The Hou-Zi Monkey Man Roleplay Guide!

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

 

Spoiler

 

The Hou-Zi Roleplay Guide

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Hello nerds and nerdettes, what you are about to read is a comprehensive guide on how to roleplay the newly accepted race, the Hou-Zi, monkey folk of the southern jungles. For the full lore, here.

 

This lore will cover how to make your name your Hou-Zi, and how to make it look, speak, and act. For full Hou-Zi culture I recommend you check out the thread linked above.

 

For now, Hou-Zi are an ET only race. In the near future, I plan to make it so anyone can apply to play one by making a creature app (CA) to the MAT. More will be added to this guide in the future, and for now it exists for people interested in playing a monkey man in the future to read.

 

Appearance - Skin Making

There aren’t many examples of monkey people skins on the internet, so more will need to be made. If you seek to make a skin for your own Hou-Zi character, or for others, consider the following:

 

Body

Hou-Zi at their core are very simple. They have the same proportions as humans, but have the following distinctions.

• A full body of fur (Except the immediate area surrounding their facial features)

• A more protruding nose and mouth

• Larger, rounder ears

• Long tails

• Hand-like feet. (Feet that look like hands. Yes.)

• Pupiless eyes, (no whites, only one straight colour, whatever their eye color is. This isn’t represented in the artwork below, but on a minecraft skin it serves to make them look less human and more like a beast race).

 

Face Example

 

 

Full Body Example

 

 

Subraces

The colour of the Hou-Zi will differ depending on their specific breed.

 

Laobai-Zhu

The most common breed of Hou-Zi. Their fur should be any shade of brown and their eyes can be any variety, although yellow and black are the most common. (The pictures above are both Laobai-zhu).

 

Hei-Zhu

They are humanoid gorillas. Skin appropriately.

 

Fei-Zhu

This subrace is known for being extremely colourful, so there is a lot of creative license in skinning for them. Their fur can be blue, yellow, gold, red, orange, or green. Make sure to make their fur colour deep and not anything modern looking like neon. Eye colour can be anything. Most common for this subrace would be red.

 

Clothing

Current day Hou-Zi live peasant lives in the jungle, surviving off of farming and fishing. As such, their clothing should reflect that.

Typical Hou-Zi clothing, for both males and females.

 

As you can see above, Hou-Zi clothing should definitely  give off a simplistic, yet distinctly asian/eastern vibe. Loose robes and sashes are the way to go. Just because they’re peasants doesn’t mean you should make your Hou-Zi’s clothing all brown and muddy! Feel free to get colourful. Hou-Zi clothing should be dark. Dark green, dark red and dark blue being the primary ones.

 

More typical Hou-Zi clothing.

 

For male Hou-Zi, it’s common (but not mandatory) to go topless, easier for swimming, fishing and working the fields. Topless Hou-Zi will still wear long, loose fitting pants and would look more or less like this:

 

Skin Examples:

http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/tang-mo-request/

This skin is HB's, don't use it unless it's modified a lot.

 

http://www.planetminecraft.com/skin/northern-tang-mo/

This one is KBR’s, change clothing if going to use.

 

Credit to triplewing on both.

 

Names

Hou-Zi naming structure is the reverse of most other cultures. By order it goes [Family Name, Personal Name]. Their names also usually translate into certain meanings, although this is not mandatory. These can be literally anything, from a name which means ‘No Regrets’ (Wu Han) to ‘King Mountain’ (Wang Shan).

 

Family Names

The following is a list of common family names you can draw from, these come from the designated ‘Hundred Surnames’ (Lao Bai Xing), mandated by the god king during the glory days of the empire.

 

Wu

Chen

Hsieh (pronounced ‘Shay’)

Yuan

Zhang

Zhao

Li

Wang

Liu

Luan

Chan

Tan

Han

 

Individual Names

A Hou-Zi’s ‘first name’ is as limitless as the ancient language itself. Usually it is simply something memorable or meaningful. It is common for Hou-Zi to name their child after common heroes of old, most notably the god-king and his three sons. As such, Shen, Wang, Da, and Xiao are the most common of first names. Some additional names with meaning attached as listed below.

 

Jing - Gold

Lung - Wolf

Shen - Holy/Blessed

Shan - Mountain/High

 

OOCly, Literally any word in the chinese language works. The naming system (even IRL) is completely random. Seriously, I grew up among the Taiwanese and I know people named ‘Octopus’. The country’s president is named ‘Speaks-Shitty-English’, i.e Tsai-Ing Wen. (She speaks perfect english).

 

The screenshot above shows how you can incorporate a mandarin word into your name. Just go into google translate (it’s actually fairly accurate if you’re just translating single words), type in the word you want to be named in English, then use the phonetic/romanized pinyin below the direct translation (marked in red).

 

Combining

The family name always goes first. So if you pick ‘Wu’ for your family name and ‘Jing’ for your individual name, your Hou-Zi’s name will be Wu-Jing. If you pick your family name to be Hsieh and your individual name Shen, your name will be Hsieh-Shen. And so on.

 

You can get creative with this. Like Li-Lese. (Li being the family name, Lèsè being the individual name… meaning garbage.)

 

Speech

Of course, the main language of the Hou-Zi in the modern era is common (I.e, English, because I can’t expect all of you to become fluent in Chinese). However, there are a few particular expressions.

 

• Use simpler, broken english. Imagine how a second language english speaker would talk in real life.

 

• No articles. (Never say the ‘a’, ‘an’, or ‘the’ in a sentence)

 

• No past or future tense. Everything should be spoken in present tense.

 

• The passing of days is referred to as a sunrise. “Many sunrises ago..” “Many sunrises from now..”

 

• The passing of weeks is referred to as a moon. “Three moons ago…” “In coming moon..”

 

• The passing of years is referred to as a lunar cycle. “Thousand lunar cycles ago, Hou-zi people were great empire!”

 

• No ‘S’ at the end of certain words. ‘Thinks’ becomes ‘think’. ‘Gives’ becomes ‘give’.

 

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When roleplaying a Hou-Zi, you should keep these common words of the Hou-Zi language (oocly: mandarin) in mind and are recommended to use them in common speech. (The accents on top of the words just indicate the tone, and since minecraft roleplay is typed, not spoken, they’re optional).

 

Xiōngdì - Brother. (Hou-Zi should always address other Hou-Zi as this.)

 

Nǐ hǎo  - Hello.

 

Nǐ hǎo ma - Are you well?

 

Hóu - Monkey, cultural connotation: The Chosen Race

 

Rén - People, person

 

Huángdì - King

 

Nǚwáng - Queen

 

Shén - God

 

Yù - Jade

 

Zhǔ - Tribe, people group

 

Yuan - Moon.

 

Bai chi - Stupid. Foolish.

 

Lou Suo - Bullshit

 

Cáifù - Wealth (Tā hěn cáifù: He’s wealthy, high in society)

 

Bian Lian Ren - Humans. (Literally: Flatfaces)

 

Jian Tou Ren - Elves. (Literally: Pointy heads)

 

Ai Shan Ren - Dwarves. (Literally: Short mountain people)

 

Gongzhu Ren - Orcs. (Literally: Boarfolk. Likely because of the orcish tusks)

 

Ying-Er Ren - Halflings. (Literally: Baby people)

 

Mao Ren - Kharajyr. (Literally: Cat-People)

 

Note: Ren just means ‘people’. So instead of saying ‘Bian Lian Ren’ you can just say ‘Bian Lian’.

 

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Examples

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“Hello brother, I ventured out of the jungle the other day and saw a group of Elves! They looked at me as if I was a monster and ran away! Haha!”

 

Becomes…

 

“Nihao, Xiondgi. I venture out into forest one moon ago. Saw many Jian Tou Ren. Silly Jian Tou think Li-Shen is monster and run! Hoohoohoo...”

 

--

 

“Ha! Those Fei-Zhu, with their colourful furs and glowing eyes… always looking down on us Laobai-Zhu! They say their bloodlines are descended from nobility! I call it rubbish.”

 

Becomes…

 

“Hoohoohoo.. Fei-Zhu bai chi! Think colourful fur and shiny eyes give them right to look down on us. They say their bloodlines noble? I say Lou Suo!”

 

--

 

“I know many years ago our people had an immortal king who guided us, and an empire which spanned the whole world. Maybe someday he’ll return to us and we will rise once more.”

 

Becomes…

 

“I know thousand moon ago, Hou-Zi had ever-living Huangdi, had Empire which ruled many land. I think Hou-Shen return someday and Hou-Zi will rise again.”

 

[KBR 2046]

Yeah

"Li-Shen like" Li-Shen remarks to himself from his hut

[Gallic 1066]

1: Your reference 'body appearance' picture has human feet and proportions, not monkey feet or proportions. That makes them look like furry humans with a tail.

2: Why the third person? Why? We already have a race that does that, why force everyone to either 'break lore' or refer to themselves in the third person? Man that ain't fun. Also, you voiced these all as absolutes, denying the chance for a monkey-man to learn to use words that other races do, like articles, tenses, days and weeks...

3: i want to be a wise old chinese inspired monkey man please

[Cat Evocation 3728]

8 minutes ago, HurferDurfer1 said:

what happened to my premium rp

 

In the waking moment, we had forgot to ask, has lore gone too far?

[GloriaPreussens 798]

You've actually failed me as a son.

[Destroyer_Bravo 1054]

i'm about to chimp out

[dm420 186]

why tho

[WuHanXianShi14 0]

1 hour ago, TheCritsyBear said:

1: Your reference 'body appearance' picture has human feet and proportions, not monkey feet or proportions. That makes them look like furry humans with a tail.

2: Why the third person? Why? We already have a race that does that, why force everyone to either 'break lore' or refer to themselves in the third person? Man that ain't fun. Also, you voiced these all as absolutes, denying the chance for a monkey-man to learn to use words that other races do, like articles, tenses, days and weeks...

3: i want to be a wise old chinese inspired monkey man please

1) It's impossible to find concept art which exactly matches what I want hou-zi to look like until I can get a commission done for me, so that's just an unfortunate reality of life

 

2) Good point, I've had a few people criticize the 3rd person so I'll get rid of that or make it optional

[Medvekoma 2073]

Welcome to see the Wulongs Hou-zi.

[Vaynth 3005]

1 hour ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

Halflings. (Literally: Baby people)

I had a chuckle.

[PraiseTheLord 868]

3 hours ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

Bian Lian Ren - Humans. (Literally: Flatfaces)

"Diz, mih leyk."
Notes Wargoth Turkurz'Raguk

[Gallic 1066]

3 hours ago, 吳憾戰士14 said:

1) It's impossible to find concept art which exactly matches what I want hou-zi to look like until I can get a commission done for me, so that's just an unfortunate reality of life

 

2) Good point, I've had a few people criticize the 3rd person so I'll get rid of that or make it optional

1: Man just link a picture of a rhesus macaque or baboon standing to keep watch or something. Suckers can be cute and scary and stand on two feet when they're looking around sometimes.

 

2: I really like the idea of it being optional, for those people who do like using third person. To be honest, I don't mind monkey people using third person, but I also don't like the idea of people being forced to use it if they don't like it. I don't know how you'd explain some doing it and some not, though. Maybe it's a cultural thing that goes away with exposure (if the player wants it to), or something. Unlike the Kha, who seem to do it as some kind of compulsion.

[ThatWeirdGirl 432]

This lore is beautiful.

[Archbishop 1784]

yay, but please don't have events and this race exclusive to the elves in the forest cause thats very stupid, regardless of who made the lore.

[Man of Respect 5471]

I just want to apply on a whitelist app as an apeman already, please!