• Some subject visitors to casual beatings, hoping to betray a Boneshard by forcing any internal weapons to do deadly damage while still hidden away.. Most believe assassins riddled with
Trang 1in 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,
poison-ous 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,
forbid-ding 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
numer-ous 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
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 dis-tant, 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 com-mon 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 grow-ing – 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 Dev-il’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 ambas-sadors 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 Khi-tus’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 insuf-ficient to the task of taking control of this world and its peoples