WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK 0034 0034
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in their manner. Learned guards must root out potential
assassins and employ several methods to do so.
• Some subject visitors to casual beatings, hoping to
betray a Boneshard by forcing any internal weapons
to do deadly damage while still hidden away.
• Others use magnetic stones to detect any metal
weapons that might lie beneath the skin.
• Magic is the most expensive method of discovering
hidden weapons, but it is also the most reliable.
• While well known among the security conscious,
Boneshards remain mythical among the masses.
Most believe assassins riddled with deadly, poisonous weapons exist only in stories. Thus, they take no
special precautions against them until it is too late.
• One of the bigger secrets is how to hire a Boneshard
to assassinate someone specific. Most tales mention
sarhaks picking up psychic impressions of people
looking to hire a Boneshard among the thought
clouds in marketplaces or rulers’ courts. The sarhaks
then secretly act as liaisons between assassins and
employers without ever revealing the faces of either
and providing plausible deniability for all concerned.
New Challengers
Gone are the days of tribal dominance. The preceding
groups drive Khitus today, each vying for control and each
with its plan for dominance and hopes for their future on
Khitus. But new rivals have appeared on the scene as well,
unforeseen and undeniably powerful, and their challenges
match or exceed those coming from the blasted landscapes.
Krikis (The Hivekin)
The Krikis are perhaps the most widely recognized threat,
stirring with newfound intelligence in their bleak, forbidding Hivelands. For eons, they were predictable bugs that
needed only be tolerated and contained in their portions of
the planet. Now they wander further afield, threatening the
dwindling fertile lands like locusts with a plan. The questions
left to far too many are: Why are they on the move? What is
their objective? Can they be contained or parlayed with?
Oritahl (Cold Skins)
Similarly, the savage lizard folk who were once content on
the unwanted fringes of the world have grown more numerous and bold. Reptilian Cold Skins who once fought solely
with tooth and claw now forge weapons and armor, though
from whom they learned these skills is unknown. They tend
to be solitary when encountered, which makes them a largely
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shambolic threat. Still, with the ongoing changes in krikish
behavior, folk worry that the Oritahl might also learn to band
together and insist upon a role in the future of the world.
Yenfansa (White Eyes /
The Devil’s Children)
A pregnancy is announced, and parents and family
make joyous preparations, even in these meager times.
Time passes—too little time, to be sure—and the young
mother grows large far too quickly. She is hidden away,
her loved ones suddenly nervous and unresponsive to
queries, the father exhausted from bringing food to
satisfy his wife’s ravenous appetite. In time the mother
re-emerges from hiding, belly flat, eyes sallow and distant, and not a word is spoken. None need be. Everyone
knows that another Yenfansa has been born, and all
hope it has been abandoned sufficiently far out in the
wilderness that it will never be seen again.
The Yenfansa are born hairless with stark, pupil-less white
eyes. Such births are infrequent but growing more common. A Devil’s Child is easily turned out into the world.
For one thing, it bears no resemblance to its parents, who
ultimately have no connection to the child. For another,
the Yenfansa are born fully alert and cognizant, babbling
a demon’s language, hate-filled and almost visibly growing – one can fend for itself in the wild in a matter of hours.
White Eyes are doomed to short lives but emerge onto the
world with unsurpassed wisdom. With puberty comes rapid
deterioration and a painful death. In the meantime, a Devil’s Child never sleeps, devoting itself single-mindedly to
its pursuits, perpetually an outcast, shunned by the fearful,
sought out by the wise. The Yenfansa have some mysterious
role to play in Khitus’s unfolding story, that much is certain.
Dangers Yet Unknown
Certainly the least understood encroachment onto Khitus
comes from beyond the sky. The Bev al-Khim are ambassadors for one such threat, for where could the denizens of
the Black Tower – and even the Black Tower itself – have
come from but from some other world? What is their goal?
Are there others like them who will plant their flags in Khitus’s sands? Are their scouts already among us?
These new challengers make the future murkier still. Any one
of these groups may leave its mark on Khitus, as did the savage
gods and the Daragkarik of old. Perhaps destiny marks one of
them as a potential ruling force to restore Khitus to stability and
future health. All folk know for certain is that death comes foe
all should the mettle of these agendas or agents prove insufficient to the task of taking control of this world and its peoples.
