On Barakleths

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“They weren’t bears. Bears don’t beg and bears don’t stitch.” -  Ranger-Sergeant Ilse Marr, sole survivor of the Brackenfall Incident

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Type	Humanoid Insectoid
Relatives	Gajawomps (proximity)
	Yukaku (proximity)
Distribution	Anywhere there's bears
Rarity	Uncommon
Height	6'0" - 8'6" (hunched)
	182-259cM (hunched)
Lifespan	Short (violent)
Diet	Omnivorous Scavenger
Oath	Landbound

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They stood up out of the brush slow and careful, like they didn’t want to scare me. I remember thinking the bear was wounded, because its fur was wrong. Too many seams.

Then it reached out and took Joren by the head with one hand and pulled. I heard stitching tear before I heard bone break.

After that, I ran. It didn’t chase me. It was busy deciding what parts of him to keep.

• Field Journal of Lysa Fen, recovered near Blackroot Pass

---

The creatures known as Barakleths occupy a brutal niche left empty. They are neither clever enough to rule nor stupid enough to be dismissed and their presence is often mistaken for something far more natural and far more dangerous.

At a distance, a barakleth can pass for a bear shambling upright. Their overall silhouette is broad and top-heavy, with a barrel chest and heavy shoulders in a perpetual hunch. Beneath the stitched pelts and hanging fur a barakleth’s true body is insectile. Thick plates of dull, dark chitin overlap across their torso, shoulders and thighs, peeking through gaps in their worn pelts.

Their limbs are long and jointed, bending at unsettling angles. The arms are massive and end in heavy, clawed hands capable of tearing and climbing with ease. The legs are digitigrade and powerful. Despite their size, barakleths are capable climbers, hauling their weight up trees and rock faces with disturbing efficiency.

A barakleth’s head is narrow and wedge-shaped beneath its mask. Two pairs of dull, multifaceted eyes set wide along the sides of the skull and a smaller pair of forward-facing eyes that peer out through whatever crude eyeholes have been cut into its pelt. These eyes are incapable of closing, giving the unsettling impression that the creature is always watching.

Their mouths are dominated by a pair of thick, hooked mandibles that jut forward from the jaw, partially concealed by stitched muzzles of leather, fur and bone meant to suggest a bear’s snout. Behind these mandibles lies a mouth crowded with sharp, uneven teeth suited for tearing rather than chewing. When agitated or excited, the mandibles click and grind against one another, an instinctive motion barakleths make no effort to suppress. A series of slit-like openings line the base of the head and upper chest, flexing as the creature breathes. When exerted, these vents flare and whistle softly.

Barakleths are obsessed with bears in the manner of worshippers and imitators. To them the bear is strength perfected, a creature that needs no trickery, no deals and no fear. A barakleth will never willingly attack a living bear, to do so would be sacrilege. Instead, they seek to become bears in the only way they understand: by wearing them.

Barakleth pelts are patchworks of stolen fur, hides and skins, crudely stitched together with sinew, thorn and wire. A true bear pelt is a treasure beyond measure, passed down, fought over or used to mark a chieftain among their kind. Lesser pelts taken from yukaku, beasts or unlucky travellers are used to fill gaps and reinforce the illusion.

The stitching is always visible, always sloppy and always unsettling, as though the barakleth wants the world to know how much effort it took to look this good.

Despite their bestial appearance, barakleths possess a low but functional cunning. They are ambush predators and brutal enforcers, preferring sudden violence over prolonged fights. Their long limbs grant them startling reach and speed, allowing them to lope, climb and spring with frightening efficiency. When they kill they do so quickly, out of impatience.

Barakleths rarely hunt alone. They form loose packs bound by strength and the quality of their pelts rather than blood or lineage. Leadership is informal and constantly contested, but rarely through ritual. A barakleth with a better bear-pelt is simply listened to by the others, because that one's a better bear, obviously. When it loses that pelt, it loses authority.

Their relationship with the yukaku is transactional and disturbingly stable. The yukaku recognize the barakleths as useful tools rather than rivals. Deals are struck; the barakleths are allowed to strip the fallen of their fur and hides and in return they serve as shock troops, hunters and executioners. The barakleths do not resent this arrangement. They see yukaku deaths as gifts and wear the results with a reverence that borders on gratitude.

Gajawomps on the other hand adore barakleths. The reason is simple. Gajawomps lack the fur and mass worth harvesting and so barakleths leave them alone. Worse, the barakleths seem incapable of recognizing the source of the misfortune surrounding the Gajawomps, attributing accidents, broken gear and sudden failures to bad omens or personal weakness. As a result they treat gajawomps as strange, harmless mascots, allowing them to linger, chatter and even ride upon their backs if the mood strikes.

Barakleths communicate through a mix of chittering vocalizations, crude gestures and occasional mimicry of words they have heard shouted in battle. They understand more than they can speak and remember insults far longer than favours. When angered they do not roar or posture. They go still, clutching their pelts as if to steady themselves, before erupting into the sudden, overwhelming violence of a territorial bear whose cubs you just kicked.

To encounter a barakleth is to experience the discomfort of something pretending very badly to be something else. They are not bears, but they desperately want to be. 

---

On Cruets

The cruets of Badarr are so commonplace that most Citizens scarcely notice them. They shuffle through the streets from dawn until well after dusk, cracked feet scraping against stone with a dry whisper that becomes easy to ignore after only a few days within the capital. They sweep roads, carry bricks, dredge canals, ring bells and perform a thousand other humble labours that together keep the kingdom's heart beating. Few pause to consider them beyond a passing reminder that debt, like death, eventually comes for everyone.

The Crown teaches that a cruet is not merely punishment but a mercy granted by the Nine themselves. A debtor who has exhausted every opportunity afforded them has nevertheless been granted one final chance to repay what they owe. Whether this is truly merciful is a matter for philosophers but it is however undeniably practical.

Children sometimes leave scraps of bread beside a passing cruet before embarrassed parents usher them away. Merchants wave them aside much as they might a stray dog lingering too long before a market stall. The wealthy look through them entirely but a simple fact remains; no-one hates the cruets. Hatred requires acknowledging another as an equal and a cruet has long since ceased to occupy such a place within society.

The process by which one becomes a cruet is no great secret. When a debtor's obligations become impossible to repay the body is judged an asset separate from the soul that once inhabited it. That body is sold on in order to pay for the transition of the debtor to a cruet, most often to the jin stables where it may yet prove useful beneath another occupant. The soul however cannot be disposed of so readily; it still bears the burden of its obligations.

Covenantrists prepare a ceramic vessel and imprison the debtor within it. Ash, straw, clay and whatever other common materials happen to be available are packed around the bound spirit before the shell is sealed. The resulting figure is crude, fragile and entirely sufficient for its purpose. There is little ceremony attached to the process since it is so common and accepted; contracts are witnessed, debts recorded. The binding is completed and the debtor becomes a cruet.

Most people believe the Crown maintains the cruets because labour is valuable, which is true, though only in the smallest sense. There are easier and better ways to sweep streets after all, the true value of a cruet lies elsewhere. It has long been understood amongst thaumaturges that the Soul continually refines Essence from lived experience. Every joy, sorrow, triumph and humiliation slowly distils into subtle resonances that ordinarily circulate back into the Soul itself, strengthening both spirit and self. 

This quiet exchange continues throughout life unnoticed by all but the most gifted practitioners, that is until a cruet interrupts that exchange. The Soul remains intact as indeed it must, but the Essence it produces no longer returns to nourish it. Instead it is quietly drawn away by the enchantments woven into the vessel itself, where Covenantrists recover, refine and catalogue it.

The labour exists not because sweeping produces clean streets, it exists because living produces Essence. This also explains why the Crown’s agents seldom assign cruets to meaningless work. A mason repairs walls, a gardener tends palace grounds, a mother who once raised children may spend decades maintaining orphanages and a temple chorist may find themselves forever ringing bells whose hymns they can no longer properly hear.

The task itself matters less than the feelings it stirs.

Fear yields one quality of Essence, determination another. Shame, grief, pride, longing, hope and resignation each produce their own distinct refinements, all subtly different in colour, resonance and thaumaturgical application. A skilled Covenantrist can reportedly distinguish them without instruments, much as a vintner distinguishes one year's harvest from another or knows where the grapes were grown.

Precisely what uses the Crown finds for these distillations remains largely unpublished but to anyone who has taken the time to internalize other publications, the meaning is writ plain.

It is tempting to imagine that after enough years a cruet simply ceases to feel. A soft and easy lie to tell oneself, but this does not appear to be the case.

The Soul remembers. It remembers who it was, who it loved and what it lost. Time dulls these memories as mush as the cruet’s body dulls sensation in general, yet they remain sufficient to continue producing Essence. Hope becomes resignation, anger becomes weariness, nostalgia replaces grief. The Soul changes and the Essence changes with it.

Some eventually abandon even the effort of inhabiting the shell, slipping free into weak spectral forms, which has sometimes been foolishly mistaken for escape. It is not, as the debt remains attached to the Soul rather than the vessel. Crown sorcerers recover these wandering spirits with admirable efficiency and bind them into new shells at cost, where the work begins again.

Naturally there are rumours. Some claim the Essence gathered from cruets powers the kingdom's greatest thaumaturgical works while others insist it is required to maintain wards beneath the Moon Castle or to sustain enchantments upon which the Crown itself depends. A more superstitious sort might claim that the Pale King feeds upon distilled despair directly, though such tales generally become more elaborate and less plausible with each successive tankard.

Still, one cannot help but notice that certain varieties of Essence are purchased by the Crown in quantities that appear.. Ambitious. No official explanation has ever been offered.

The existence of the cruets is generally accepted as both necessary and just. The wealthy regard them as proof that no debt escapes repayment, the poor whisper prayers that they never become one as they use them as object lessons for their children. The clergy remind the faithful that every soul possesses worth and that worth may yet be put toward righteous purpose even after a life has gone astray. 

The cruets themselves offer little opinion on the matter beyond the occasional whisper escaping cracked lips. Few stop to listen and fewer still can make sense of what is said. Thus they continue their endless march through the streets, hollow shells carrying immortal souls that are slowly, patiently and meticulously rendered into something useful.

It is, one supposes, an extraordinarily efficient system. Whether this efficiency ought be admired is a question I leave to the reader.

---

On Heth

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“All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times however, he failed. He was only a man, after all, not a dog.” - Goodman Hector Ambrillo

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Type	Bipedal Mammal
Relatives	Lórelyths
	Pa'che
	Dunu
	Primates
Distribution	Everywhere
Rarity	Fairly Common
Height	4'6" - 6'6"
	137-198cM
Lifespan	Half a century and more
Diet	Omnivore
Oath	Landbound

“The origin of the heth is unknown. Some people can claim that they were birthed by a great natural event or divine meddling, but there is no unifying creation myth. They are undeniably an ancient race though, perhaps predating even the lórelyth upon Malunan soil.

To confuse matters further, it’s clear that the longmen originate from Maluna and yet there are stories about heth cultures upon distant lands, even entire other planes of existence, which doesn’t make any sense.

Concrete evidence of wherever heth came from was unfortunately one of the many things lost during Moonfall, though many consider this to be the true beginning of their history and do not trouble themselves with what came before.

Regardless of their precise origins, throughmen have been unquestionably successful. While hardly the only intelligent species on Maluna, heth are an eternally fractured and divided people, broken up into over a dozen ethnic offshoots.”

• Bruin Andora, The Unearthed Ambitions of All: True & Honest Accounts

---

They call themselves Heth, a word so old it has worn smooth, meaning little more than the living ones, or those who remain. It is not grand, poetic, or burdened with expectation, it simply is and that is enough for them.

The Crown calls them Human, though this is less a name and more a declaration. To be human is to be recognised as a person beneath the Pale Dynasty’s authority, a distinction that separates thinking peoples from beasts, monsters and worse besides. The heth are included within this category but they are not alone in it and so the term has never quite belonged to them in the way heth does.

Others call them many things and these names say more about what is seen than what is meant. Longmen, most commonly, for their long stride and the way they will simply keep walking when others would stop. It is a recognition that if a heth begins a journey they are likely to finish it, no matter how long it takes or how poorly it is done.

They are called Throughmen by those who have watched them confront obstacles. The name is not given kindly. Where others would go around or wait or consider whether something should be done at all, the heth go through it. Walls are climbed, doors are broken, depths are descended. It is not always effective nor is it always wise, but it is consistent with these people.

There are those who call them Lastmen and this name carries a different weight. It is given by those who have seen what happens after a thing has gone wrong. When a journey fails, when a battle is lost, when a task proves too much, the heth are often the ones still moving, still trying, still there after sense has long since dictated retreat. It is not always victory that follows but they are present at the end of things more often than not.

These names are not insults, not always, but they are observations, worn into language by repetition. Then there are those who think longer on it, who step back from the individual and begin to see the pattern. Those few use a different name, one spoken quietly and with care.

The Longtide; not because of what a single heth might do but because of what they become over time. Slow, uneven, often chaotic, but persistent.. they spread. One settlement becomes two, two become ten, ten become something else entirely. They do not move as one and yet they move all the same. Like a tide, they advance, recede and return again, reshaping what they touch not through force alone, but through endurance.

The heth are a widespread and contradictory people, defined less by any singular trait and more by a persistent refusal to stop once they have begun something. They can be found across Maluna in nearly every environment, from sprawling cities such as Badarr and settlements like Burv Landing to villages, caravans and remote places that have yet to be named. Wherever there is something to be done, something to be built or something that perhaps should not be attempted at all, the Heth will eventually be found doing it.

They are not the strongest of peoples, nor the most graceful or magically inclined. What the heth possess in abundance is a kind of endurance that borders on unreasonable. Where other species exhaust themselves the heth continue. Where others falter and give up the heth slow, adapt just enough and then continue anyway. They are capable of working, travelling and fighting beyond the point where it would be sensible to stop and often beyond the point where it is safe to continue. This is not discipline nor is it always admirable, it is simply how they are and it is the reason names like Longmen endure.

This tendency has earned them a reputation among other races as creatures who will always do the thing. Where a lórelyth might consider whether an action aligns with the flow of the world or a pa’che might weigh the emotional state of their kin before committing to a course, a heth is far more likely to attempt the act first and consider its meaning afterward. They climb because something can be climbed, they delve because something lies below, they build because something might stand where nothing stood before. Failure does not discourage them in the way it does others. It merely becomes part of the attempt. This is why they are called Throughmen, not because they succeed but because they will always try to push through.

Their societies reflect this same quality. They are rarely unified for long and just as rarely stable in a lasting sense. Divisions in belief, culture and ambition fracture them into countless competing identities, often at odds with one another. Yet when faced with a threat from without, something elemental in the heth changes. They align with startling speed, setting aside differences that moments before seemed insurmountable. They stand together with an intensity that borders on the religious, acting as a single force until the danger has passed. When it has they dissolve again just as quickly, returning to their prior divisions as though nothing had changed.

Despite this tendency toward fragmentation, the heth possess a remarkable ability to exist among others. When living within communities dominated by another race, they begin to align themselves with that people’s rhythms and expectations without conscious effort. Among the lórelyth a heth will find themselves reacting to the needs of the group with surprising instinct. Among the pa’che, they may begin to feel the emotional state of the camp in a way that mirrors orcish sensitivity. This is a sort of cultural absorption, a gradual and often unnoticed reshaping of behaviour through proximity.

That instinct extends beyond people. The heth have an unusual tendency to form attachments to anything they can interpret as having even the faintest suggestion of personality. Animals, certainly, but also constructs, spirits, slimes, tools, landmarks and objects that others would consider inert. If a heth can convince themselves that something responds, however subtly, they are capable of forming a bond with it. This bond does not require reciprocity, nor does it require understanding. It simply requires belief that there is something there to connect to. This tendency unsettles many, amuses others and makes the heth difficult companions to predict or separate from what they have chosen to care about.

Their short lifespan relative to the lórelyth contributes to a sense of urgency that shapes much of their behaviour. The heth do not have the luxury of centuries to consider their actions. They act quickly, often impulsively, driven by the knowledge that their time is limited even if they do not dwell on it. This urgency leads to great achievements, but also to reckless decisions and avoidable loss. It is not uncommon for a heth to commit fully to something that others would abandon, simply because they have already begun. This is why some call them Lastmen, because when things fall apart they are still there, still trying, still moving forward.

Heth societies across Maluna are diverse, shaped by environment and history rather than any unified identity. From the ancient foundations of Badarr to nomadic groups crossing open land, they establish themselves wherever survival is possible. They trade, build, fight and persist, leaving marks upon the world that are often uneven but rarely insignificant.

Citizens of the Pale Dynasty adhere to a ten-day holding period following the declaration of death before the belongings of the deceased are distributed. While resurrection is rare, it is not unheard of, and there exists legal precedent for the return of those thought lost. If an individual returns after this period, their possessions are forfeit. This practice reflects both practicality and a quiet acknowledgement that death, for the heth, is not always final in the way it once was.

Spiritually, the heth lack a unified understanding of what awaits them after death. Where other races possess certainty or tradition, the heth operate on belief. Many have adopted religious structures influenced by contact with other peoples. In recent times, the doctrine of the Nine has become dominant, offering a shared framework that was previously absent. Even so, belief remains varied and deeply personal.

Those who have returned from death consistently report that there is something beyond, though none have been able to describe it in a way that satisfies inquiry. This has not diminished heth faith and if anything it has strengthened it, as their belief rests on trust in what cannot be explained.

The potential for hybridization between the heth and other races has produced a wide range of mixed-lineage individuals. Chayth, pa’jang and others exist as a result of these unions, embodying traits of both parent species. The heth are particularly notable in this regard, as they appear capable of producing viable offspring with a broader range of races than is typical.

This has led to quiet speculation among scholars that, given sufficient time, the heth may come to encompass or absorb other intelligent species through integration rather than conquest. Such ideas are generally dismissed as exaggeration, though not without discomfort. It is here that the name Longtide takes on its fullest meaning, especially when the rest of the heth’s qualities are taken into account.

This is of course simple doom rippling and shouldn’t be taken seriously at all.

They are capable of great compassion and great cruelty, often within the same lifetime. They are driven, persistent and at times reckless to the point of self-destruction. They form bonds easily, break them imperfectly and carry forward regardless of the cost. They are not the most elegant of peoples, nor the most harmonious. They are the ones who do not stop and that, more than anything else, is why they endure.

---

On Daemons

Daemons are perhaps the least understood intelligent beings commonly encountered upon Maluna, despite being among the most numerous. Unlike mortals, who possess bodies into which souls are born, daemons exist first as intellect and will. They have no natural form with which to interact with the material world and cannot grasp, speak or even properly perceive Maluna without first inhabiting a suitable vessel. This distinction is important; a daemon is not its body as it merely borrows one.

For this reason the act of summoning a daemon carries remarkably little moral weight within the Pale Dynasty. Citizens do not summon demons, devils or angels in the superstitious sense, they summon daemons much as one hires a mason or purchases a horse. The ethical questions arise only afterward, when the matter of Invocation is considered.

Invocation is the collection of contracts, oaths and mutually acknowledged obligations that bind daemon and vessel together. Without Invocation there is no lawful possession, only heretical trespass.

The observant reader may notice that the Crown's treatment of debtors solves two problems simultaneously. The soul becomes a cruet while the body itself, having already been paid for, becomes available for lease to daemonkind. The least of these eagerly compete for such opportunities, as a fresh mortal body offers experiences otherwise unavailable to a young daemon. Thus it is entirely possible, indeed commonplace, that the cheerful young moneylender excitedly learning the pleasures of tea, music and sore feet inhabits the very body whose former owner now shuffles silently through the streets a short distance away. The Crown considers this arrangement an elegant demonstration that nothing of value need ever be wasted. One could even claim this ethos is the backbone of Master Excisios' financial manifesto; "Waste is immoral, everything has value and everything should be used."

The majority of daemons upon the peninsula arrived by invitation generations ago and now exist comfortably beneath the Pale King's law. They occupy every conceivable profession; there are moneylender daemons, landlord daemons, cooks, barristers, surgeons, street sweepers, scribes, executioners and innumerable others besides. Badarr, let alone Maluna, would scarcely function without them. Unlike mortals, whose societies tend to be organised around family, inheritance or nationality, daemon society appears remarkably vocational. Ask a daemon what they are and they are just as likely to answer moneylender, cook or barrister as they are to give you their name.

The least of daemonkind are known as jin. Outside a vessel a jin is little more than smoke, light and uncertain intention, possessing only the faintest grip upon the material world. Young jins eagerly seek Invocation not merely for safety but for experience itself. The sensations of flesh, hunger, fatigue, warmth, pain and joy are intoxicating to beings who have never possessed nerves with which to experience them. It is common for a newly Invoked jin to spend weeks enthusiastically tasting unfamiliar foods, touching every available surface and asking deeply inconvenient questions.

They are by all accounts really rather endearing and indeed, often young jins become convinced that they have invented eating, an error their handlers generally permit for several days before correcting. A particularly amusing anecdote recounts one unfortunate jin reportedly spending three months believing hiccups to be a form of prophecy.

Possessing a mortal body means accepting its limitations just as readily as its strengths. Equally curious is the matter of sleep, especially when one considers the Pale King's Dream Tax. Daemons themselves possess no natural need for rest, yet their vessels invariably do. Most describe the experience as akin to waiting politely in a darkened room while someone else dreams nearby. They perceive little of the dream itself, though many claim to awaken with strange impressions or emotions lingering from the vessel's unconscious mind. Older daemons often remark that they can tell when their vessel has suffered a nightmare long before the body itself has fully awakened. Whatever actually happens, the Oneiromantic Inquisition seems content to tolerate the arrangement.

Unlike mortals whose existence is sustained through Soul and the continual refinement of Essence, daemons exist through Aether. Every thaumaturgical working leaves behind traces of spent magical potential. This residue, discarded by ordinary spellcraft as waste, is known as Aether. To mortals it is little more than invisible runoff but to daemons it is breath itself.

Within every daemon exists a metaphysical reservoir in which Aether accumulates. They instinctively draw upon this reserve to reinforce their borrowed bodies, strengthening muscle, sharpening reflexes and sustaining feats that ordinary flesh was never intended to accomplish. Their abilities likewise feed upon this same reserve, every spell, transformation or impossible act consuming carefully stored Aether before replenishment begins anew.

Many young daemons believe Aether to be limitless. Older daemons smile patiently until experience proves otherwise.

Mastery over Aether occupies much the same place in daemonic society that mastery of anything else occupies mortal minds. A skilled daemon learns not merely to accumulate Aether but to shape its flow with extraordinary precision. Strength, speed, endurance and resilience all become expressions of careful expenditure rather than brute force. More esoteric talents such as elemental manipulation, illusioncraft, transmutation and stranger workings besides become possible only through disciplined understanding of the invisible reservoir each daemon carries within itself.

Perhaps the greatest misconception held by mortals is that daemons are immutable beings. This is understandable, for a daemon's personality remains remarkably consistent throughout its life and no daemon has ever been credibly recorded dying of old age, and yet they do change. As centuries pass and their mastery of Aether deepens, older daemons gradually reshape both themselves and their vessels into forms increasingly their own. A young jin inhabiting a mason's body may simply possess a mason's hands. Decades later those same hands may have become broader, stronger and better suited to shaping stone than any mortal anatomy ever could. A gardener's skin may slowly take on the scent of rich earth, while an executioner's eyes become almost painfully difficult to meet. Such changes are not considered unusual. They are taken as quiet evidence of an Invocation that has remained healthy for many years.

This perhaps explains why older daemons often appear strangely at ease within the mortal world. Whatever memories they retain of the place from which daemonkind originates are eventually eclipsed by the immediacy of existence here. A daemon asked where it came from may answer readily enough, but one asked what that place was like is just as likely to fall silent for a long while before confessing that they no longer truly remember. Some older daemons quietly admit that they remember their place of origin with perfect clarity, yet can no longer remember what it felt like to be there. Flesh, sensation and lived experience have a way of making distant certainties feel curiously dreamlike.

Like Essence, however, Aether is not without consequence. Improper control gradually overwhelms both daemon and vessel. Excessive expenditure destabilizes the Invocation itself, eroding the carefully negotiated boundaries between possessing spirit and inhabited flesh. What begins as heightened strength eventually becomes compulsion, judgment weakens and the daemon's appetite expands. Eventually the daemon ceases to distinguish between desire and necessity.

Every daemon carries upon their person a single object through which their Invocation is most strongly anchored. In the overwhelming majority of cases this takes the form of a mask, ornament or other seemingly mundane trinket though the object itself possesses little intrinsic value. Its destruction however is another matter entirely. Should this anchor be shattered the Invocation rapidly unravels as oaths loosen and the daemon's contracts cease to exert meaningful authority and the daemon Resonates.

Resonance is among the most feared conditions recognised by the Crown. Freed from every limitation imposed through lawful Invocation, the daemon begins consuming Aether with desperate intensity while simultaneously seeking new sources of power. Bloodshed, terror and the release of Soul all seem to accelerate this process. Whether Resonant daemons consciously seek such things or simply become incapable of restraint remains uncertain, and the distinction matters little to those nearby.

For this reason the Ten'ba pursues Resonants without hesitation. Ser Phobos himself is said to answer many such incidents personally, leading some to speculate that he possesses unusual familiarity with daemonkind. Whether this is true has never been publicly confirmed.

The Crown likewise considers unwilling possession among the greatest crimes imaginable, to be punished swiftly and terminally. Invocation exists to ensure mutual agreement between daemon and host. A willing vessel enters contracts knowingly, accepting obligations in exchange for power, longevity or livelihood. To force possession upon an unwilling body is to reject not merely the law but the very principle by which daemon and mortal coexist and is one of a host of taboos that society simply does not tolerate.

Curiously, this prohibition extends beyond daemons themselves. Any possessing entity such as ghosts, wandering spirits or stranger things still, becomes legally classified as Resonant should it attempt to inhabit a body without proper Invocation. In this, at least, every known deity appears to agree with the Crown.

There exists one final possibility so unsettling that most respectable thaumaturges refuse to discuss it. Should a Resonant daemon encounter another daemon weakened by injury, depleted Aether or damaged Invocation, there appears to be little preventing the former from attempting possession of the latter. A possessing entity possessing another possessing entity... the implications are difficult to contemplate and, mercifully, exceedingly rare.

One hopes they remain so, for while mortals often imagine daemons as creatures of limitless freedom the opposite seems nearer the truth. It is not their power that permits them to live amongst us, it is their contracts and like all contracts within the Pale Dynasty they remain binding only until they do not. It has often been said that mortals spend their lives attempting to understand things beyond themselves while daemons spend theirs attempting to understand bodies. 

Whether any of us ever truly succeeds is difficult to say.

---

On Dragons

A Different Voice

One of Friar Albert's contemporaries, Preceptor Rebecca Chambers of the Wynfel Academia of the Midlands, was invited to write a series of guest articles for Observations of Chaos as she is one of the most well versed experts on all of the kingdom's monsters.

"Stories say there are only six of these things and we only know of two in modern Maluna! How cool is that?!" - Becky! ♡♡♡

There are creatures so vast in reputation that reality itself begins to distort around them. Most such things prove disappointing under scrutiny but Dragons, gloriously, infuriatingly, do not.

First let us establish a simple truth: Dragons are real. This should not need stating and yet one encounters an astonishing number of otherwise educated people who insist upon reducing them to allegory or exaggeration. To such people I can only ask, politely but firmly, whether allegories commonly leave entire military forces catatonic with terror or reduce fortified cities to surrender without visible violence. 

Dragons exist. The problem is not their existence. The problem is that they are so absurdly beyond ordinary frameworks of understanding that most people instinctively retreat into denial rather than confront the implications.

Dragons are believed to be among the rarest of beings, perhaps among the rarest things capable of thought altogether. Rarer than living eoten, even! Current scholarship divides them into six colour classifications: red, green, blue, purple, yellow and orange. This categorisation appears less taxonomic and more observational, derived from scattered encounters and ancient references. 

The prevailing theory claims that each colour corresponds to a single living Dragon, though this rests almost entirely upon conjecture surrounding the known appearances of Praltis and Sylphiron. If the others exist, and I choose to believe they do with every fibre of my scholarly integrity, then they have either remained hidden or have simply not deigned to interact with us recently.

And yes, before you ask, this means that Dragons may quite literally be singular entities unto themselves. Not species, not populations; singularities. How wonderful!

Descriptions of their forms vary wildly, though certain patterns emerge often enough to suggest some underlying consistency. Most accounts describe immense scaled bodies interwoven with fur, not patches mind you but full sweeping growths along the limbs, chest and spine. Some speak of manelike crests extending from skull to tail, others of branching antler structures, feathering or fin-like protrusions depending on habitat. This suggests not merely adaptation, but an actively responsive biology shaped by environment and prolonged magical saturation.

In short, Dragons apparently become more Dragon-like over time. This is deeply unfair and astonishingly fascinating.

Their senses are similarly absurd. Accounts consistently describe eyes capable of impossible focus over vast distances, hearing so acute that even sleeping Dragons are said to remain aware of nearby movement and enormous rotating ears capable of tracking sound independently. Whether all Dragons possess these traits is unknown, but enough reports align that dismissing them outright would be foolish.

There are stranger qualities still.

Dragons are widely believed to lack self-doubt entirely. Not confidence in the mortal sense but a complete absence of uncertainty. It is said they cannot be affected by spells or effects designed to undermine morale or erode conviction. More troubling are recurring stories suggesting that Dragons occasionally allow attacks to land intentionally, either out of arrogance or because they simply do not regard the assault as meaningful. One soldier’s account of Praltis includes the statement, “It watched the spear enter its flesh the way a person might watch rain strike a window”. 

I should note that this soldier resigned immediately afterward. Quite sensible!

The fear associated with Dragons deserves particular attention because it is not ordinary terror. Nearly every credible account describes a sort of pressure accompanying their presence, a deliberate intrusion into the mind. Witnesses speak of overwhelming despair, paralysis and certainty of insignificance.

Dragons are often described as the absolute ceiling of power, though even this phrasing feels insufficient. They are not simply stronger than other creatures. The distinction appears categorical. Comparing a Dragon to an archmage or army commander feels less like comparing predators and more like comparing weather patterns to kitchen knives. Even that may undersell them.

Some scholars argue that Dragons engage with reality itself differently than mortal beings do. Not through brute magical force alone but through frameworks of understanding so advanced that ordinary concepts of strategy become irrelevant. There are recurring claims that Dragons manipulate probability, perception and long-term outcomes almost effortlessly, nudging events into place rather than reacting to them directly.

One account describes a Dragon ending a war by appearing once above a battlefield. No attack followed, no proclamation was remembered; morale simply collapsed among every side present. Another story claims a Dragon entered a fortress and departed peacefully hours later, after which the defenders surrendered without explanation. None present could clearly recall what had been said, only that resisting no longer seemed conceivable.

One begins to suspect that Dragons do not overpower resistance, they pre-empt it.

This possibility is horrifying. It is also, I confess, tremendously exciting!

Naturally, there are those who insist these stories are exaggerations born of fear and mythmaking. To them I would point out that exaggerations tend to diverge wildly over centuries, while Dragon accounts become more disturbingly consistent the deeper one studies them.

Every road eventually arrives at the same conclusion. A Dragon is not merely a creature, it is an intelligence operating at a scale mortals are not equipped to contextualise comfortably. Somewhere upon Maluna, if the stories are true, several of them are still alive!

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On Gajawomp 'Cuisine'

Gajawomps aren't skilled gourmands or culinary experts like the heth or dhrakari, nor are they as skilled as the muhntar when it comes to fermentation. They are opportunistic omnivores and while cowardly about conflict, they're not cowards when it comes to eating.

Furthermore, as implicit pyromaniacs with access to (arguably) crude alchemical skill, one could describe gajawomp cuisine as a series of seemingly terrible ideas that results in a few genuinely good choices.

If something explodes, catches fire, ferments unexpectedly or tastes incredible somehow that's just proof the meal had spirit or that the cook followed their heart.

Gajawomps don't really deal in recipes as much as an oral tradition of dishes that arise from their environments and surroundings, from one cooker to the next. Enough salt until it feels right, cook until nobody is nervous anymore, if it explodes cook it further away from the fire next time. That sort of nonsense.

In longterm settlements such as Stabville beneath Sunreach Hollow, gajawomps of the Swampwood Clan have even more outlandish dishes than what is presented below. They have a relative abundance of large spiders, bats, slimes and more to add to their usual culinary antics.

Ironically this produces a few dishes that curious and adventurous people quietly seek out. A miner might swear by ashcakes because they keep for weeks, bakers might pay handsomely for firehoney. An aristocrat with adventurous tastes might import lucky cheese despite the fact that half the shipment arrives inedible.

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Boomroots
A starchy tuber with flammable gas pockets that whistle as it cooks. Gajawomps roast it beside the fire to vent the gas first, though impatient cooks occasionally launch one across camp or are launched themselves.

Powder Jerky
Unidentifiable flesh cured in salt, charcoal, bitter herbs and powdered sulphur, giving it a smoky, acrid flavour most people hate. Gajawomps barely notice and value it for keeping indefinitely in their bomb satchels.

Firehoney
Wild honey blended with hot peppers, resin and tree sap into a thick glaze. Every batch tastes different because no one ever measures anything, it's all by feel.

Charcoal Mush
A black porridge of burnt acorns, roasted mushrooms, roots, grain and whatever else gajawomps can lay hands on ground into a thick paste. Hideous to behold but surprisingly filling and nutritious.

Snapberries
Small red berries that build pressure as they ripen, popping underfoot or bursting pleasantly in the mouth. Gajawomp children delight in pelting one another with them.

Ashcakes
Dense flatbreads of coarse flour, rendered fat and ground insects, baked directly beneath campfire ashes. Gajawomps regularly forget where they buried them, leading to accidental "harvests" weeks later.

Scarecrow Stew
A greasy stew made from whatever has been acquired most recently, whether vegetables, livestock or less conventional ingredients. It is continually topped up and kept simmering for days, coincidentally warding off food poisoning.

Popping Fungus
A pale cave mushroom whose caps puff into light, airy morsels when heated. Young gajawomps compete to see whose launch highest from the pan.

Lucky Cheese
A semi-fermented 'cheese' inoculated with unpredictable moulds. Where do gajawomps get milk? What are they milking? What're you, an inquisitor? Most wheels spoil but the rare successful batch is considered a delicacy.

Sausage
Offal, blood, pungent vegetables and other scraps packed into intestines and smoked until nearly black. The heavy smoke preserves the meat and disguises whatever state it was in beforehand.

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#collectedworksoffriaralbert #observationsofchaos

On Gajawomps

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“They’re like the gods took a dog, gave it thumbs and then cursed it with the worst luck imaginable. Then they gave it bombs. Why did they give it bombs?!”

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Type	Bipedal Mammal
Relatives	Yukaku?
	Barakleth?
	Goblins?
Distribution	Anywhere
Rarity	Regrettably Common
Height	2'2" - 2'8"
	66-81cM
Lifespan	Short (often shorter)
Diet	Omnivorous
Oath	Landbound

Sometimes the creatures commonly referred to as “goblins” by most of the Pale King's subjects are, in fact, not goblins at all. They are the Gajawomps, a word that means “really too bad” in their own yapping, guttural tongue.

True goblins despise them with a passion that borders on the pathological, viewing them as a mockery of their kind. The gajawomps, for their part, remain blissfully oblivious to this hatred, seeing true goblins as grumpy but oddly endearing cousins.

Gajawomps are small, hunched humanoids with wiry frames and bestial faces, their fur a patchwork of earth tones; browns, grays and a sickly green that seems to blend with filth. Their large, pointed ears twitch constantly, though they are nearly deaf and their sickly yellow eyes gleam with a mix of mischief and malice.

They are a pest species, thriving in almost any environment from dank forests to arid deserts thanks to their remarkable adaptability. Despite their versatility, they are universally reviled. Their aura of misfortune, combined with their cowardice, incompetence and love for explosives, ensures they are never more than a localized menace.

Gajawomps are cursed, or blessed depending on who you ask, with an innate aura of bad luck. Dice tumble the wrong way, weapons break at the worst moment and even the simplest tasks become fraught with peril. The Gajawomps themselves seem immune to the consequences of their own karmic imbalance, though their chaotic nature often leads them into self-inflicted disasters.

They are profoundly cowardly, preferring to attack from a distance or ambush their foes with traps and explosives. Their size and nimbleness allow them to dart through tight spaces and escape danger, but their lack of coordination and penchant for friendly fire often undermine their efforts.

They are masters of hit-and-run tactics, lobbing bombs with reckless abandon and fleeing at the first sign of retaliation. Their explosives produce all manner of inconvenient effects.

While these devices are dangerous, their haphazard use ensures that gajawomps are as likely to harm themselves or their allies as they are their enemies.

Gajawomps live in small, scattered gangs, often lurking near the encampments of other creatures, particularly barakleths and yukaku, whom they seem to idolize for reasons no one can fathom. They set sadistic traps designed to maim and humiliate rather than kill, such as fire ant-filled sacks dropped from trees or pits filled with filth. These traps are as much a source of entertainment for the gajawomps as they are a means of defense.

To encounter a Gajawomp is to experience a day gone horribly wrong. To encounter a gang of them is to invite disaster. For all their faults there is a strange, almost endearing quality to their bumbling malevolence. They are the unlucky ones, after all; perhaps that is punishment enough.

Despite their many flaws, gajawomps are survivors.

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The image of a Gajawomp was drawn by Cally Leung; you can find more of her work here.