Fuzzboks are bipedal warm-blooded predators covered in short fur. They have tufted tails and headcrests of longer fur.
Fuzzbok young are called kits. During childhood, a kit walks and runs on all fours. The hips and legs change after adolescence, and though adults can still stand, walk and scamper on four legs, it is not 'true' quadrupedal running.
Fuzz are highly adaptable, physically and mentally. Though simplistic, they show shockingly high learning speeds for anything that takes their interest. They are interested in almost everything.
Fuzz have three physical sexes. Two of the sexes are breeders: one male can impregnate one female who carries a single kit (rarely twins, though often one will die before birth because a fuzz is simply not built to carry two). The third sex is non-breeding. Fuzz are reticent about the third sex's exact purpose.
Fuzz reach heights around five feet when standing normally and bipedally. They live for about fifty Earth years.
[Forepaw/hand sketches] showing modern forepaws with claws, pads and some of the range of movement, and also the throwbackish forepaw found on a minority of individuals.
Fuzz have a verbal language of growls, coos, purrs, barks, rattles and hums, and also sophisticated body language.
Fuzz live in tribes. The social structure of these groups is unknown: there seems to be a hierarchy of responsibility, but with any number of variations not easily understandable for an offworlder. The membership of a tribe is fluid - breeding fuzz often leave and join groups with unrelated individuals, and other individual migrations take place for no apparent reason - but close-knit in a slightly impersonal manner. Social grooming and playfighting commonly take place.
A tribe will roam over a wide territory, the boundaries of which are also fluid. If two tribes meet, they will greet each other with no apparent fear, exchanging news and even members. (Apparent fearlessness is one of the species' characteristic traits.) Conflicts, when they arise, tend to be between individuals and quickly solved in one way or another. Fights are a common decider. In serious disputes, one of the adversaries will leave the tribe.
A tribe's babysitters, not often the biological parents, are in charge of all the tribe's kits. A babysitter or other tribe member will irregularly gather a few kits and teach them something, but kits are by and large expected to play a lot and learn social skills from each other and other life skills from their environment.
Often the babysitter will not rescue a kit that is putting itself in danger. Though kits are hardy, some die from making mistakes the babysitter did not act to prevent. A babysitter will sometimes hurry over to scoop a kit out of harm's way, apparently if it thinks the 'test' is 'unfair' in some way (fuzz do not discuss childcare with offworlders, so this is conjecture).
Fuzz only teach kits problems likely to arise in their home physical environment. Adult fuzz often go offplanet and discover new things or take up academic learning (see Interworld cooperation) but it is on their own initiative. Their learning skills remain high post-adolescence, post-menopause and through most of old age.
Kits are not usually allowed offplanet until maturity. Fuzz seem to have a lackadaisical attitude to childcare: this is because their world is a known quantity. Offworld hazards or interests are another matter entirely, and any foreigner who picks up a kit expecting to find it unprotected soon finds hirself corrected.
The fuzzworld and all tribes maintain neutrality throughout the War, though a small number of individual fuzzboks join various sides. Notably, the [Dark Army]? of Suitov Iceheart employs a fuzz as a general for some time (see Snarkli).
When peace is achieved (or often before official peace), small numbers of fuzz spread throughout the linked worlds. They seem to have no agenda other than personal interest. Travelling fuzz tend to remain on a foreign world or travel for most of their adult lives (some of them very much enjoy space flight), returning home once or more to breed and again to die.
See also:
An old alternative name for fuzzboks, vaiskox, is no longer used because of intellectual property concerns and irrelevance.
Fuzz are not 'furries'. They are a very different thing. Or so they claim.
Chatbit:
![[Home]](/styles/knot.jpg)
![[Forepaw/hand sketches]](http://www.hellhound.net/graphics/sketchbook/fuzzhand.jpg){kind=link}