we will be covering the topics of Society & Culture, Fashion & General Living; how both poor and rich people go about their daily lives. You will also find the subjects of Money & Trade and Transportation here! Either scroll through or use the search feature if you wish to go over specific topics. However, I will try to make this as brief and easy to read as possible, so I encourage you to get educated on everything you can! Like one would imagine, each race has different cultures, societies, and ways of living, so everything will be broken down by humans, then merfolk, then werebeasts.
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Society & Culture
Humans
Predominantly living in the West, humans have developed in the temperate, humid regions for millions of years, making it very much their own. Individual human races tend to lead either heterogeneous lives where each of their individual cultures come together, or homogeneous lives where they live a bit more tribalistically. In the warmer and drier Southern areas, tribes of single-raced peoples become more common. The better known and best chronicled parts of humanity tend to come from the heterogeneous townships and cities, where all sorts of people come together for the common good.
What humans tend to focus on the most is the war against the werebeasts and their shaky grounds with merfolk. Strife is not uncommon, and those living in high-risk areas, such as the borders around the sea and the less organized homogeneous tribes, are near always ready for battle. These people tend to live in bordered towns, guarded by good Samaritans and trained professionals if they can be afforded. Some places tend to be more open, however. Humans have a very wide variety of ways of life, though most people like to keep things simple.
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Merfolk
Merfolk tend to live in the North and South, preferred colder climates. Due to this and living under the sea, they are able to live more peaceful and resourceful lives, tending only to get into trouble when the humans or the werebeasts attempt encroach on merfolk territory. Thanks to this easier lifestyle, merfolk have been able to trade items for other goods, giving artists a reason to create and hardworkers a reason to work. They tend to live frugally, though plenty of tribes, like humans, live more extravagant lives. This tends to be possible in bigger cities where trade with the humans is booming. However, the merfolk also tend to live with more in-fighting and civil strife.
The trading often done with the humans is for war goods: armors, weapons, even intelligence for technological and strategic advances. Many merfolk have a problem with this, for many reasons — not wanting to abet the humans against the werebeasts, personal morals against violence, a distrust for the humans — and protests and unrest sprouts up more and more every year. It's a society of opposites in that regard, with some merfolk wanting to fight and others simply wanting to turn a blind eye.
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Werebeasts
Arguably given the hardest start in life, werebeasts have found themselves pushed back into the dangerous Scattered Islands. Ships have a hard time navigating these waters and the peaceful werebeasts — aka, the herbivores — tend to stick together on the largest island, Grass Knoll. The herbivorous werebeasts make up the majority of the race and their small island tends to remain peaceful. In fact, trade could very well boom for herbivores. But one thing holds them back: the small populace of very aggressive and highly war-hungry carnivores.
Carnivores and the even smaller population extinct beasts are debatably faster and stronger than their herbivorous brethen. They are driven by their animalistic instincts to hunt and kill, having an insatiable hunger for flesh and often no regard for other life. These unfortunate werebeasts have been exiled for their violence to the Scattered Islands, where they have since propagated in a twisted and bitter way. Their technology and war machines have surpassed anything the peaceful, Earth-loving herbivores have done, and their fight with the humans for dominance wages on.
There is yet another subsection of werebeasts. One that even herbivores can lose their minds during. All werebeasts have access to a form called the Behemoth. This form can completely overtake every sense in a werebeast's mind. Bloodlust and instinct will fill them, be them plant or meat eater, though the carnivores' and extinct beasts' Behemoth forms tend to be bigger and more brutal. Those than can't control their Behemoth forms are often placed in further exile, on Behemoth Isle. It is said that this place smells of blood from miles away.
The final piece of information to know about werebeast life is that it doesn't always come from two werebeasts. Sometimes two humans can create a werebeast through certain genetic mutations. These werebeasts can sometimes be hidden, due to most of them being herbivores. However, sometimes a carnivore or an extinct beast can be birthed to two humans. In which case, the werebeast is given two options: exiled to the Scattered Islands, or death.
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Fashion & General Living
Humans
Fashion hasn't taken off in many places aside from the comforts of the high-class cities who are guarded on all sides by the middle and lower classes. Only a few places worldwide have this luxury: [place names here when city names have been decided; see Map category]. Most humans tend to make their own clothes or have small family businesses that do so. People live simple lives, usually with weapons or tools of some kind visible on their person, especially depending on their line of work: farmers, officers, entrepreneurs tend to wear different attire on the job. The poorer, the dirtier the clothes may be, depending on the family and the situation. Tribalstic homogeneous cultures tend to do the same, trading with small Ma and Pa businesses for clothes, food, etc.
Merfolk
Living under the waters primarily, merfolk either need to wear specialized clothes from shops in their native towns, or, more frugally, the natural fibers of plants and discarded mollusk shells. The style depends on the location — with a more peaceful lifestyle, they are allotted chances to explore fashion somewhat, with basic things like color coordination and subtle patterns popular in bigger towns.
Werebeasts
Starting with the herbivores, they live what most would call a hippie lifestyle. They wear only natural fibers woven by hand and tend to live as one with the Earth. Herbivore societies have many traveling stands of fruit and vegetables, fine wines and desserts, and clothes and jewelries. Their jewelry tends to be things such as shiny rocks or reclaimed animal bones.
Carnivores and extinct beasts, however, have taken a page out of the human's book and developed simple clothing and armors to help them in combat. They live in rather organized packs where they do business with other packs. Carnivores' clothes can often be ripped due to their continued in-fighting thanks to their animalistic tendencies.
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Money & Trade
For the most part, trade is what takes place. Merfolk and herbivorous werebeasts trade goods, either created through the heart or toiled through the hands, in order for equivalent exchanges to take place. Oftentimes, they work on a "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" basis where both parties get what they want out of a deal.
Humans and the carnivores, however, have developed money of their own. This money is often not usable in merfolk and herbivore societies, but is of great value to its homeland. The money comes in Bucks for the humans and Niiro for the werebeasts. The lowest Buck for a human is valued at 1, then it goes to 2, 5, 10, 15, 25, 50, and 100 at the highest. For werebeasts, Niiro starts at 10, then increments by 10 up to 80.
Let's take a .45 Magnum, comes fully loaded, and try to trade it to different places.
For the humans, you can buy it at an average of 150 Bucks.
For the carnivores, you can buy it at an average of 200 Niiro.
For the herbivores and merfolk, you can trade it for several art pieces, two big repair projects, or several sets of well-made, hand-woven clothes.
There has been rumor of merfolk developing their own currency, much to the dismay of several protest groups.
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Transportation
Our final category! This one will go by quickly, I promise. Let's start again with the humans. Humans have built trains and zeppelins, mostly for use by the military, but sometimes for use by the richer groups. Poorer people are able to purchases horses and other beasts of burden for travel, but will typically choose to go on foot.
Merfolk typically swim or use large Eels and sometimes even dolphins for transportation.
Herbivores typically only walk, but some of them do have beasts of burden.
And carnivores once again have taken a page out of the human's book and have invented their own form of zeppelin and are currently working on sea trains to and from the islands for better organization.
