Comments Discussion #2: Evaluating your ideas on Qyaalyon sociology & deciding what to implement 

There's a species of hawk that is quite common in falconry called the Harris Hawk. From what I understand of Qyaalyon culture, they function similarly. Small groups of 5-8 birds work together to hunt and provide for a few or shared nest, and raise the birds as they get older. The birds even work together to catch prey (there are even videos of it) and will share the food. Once they reach maturity, the offspring are kicked out to prevent inbreeding. They will then roam the land, trying to find a mate or a flock, or just stay on their own. Formed groups will fiercely defend their territory from any other Harris hawk (and are more lenient about other species, as long as they are away from their central nest). So maybe some flocks will just raise all their children together.

For the leather clothes, they could use excess oil to condition the leather. If you moisturize leather it can stay supple for a very long time.

If you have owl avians they should be barn owls. Loads of folklore monsters (like banshees) are based on barn owls because they scream so terrifyingly and move like ghosts, so other races should probably think of them as monsters! Probably believing them to be ghosts that were cursed somehow. Also barn owls hunt during the full moon by using the white feathers on their undersides to reflect the moonlight into their prey’s eyes, paralyzing them with fear like a deer in headlights. So barn owl avians would probably place a big cultural value on the moon, maybe worshiping it as a god of hunting and/or fear, and the cycles of the moon would be really important. Also their underfeathers might have strange connotations in their culture then rather than the intimate ones other avians have.

Even if dying feathers is rare, what about tattoos? They could show the history of that person, their flock, or partner. It would also give another job to flightless Qyaalyon’s in the winter towns

For the all female flock, it may simply be a resurgent flock. A new flock that breaks up eventually, only for a new one to eventually form later on. Kinda like that group of bar goes that break up when the bar the frequent shuts down, they go to other pubs and form new groups.

Completely ridiculous but the owl avians as assassins or mercenaries. Almost like a mythical group of quiet flyers that if they see you or your flock as a threat come swiftly and quietly. Of course this would be more of stories told to teach children morals, like many folk stories we have. But then again, a ridiculous, yet fun, idea with many plot options.

I’m curious to find out how the healing will work. Most flocks live on a plain so there medical resources would be very limited, like maybe using branches and long weeds and grass as a sort of cast, or maybe a mix of grass and mud like a softer version of concrete. There all also many healing herbs but I’m not sure if they would be available on plains Cobwebs for scratches and wounds Alder bark for tooth aches Honey for any smoke damage to the throat Horsetail can be used to stop a wound from infecting (Marigold can also be used for this) Raspberry leaf can be used to stop bleeding Sorrel keeps up strength and keeps them from going hungry (maybe used for hunters?) Tansy can help with coughs Thyme helps to ease shock Yarrow helps make someone throw up after consuming something poisonous Again, I don’t really know if any of these can be found on plains, but could maybe be used in other flock located in places like forest or jungles

For the spoken language language bit, absolutely possible. When I'm talking to my friends the conversation is much more give and take overlapping style of conversation, very much like text speak that the young ones (myself included) get bashed for,. There's also a whole lot more slang/swearing, and less fancy words. In professional settings there's more of a turn by turn conversation style, fancy words are used with slightly more frequency, and much less slang/swearing is used. Course, that tends to depend on whoever I'm talking to lol

1. All female flock: I can see an overlap to vow breaking / monogamy issues for long(er) lasting all female flocks. That or adoption, but I cannot see too many strays other than young females who don't want to deal with men for the time being. I think they wouldn't have a traditional flock structure. Maybe it's more like these young men clubs, where you're kicked out once you hit 40 that survive by members recruiting at least one new member during their active time. In the all female flock, the retired females would have (almost) no kids around to look after, making defending themselves much easier. Thus, the flock could be smaller and still work fine. 2. Third eyelids: YES! Spys training to blink with the outer eyelid is a super fun detail! 3. Owl racism: Oh yeah, sounds like great story material! 4. Family tree & name symbols: They may change their surname based on which flock they're in, but they would still be part of the family. I'd expect the flock symbol to be added next to their name symbol and that's it. Maybe there's a coming of age ceremony where you choose your name symbol and write it down to the family name list. Like "oak wing, daughter of fire storm and night feather of the claw family". It would be such a pain to reconstruct family trees from that, but I'm confident some elderlies would draw updated fancy graphic versions based on the family name lists. 5. Vows are important: The idea of individual vows is great! I get very honor-based samurai vibes from the idea that the vows are not to be broken. I have a justice system in my world where judges are appointed as "person of honor" and thus gains the right to decide consequences of rule breaking. With the free will being so important for the Qyaalyons, judges would be super important because rules are made to define when you must respect the free will of others. The judges would suggest a vow to the culprit. If they take the vow and thus accept the consequences of their actions by their own free will, they may stay with the flock. If they don't take the vow, they'll be exiled. I can see vow breakers being executed in this context. 6. Guilds needed in other flocks: I'd argue that specialized "flocks" need other flocks for their daily lifes just like other flocks need their expertise. I cannot see "pure" guild flocks. They'd always have people around who do the cooking or pottery or cleaning or hunting... Giving them the time they need to develop this high level of proficiency in something else. I expect this special skill to be more like a flock focus as in "this one great healer is in this flock" rather than "all members are healers". It would feel more natural to me if there were kind of "secondary flocks" for education, but you'll be with your primary flock most of the time. Guild meetings can be anywhere, even if there was no flock town. 7. Messengers: Do you know about yoik or yodel? It's a message system of distinct calls that don't form real words, but code a range of messages. Both were developed in the mountains in order to carry messages to neighbours even if echoes prevent real talking. In your world, I guess developing such a system would rather be a matter of efficiency to pass news without newspaper. Plus it feels super birdy.

A few thoughts: 1. How about using weaponised boots or shin guards? Cover them with weights or a blade and shwoop down from the air to kick the target at speed. Because of the inherent danger of approaching so closely the younger individuals could do it to prove there nerve or have something to gloat over. 2. People can have multiple mother languages which are very different from eachother (as an example: in east Ghana there is a small language spoken in a number of villages called Avatime but the people there also learn the far more prevalent languages of Ewe and English from a young age) though it is inevitable that certain aspects bleed from one to the other, especially if one is far more commonly spoken. Status, be it through tradition or use in fine art or even by the stubbornness of elderly people, could help in the preservation of the distinction though; Hebrew is a great example of this. 3. Radical or extremist sentiments tend to rise as people become dissatisfied with the current status quo or think it is in danger; so perhaps the Quaalyon try to combat such groups by ensuring as bast they can that everyone finds a place to belong, starving them of members. This could ty into the traveling around to find your flock or even vows between individuals.

Perhaps the healing flocks and other trade flocks have some sort of uniform (be that some part of their clothing or dyeing their wings) that denotes them as healers with other details denoting their specific flock. Like how we associate a cross or the staff of Hermes with the medical profession despite any variation on those symbols.

On temporary marriage vows: handfasting ceremonies were once used to marry a couple for a year and a day. In small, remote areas, there isn't always a priest on hand to preform a wedding. So couples could handfast and live as spouses until there was a chance to get "properly" married.

I'm not sure how this would work, but maybe smaller bird avians could use semi-prosthesic wing extensions? Like how some people use stilts, or like those cosplays where people make functioning mech suits, avians with smaller wings could use temporary attachments to fly faster, though material and weight would have to be kept in mind. Edit: I'm not sure if this is a good idea, and it might not make sense, but I hope it's at least entertaining! :)

Can the avians interbreed with each other? Also the idea of having a bird with human level intelligence sounds awesome, like the eagles in lord of the rings. But with a more fleshed out culture, that’d be so cool. Also the winter city’s give me an idea, if something were to happen where they have to stay around longer, will they eventually start domesticating animals and start farming. Also if they can interbreed together will they be discriminated against the same mixed race people were in the past? Like a half quallyian half owl person, something who aren’t excepted by both, how would they survive? Did some avian races come about by interbreeding the different races? Also I know they’re against animal domestication but because their hunter gaverers will they have a hunting partner? Like we humans have dogs. Will the city’s have they’re equivalent of cats to us? Just some thoughts.

For the dying feathers, we humans often do stupind/dangerous things for pleasure, or to be cool or beautiful. So, if dying can alter a little your feathers, I think a lot will do it still, but only for special occasions, and some will do it too often at the risk of becoming a liability because they ruined their wings, and others would always avoid it and will be seen as "killjoys" in big parties. One fun thing about behaviours is to imagine how the extremes will twist them :p

On the topic of a Qyaalyon's personal symbols to identify themselves, it would be interesting to take inspiration from Japanese "kamon". There are similar to family crests in Western culture but are much simpler. They are more like icons. They use no text or writing, so they can be understood in every language. They are also colorless, so they can be carved, sewn, or drawn onto anything, without being confused with another kamon. Combined with being simple and geometric, it also makes them easy to replicate. Another aspect of these crests is they are usually flowers, leaves, other plants, clouds, or even animals. Also, the earliest kamon were developed in the tribal eras of Japan specifically to distinguish tribes or families from each other, making them great for Qyaalyon's societal structure!

The All Female flock has the pretty obvious comparison to the Amazons. The amazons would only socialize with men briefly so they could have children and when they had birth they kept the daughters and gave back the sons to their fathers. Maybe the flock could do something similar. That way the flock lasts a little longer than they would without it?

I used to go to church with a girl with no arms. She was about six and could color, draw, brush her long hair, eat, etc. with her feet.

they could just not have sex and romance/partnership connected in their culture, there are many human cultures where where there isn't "casual adultery" but rather that sex is just something consenting adults can do and the equivalent to "marriage" is more about sharing resources like food and shelter and child rearing.

Your world (at least what we've seen so far) just has this really comforting sense of mundanity to it that makes it feel alive, and I love that.

I think it would be so cool if they had a sport, kinda like quiditch. Maybe capture the flag or something sight based that uses their superior vision.

Could definitely see an old age spirit or demon creature mythology of wingless, jumping *things* with extra arms, hands, and fingers that are supernaturally strong.

Oh! I'm calling it! The 11 deities in the pantheon are the scientists/magicians which created this world and species!

13:57 I can't believe I made a suggestion for a partly polygamous society for someone else's fantasy world and it was considered. This is easily the weirdest thing to me this month. I sometimes forget people actually read comments.

I don’t have any suggestions, but I would just like to say that I really enjoy your videos!

As an amature linguest, i belive that you’re talking about accents/dialects. :)

Thank you for mentioning my comment! As a crochet enthusiast I was super excited when you mentioned a source of wool/animal fiber. Drop spindles and looms would be easily accessable with materials on the plains. There could also be sources of plant fibers too. You can macrame with yarn as easily as you can with leather. Would garmets created using fiber be used exlusivly as pratical underlayers or would they have special significance? Like extra flashy festival wear or religious vestments? Or being lower status because the flock couldnt hunt enough leather? Or undyed macrame fiber goods being low status and brightly colored fiber goods being prized? I could see diffrent fiber arts like weaving, crochet(hooked stick), knitting(two sticks), and nalbinding(bone needle) having diffrent culteral significances based in the amount of time it to create a finished proudct and the amount fiber used up. I hope fiber arts is an enjoyable world building rabbit hole to fall down.

1. The way you been taking about how many young gyaalyons often leave their flock to pursue a new and even take om a new name and new identity had gotten me thinking of various LGBTQ themes.

What would happen if natural disaster were to strike on the winter villages? If they are all in the same space at the same time is there some way they ensure that their species doesn't suffer as a result of this?

To throw in something about hunting, one hunter can fairly reliably provide food for a group of 6 (so themselves and 5 others), based off daily calorie consumption, calories in meat, and the amount of meat a hunt can provide. This video is where I got this from, and explains it a bit better. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7IRFtGsFFdc.html So the “rest days” you mentioned make perfect sense.

11:39 Two things: 1) This could actually become the foundation for a written language, sort of like a proto-script. As you've said, the symbols could be pictographic. Say your name meant something like "eagle flies" or "rains fall". (I have been playing too much Red Dead Redemption 2, why do you ask?) Your symbol could incorporate say an eagle pictograph and a cloud pictograph to show that it's flying, or a rain drop and a mountain to show that it's falling. It would be highly contextual but still legible if you didn't know the name exactly. There could still be other symbols around the main ones to embellish it and specify who it belongs to. Like you could have a paw print to show like "Which Eagle Flies? Oh yeah, Eagle Flies who killed the jaguar!" I could see this practice eventually leading to a sort of proto-writing. Symbols would start to be used to represent sounds instead of whole words. Sort of like what I think happened with Egyptian hieroglyphs. Anyways I personally imagine this would be like a quilt and once you came of age you'd add your patch. 2) I could totally see that becoming a common wives tale. At very least it would be like dating someone who looks like you in our culture. Like I can't tell you how many times I've been walking around with a girl I like with pale skin and dark hair and eyes only for someone to tell me "You guys look like brother and sister!" One time I even had someone mistake me for my best friends son and I'm like...I'm older than her! But you know, causal ableism. Anyways, yeah. I totally think it would be something people could believe. You could also get metaphysical since they associate wings with the soul. This could actually go one of two ways because basically it would be seen as you having the same soul. This could either be gross because the idea is that your partner should have a different soul than you do or it could be seen as being like soulmates. Which...could be romantic or platonic depending on how you want to play it. Maybe "soulmates" doesn't have the same romantic connotation. Maybe it's like your astral family or something like that. I don't know it really depends on what their religion is like. Personally I like this idea that God made us with four arms, four legs, and two heads but the Demiurge split us in a part and part of liberation is reuniting with our other half.

Owls without musk would definitely lend potential to them being seen as dangerous and cold, and I love that idea. Owls being unable to see the same color spectrum and possibly ambush predators (maybe even a rogue owl flock that raids or steals from other avians) would be so scary and make a good boogeyman in addition to the leonine creature that hunts on the ground. You can't hear them, smell them and they can strike from the air. Would also force avians to confront owls who may not be guilty of some of the rogue actions of others

Thinking about air crossbows, researching crossbows being used from horseback might be a good place to start for how an air crossbow might be modified to be loaded in the air and keep the arrow/bolt in while flying. Edit 1: Also, have you thought about how language, culture, and physiology are linked? For example, in my world, I have a species of lizard people who lay eggs and raise young communally and so don't have our concept of parents as every adult is expected to help raise every child, their language reflects that as the English word "parent" translates into something more like "elder". Also, I have fairies with pointy ears who use their ears to convey emotion, anyone without ears seems robotic to them. This causes some difficulty in communicating across species and has resulted in their writing system being layered, with one set of symbols for sounds and another for ear positions. Returning to my lizard people, their language makes heavy use of their syrinx (the organ that parrots use to talk) and so is impossible for my fairies (and humans, not that my world has us) to speak without magical assistance. Edit 2: I don't expect you conlang to think out the immediate above, I've not done it and don't intend to. What I have done is make a table for each of my languages with concepts and literal translations of various terms with notes on why those translations are how they are. I'm thinking of submitting this not-conlang format to Artifexian's WLRST series once I formulise what I'm doing. Edit 3: Think of it kinda like putting an English term/phrase into google translate and then reverse translating it back into English.

Regarding 'casual adultery': I think one thing that could work based on the principle of freedom, responsibility and level of wish fulfilment would be polygamy being quite accepted, aka the same emotional investment and pledge, just extended by three people or more to one another, which would also be in keeping with taking care of the children as there would be an additional primary care giver

On the vision thing, there is an alternative to glass lenses that's flavourful. I keep a guitar pick with a small pinhole in it underneath my watchband in case I lose my glasses or they're damaged and I need to read something far away. A tight pinhole works alot like a lens (which is why they were used in the earliest cameras) and can even correct for astigmatism. A rigid material, especially one that's moldable like horn, could be made easily into a visor with many small holes to function as a pair of glasses as opposed to the handheld monocle I use myself. The trade off for this would be critical though, pinhole glasses work by eliminating your peripheral vision so flying with them on the whole time would be dangerous, like driving without glasses, or with sunglasses at night since it reduces the amount of light that comes into the eye. If farsightedness is a species-wide trait then pinhole glasses could start life as a crafting tool, assisting in detailed close up tasks and then finding new life as a tool for trade with other cultures as they'd make reading much easier. It could even support them not developing much of a writing system prior to this if fine details are difficult without a tool. I know that different cultures across the world have made goggles that work on a similar principle to prevent snow blindness, so that could serve as some cool aesthetic fuel.

I had this little Idea, a small Scene, popping into my Head and I just wanted to share and ask if it is possible that something like this happens: "On swift Wings, she swooped through the Sky over the Grassland. Her Weapons were with her, but she didn´t carry any Luggage. Her Eyes were intend on the two Horses chasing her Shadow on the Ground, through the high, green Grass of this Area where the Mountaincreeks met the Grassland. Her Companions had long given up on trying to pronounce her Name and had taken to calling her 'Firebird' for her reddish speccled Wings. It was also the Translation of her Name in the Tounge of the Mainlanders. She couldn´t speak the native Tounge of her Nautican Companion for the Life of her, and the same went in the other Direction. So, they three of them had settled on the Tounge of their Leader, a Mainlander. Being a Flock meant finding Ways to work as one and fix Problems. Swiftly, she rode the Windcurrents and looked out over the Grassland, the Land of her People. So what if her Parent´s Flock would shun her for her Choice? These two wingless People and their Animal Friends were her Flock, and she would explore their World with them until she had either seen everything or her Soul left her Wings for endless Sleep. With Determination in her Heart, she looked ahead to introducing her new Flock to her Parents and face their Judgement, whatever it might be."

Chu-ko-nu is an ancient "automatic" crossbow. I think the fact that it is made only of wood and is light would make more sense than it was created there. Gravity would also help his lack of firepower. I agree with monogamy. Mostly because of the time it takes to raise their young. Besides it gives a sense of nobility to said people that would force you to love them more. The ceramics are interesting, but I was excited about the idea that being people with a little bird, they would make their homes and furniture with branches, woven straw and some clay. I loved the video, thank you.

I just woke up haha... But yeah, I love the idea of flocks of younger qyualyon (still can’t spell it lol) coming up with performances and performing them during the winter to impress their relatives.

You might want to look in to the Earth's Childern series to see how a society that has a consensual non-monogomus marriage could work in a demi-nomadic hunter-gather society. As well as a symbolic pictograph 'name' to identify themselves. The books are thorough in the varied social structures & well researched but are outdated.

I have an idea for the all-female flock. Some birds (chickens, turkey, condors) can undergo parthenogenesis or "virgin birth." Basically an egg acts as a sperm cell and fertilizes another egg. A thing to keep in mind though is that parthenogenesis brings out recessive mutations, and may produce very sickly children

"they aren't moneyed and don't have a real class system, no land ownership, no titles to pass on" That sounds a whole lot like Marx's primitive communism theory. Was this purposeful? Perhaps their society falls more toward what we consider socialist, which would make sense with the less organised social and family structure they have. Just a thought

As for tonal languages, I might have mentioned it before but a lot of whistle languages evolved from tonal ones. Basically they work by mimicking the stress or tonal contours of the spoken language. Kind of like what I said one time somewhere about being able to tell a story with a tapestry. You totally can, just so long as you already know the story. You can sew pictures into the tapestry which invoke a certain story that's either common knowledge or known by the story teller, but if you didn't know what the story was it would be like reading a picture book without the words. Like when I was five and I got a picture bible for Easter and I told some story about people bringing grains to this building and then their heads caught fire until I realized much later that they were stone bricks instead of grains and the building was the Tower of Babel. Point being that you have to know the spoken language to understand the whistle language.

For keeping the bloodlines well tracked You could do something along the lines of when couples mate they weave or knot something and could even knot it into their clothing as if they are wearing their history but only those who know what knots go with what families. This could help keep track of who is related and make them know as soon as they meet who they are. Just a though

Obsidian isn’t just sharp enough to shave with, it naturally shatters down to one molecule, forming edges which are about 30 angstroms thick. That’s only 6-30 atoms wide, about 500 times sharper then the theoretical best steel can be sharpened to. It is so sharp that the blade is invisible for the final millimetre and it can cut surgical incisions on a sub-cellular level.

Great video, I have a few things to say now because it made me thought about them. First, obsidian is actually an incredible tool, it is even still used today to make scalpels, as they are sharper than steel (they are a lot more fragile though), so they using them to cut their feathers is incredibly plausible. Second, the family tree could be register with their clothing; scottish families used to have particular patterns for ancient families in their kilts, and since your avians make clothes by knotting leather, they could use a system similar to the incan khipu; patterns of knots made in a specific way yo comunicate information. Third, and I am really sorry about this (as it looks like a he said-she said type of situation) but octopuses DO HAVE "secondary brains". It is true that in most cases vertebrates don't have them, and the idea of it came from a missinterpretation of dinosaur fossils, but octopuses are not vertebrates, they have what is called a decentrelized nervious system, in which their peripheric nervious system acts like another brain in each of their arms, besides their central brain that work as what we understand them. Avians are vertebrates, but as you have said before, they didn't evolve, they were made, so giving them a secondary brain (or more correctly, a decentralized brain) could still be possible if you wanted to give it to them.

Depending on what the wingstealer toxin comes from, and details about the tree people from your stream, the toxin could be descended from hybrids of treepeople clippings and some other (non-sapient) toxic tree clipping. The treeperson ancestry would likely have to be ancient, however. This idea could also lead to a relative of this plant based wingstealer, that attacks the nerve clumps in the wings and potentially even sever the wing completely. Perhaps even doing this out of a vestigial desire of when its species had a mind that wished to cause pain to all with flesh and freedom.

Defining marriage through a vow, but not nessecarily one about monogamy is a really cool concept. It allows for a spectrum of "marriage" traditions and cultures. And you could take inspiration from as varied sources from our modern western concept of a love based marriage, old celtic child based marriage, the planned property based marriage of many cultures, plural marriages of siblings or other relatives as seen in for example tibetan history, the complex systems of marriages, concubines and affairs of the medieval era in both japan and europe and the Mosuo traditions of matrilineal families where the role of raising children is more on the uncles, and the fathers are not considered a part of the family as such. All possible arrangements could take place in the same world, under the same rules. And while a coupling based on love and friendship till dearh do us part or till our children move out or something like it might be the most common, it could be very freeing to have such a system where people for whom that doesn’t feel right could choose another arrangement.

The way you speak about birdsong as a closely related dialect or even a formal register reminds me about Silba whistling from la Gomera (and other similar whistled communication). It is a whistled form of Spanish created for long distance communication. In a way similar to alpine yodeling or scandinavian kulning (both developed from cattle calling). Wikipedia also compares it tp how the tonal qualities of yoruba allow it yo be transcribed into the talking drums. So birdsong as a different register of the same language, rendereding certain sounds and phonemes into tonal qualities and sounds better suited to the "bird voicebox" makes a lot of sense and has prescident in our world. It could be used for a myriad different uses, such as being louder or communicating further (and perhaps, if they have more controll over the frequencies, it could also be more quiet, or placed in a frequencie that does not startle a certain prey, or which is quickly distorted and covered by sounds i their surroundings), as a formal register for certain cultural expressions or situations, a way of relating to their heritage or a way of communicating in code to avoid evesdroppers. Also Artifexian has a good video on conlanging for alien spiecies which goes into detail about the anatomy of birds and reptiles as well, which mifht be useful.

I've been thinking about how the hunting and gathering would work. Basically I imagine that each flock would eventually be made up of couples that form hunting partners. Every so often depending on how far they have to travel, a party of like two or three couples would go off and hunt while the other couples, children, and pregnant or nursing women would stay and gather. Relating to the last comment, in this way day to day childcare would be communal while parenting would be left to the big stuff. Like if you had your friends babysit while you go off and work. A gathering couple might supervise a hunting couples children as well as their own and when the hunting party they would trade turns and the hunting couple would watch the gathering couples children in return. If a woman became pregnant or was nursing, either her husband would simply have to go alone or another member of the flock might pull a double shift if food was scarce.

Regarding avian language, I've heard that while humans are very attentive to relative pitch (we recognize a melody regardless of key), birds are more attentive to absolute pitch. In real natural languages, tones are always relative; two different speakers will likely tend toward different absolute pitches for their high and low tones, and they'll often change those pitches in certain contexts, retaining only the relative relationship. Perhaps avians would be more rigid, to the point that not having perfect pitch might be considered a speech impediment or disability.

Love this! I adore listening to things like this while I do coding. Can glance over but don't need to look at. This was awesome!

Regarding punishing vs. not punishing children born from infidelity, I think it could depend on whether the culture believes that who your parents are affects where you stand in society in terms of status/opportunities, or that the circumstances you're born into or fall into are some sort of divine retribution. The Qyaalyon don't seem to be like that. I have heard of an example of a historical king in an otherwise monogamous society claiming his illegitimate children, thus giving them some opportunity and protection from stigma, so there are always some work arounds.

On the whole flight bladder thing cause it's kind of my thing: I'm on the fence about flight bladders in avian-humanoids. I mean I guess it really depends on where the avian part came from. Like in my world, as I think I've explained before, there exists mutagenic magical herbs which work like this: Mature plants will cast their seeds into the wind or current where they'll eventually land and be buried into the soil. If an animal dies on top of the soil where the seed was buried it's blood and viscera will bleed down into the soil and fertilize or activate the seed. Once the seedling has matured, it carries the essence of whatever animal was used to fertilize it. This has the effect that when consumed, it temporarily gives whoever consumed it some trait of that animal. Humans and other sapients cultivated different strains of these plants to produce different transformations. Marine cultures would cultivate what they called gilly-weed (stolen from Harry Potter) to allow them to breathe underwater and swim faster. Mountain cultures would cultivate what they called feather-fern to grow wings so they could traverse steep cliffs and large chasms. The catch is that if ingested by a fetus, the effect is often subtle but permanent. Thus in cultures that relied heavily on this plant for their way of life, mothers would often accidentally or intentionally consume them while pregnant and thus unintentionally expose their growing fetus or embryo. Over several generations these mutations became less and less subtle as they built on top of each other. Wings could at first appear as a slight deformity of the shoulder and back muscles, then small nubs jutting out of the back, until eventually they were outright wings. The irony is that as people were permanently transformed by these plants they became more and more reliant on them until the transformation was apparent enough that it didn't hinder them and they could simply adapt on their own. Long story short, in my world beast races are made from the actual genetics (albeit magically imprinted) of those beasts. This means that if they have any kind of non-human features it has to come from an actual animal. So far as I'm aware, the idea of a flight bladder is only speculative and isn't seen in nature. Swim bladders are totally a thing but I'm pretty sure those are just filled with air which would just make you gassy, not lighter. Although on that note if you do end up going with flight bladders I would recommend filling them with hydrogen instead of helium. I don't know how more or less effective it would be but the body naturally produces hydrogen and methane from digestion. The flight bladder could either be connected to or in line with the stomach or intestines to allow it to accumulate gas. Fish can also expand and contract their swim bladders to increase and decrease their level of buoyancy and I figure flight bladders would work the same. With my dragons I turned this into a breath weapon. Basically they evolved to force gas into their mouths and ignite it using electrolytic minerals like quartz or platinum to produce a flame. I don't know if you'd want to do that with your avians. It could be cool, not in the fire breathing sense but they could use it as an easy way to start a fire. Strike a flint and steel and blow hydrogen into the kindling to make it catch quicker. Alternatively, it could always go the other way to humorous effect. Maybe when they're startled it could cause their flight bladder to contract, a sort of diving reflex if you will. This could be a funny little odorless toot or a full on silent but deadly if it mixes other digestive gases to produce hydrogen sulfide. (which I've been told smells like rotten eggs. …Which I've been told is unpleasant) You know I didn't think this would end on bird people farts but here we are!

With regards to the ageism thing, it honestly sounds way more like ableism than anything ageism, since it has more to do with the ability to fly. It might be interesting to interrogate what the difference in cultural aditudes towards hunters that lost the ability to fly to age vs injury or sickness, or avians that were even born without it. There's so so so much to get into with regards to disability in the real world that I can't really begin to cover it, but it feels more apt a comparison to me. Especially since most folks who reach a certain age will become disabled in some way, but in our world there's a massive amount of invisibility and denial that gets in the way of the awareness of that fact.

Polyamory is VERY widespread; I think it’s unfair to assume that it just simply wouldn’t work within a flock. But you’re god in this universe so 🤷🏻‍♀️ you do you I guess

The Avian's form of language with the more musical form of speaking, and the more normal way with less sing-song. I was thinking that the more normal way might have been picked up from the mainlanders when they were first trying to communicate with one other. As the mainlanders couldn't understand the different musical notes that the Avians were using, what if it developed as the Avians were using certain musical notes that human ear can't pick up, as if the humans are tone-deaf to some of the notes that the Avian's are using to communicate, and the more normal way of speaking uses more low notes rather then high when communicating with the mainlanders, along with being much more flat and "one-toned" so-to speak, as its easier for both the mainlanders and the Avians. And for the more musical way, as it is more of a traditional way of speaking, I was thinking that it might use more high notes to have much more contrast to the more normal way, and that it might use more of the notes that the mainlanders can't hear. Of course this may very based on the different species of Avians.

I like either kind -- long listener videos and watching-type videos -- but I so appreciated that you said it was gonna be that kind of video at the beginning. It was great that you set up my expectations and followed through -- whereas if you hadn't, I might not have realized I could do handwork during without missing out!

Another thread talked about collecting honey would be beneficial, but difficult because smoking bees would be risky at best and they wouldn't be able to make bee protection modern beekeepers use. Bees can leave farms freely and sometimes abandon them so the free will/farming problem might not apply (if it's thematically weird to farm bees and nothing else the next points still work for wild bees). Regarding the smoke problem, bees freeze in response to certain frequencies and maybe some avians could replicate that? Modern bee protection might not be viable but they could wear something like medieval beekeepers used, since I think you mentioned that they weaved baskets. Another comment said something about Avians potentially being experts with wax and oils, and bees could be another source. Also: Could the Avians use whistle languages or something similar? They might be different to human whistled languages because of the different vocal tract(s). Maybe they're mostly used for long-distance communication, or in birdsong. I don't know how common it is in human cultures but this might influence the spoken language too, with interjections and tone markers being whistled. Since a lot of whistle languages are tonal the languages could overlap a bit.

14:26 it would be good to distinguish between adultery and polyamory and simply not choosing one partner for monogamous partnership, these are 3 very, very different things, and impact partners very differently. While adultery is toxic to trust and relationships, polyamory and "no-one-partner-chosen" heavily rely on good communication skills and inherent trust in your partners. It would not necessarily create any more drama than monogamous relationships - the same way as not all monogamous relationships end in hurt feelings, hate, and gossiping (in fact, I'd argue that most don't), polyamorous settings would as easily keep relationships civilized even after they're done with being romantic partners. The whole "hate your ex" is a toxic trait that has been disproportionately amplified by media and social media, while in real life most adults are capable of splitting up without creating earth-shattering drama.

23:20 Regarding raising kids of killed flocks, there's a simple answer. Don't. In tribal warfare, it wasn't uncommon for the end result to be genocide. Not universal, as killing enough the group leaves or fall apart also works. Also, slavery is the norm in history. Wouldn't necessarily work nearly as well with a race where prisoners can fly away... but that raises the possibility of a sort of 'wing broken' Caste, where wings get damaged to prevent flight. This then could raise interesting social conflicts with those who had their wings broken by others vs those who suffered an accident and were permanently maimed, add religious elements of 'the gods took away your flight because you weren't worthy of it', and the act of breaking wings to enforce slavery get associated with priests who do it ritually.

Cool, there I am! ^_^ And I totally get it, mostly the mural/tapestry family tree thing was something to chew on.

Re: the marriage and casual adultery thing Maybe a better word to frame that concept would be polyamory. Like, when the terms of marriage vows can differ from partnership to partnership, and individual freedom is highly valued in this society, then marriage partnerships aren't like in western cultures where it's a package deal of to raising a family and sexual/emotional monogamy. Like, an agreement to raise children together isn't necessarily an agreement to be sexually and/or emotionally monogamous with one another. They can still have sex with other people outside the partnership but it wouldn't be regarded as adultery/drama if everyone is aware of the situation and consenting, especially since this culture values honesty and integrity a lot. And with how flock loyalty is so important in this culture, I feel like, raising the biological children of one's flockmates as one's own could end up deepening intraflock bonds and commitments and improve flock cohesion as a whole. On that note, the concept of flock loyalty being prioritized over blood relations, I feel like that and polyamory could translate to marriage vows/partnerships being possible between more than two people in this culture. Like, a tight knit group of very close friends agreeing to raise all of their children together and being emotionally committed to one another. Or, a married couple befriending someone who grows so close to them and contributes majorly to the rearing of their child, so they collectively decide to formalize their arrangement with a marriage vow including the third person. On the topic of world building being wish fulfillment-y, what I said is colored by my experiences of being Asian and queer. Like, family to me isn't just blood relations its the entire community that reared me. And, I remember one of my friends got married recently, mostly for tax benefits. They're committed emotionally and financially to each other. But they don't have sex cuz one of them is ace. But my friend isn't so he has those needs met with other people. And I feel like I'll prolly end up in a similar arrangement. And i do wish i lived in a world where that was more accepted

Not related to this video specifically, but I found your content when I was going through a hard time, and it inspired me so much that I started world-building again, just seeing you showcasing your ideas started to give me a bunch of ideas as well, and I just wanted to say thank you for helping me to pick up my favorite hobby again after a long time!! 💜

This is one of the best world building series I've seen

Oh boy, crossbows are also kind of my thing because I think if black powder was never invented, which could have very easily have been the case, it would be the default weapon next to a sword...in fact, I take that back it would probably exceed the sword in common use. So in my fantasy setting, this is the case. I based human cultures on Indo-European and Semitic cultures and elven cultures on Asian, Oceanic, and Amerindian cultures. Since black powder was first invented in China I decided to give it to the elves who used it as rockets and bombs but never cannons and eventually hand cannons. Elves in general have a taboo against synthetic ranged weapons because they believe that your weapon is an extension of your soul and when it connects with your opponent, your souls should meet. Arrows are tolerated because they're made out of natural materials and thus can carry a part of the soul. Elven archers consider it good luck to blow on their arrow shaft and bow string before they shoot. This is thought of as literally breathing life into the arrow. It carries a part of your soul which meets with the soul of your target. This is also why weapon theft was elevated above regular theft, where instead of merely having your hands cut off you would have been beheaded. They believe that when you steal a mans weapon, you're not just stealing his property but instead a part of his soul. Hence it was also used in dark folk-magic (not real magic) to grant you power over someone, similar to using hair and nails in other magic traditions. Sorry that's a bit of a tangent I literally just thought of it as I was typing. Worldbuilding is so cool! So since humans never discovered black powder on their own, the only way they could have obtained it was through trade. However, until fairly late into their history, there was only one trade route between the humans and elves and it was through a mage-centric human society. Fire mages have no need for black powder and actively discourage it's use because it takes away from their monopoly of force. So it wasn't until a new trade route opened up off the western coast of Niugard that trading for black powder even became possible. This wasn't until the Coal Rush, this worlds equivalent of the Gold Rush. It was of course traded and used frequently and it even made it's way back to the Old World but typically in the forms of mining charges and bombs. Hence why it's known as "blasting powder" and not "gunpowder". Because to the people of Eingard, a gun is something very different. See, since firearms were never invented that meant there were only three types of weapon: blunt, edged, and ranged in the form of archery. Archery had one major advantage to blunt or edged weapons, you could kill or injure someone from far away. This is an advantage in our world and in Eingard, the only difference is that Eingard has giant birds that can breathe fire. So there's a paradigm where you want to be as far away from the fire as you possibly can be and the dragon wants to be as far away from the big sharp pointy thing as it possibly can be. This makes archery a perfect anti-dragon weapon. However, the dragon can just fly higher than your arrows can. So you need your arrows to fly higher than the dragon. The only way you can do this is by making your arrows lighter and thus weaker or making your archers stronger. The trouble is it's difficult to find several hundred clones of Joerg Sprave from the Slingshot Channel, even for a dwarf. However the archer doesn't have to be particularly strong if the bow can help them out and thus the crossbow was born. Eventually, soldiers started to think "You know, I really like these crossbows but gosh it's really difficult to reload them. Maybe I could make a crossbow that reloads itself" And so some clever dwarf created a lever action repeating crossbow. These actually exist in real life. All you have to do is load bolts into the magazine, rack the lever, and squeeze the trigger. There are earlier Chinese versions of this (I forget what it's called but for some reason I can see a picture in my head of a big tiddy anime girl using one because of course that exists somewhere it's the internet) where you don't even have to squeeze a trigger, just release the lever and it fires automatically. After this, soldiers naturally started to think "Wow, this is great! I can shoot at such a faster rate but gosh it really puts a hole in my wallet! If only someone could make cheaper arrows, even if they're slightly less effective." And so the clever dwarf's grandson probably made short range repeater bolts. These are less expensive them regular arrows and long-range bolts since they're made of cheaper sometimes even synthetic materials and they don't have to be as perfect. These don't fly nowhere near as far as a normal arrow but work for most engagements, especially CQC which usually takes place at 110 yards. Here there's not a need for super powerful arrows and an advantage to having lots of compact ammunition. This is when repeating crossbows began to be used more and more commonly. There is such thing as an automatic crossbow but it's rarely used since it has a large profile and kicks like riding a bull.

as for the language thing, you could have a small group of closely related languages. similar to the modern sinitic languages (mandarin chinese, cantonese, hakka, etc.), romance languages, arabic languages (which are divergent enough to be considered different languages), where they're closely related and obviously so but different enough to require some sort of interpretation when communicating between them

Around 11:50, the discussion of some form of tracking family bloodlines. Use the patterns in their clothes. Central americans had a way of "writing" with knots. You could easily incorporate a simplified form to track an individual's bloodline on the frills of their clothes. Perhaps integrating beads or similar to represent parings.

An idea that came to me for the matter of family tree, maybe when they come of age they can make a bead string that signifies who you are. Maybe a bead that has a pattern on it can be passed down from mother to child. These bead patterns can be then woven in a long cloths that are kept by the elders of a flock.

I had an idea for the family tree idea. (Again, way late; I only found your channel recently, but I'm enjoying catching up.) You've already established cordage and beads as culturally important handicrafts for the Qyaalyon, and the idea of individuals having a "signature" similar to medieval arms (coats of arms in medieval Europe never represent families, only individuals, and a person's children must differentiate their arms from their parents in some way) so perhaps in the winter towns, there is kept a sort of "net." This is composed of cords, possibly colored, to represent bloodlines or a similar concept. The concept may be like the Incan counting cords, using knots to encode information. The individual's segment of a particular cord is threaded through a bead with their signature on it, and when they pair up and have children, their cord is knotted to another; literally "tying the knot." Each child they have would be a new thread added originating from their parents' knot, with their signature added the first winter after they come of age. This structure would not really be like a tapestry, since multiple different families intermarrying would force the work to fold over on itself. To an outsider or the uninitiated, this thing would look chaotic and possibly even ugly, but to those in the know, there would be a clear underlying structure, like how a bird's nest looks unstructured, but is clearly architecturally stable and holds together well. This may even create a new position in society. Perhaps there is specialization among the priest flocks, with some priests administering different rites, and the priests who officiate vows are the only ones who understand the net well enough to add to it or interpret it. Perhaps Qyaalyon who want to be married have to ask a priest to endorse their union ONLY after consulting the net to make sure they aren't too closely related. I don't know, just a thought.

Since age steadily makes it harder to fly until they no longer can, and they have a goddess of flight, I have an interesting idea. There could be a mythical figure that was much loved by the goddess and able to “soar the sky throughout their life”. Such a mythical figure could very easily be used to exemplify the ideals of Quaalyon culture, and bring all the variations such a myth would naturally come with.

Your one of my favourite RU-vidrs and your also how I found out what world building is which I had been doing without knowing and this h as Actually lead to me making my Own world building video's so thank you for teaching me about world building =)

I’ve got a long stretched idea , for like death and graves maybe their is a family or flock “grave” but instead of a rock it’s a tree that further symbolises “life after death”

I didn’t actually see the all female flock necessarily having to fall apart without males… after all they could have a strong adoption policy for young ones, mothers with children or be open to inter-flock dalliences so long as certain rules were maintained (out of sight, out of mind) Male children could be allowed (as is the case in some all female villages) but they’re raised to certain expectations or expected to find a different flock once old enough (rather then it being more of an option for them to return).

For the writing you were describing: it sounds a lot like they deal in proto-writing, which is a pictographic way of writing, where it's not quite logographic yet [such as chinese] but it can still represent words, places, and ideas.

1. Organalians (my musical instrument humans) don’t really have any better distance vision than humans do, but they do have better distance hearing and voices because musical instruments used to be used for giving military signals. 2. They are generally heno- or bigamous, having a spouse and a primary player. However, two instruments of too-similar class will generally avoid having the same primary player even if they are nevertheless of opposite genders. They also view instruments with “harems” that are too gender-imbalanced as somewhat suspicious.

An idea for how flocks might deal with extremist groups, perhaps they separate the flocks. Each person from the flock is sent to a new flock to learn the error of their ways. Though I can’t imagine any flock being excited to have someone there against their will. Perhaps their is some cultural way that this is enticing or encourages even the most extreme of people to agree to that arrangement.

17:16 Awwwww, imagine kids making friends during the winter and seeing each other again every year, they could have like little traditions when two particularly close flocks have like, idk, a dinner every year when they see each other. Or like a double hunt for the teens that aren't old enough to leave their flock yet but are old enough to hunt, where they would all be clamoring to pair up with each other like students on a group project

On the subject of "rogue flocks" I think the practice might become that those foster children might be returned to towns to be adopted by other Flocks as opposed to the flocks that killed to dispatched their parents. This would put them in a position to be surrounded by experience people, gain skills, and have ready access to food while their situation is sorted out and some sort of "deprogramming" happens to ensure the negative beliefs are taken out before they can be passed on to other impressionable children. I don't know if the subject of Bandit Flocks has been raised, but I feel like that is an inevitable (though not necessarily prolific) result of an armed and nomadic populace. How would the response be to those Qyaalyon who prey on other sapient peoples (be they Qyaalyon or other)?

There are some crossbow designs that allow for an easier reload, although not as easy as a bow. Your mession of trees on the names section reminded me of celtic culture, they considered many species of trees sacred, each one with it's own meaning, for example oaks signified strenght or yew signified death.

Love this format. Thank you!

Funny tidbit, the german word for someone who is shunned and declared free to be hunted killed by anyone is 'Vogelfrei' (bird free). It basically means that 'even the birds in the sky (and other animals) are free to kill you'.

This is a longer one. But given how you have described the quellions as lacking any of the more commercial and bloodline bonds of human cultures they remind me more of primitive human tribes (relative to our current state). In such societies there are items traded (meat, furs, salt) this was later phased out by the concept of money that is now so prevalent. Given this state I would expect certain rituals that they pass through and a mark of that passage. To put things into perspective: New born, at this stage the mother has more influence in the affair, the parents bond but no trinkets are given to the child. The child is named and there may be a celebration for the successful birth. (Depending on the spirituality the child may be considered to belong to God, or the spirits, and therefore not fully of this world and not belonging to the parents yet [Asian style]) Young child, the child is unable to fly and is vulnerable for the early months, the mother remains at the settlement (likely the winter town to take benefit of the healers) in perhaps a flock lodge if the flock is well established. Certain protective charms are woven into their cloths to protect the child. (Much like those used by the tribes on the silk or golden road) Late childhood. The child is now able to fly, and there first adult feathers have grown in. The child still receives protective charms, but slightly fewer. The mother has fully recovered and takes the child to the flock. The flock gives the child a trinket (a necklace or bangle) bearing the flock symbol as a way of identification. (Side idea, once the first adult feathers are shed the parents bring it back to the winter settlement to be coated in sap for preservation). The child is now a young hunter and childhood charms are frowned on unless they are weak in which case kinder flocks may look the other way. After their first solo kill they take a trophy taken from the kill this is used to make an ear piercing or to make reinforcements for the females chest area. These trophies are the marks of a hunter and they are recognised as a full adult. (The unused bones are ground down and their chosen symbol engraved onto the thin Amber feather before more sap is added as a protective coating.) (1/2)

Polygamy is rarely healthy, but some real societies achieve a healthy version of it. Some are complex with polygamy that often breaks apart until a monogamous pair remains.

Hi! First of all, I love your videos, they really inspired me to come up with my own world and characters, thinking out of the box. Second, I have an idea about the "family tree", or recognizing related Qyaalyons. If they each create a symbol for themselves when they come of age, they could also carry the symbols of their latest 4-5 generations (or whatever number is considered enough "not related") as a tattoo, or painting on their clothes. That way, Qyaalyons don't need to know the precise meaning of each symbol, they would only need to avoid choosing companions with the same symbols. I know it's not a perfect solution, as people may choose the same symbol (like we may have the same first name), this could be something to work from, or to integrate with some other way of recognition.

I like to think the old age spirit would either be Death itself or a servant of Death. Like maybe you could have a god of death with three servants: Age, Pestilence, and Strife. But I also kind of like the idea of old age being a part of Death itself. You're born and you rise up into the sky, but slowly Death drags you back down, first onto the ground and then finally into it. However, come to think of it this could still work for the idea of the three servants. Maybe Death lives underground and can only get you if you've been grounded, and so his three servants work tirelessly to try and ground you thus leaving you to their masters clutches. Age, pestilence, and strife don't really kill you but they put you in reach of death.

Thank you for simple video. XD I was in fact washing dishes.

I wonder on the sociological reason for forming an all female flock. Most all female communities in both real life and fiction, are formed as a kind of escape from patriarchy. If genders are more equal in Quaalyon society, there wouldn't really be a need to escape one gender. I'm curious on to see how that story will play out.

Regarding the possibility of hydrogen sacs and how they'd work, there are a number of biological processes that can offgas hydrogen, mostly related to digestion, and there might be a handful of species IRL that take advantage of it, but I can't recall. Of course, there is the troublesome matter of how they don't get filled with other gasses or bodily fluids. Perhaps that's where the magic comes in.

If you would want to do more with the idea of a familytree you could maybe have them use a feather as signature? Like instead of a painting or drawing of the person add a feather next to the name.

Honestly, this is a pretty interesting video. I'm doing laundry right now, and some of the facts I'm hearing are pretty damn cool.

I likes this videos! Was so excited to see 3 of my comments were included in it! I don't really have any feedback on this video today, everything seemed very well thought out and well done!😁

I’m just pumped that my comment got mentioned 😁

Mongilian long song might be a good reference to the birdsong music. Wikipedia quote: "This genre is called "Long song" not only because the songs are long, but also because each syllable of text is extended for a long duration. A four-minute song may only consist of ten words". It takes spoken mongolian and tranforms it completely, to allow for a multitude of musical vocal effects on the vowels. Kind of like if the cursive of talking was regular singing, and this was full on experimental calligraphy or the high level calligraphy art in the middle eastern, indian and east asian traditions.

My sis found a video and shared it with me, of a pair of hawks (forget what species) raising a family of chicks. The female had left the nest, probably to hunt. The male came back with a dead mouse and then proceeded to set the thing on top of first one, then another cheeping baby. The mother was evidently the only one who fed the babies in that family, so when she wasn't there, the dad literally didn't know what to do (and obviously this was just enough of a common occurrence that someone was able to film it, lol). Somehow, the dad hawk came across in every motion he made with the mouse as panicked. Like... "Um, I need to feed the babies...wait, why aren't they eating? Uh, Cynthia, where'd you go? I don't know how to do this! Help!" I doubt the Qyaalyons as a whole would ever be *that* bad off, but there were jokes in the comments on that video saying that if they were humans, this would be like a human family where the mom left for a week and the kids all ate cereal for her entire duration of being gone because Dad wasn't trusted to cook for them. Individual family structures vary, there could easily be a parent who spends so much time not really helping with the kids in one way or another that the minute they're put into that situation they immediately think "...Help?" (Doesn't have to be the dad; could just as easily be the mom.) You don't have to talk about this in a video if you don't want to, it was just something funny I wanted to share.

I have a few thoughts, though I suppose I should start with Hello. found your channel last night and stayed up to 3am absorbing as much as was feasible in a single night. Now on to my opinions. I think that for weapons the quailion (sry if spelling is off) could use either nets or bolas if their opponents are flying as well. This would work because you only need them to stop flying in order to send them plummeting to their death in a lot of cases. A Bolas would be used to tangle them up and possibly break wings, nets would be similar though less wing breaking I think. If you are wondering what a Bolas is, they are the rocks on courds the ewoks use in Return of the Jedi, you also see a cool clockwork variant in Arcane when the Enforces chuck those balls that unfold and grapple targets in the first episode. Another weapon option, particularly for fighting ground based opponents would be simple spikes of stone, metal, or wood. The spikes can be dropped from a height that would let them gain enough momentum to be lethal, or simply chucked by a Quailion in a high speed dive, the Quailion's momentum would give the projectile quite a bit of force. They would have a hard time with bows or crossbows in mid air (though they are duable) and they can always keep them for the occasion in which they are not in the air when fighting (like when their old or in winter, and probably several other situations im sure). Spears and javelins are also unlikely since anything that involves a long shaft or coards going over their shoulder will cause trouble when trying to fly. Lances are worth considering but they likely wont want to get that close and there a chance the lance could get planted in something and cause them to spiral out of control, like a pollvolt that wrecks their flight pattern. For melee I think they would stick to shortswords or even more likely long daggers. They would also likely have some sort of spiked shoe that can be used to simply kick a target to deal significant puncture damage. These would be good in air-air combat as well as air-ground. It would not likely pollvolt you since the foot and leg allow certain flexibility that a spear haft would not. For more on this line of thinking check out Shadeversity's "Fantasy Rearmed" series. He hasn't worked on it as much of late, but he has a few great videos disgussing what weapons different fantasy races ough to use.

Have bolas been suggested for weaponry? It's a seriously epic weapon with live-catch potential, though in midair it could be terrifyingly deadly when targeting the wings of your opponent. The only fantasy series I'm aware of that uses this weapon is Redwall, where the villain of the second season has one. It's like three rocks in bags on long thin cords that you throw at whatever you're hunting and it wraps around their legs, wings, or throat. I thought of it when you said throwing knives would be a bad idea because they wouldn't want to waste an edged stone weapon by throwing it midair, but a bolas might survive the fall, and if not would probably be much more replaceable.

What if for the punishment, while not making them unable to fly, if someone killed someone else in the flock, they had their wings clipped so they couldn’t fly long distances.

So your thing about vocal cursive, it’s not exactly the same but my second language, Malayalam, has both a formal and informal way of speaking. Informal is what people use for day to day communication while formal is used for things like the news or other important documents/ presentations. As someone who learned the language from speaking it at home I’m pretty good for an a kid raised in America conversationally but I have a really hard time understanding the flowery and formal stuff.

first time I caught ANY video this early

A necklace of feather with pacific dye with in a family. All kids are given 2 necklace one for them and one a kid. A message or mother would go back to the flock to get more necklace. Malted feather are kept for necklace and the decease feathers are pass on the living kin so necklace can be made for a while longer. If a young quailen got a nearly fatal injury or a severe injury as the were flock-hoping in unknown territory? Do quailen have a walking limit as a trade off? If a quailen was born with very weak muscles(to weak to fly) or deformed wing, would the be raised or kill as the are "died weight"? If a quailen dies in childbirth, was killed when watching the young gathering berries, or both parents are killed what would happen to kids? Where would a flock-hoping go in the winter? If a quailen was kill would their mate be allowed to re-vow or disgrace by the flock?