Towers of the Learned

Culture

Only those Dathra raised by parents have a distinct culture - those without tend to exist as solitary creatures, living on their skill at hunting, chase other loners out of their territory, and only come into contact with other Dathra during mating season. Solitary Dathra live much shorter lives than Dathra that live within a community.

Dathra that were raised by their parents tend to be less territorial, capable of living in loose communities and cooperating for the survival of the whole. Due to this, these Dathra tend to have more leisure time, which is often dedicated to non-survival-oriented tasks, or more complicated versions of survival-oriented tasks, such as taming prey-beasts and improving natural shelters. It is not uncommon for communities to contain three or four different types of prey-beasts, all tamed and cared for.

Despite this, communities of Dathra don't look like much, as Dathra don't have homes or structures that are easily recognized as such. A community is nothing more than a gathering of between 4 and 100 Dathra, each with their own little territory within the greater community territory. The herds of tamed prey-beasts are the easiest way to recognize a community for what it is. Nevertheless, to threaten one member of a community is to call down the wrath of the entirety, and Dathra within a community often have surprising skills and hobbies, such as art, landscape sculpting, or sports.

Every Dathra community has a version of "The Mindgame" - a game played solely through telepathy, which heavily utilizes emotions and images to convey information, rather than words. The goal - to trap ones opponents in a maze in the mind from which they cannot escape - never changes, but the "rules of courtesy" (what is and is not permitted) do. Though often viewed by outsiders as a cruel sport (as The Mindgame can occasionally end in someone so locked within their mind that they never escape), it is an integral part of Dathra society, played for fun as well as competition. Those who do not participate are considered abnormal, and often shunned.