Profile
Vihma
The Homeland of Vihming. The planet primarily has a rainy, breezy climate, the nights longer than days.
There are no villages, only massive, metropolitan areas, where everything is free for all and Vihming live in a lush utopia. Highly populated, educated areas allow for enough work to sustain the entire region. All this is made possible by the Vihming’s desire for a high quality of life, and a highly hedonistic society that globally acknowledged altruism as the true path to happiness.
Families are large, and children are raised communally by all local adults. The Vihming concept of parenthood is vastly different to the one of humanity. All adults are looked up to by the Vihming youth, and the trust is never doubted, and never broken.
This unique way of living subjects travelling Vihming to debilitating cultural shock, and tends to isolate their society from interstellar matters. They are not interested in business, and don’t understand economics nor war.
Upon acknowledging the world outside of their own, however, the Vihming intellectuals decided that they needed change to protect their existence. The Vihming were split into two classes, so-called Politams and Valinams. Some considered this a step back towards a less ideal society, but many agreed that assimilation to galactic culture was necessary for the safety of their race.
Politams remained safe in their homes, while Valinams were adventurous Vihming seeking more flavor in their short lives, and the ones desiring to protect their own kind. Valinams often resided in outposts or in fleets stationed near the planet, typically acting as soldiers, engineers, and most importantly, protectors. With a high sense of empathy, their coordination was near perfect. The struggle that high empathy presented, however, was mourning, the trauma of battles fought. Suicide amongst Valinams became highly prevalent, and they were both feared and highly respected by the Politams.
Vihming
The Vihming are enigmatic creatures of a gooey, fluid consistency. Their bodies are malleable, but durable. Their colors vary, but tend to remain between the hues of orange and green. To Vihming, their primary identifying features are their colors, and these hues are the ones their eyesight is most sensitive to - they are far superior to a multitude of species in the area of differentiating between colors, even the slightest differences. Their eyes are always a bright, glowing white, no pupils, no irises. Flexible, tentacle-like horns protrude from their heads with a limited range of movement, typically an indicator of mood. Their heights typically range from 5’6" to 6’10", mutations excluded.
Their biology is a mystery to many. They are, in the very least, known to be herbivores, and live extremely short yet healthy lives. Disease is non-existent amongst Vihming, and some species have expressed interest in discovering the secrets to their immune systems. What makes this possible is that their organisms simply do not function like any other at all. Their life tends to be cut around the age of 30, and, experiencing time to the same degree as humans, Vihming acknowledge how short this is, thus their hedonistic culture.
Vihming have a strange, innate sense of the day of their death – when nearing the end of their lives, they are able to sense the exact time when they will die. Death, to Vihming, is instantaneous. Their bodies simply disintegrate into dust. So-called “death parties”, the opposite of birthday parties, help alleviate the grief of loss, and this is a commonly accepted phenomenon by their kind. True trauma and grief is almost exclusively experienced when one dies of unnatural causes – war, accidents, suffering.
They have a mild empathic link with their own kind, and they do not need to communicate their basic needs. Verbal conversation is used for more complex subjects such as philosophy, science, banter and the likes. The ultimate show of intimacy between a Vihming couple is considered having sexual acts without a single word being said, and they often deem a relationship where this isn't possible to require counselling. This habit often also carries over to interspecies relationships, which can result in severe misunderstandings.
