Lore

Houses

A House is a family. One is made the moment a female takes a mate: by providing for him she becomes its matriarch, and any faunlings raised under her roof belong to her House.

A female of high enough status may keep more than one mate, so long as she can afford to keep them all fed and groomed.

Leaving home

Once a female reaches working age she is expected to leave her mother's House, find a mate and found her own. The higher her mother's House, the stronger the expectation. Among lower-status Houses a daughter may stay on - or join a House she isn't related to at all - with far less cricisim than those of higher houses.

Males, however, stay in their mother's House until they are mated. One still there past breeding age is looked down on, and usually ends up as the "uncle" who raises everybody else's faunlings.

Courts

A Court is the wider community a Fauri belongs to. It can hold several Houses alongside unmated males and unattached females, and its members don't need to be related at all.

Browse the owners' Courts

Lending

Occasionally, and with his consent, breedings from males may be used as a pseudo currency. Courts lend their males to one another by agreement: perhaps a faunling for each side, perhaps goods or favours in trade. A male who is asked for often is a point of pride for his Court, and tends to know it.

Certing

A young Fauri is not counted as a full member of its Court straight away. The Certing ceremony is its coming of age: the day the Court formally recognises it as one of its own, with everything that is then expected of it.

Until then a Fauri is treated as a guest, however long it has lived there - welcomed, fed and groomed, but with no standing. Only a certed Fauri can be put forward to lead its Court.

Court leaders

A Court's leader does not rule it - the females do that between them. The leader is the Court's face: the one Fauri chosen to stand for all of them, sent out to be looked at whenever the Court wants to be seen at its best. A promotion to leader is the closest to a respected career that a male Fauri can hope for.

A Court has one leader or none, and may replace them whenever it likes. Being chosen is an honour, and being replaced is talked about for some time.