Kanpolo have two subspecies, Deep Sea Kanpolo and Freshwater Kanpolo. Though sometimes they crossbreed and create a hybrid, which are often called Hyper Kanpolo! Usually the Hypers are known for having almost any trait that their parent species has. Freshwater are the only one out of the species to have a developed thumb, have no horns and are the shortest. Sometimes they have a fin on the very top of their head, like a mohawk! While Deep Sea are the only ones to have bioluminescence and are the tallest out of the species.

Kanpolo (more commonly in females) have thick lower bodies, so that they can bare 3-5 babies in their womb. This makes their legs quite strong, but this does slow them down on land, making them slower. Their doeclawed webbed feet doesn’t help either, but their doeclaws are like domes and can sort of scoop in the water. While the webbing helps them swim, their skin is slippery smooth and is often kept moist, so they can slip out of someone’s grasp if they got caught by say… A giant land shark.

Underwater they breath through the gills hidden on their necks, while on land, they breath through their nose. So if you wanna suffocate them, you know what to do.

 

Society

The Kanpolo (including their subspecies) live in the sea primarily, but they do live on land too. They often make colonies, they’d often use mud, sandstone or concrete to make their buildings. Underwater they especially use concrete! Or they make burrows into the ground and make their homes under the sea floor, make their homes in caves, out of coral or just whatever will stand underwater. Preferably they’d use concrete, as nowadays coral, burrows or caves are rarely used as a home. Only a few colonies do that now.

On beaches, they would have a whole area setup, where they can sunbathe in groups. It is guarded by what they’d call a “Sunguard” alongside their Heavian (a giant bird-like creature). As their natural apex predator, the Bood Shark (basically a ginormous land shark), like to stumble upon the beaches and snap up Kanpolos like a twig. Sunbathing is very important to the Kanpolo, as it is very important to their health. If they don’t sunbathe, they can end up very sick and their bones can get weak. It also makes their colourful bodies become desaturated and dull.

Language

The Kanpolo language is an ancient language, which started with caves and pictographs. Their language isn’t exactly easy to write, as they’re like drawings or symbols. The symbols such as “IGH”, “OA”, “AR”, “QU”, Etc, are used like phonetics, but sometimes in long words, they will be used to shorten the word. As some things in their language can be long, such as the name “Wongaburra” or “Humboroon”. They also have symbols for certain things, such as animals as the Humboroon or the Bood Shark. Bood Shark symbols are often left in an area where they were sighted, so Kanpolo would know to look out!

Kanpolos also have a strange way of using pronouns, they prefer to use their names as pronouns. For example; Wongaburra would use parts or all of her name as her pronouns, Wonga, Burra, Wongaburra. Instead of using the usual she, her, they. But they do use the regular pronouns if they want to. Sometimes in a sentence they’d use their name instead of using “I”. For example of using pronouns: “Wonga is not feeling very well today, let’s leave Wongaburra to rest. How about we go spend time with Howqua instead?” Or “Look Wonga gets that you’re angry with Wongaburra. But this isn’t the time to fight.”

Religion

Most colonies worship Kutumuk, which is a long giant crystallised eel like creature. Which often had its own ecosystem on its back, with a bunch of small sea critters such as fish making it, it’s home. It is a rare sight to witness Kutumuk and Kanpolo believe that when they pass, they reincarnate into one of those crystallised eels. That’s if, they perform devotion and contemplative practices, such as praying or performing rituals. Kutumuk is the Eel God, considered a God of Life. It is considered a great honour to reincarnate into one of her eels. Though, if you don’t turn reincarnate into a eel, you will reincarnate into something else.

Interracial Relations

Kanpolos have quite a few relations, being not the only intelligent species on Jovalan. They’re allies with Woobars, which they started through trading! They would trade materials, food or even baby Heavians. The Woobars would always give them male Heavians. But eventually they soon learnt to tame Heavians and breed their own. Though Kanpolos rarely have any conflicts, a long time enemy of the Kanpolo is the Cracke’D. Which has been hunting them for their flesh and eating them. They come from another world, often arriving through a portal and would shoot them down with guns. This is where Kanpolos discovered their extreme reaction to their bullets, which just so happened to have mercury in them.

A more recent conflict is with the Liz’ae, who were peaceful and always kept their distance. They only researched them and other Jovian creatures. But the Liz’ae had a change of goverment and suddenly they were at war with the Liz’ae. The Liz’ae took territory from them and have built a few cities, this has strained the relationship between the Kanpolo and Liz’ae. Since originally they trusted them, since they left them alone, but now they don’t.