Only very recently charted, Myrpol is an arid world divided mostly into a few planet spanning seas. Its waters are choppy, kicked up a lot of the time into tumult and frenziedly lashing at the few island peaks which happen to breach all the way to the surface, most of them craggy and splendidly tall. It is impressive that even in spite of the heat these rare land masses have proven capable of supporting life - especially in such a great profusion. Everywhere carpeted in grasses and wildflowers, they foster copses of trees and even a few unintelligent tribes of scavengers, seemingly regressed from true sentience but still able to walk upright, everyday making the arduous climb down to the water's edge to speer at shoals of fish. As twilight descends they clamber back up into the heights, sheltering inside the palatial, mansion-like estates which first caught the eye of off-worlders and instigated tentative archaeological surveys of the planet. Today the clanspeople like to cluster around tents pitched by the recent arrivals, learning a little bit off of them and happily sharing their catches. But they are not the sole reasoning inhabitants of Myrtol.
For a long time marvelling at the sheer variety of concrete tiles inside the mansions, investigators were perplexed by the fact that, every now and again, one seemed inexplicably to go missing or to change in design. Eventually it turned out that not all of the flooring was static, but that certain tiles were actually a species of wandering (although very quiet), square shaped things named the Raku. Most striking about them is the radial symmetry of the patterning on their backs, which are divided into two blue and two yellow quarters, each possessing a unique design apparently in imitation of their well decorated homes. It is unknown at what point these creatures arrived on Myrtol, but some more flavoursome interpretations of their history make them out to be servants of the tribespeople prior to their sliding into primitivity. If this is to be believed then candle sticks or bowls of fruit might have been mounted on their backs, making them mobile tabletops capable of settling comfortably into specialised hollows set between the real tiles. They continue in this behaviour even today, although it has been a long long time since any of them ferried something around. Without mouths and having only comically scotopic vision, they move around very timidly to avoid crashing into anything, although they know intimately their mansion's floor plan and more often make contact with a passing member of their own kind. When this happens there is no indication of aggrievance, and the two just stand there blinking confusedly at one another before wandering off in opposite directions. For many weeks at a time they have been observed sunbathing in courtyards or out on the grass, and it is thought now that they might rely on photosynthesis to produce energy, absorbing light via the yellow patterning of their hides.
Presumably cohabiting since even before the long-ago vanishing of sophistication on Myrtol, there is no indication that the two peoples are at all concerned with engaging in any kind of cultural renaissance, seemingly quite happy to have plunged back into organisational disarray. Even so, the tribes maintain a penchant for artistry and are still capable of hewing basaltic rock with much the same skill as their forebears. Very rarely, if a sculptor is especially enamoured by their latest work, then they might deign to find a plinth for it and to set it up in a main hall, flanking one of the ancient busts it was shaped in imitation of. The Raku do not really have any equivalent artistic pursuit apart from a keen eye, which they exercise in placing pebbles and bundles of flowers around the peripheries of their favourite rooms. Scholars are extremely interested in the mats which they weave (painstakingly with unmoving fingers) from out of hemp. These are placed tenderly within their favourite alcoves, apparently to imply ownership and to stop dirt from staining their skin. When they happen to migrate between rooms, their possessions are left and apparently forgotten, although each will drag along with any personal bedding that they have, sometimes even woven through with feathers. It is thought that without such a striking visual stimuli, the near sightless Raku would unintentionally settle down into the wrong niche, maybe even instigating a petty rivalry. Because they are so quiet, it is very hard to tell to what extent they socialise with one another, and opinions differ as to whether or not they are even truly sentient. Right now the belief is that they are, but potentially that their concerns are just so difficult for off-worlders to quantify that we don’t know how to properly start dialogue with them.
It seems that they band together depending on the patterning of their hides, and that certain individuals can become smitten with one another’s identifying markings, likely living in small groups who each have a mutual appreciation for all the other members physical appearance. Very often these ‘families’ live in places whose decor matches the way that they look, and researchers suggest that they might have as much admiration for their homes as they do for each other. Surprisingly, the determination of their markings seems not to be completely a matter of heritage, although it is unknown how much variation is possible between parent and child. In contrast to the scattered isolationism favoured by small cohorts of the Raku, their neighbours like to band very closely together, even when the intense heat sometimes makes it uncomfortable. They choose the largest room they can find, building within it small constructs of sticks and leaves to house tools that are out of use. Larger leaves are scattered all over the floor in a kind of disjointed mattress, and the whole community lies there once night falls, enjoying company which can number up to a hundred and forty people, the largest tribe yet discovered.