HUMAN - TAERUK

MEDIUM HUMANOID

Humans are not the eldest, nor the strongest, nor the most agile of races, yet they are the most common upon the continents. This is due to the fact that humans are flexibly adaptive to most environments and opportunities, harshly judge those that are not alike and spread really, really quickly. Add to that a suprisingly high potential for great minds, and humans have risen to create a dominant civilization upon the central lands of the realm. Humanity has survived many ages but their history has often been rewritten, destroyed and simply forgotten due to their warlike tendencies. Since their age dawned many millenia ago, humanity spread and split into many variants, each evolving depending on their settled area. Long ago, a few humans were able to drink from the blood of a great serpentine corrupted astral and became its loyal servants. It gifted them with special parts of itself, but only to those it deemed worthy. As such the Taeruk were split into three, some no longer even recongizably human. The monarchs, purebloods and vilebloods. Monarchs are incredibly rare and will lead a tribe or city on their own. A serpent’s head leads to a male torso attached to a long serpent’s tail, and they tower over regular humanoids. At no point is there humanoid flesh, even the torso is scaled and sturdy. Purebloods, while not as uncommon as a Monarch, are still truly rare. Still keeping their human form, they will often have serpentine features, such as scaled backs and arms, and an elongated head. Vilebloods keep to their human ancestry, with only minor features betraying their heritage such as a long forked tongue, fanged teeth a few scales on the hands or feet or pupils that can slit to better see in the dark.

TAERUK CULTURE

The taeruk culture is a vicious one, where the endgoal is all what truly matters. Misdeeds, treachery, lies and deceit are everyday occurrences yet equally balanced with blood pacts and extreme loyalties. Secondly within the szrassas culture is that of class. Monarch szrassas are worshipped as nearly living deities by the purebloods, while the vilebloods and their ilk are seen as worthless and only worthy of slaves, with many of them driven into a fanatic worship culture so that they are not the chosen to be blood sacrificed. As only males are born as Purebloods, and only males can aspire to become Monarchs through blood rituals, the Taeruk culture is especially male dominated. Especially beautiful female vilebloods can aspire to something greater, often as priestesses of a pureblood's house or to join their harem and have a greater social status than other vilebloods. However, as the place is highly sought, it is not uncommon for younger female Taeruk to seduce the master of a female of greater status than themselves to acquire the position or to simply poison or murder their rivals.

TAERUK RELIGION

The Taeruk worship the pantheon of the Lazraniir and the Treaty of Lazras. To them, the great serpent which wraps the world, Szraar, is the deity to which they are bound and to whom they sacrifice. Many of the rituals Szraar demands are vicious, the sacrifices tortuous, venomous and bloody, and such shape much of the Taeruk’s way of life.

RELIGION - SZRAAR, THE GREAT SERPENT

TAERUK DIMORPHISMS

VILEBLOODS : The male and female of the human species has very slight differences, other than their visual distinctions. Males are of slightly stronger build by nature, while the female tends to be more slender and graceful, although both are able to ascend and surpass one another in these regards. Beyond this, they are very much alike in mind and abilities.

PUREBLOODS : Some males of special bloodlines of the taeruk are born with special gifts, their link to the great Serpent apparent through scales, teeth and greater body.

MONARCHS : The very rare monarchs are the serpent's avatars made flesh, with a male torso being the only remnant of their human ancestry. Their lower limbs replaced with a long snake's constricting tail and their head a great venomous snake's.

TAERUK STATISTICS