Besides the Girav gel and Biaban people it appears that nearly all Attovian ethnicities started first as crop tenders and with husbandry. A strange phenomenon that is either thanks to early intervention from their deities or the erasure of a much more ancient hunter/gatherer archetype in their cultures thanks to the devastation brought about during the Times of Terror and Times of Sorrow. No matter the source of this one of its larger side effects is a relatively late development in the act of hunting animals for food. This is not too surprising either when one considers the nearly constant threat of ambush by True Monsters during the majority of all cultures’ histories. This has resulted in a more direct connection to valued trophies from animals and modern explanations of the purpose of different parts of physiology. Skulls and hearts for this reason are the most common pieces taken for display, the former in a Stone Bug bleached state and the latter via some form of preservation which varies from group to group. The skull for it hosts the brain, responsible for decisions, personality and will. The heart for it hosts the Ogen and anchors the Soul/brain.
The skull of a creature is cut cleanly from the vertebrae during the skinning process, and if available placed in a vat of crushed Stone Bugs to speedily strip the flesh from the bone. After this is finished the skull is left in direct sunlight for seven days to be “cleansed” of any remnant Soul Memory. Some superstitions state that a skull left in an abode might attract unwanted attention and so they are most commonly displayed on the exterior of the hunter’s residence. Hunting is actually so knew that it was still relatively novel during the beginning of The Meyda War and it was not uncommon to see many soldiers on all sides attaching and displaying skulls on their weapons and armor as marks of pride.
The heart is a more complicated matter and its extraction alone requires a more careful and learned knife to be employed. Upon retrieval the heart must be cut open carefully where it will be least noticeable so that a packet of salt can be inserted into the heart’s cavities. Then the heart is wrapped or submerged in salt and left to dry both inside and out. Once completely dried out (potentially after replacing a salt wrap once or twice) the internal packet is removed, the incision sown up and the heart is prepared to be displayed. A heart preserved in this way is displayed most often inside, in glass case if one can be afforded. This is mostly to avoid the heart finding itself taking up residency in the stomach of a hungry animal. Thanks to the increased hassle and price point to take a heart properly as a trophy they are far less common than skulls, and thus more prized by collectors and hunters.