Thus Spoke ZaraRoss/DjalaOrigins
The Djala
This quote is taken from the WW forums, written by Ross Campbell whose ID in there is mooncalfe
Posted: 06 Dec 2006 23:35
Post subject: Djala stuff (warning: REALLY FREAKIN' LONG)
hey guys! Exalted artist Ross Campbell here! i should've posted some shit here a long time ago, but i never have anything to say. anyways, i'm here now 'cause i regularly get e-mails from people asking about the Djala and what their deal is and what the story was of how they came about, and it was suggested that i make a post here about the whole thing. so here it is, super long.
in the beginning they were just called "panda people" (though i later named them) and they were a race in a tropical mystic kung-fu game i was running, that was similar in a lot of ways to Exalted. then Exalted came out in 2001 and it had that sort of tropical/non-European/mystic kung-fu thing i was really into, so i was psyched when i got to work on it (and also because i'm an old WW gamer from back in the day). so anyway, i put the panda people in one of the first pieces i did, just as sort of generic slaves for the Dragon-Blooded dude in the drawing. then i drew them in again on the Manacle & Coin cover, and the Exalted writers/developer actually wrote them into the game and gave them the cool name Djala, which is really great and i was honored.
i had originally meant for the panda people, although feminine, to be androgynous and have no specific gender, but this was dropped when the Exalted folks put them into the game. i was a little grouchy about it at first, but i like Faka Kun a lot and she does look good with boobs, i'll admit. i really wanted to write some stuff for the Djala and help create their background and culture, and i talked briefly with the head developer guy at the time but nothing ever happened with it. oh well.
so anyways, in my other game i had created the panda people for, there were a couple different "subspecies" or ethnicities or whatever. the androgynous panda people were called the Marei (Djala is such a better name), and their spots/markings were supposed to change with the seasons, and also for mating season when they would get more spots and cooler markings as to attract a mate. even though they were genderless, i never got around to figuring out how mating/attracting a mate would work.
the second ethnicity was called the Adoransi, who had similar panda spots but they had tails and were all female and were sort of salamander-y looking. their companion ethnicity was the Gamusha, these big all-male guys whose faces looked sort of like mexican wrestler masks and they had marsupial-type pouches that they could carry the Adoransi around in.
we never got much into their culture, except that they had a bunch of different death gods who all had a hand in each of the tiny, many stages of death. and the panda folks didn't mind dying because it meant they were getting called home by their awesome gods, and they would get to hang out with the gods and everything instead of having to put up with everyone dumping on them all the time and making them slaves.
there was another panda people offshoot a "sequel" game i was running, called the Humunga, and they were like the opposite of the panda people: they were no one's slaves and they were these big crazy barbarian cannibal warriors who were really bombastic and bathed in blood and ate their opponents and all sorts of other really "taboo" barbarous customs, but which were of course normal to them. there's a Humunga character featured in my mini-comic "Mountain Girl," which you can get from me at comic conventions or on my website (plug! hint hint!).
anyways, i guess that's it. that was really long, sorry. i saw some threads here where people were asking about stats and the like, but even if there's no official stats in the books or anything, you can totally make up your own stuff! i really encourage that, i think it's great when people make their own stuff up beyond the game's rules, and i love it when my own players make up their own races and super moves and stuff. that's what it's all about, just go crazy. i'm hearing about this Scroll of Lesser Races book, so hopefully the Djala will have something in that, and i hope i'll be drawing the whole chapter!
-ross.
p.s.: rest assured, hls, i'm gonna do as much Sidereals 2nd Edition artwork as possible! :wink:
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