Trekking in single-file caravans across a rainy, muddy world, the Jocose shepherd overgrown worm-like things, and are hued in deep reds to match the slopes that they walk. Despite the richness of the soil that they tread, there is very little else of material value to interest trade in, ensuring that their pastoralist ways have endured even into the modern era. Located in the middle of the backward Puram cluster, their planet is poor even by the standards of medieval sophistication, hindering the artisanal pursuits of its occupants. Instead, the young Jocose were inspired to become masters of the spoken word, seeing it as the one field that they could hope for brilliance in. Today, this prowess has been honed to near perfection, but it is not diplomatic skill or empathy that they are so famous for. Instead, their people are renowned comedians, whose synonymity with the resource obsessed Puram still hasn’t bought them any real power within the alliance. Propositioning the first of their dour visitors to carry them offworld, the Jocose were delighted at the warmness of their reception. Quickly, they came to be one of the most wide-spread peoples in the region, with a roughly two hundred person strong population working as jesters on each planet. Living isolated from one another in service of jostling medieval courts, they actually prefer the strangeness that this grants them, enjoying the limelight of being foreign and effortlessly hilarious.
Some scoff at the apparent immaturity of their chosen trade, incredulous with their skill at defusing political situations and failing to realise that this is exactly what they do every day in service to the confrontational Puram, on occasion even undoing tensions with a single word. They are allowed to sit in on most large meetings for this reason, but it is considered bad practice for a visiting court to bring their own resident Jocose, both of them quickly becoming jealous of the others quick wit and destabilising things. One cannot sit silently throughout negotiations either, because after a while this causes advanced mental strain, which is why they chatter unceasingly throughout the day. For these reasons, off-worlders are amazed by the communities on their home-world, who live in close-knit groups and are quiet most of the time, thinking of what to say and apparently unaffected by the same restlessness. Potentially there is something about speaking to somebody of an unfamiliar mental composition that the Jocose find chemically addictive. Long-limbed and slightly hunch backed, they are adapted for speed on the slopes of their home world, but are lent a comedic appearance on flat ground that helps them in their job. Food is sparse where they came from, and so most individuals have a habit of eating whatever is in reach, even if they live in the food laden court of a baron or queen. For this reason, most off-world Jocose are pot bellied - if not obese, and are always wolfing things down while they joke, affecting a comical calmness to their tone of voice at the same time. In conjunction with their great height (around six foot seven on average), they can make for quite imposing figures, often dwarfing the royal processions that they are a part of. Smooth all over apart from ridged panels along their backs, in many ways they resemble the giant worms that Jocose tribespeople are still steward over, hinting at some sort of shared ancestry. Perhaps their most striking feature aside from a pair of neon green eyes are the four ‘fronds’ that sprout from their head, forming a rough cross shape and framing their sharp-toothed, snouted visages.
Although very famous within Puram itself, the species is known to the wider galaxy because of the strangeness of a colony that they recently set up right on the border with _____ space. Freezing because of its closeness to the _____, it has a small diameter and not much of interest going on, uncommonly even existing without the possession of a native macroscopic population. There are microbes under the ice, but these are extraordinarily simple and do not even prey on one another, persisting off of scant nutrients that filter in from seasonal rainfall that melts the snow above. The colonial population is made up entirely of retired jesters, who were offered the planet in return for their lifelong work in Purams regional centres. It is unlikely that the tribal Jocose are even aware of the colonies existence, and uninsulated by fat they would find the climate disagreeable anyway. The most interesting thing about the place is the way it is run, with the residents all rallying behind whoever makes the most idiotic decision and working (probably harder than they ever had before) to make it a reality. This has captivated the attention of political scientists, who like to visit the planet and interview the locals, who snicker and lie right to their faces. Most recently the colony was in the news for