The aughwar are a species I created for Caranoctia as a more interesting replacement for the usual Tolkien-derived ogre, orcs, and suchlike.

Physical stats:

Adult male aughwar stand nearly eight feet tall and weigh roughly 800 pounds. They walk with their torsos held upright and their tales dragging and can keep up a slow, steady trod for days. They are not sprinters, with a top speed far below a fit human, but when they tilt forward and launch into their lumbering lope, they can run down almost anything. Their jaws are strong enough to crunch a human femur like a stick of celery.

Aughwar have color vision about as sharp as a human's, but their hearing is far superior. Their sense of smell is not as good as a hound's, but they can detect scents too faint for a human to pick up. Their leathery, scaly skin makes their sense of touch rather dull. They enjoy salty and sweet tastes, especially fresh meat, fruit and honey.

Ecology:

Aughwar are omnivores with a strong preference for meat. They aren't able to chew up or properly digest starchy veggies or leafy greens that haven't been throughly cooked, but have a weakness for sweet fruit. When eating meat, they devour the entire carcass, bones, skin, fur, horns, hooves and all, except for the intestinal contents. They prefer their meat bleeding (if not screaming) but will tolerate smoked meat. They are the top predators of their habitats. Agriculture is basic, and although some animal species are domesticated the aughwar place a great store in being mighty hunters. There are actually several extremely vicious animals which prey on aughwar. Unlike humans, who would kill off these threats to be 'safe', aughwar welcome the challenge.

Society:

Aughwar society is a rigid theocratic caste system. Their dieties are all warriors who have ascended to godhood, and they believe that only a life lived both properly and full of glory will allow them to be reincarnated as an even more competant warrior until their souls have become as perfect as possible, at which point they will become gods themselves. Although non-aughwar scholars aren't entirely clear, there seems to be some time limit beyond which no more gods will come into existence, which seems to coincide with an apocalypse the aughwar are expecting. Without enough god-warriors to fight the apocalyptic threat, the aughwar and the world itself are doomed. As one might expect, aughwar are a highly competitive, driven, aggressive species that actively looks to get into fights to prove themselves worthy of becoming god-warriors.

There is no mercy for the weak, and females are second class citizens (more on this as a moment). Those with obvious mental or physical disablities are culled by the community elders, if not by their own siblings. Unsurprisngly, there are few very old aughwar, and one who has reached an advanced age without becoming weak is accorded much respect.

The basic unit of aughwar society is the sibling-group. Eggs are laid in clutches which are left to fend for themselves for the first season of their life, after which they are adopted by elders (who might not even be related). Siblings are both fiercly bonded to each other, and compete within the group's pecking order in a microcosm of the greater aughwar civilization. Siblings will simultaneously back each other so that their group might advance in prestige and try to undermine the individuals to secure the best place for themselves in the hierarchy. A sibling is at the same time an aughwar's most trusted ally and most dangerous enemy, which has engendered in them a racial paranoia.

Sibling groups are sorted into castes as they reach adulthood (10 years) based on the talents of the alpha alone - the others represent the alpha's support staff. Caste placement is not fixed, and groups will struggle ceaselessly to be promoted. In essense the entire society is a military operation and the sibling groups are units within it. There is no such creature as a non-warrior aughwar.

Psychology:

Aughwar live for glory and glory alone, and glory is defined by what humans would call feats of machismo: hunting, fighting, defending territory, etc. Art is completely beyond their ability to grasp, although they do indulge in intense sessions of music, mostly synchonized shouting and howling and banging on huge drums, but this is solely during gatherings to promote group solidarity. Adults only care for youngsters because they will grow up to strengthen the tribe. A deep vein of paranoia and the desire to succeed has turned the aughwar into a species of jumpy, suspcious, undermining backstabbers, which is their greatest weakness.

Some scholars suspect the Caranoctian aughwars are members of a splinter group that either left or were kicked out of their homeland, which is ruled by a more peaceful, thoughtful philosophy. This may merely be wishful thinking.

Reproduction:

Aughwar have an interesting approach to gender. I don't know that there's a term for it - dichogamy doesn't quite describe it, so I use the term poikliogamous. That is, the young are hatched neuter, with the potential to become either male or female. As they mature, there is intense competition in the group to determine who will become the alpha, as only the alpha will develop as male and the rest will develop as female. In their society, females are 'losers', second class citizens.

Their gender is not fixed, however. Adult males who suffer a crippling blow to the ego will stop producing androgens (vlar) and regress to the female state. On rare occasions, when a group's male dies or feminizes, the most aggressive female will begin producing vlar and develop into a male. Although it's considered atrocious, it is certain that ambitious females arrange accidents to clear troublesome males out of their path to glory.

Male aughwar are vivid cobalt blue washed with purple and green on their backs and golden on their undersides, with bristling manes of coarse dark hair so thick they're more like quills, broad shoulders and muscular frames. Females lack the mane are distinguished by a tuft of wiry hair on the tail tip and a fringe of spines on the ears. They're less muscular than the males, which makes them appear slimmer with longer limbs and neck, and their colors are not only dull but the opposite of males, greyish-olive on the back and washed out blue on the belly. Naturally, suggesting to a male that his mane is looking a little thin is a good way to ensure you don't live to see another sunrise; calling him a 'bluebelly' has about the same effect as calling a drunken redneck a 'faggot'.

Mating takes place at the end of the dry season, preceeded by a great deal of bellowing, stomping about, breaking things and general showing off by the males, who gather into leks. Without a proper display by a dominant male, a female won't come into heat. The gelationous eggs are laid directly into the female's pouch, where they are fertilized by the male. The eggs grow throughout the rainy season, developing hard shells, and are laid in shallow sand-nests as the next dry season begins. They take another season to develop, by which point the parents are long gone.

If a sibling-group can survive until the end of the dry season when the adults return they will have proven themselves worthy of adoption into a tribe. Aughwar take about ten years to reach maturity, but don't generally begin to reproduce for another five years or so.