The Kepek

The Kepek’s four eyes all work together to create a single, large field of vision. With both their primary (front) eyes and secondary (side) eyes, they can see almost everything around them with the exception of one small blind spot behind their heads.

Their primary eyes both have a single pupil, which is shaped like two overlapping circles. When the eye contracts, they become thin and star-like in shape. This is especially noticeable in the Tabiri and Nabrai Kepek, whose eyes appear to be constantly contracted. The pupils in their secondary eyes meanwhile are shaped like a single cross, which when dilated, makes a circle shape. There is no clear line between their iris and sclera. The sclera is either black or a darker shade of their iris colour and is rarely visible.

Arms and Hands

All Kepek have four arms. The top pair, closest to the neck, are called the primary or superior arms, while the lower pair are called the secondary or inferior arms. The primary arms have hands with three fingers and a thumb that ends in fleshy pads. The hands on their secondary arms have the same pads but only two fingers and a thumb.

Most Kepek are naturally ambidextrous to some extent, while they usually do have a favoured hand, they can easily swap between all four for most tasks with relative ease.

Legs and Feet

Most Kepek have digitigrade legs, two large, fleshy toes and a third smaller toe at the back of the foot. Where one would expect to see a single femur, the Kepek's legs have two bones that split into two and bend outwards. This bow in the bone should make their legs considerably weaker, especially on high-gravity planets, but instead, the bones seem to be able to compress under force, acting like natural suspension. In Kepek who originate from space-dwelling cultures, there is usually a hole between the bones that is visible externally, however, in those from planetary colonies, this hole is covered by skin and other soft tissues that give additional support.

Prehensile Tail

All Kepek have prehensile tails. The tails aren’t particularly dexterous, so a Kepek wouldn’t be able to do a task such as write with it, but they can use it to grab and hold objects. The tip of the tail is a bit broader than the rest, but like the pads on the fingers, is very squishy and assists with keeping a grip on things.

Abdominal Pouch

All Kepek have an abdominal pouch. It’s not really known why or how the pouch evolved, some theorise it was to carry clutches of eggs and offspring. others say it was to help with the collection of food back in their foraging days. many think it was a combination of the two. Either way, it’s a useful little evolutionary quirk they seem to have hung onto. Most Kepek cultures wear clothing that will leave their mid-sections exposed so they can still get access to their pouches.

Scales and Proto-feathers

Most Kepek have small keratin scales all over their bodies that come in a variety of colours. They shed fairly regularly, during which time they can be generally pretty irritable and cranky as they tend to get very itchy during this period. Only one group of Kepek, called the Ikta, lack scales. Instead, the they're covered in downy proto-feathers, which better help them to stay warm on the frozen planet they call home

Blood and Thermo-regulation

The Kepek are mesotherms, meaning they are somewhere between warm and cold-blooded. They can be vulnerable to increases and decreases in ambient temperature, though not to the same extent as cold-blooded creatures like true reptiles. while they are capable of producing their own body heat like warm-blooded creatures, they’re just not as effective at it. if the temperature gets too low, beyond what their bodies can tolerate, they may start to feel sluggish or lose their appetite. If it gets cold enough, they may even slip into a hibernation-like state they call "kevrat". This enabled the ancestors of modern Kepek to travel great distances across the cosmos with relatively low risk prior to faster-than-light travel. Once the ship was on course, the entire crew and all passengers would be placed intentionally into kevrat until they were close to their destinations, saving on food, power and other necessities.

Likewise, warmer climates make them more active, however, they do require more food to sustain themselves in such environments, as their metabolisms will begin to work faster.

Both are of little concern to most modern Kepek, especially those in space stations and on colony ships, as they have the technology to regulate and maintain their ambient temperatures with ease. Kepek from planets like Vakib have a harder time with this due to the extreme conditions, but use clothing and technology to help manage their body temperature.

Their actual blood is a deep blue colour thanks to their blue blood cells being made mostly of hemocyanin. This means that areas not covered by scales, or where a lot of blood vessels are present, such as inside the mouth, tear ducts and all deep tissues are typically blue in colour. Kepek without scales or feathers tend to have a blueish tint to their skin.

Sex and Gender

Kepek do not have distinct sexes determined by chromosomes in the same way many other species do. Instead the closest thing they have is four categories defined by hormones produced in response to their environment and food. Calling these different categories sexes might be stretching the definition, as every Kepeki adult has the same physical primary sex characteristics, and they are reproductively compatible with any other Kepeki adult, however, they are used socially and culturally in similar ways to the sexes seen in other species.

The main difference between each category comes from which display structures they grow, as well as a number of other smaller changes that would usually be considered secondary sex characteristics in other species.

The categories are i'exad, ranad, braxad and xenad. It's not really known why these categories developed but the leading theory is that they were an evolutionary leftover from their ancient past.

Rapid Adaptation

The Kepek have a rather unique ability to evolve and adapt to their environment rapidly, much faster than they should be able to given their long lifespans. Looking at the different Kepek cultures, especially those from planetary colonies, would lead one to believe they had been there for millions of years with how much they have diverged in appearance and even abilities, but these changes often occure and solidify within the population within only a few generations. This amazing adaptability is sometimes attributed to the fact the kepek evolved under a blue star. it's thought the radiation they were exposed to allowed their DNA to change rapidly, but if this were correct, the same trait would be seen in other surviving species from Xebrik, which it is not. For now, this is one of the great mysteries about the Kepek species, but one that doesn't look like it will be solved any time soon.

Kepek Civilisation

Kepek History

The Kepek originate from the planet Xebrik. They were relatively prosperous, but according to the few remaining accounts from so long ago, their population was growing faster than their home world could support. So the Kepek began their search for new planets to call home to expand to. Their colonisation efforts had been unsuccessful, but their technology allowed them to stay in space safely in their ships for as long as was required, and over time the ships became self-sustaining colonies of their own. However, for reasons still shrouded in mystery to this day, the denizens of Xebrik were forced to evacuate their home suddenly around 16,000 Bektep orbits ago.

Since then, The Kepek have lived a semi-nomadic existence. The original evacuation fleets dispersed in search of new planets to call home. While they were successful in establishing planet-based colonies, by the time any were founded, multiple generations had lived and died aboard the ships, leading many to choose to stay on board permanently. The original ships were converted into Interstellar CollonyFlagships and eventually, The Bektep Space Station was created as a meeting point for the Interstellar Colony Fleets, which collectively became known as the Kepek Commonwealth.

While the Interstellar Colony Fleets travel and frequently stop at colonised planets, they all return to the station every 10 Bektep-Orbits.

Major languages and dialects

While many Interstellar Colony Fleets, stations and planets have their own languages, most Kepek in the Kepek Commonwealth are taught to speak a common language, Xebriken, which is used throughout the galaxy.

Gender Roles and ideals

The Kepek have 4 traditional genders based on their species' 4 standard hormone-based catagories, however in the modern day, gender is seen by most Kepek as something that is fluid and flexible.
While the labels were originally based on the categories of i'exadi, ranadi, braxadi and xenadi, and many kepek do go with a gender that aligns with the characteristics attributed to them, this isn't a hard and fast rule any more. As a result, rigid gender roles and ideals fell out of favour long ago, but some, especially among the Eveni and the tabiri, still adhere to the traditional ones, which are as follows:

Women (iexi)
Traditionally, women are the leaders in Kepeki society. Families are often still lead by matriarchs, and even today, you'll tend to see more women in positions of power in Kepeki society. Through the traditional lens, Kepeki women were thought of as being more geared towards leadership and intellectual pursuits.

Men (rani)
Men were traditionally the ones who did physically demanding and/or dangerous jobs in Kepeki society. Their generally smaller, stockier builds were thought to make them more well-suited to jobs like defence and manual labour, as well as sports.

Braxi
Braxi are the third Kepeki gender, historically associated with braxadi Kepek. Braxi have traditionally been associated with creative endeavours, entertainment and caregiving. They were thought to be more overall emotional and creative, leading them to traditionally be associated with jobs like teaching, caretaking, and inventing.

xeni
Xeni are the final Kepeki gender, associated with xenadi Kepek. These Kepek were traditionally thought of as being detail-orientated, leading them to mostly be placed into white-collar administrative-style roles, manufacturing and anything that required a lot of boring, repetitive busywork. They also tend to be strongly associated with priests and those with a lot of ambition.
There is also a stereotype that xeni are always asexual and aromantic, as they were historically excluded from traditional relationship structures.

Relationship ideals

Kepeki relationships were traditionally formed for the purpose of having children, and since Kepek require 3 parents to produce a child, this meant that throuples became the norm. As such, every Kepeki culture sees throuples as the standard and ideal to work towards.

historically, it was often encouraged for throuples to be made up of one i'exi, one rani and braxi (with xeni often stereotyped as being ill-suited to family life), as this was thought to provide the best balance of emotion, organisation and safety based on the old gender roles and expectations. some cultures enforced this standard this more strictly than others, with deviations being seen on a spectrum from mildly taboo to outright illegal up until a few hundred Bektep Orbits ago. Today, variation in the makeup of a throuple is a lot more normalised across the board.

In the last few generations in particular, the idea of relationships being purely for reproduction has mostly died out, and most Kepek now date and marry for love. With that has been an increase in the number of people willing to deviate from the traditional throuple structure as well. The most common deviation is two-partner relationships, especially among those with no interest in having children. This does carry a certain amount of stigma with it though. More traditionally-minded Kepek will assume someone in a couple is simply settling because they couldn't find the final part of their throuple, or even that someone in a couple must be overly controlling, jealous or overall too immature to maintain a "proper" relationship.

Family Structure

The traditional family structure in Kepeki society, their equivalent of a "nuclear family" is called "a cluster". They usually involve 3 parents, 3-6 children and multiple generations of close relatives such as grandparents, aunts, uncles (as well as other gender equivalents), cousins etc, with the cluster being lead by a matriarch. The matriarch is usually the oldest living woman in the family who makes all the large-scale decisions.

These clusters are tightly knit and either live in a shared building such as an apartment complex, or in buildings very close to each other, helping one another by sharing meals, housework, finances and nearly everything else. Everyone who is able to contributes. While each child is primarily looked after by their parents, the entire cluster also usually contributes in the roles of childcare and education (beyond the dedicated schooling.)

While this practice has almost entirely died out, the matriarch was historically also responsible for arranging marriages and keeping track of genealogy (something that was considered highly important in the aftermath of the Kepek fleeing Xebrik, when the species' population was still very small and the risk of inbreeding was a lot higher).

Not every culture, however, adheres to the cluster structure.
For example, the Ikta will usually live communities containing a few extended families that act collectively as one, very large cluster, and every few generations, send groups of siblings out into the world to join other communities or begin new ones.

In cultures like the Tabiri, however, their traditional "family" structure is known as a cell. Cells are drastically different, as they are not genetic relatives at all. Instead, a Kepek is assigned to a cell consisting of around 50-100 others, around their same age based on numerous factors. The children in these cells are raised together, cared for by professional carers and teachers, with the intent of bringing them up to do specific tasks and have specific careers. The Kepek will rarely, if ever know who their biological family is, so instead, the Tabiri government keep meticulous records on the family trees of their citizens.

In any case, it is uncommon for a Kepek to leave their family and live on their own. In many cultures doing so is taboo and those who choose to are often not looked upon kindly by wider society.

Beauty standards

As with many other subjects, the Kepek standards of beauty depend largely on culture, but generally, space-faring Kepek idealise long and slender features, often giving them a more dainty appearance. Planetary Kepek however, tend idealise stockier, more muscular builds, especially on planets where gravity is more intense.

Kepeki Fashion

Kepek fashion is different throughout the galaxy but there are some consistencies. Most Kepek prefer shirts or dresses with shorter sleeves that don't restrict their movement. Their chosen clothes also tend to have an opening at the front to allow access to their abdominal pouch or they will wear something that leaves that part of the body exposed. Their pants and skirts, likewise, usually lean towards shorter lengths and are often made out of thin materials. The exceptions to these rules are, of course, on planets that require protective clothing, such as what can be seen in the Ikta and Gavradi

Kepeki Ethnicities