit for canon lore for my own story for RP, and the only thing I've heard are community members saying the name is based of axlotls, and hell, they're community members, not devs.

 

It is an interesting notion, that the "fall" of an ocean-dwelling race wouldn't be further down, but up onto the surface. Sort of plays on our notions of what it means to be up or down.

 

I'm excited to find out more about my race's culture. "A fall" gives us something to think about for now, I suppose. I can't wait to see a Meet the Hylotl post though.

 

I find it humorous that the one race I firmly decided on is one that would not get any background story or lore until way, way later. Kind of aggravates the role-player in me since myself and my group wants to make our first playthrough a deep role-playing experience as we venture through the stars. They all have their background references to make up their stories, but my lady friend and I are out of luck with our Hylotl duo.

However slight our insight into their racial background is, we have come up with an interesting idea for Hylotls' culture. I'll warn you, this might be a long read:

We speculate Hylotls aren't much of a social race. From looking at their clothes, they come off as Xiao-lin monks; that makes me think that they group together in "schools" inside the peaceful grounds of temples. We don't know why they do this (could be because of this "fall" we were told about, now) but we do know the seclusion from each other gives them quiet grounds to teach their young--and to heavily train.

Hylotl value scholarship and furthering themselves physically, as well as spiritually, we believe. All temples have a Master, a Hylotl that was deemed the wisest, one that was trained the most, and one that was closest to the "spirits" or their preferred religious idol (maybe a great octopus-like being with features like Buddha?). The temples would all be looked over by their Masters and the other, younger Hylotls would train to be in the Master's position of virtue and prestige. However, because of the Hylotls' passivity, there are little to no wars among temples, and no rebellious uprisings inside those temples.

Besides being a sort of father figure to the students, the Hylotl that was deemed enlightened enough to be the Master would have one important task: to robe their students. Hylotls, in my opinion, are not ashamed of nudity; they rightfully have no recollection of such a word existing. On top of that, Hylotl don't look like they would have any embarrassing, human-like genitals to hide, so I imagine Hylotls just go out in the buff all the time. However, they would only do so until they were old enough to receive a robe. The robes are not just clothing to Hylotls. They are a symbol, a projection of themselves, a tell to all Hylotl kind of their schooling or their life path they chose:

The predetermined colors in the Character Creator Beta for the Hylotl robes are what we worked with. The red robes were the Robes of the Flame; Hylotls that were more wild, abrasive or passionate would be given these robes (my lady-friend's character was this). The Robes of the Ocean were, indeed, blue, and were given to young Hylotls that were calm and collected. The yellow garbs were the Robes of the Thunder; these were very dishonorable to wear, as they represent everything the Hylotls disliked: no discipline, no control, and anger--very intense Hylotls to be around, mostly, kind of like the Robes of the Flame. The opposite of the yellow robes were the Robes of the Mountain, the black robes; these were prestigious and grand robes that showed courage, discipline and strength--very much liked by the Master. Green robes represented protectiveness and conservation and were called the Robes of the Forest; these, along with the Robes of the Ocean, were probably the most common robes worn by Hylotl students. The Robes of the Spirit, or the purple robes (both purples, I suppose), are given to knowledgeably gifted Hylotls, ones that are scholarly and very soft spoken and generally not as powerful as a wearer of the Robes of the Mountain, but are much more versed in the ways of the spirit, or chi; the Hylotl I created is a wearer of this robe color--he likes animals! Other robes we have not come up with, like the orange robes or the white robes, but I plan to make something out of them. The white ones could be the Robes of the Wind or something.

This is ALL OUR SPECULATION, however. None of this is even remotely true, but I hope in some small way Hylotls' customs are like this.

 

It is a little annoying that we don't have a background yet as such, but the time will come.

I like the ideas you've shared. It seems the speculation is nice enough that we would still be able to imagine there are indeed Hylotls who live like this even after we are given their canonical story - after all, we know large races of beings can have a multitude of different belief structures if humanity is anything to go by. And, who knows, perhaps your guesses are similar to what the devs have in mind anyway!

 

Same here! Kind of philosophers with a feeling for weapon crafting as an form of art.

 

I was looking at some Starbound footage when I came across this. This is an upload of a stream done by Tiy.



If you go to 21:00 in the video, he is spawning in a set of tier 1 armor. If you look closely at the spawn text you will see it's aquatier1 armor. Based on the fact that Robottier1 armor is medieval and what we know about the Glitch, the aqua armor is for the Hylotl. The armor is reminiscent of 14th and 15th century Japanese samurai armor, while the weapon is basically a katana. This should give us quite a bit of insight on this race. So basically everyone was generally right since the making of a katana was an art form and buddhist monks were prevalent in medieval Asia.

 

In Game of Thrones, Bran "falls" out the window and is then visited by a raven with 3 eyes. I wont ruin it, but as the story develops this becomes a bit symbolic.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with the Hylotl but I think their 3rd eye will play a large role in the lore.

"The third eye (also known as the inner eye) is a mystical and esoteric concept referring to a speculative invisible eye which provides perception beyond ordinary sight."

 

We had to fall, to lose it all.
But in the end...

 

It doesn't even matter.

 

I love how in depth this game is going. I love how the dev's are actually spending time to think up lore for the game. That is something that i haven't really seen in many games.

 

Their asian inspiration certianly provides a setup for that kind of culture.

 

Yep, very in depth considering the Avian has nearly 6 ½ pages of history written. *Starboundgame Wikia -> Source* (sorry, couldn't find forum link)