Colo

The Colo are a mouse-like race hailing from the dwarf planet Orcus, orbiting O'Tena, a star in the Core Worlds, about 100 parsecs north of Coruscant. Because of the extremely light gravity, Colo are almost exclusive to their homeworld.

History
The Colo have a short-ish history, comparing them to other recently discovered species like the Ewok. O'Tena was ignored because only a large gas giant and 2 asteroids ~100 km in diameter, but at around 300 BBY, Orcus was settled, and the Colo were discovered around Oases, because the species depends on water.

Interaction with the Republic
The species' planet has never been alleged as an actual catalogued world, until 21 BBY, when Orcus was put on an official republic star map. The map was only of the ~1,000 planets near Coruscant. The empire then put it in a core and inner Galaxy star maps in c. 4 BBY and 0 BBY, respectively.

Males
Males usually have brown fur and weigh ~10 kilos. They have tails about 0.9 meters in length that are covered in Down, usually a feather in bird species. Males live about as long as females, but the oldest Colo is a male. Males are usually with a female of the same age, and have a family of ~30 Colo. When food is not abundant, males might travel in groups to find a village with a surplus of food. One group of Males(and 2 females + 1 child) had traveled 115 miles in 22 days to find a good crop.

Females
Females usually have white fur and navy blue eyes and weigh ~9.2 kilos. They have tails about 0.7 me meters long that are more furry than their Male counterparts. Females live as long as males, but the 2nd longest living Colo was a female. Females live with a male of the same age, and have a family of 30. When food is scarce, Females and children will live off their body fat, or go with males to find food.

Groups
Colo live in large groups of about 35(the size of a normal village) when there are no children. Usually the population would be 1,000. Colo usually will care for each other, and have a societal web.

Youth
Both males and females are born with gray fur, and little stubs of what are tails. The babies live off the mother for 2 days, after which the babies eat fruit soft enough for their teeth. After 1 month the babies eat seeds and shoots, and are taken in by their father, the mother finding food for the children. When the child reaches 1(Colo years, 1 and 2 months in Alderaanian years) the children will find their own food, and when 13, the children will get their own place in the societal web.

Education
Colo start school at 4, where one teacher will teach different subjects, like elementary schools everywhere else in the galaxy. When 8, the subjects are taught by different teachers, during periods. At 13 years, schools are attended which single subjects are taught in different angles, like math would be studied in Trigonometry, geometry, and algebra/ calculus. When in adulthood, or 16 years of age, college is attended, where more subjects are taught in more ways. High schools (illiteral translation) and colleges are usually in cities which have about 100,000 people living in them.

Clothing
Colo wear clothing such as robes and coats, with robes being in one piece and 2 undergarments and pants with clothes like jackets and coats. Pants also have undergarments. School clothing is a white shirt, underpants, black sweatshirt, shorts, pants and a tie.

Food
A famous Colo dish is H'nabi, an Orcese bamboo noodle, Poppin, with an assortment or fruits, nuts and seeds, with Popyobonmon sauce(Orcese cooking oil, with Payappa and Orcus squid ink mixed in, with enough sand to keep the oil from floating to the top) on the dish and fish medallion steaks. Parbteggra is an Orcese Pomelo, Pabba with soy sauce and rice on the side. In the Core and Colonies Orcese cuisine is very abundant. Hngwopp is a tea consisting of Pyott, an Orcese red bean that is put in a tea bag and boiled with the teabag in the kettle which contains mineral water. Orcese sodas are Pattabyon, an ice tea with added sugar and food colorings. These are usually red, but are green, blue, yellow and even purple.

Jewelry, art and tattoos
Colo tattoos are usually green or blue, and depicts events and other Colo. Jewelry consists of amethysts and rubies. Art is usually 3-dimensional and consists of layers of plastics and glass. Shellwork is very popular and uses mollusks to make symbols.

Langauage
Colese consists of 15 letters:
 * a
 * e
 * i/y
 * o
 * u
 * o-o (oo)
 * in
 * p
 * t
 * h
 * pp
 * n
 * b
 * bh
 * g

The letters themselves can be used as words; at least 20 adjectives and nouns each. a can mean "single", "old", or "north". For example, the North Star(Neejis), is App. O-oinhtba, a tree means "Two-stalked fruit making tree of oriental origin". Foreign words(Nerf, Rancor, Hutt, Tatooine, etc.) are pronounced similar to the original, like the Japanese alphabet Katakana. The examples given translate to, respectively:
 * Napp
 * Hangha
 * Ho-ot
 * Tatao-oehn

Notice that most of the words of the original context don't have the same letters as the translations. This is because those letters don't exist in Coloese, and the letters are changed to their closest sounding Coloese counterparts. Words like "The", "It", "His" are all suffixes. "The dog" would be Ghtppau-u, "That's it" would be Un-ppo, and "His ball" would be Thi-gha. Verbs are prefixes like "Yoda ran" into Ngo-Ita.

Everyday life
Tables are usually on the floor, with food served on a special carpet and pits for people to sit on. Bedrooms have a mattress with a pillow. Most Colo sit and meditate for a while in front of a shrine after they wake up, for good luck.

Religion
Tiny shrines are supposed to be homes for a household God, where pictures of family, friends and other good things are put on the shrine. Palaces, where the leader of Orcuslives has a shrine God named Poppirin Tahues.

Behind the Scenes
The Colo are based off the Colo Colo, a mouse-like river creature.