Kai (Race)

The Kai are a race of shapeshifters, created by Anathin, the god of animals and the hunt, that can change into forms combining human and animal characteristics. The society is divided into two distinct groups determined at puberty: the Karakai and the Niikai. The Karakai are the commoners, socially divided based on the animal forms each member settles on during puberty. The Niikai are born of Karakai couples but form the ruling and aristocratic body, living apart from the Karakai in the Niikai-only palace. They are sterile and unable to breed, but they have few limits on their shape-changng abilities.

Biology
Karakai are born in fully human forms; young cannot be distinguished from normal human children. After about 14 days, the infant can begin shapeshifting. Before the age of eight, Karakai are able to freely change between any combination of humanoid and the available animal species. Fully human forms after infancy are possible but highly taboo as they are seen as turning one's back on one's abilities.

Following the puberty ceremony at eight years old, Karakai bodies settle into variants on a single animal, and they are no longer able to use other animal forms. Primary sex characteristics (i.e. genitals) form during the puberty ceremony with secondary sex characteristics developing over the next ten years as the body begins producing sex-specific hormones. Prior to puberty, the reproductive organs are nebulous non-sex-specific constructs providing hormones for growth, but not sex-specific ones.

A Karakai is considered a ful;-grown adult at 18, and a full-grown Karakai is very large, regardless of sex: The males are extremely muscular, and the females are very buxom. Karakai appearance is restricted to any combonation of one specific humanoid form and one specific animal form. Small shifts between the forms, such as adding elements like sharp teeth, claws, or horns to a humanoid form, require no effort or pain, but a fast change between humanoid and fully animal is excruciating.

Gender identites clashing with physical sex does exist, but is not overly common. Karakai can only mate with other Karakai whose animal forms are the same species; their offspring, however, can become any of the animal subspecies. Inter-subspecies romance and relationships are mostly uncommon, though occasionally does occur. Inter-species couples

Puberty Ritual
After exactly eight years out of the womb, a young Kai will fall unconscious. The child must then be taken to the local religious leader who will perform a ritual to lead the Kai child through a dream state in which they discover their final animal form and their gender. If the child does not make it to the leader in enough time, their soul will be lost, and they will never awaken. Otherwise, the ritual is safe.

When the child awakens from his or her dream state, sex-specific genitalia begin to develop from their previously nonspecific reproductive organs, and the child is no longer capable of shifting into any form other than the one discovered in their trance. Some Kai undergo the ritual and do not discover a true form or gender; these children are Niikai and are taken to live in the the palace by the Red Foxes.

Final Forms
The final form a Karakai takes determines their social standing and is typically decided based on personality traits (Links go to Wikipedia articles for the real-world analogues for these species.):
 * 1) Red Fox - A very rare form that serves as the Niikai's eyes and ears outside the palace. They are the emissaries who bring Niikai youth to the palace once discoverd and serve as the Kai's elite special forces. Young Karakai or Niikai cannot change into Red Foxes, so this form is exclusive to those who settle on the form at adulthood.  Red Fox Karakai are also very small compared to the other Karakai.
 * 2) Irish Elk - These cool-headed, high-class Karakai generally function as religious leaders or governors.
 * 3) Gray Wolf - Their instincts to pack and violent tendencies make them excellent soldiers; while at home, rather than on campaign, they are considered high-class citizens and often form police forces or personal security teams.
 * 4) Terror Birds - Despite their names, Terror Bird Karakai are not violent but rather form the base of a peaceful merchant class, though many Karakai of other forms are also similarly entrepreneurial.
 * 5) Bison - A common form among Karakai farmers. Other forms may become farmers due to family history, but the Kai agriculture is largely run by bison or those descended from them.
 * 6) Snow Leopard - Most snow leopards live in the border mountains, hunting game and living in small tribal societies. Outside of the mountains, snow leopards are typically drawn to the mountains as merchants trading with the mountain tribes.
 * 7) Crocodiles - An animal form exclusively found among the river-folk who subsist by fishing the rivers of the Kai territory.

Biology
The Niikai are much like the Karakai until they reach 10 years old. Unlike the Karakai, the Niikai never complete puberty. They maintain the same freedom of transformation as young Karakai throughout their whole lives.

Because they never hit puberty, Niikai cannot produce children as they never develop fully formed sexual organs. Niikai are, instead, produced by Karakai couples on a semi-regular basis. When they are discovered not to have final form like their Karakai brethren, they are taken from their families by the Red Foxes and brought to the Niikai palace where they live out the rest of their lives.

Niikai do grow in the ten years following their puberty ritual, getting taller but remaining very slender, lean, and not particularly muscular, unlike their large Karakai relatives. Like the Karakai, Niikai cannot use different human forms and are limited to their own appearance, only combining elements of their one humanoid form and one specific form for each of the animals.

Once in the palace, they are trained and educated until they reach 18 years old. At 18, they are pitted against each other in a series of challenges to determine where in the palace strata they will be placed (to be more fleshed out in the future): The military generals never leave the palace and their instructions are passed on from the Niikai palace by the Red Foxes to the Gray Wolf armies.
 * Those who fail the first round, the Test of Intellect, serve around the palace.
 * Those who fail the second round, the Test of Strategy, serve as the palace guards.
 * Those who fail the third round, the Test of Leadership, serve as advisors to the nobility and military generals.
 * Those who pass all three rounds become the ruling body and nobility of the Kai.

Religion
(Incomplete)

Culture
There are three tiers of society in Kai. The Niikai form the top tier as the leadership nation's political and miltary leadership. The Karakai are divided up into city and country groups, with their own social tiering based primarily on animal forms, and tribal groups along the border mountains and along the rivers.

Historically, the Niikai became the leaders of their society due to their similarities to their androgynous creator god. If it hadn't been for that similarity, Niikai children would likely be killed or made outcasts for the fact that they are weaker, more childlike, and sterile.