Minikin

Last updated May 22, 2023

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Minikin are a small anthropoid rodent species native to the 2nd realm. They are arboreal omnivores, biased toward eating nuts and other plants, and descend from the squirrels of the 0th realm.

Minikin often measure at the heights of 25-30cm tall. They feature tails, snouts, plantigrade feet, and buck-teeth. Mature minikin are hairless apart from their whiskers, tail hair, head hair, and pubic hair. Adversely, immature minikin - such as babies - feature hair on all parts of the body but the face, which thins and falls out as the minikin develops.

Minikin skin colour can vary from dark to light, often taking on a semi-dark beige colour. The eye colour can vary from brown to green to blue. It takes on a pink or purple colour in the case of prolonged Alucinarium exposure.

As omnivores, minikin often tend to eat;

• insects,
• berries,
• nuts,
• leaves,
• tree bark,
• and small rodents.

Some minikin abstain from consuming squirrel flesh, due to their sanctity in some religions.

Minikin often tend to form groups based on familial relation, headed by a matriarch. Members of a group may exhibit altruism in sharing food with others, giving and allowing others to freely take from food stores.

These groups may inhabit small wooded areas, with one to three immediate families living in one tree. Portions of these trees are often hollowed out for use as storage or shelter, while some cultures may store clay in their cheek pouches to build room dangling from the branches.

When a minikin commits a crime, they may be ostracised from the community and have their tail dismembered and burnt. In some cultures, tails are seen as the source of the spirit or soul, and the disconnection from the soul is representative of the disconnection of the individual from morality. Crimes can vary depending on each culture’s taboos.

Often, when a family gets too large for one community, it will inevitably collapse. Two or three new groups may form following the split, which may involve fighting, war, or ostracism. Large groups are often unstable, resulting in violent dictatorship in some communities as to reduce the risk of collapse.

Minikin psychology is a complicated subject on account of the brain’s interaction with the Fortuitary gland. The brain is accountable for conscious and subconscious processes, such as thought, decision-making, breathing, sleep, hibernation, including the control of all other biological systems. Likewise, the fortuitary gland is accountable for the subconscious process of alucinarium secretion and frequencial shift.

However, the line gets blurred between each organ when one researches the subject of dreaming and sorcery. Dreams, while mostly innocuous to non-fortuitous beings, have been greatly debated in the context of Alucinara, wether or not their source is in the brain or not.

All minikin hibernate in the winter, slowing their metabolic processes following a period of feasting. During hibernation, minikin become unconscious in a sleep-like state and alucinarium levels in the brain increase due to the inactivation of valves in the bloodstream that protect the brain from Phantasmarrhoea.

This is not seen in minikin sleep, but has been shown to increase the vividness of dreams during hibernation. The presence of alucinarium in the brain during hibernation is a survival method meant to allow minikin to interface with deities, to gain foreknowledge such as future events or advice through acquisition of divine wisdom.