Foulek
The smallest of the kin, rarely over four feet, with ears near a third of body height, thin enough to show the veins against the light. They bleed heat and they catch a whisper at half a mile, and what a Foulek takes off a country is not its poultry.
They are the least violent of the eight and the most feared by anyone with something to hide, which is the whole of their reputation and is accurate.
Body
Rarely over four feet. The ears are enormous, near a third of body height, thin enough to show veins against the light, and they bleed heat and catch a whisper at half a mile. The coat is pale sand-cream, the eyes oversized and black. Coats run sand to cream, and a dark muzzle mask with a pale brush tip occurs in the northern steppe populations, which is the readiest way to tell a steppe Foulek from a desert one at a distance.
The base build is under all of it: light through the bone, digitigrade, hollow-feeling and hard to hold, with the sprint that lasts one breath and is paid for over the following ten minutes. The low hearing that every Foulen has is in the Foulek an instrument of a different order, and it is also the part of them that is harvested, since Foulek ears dried thin as leaf are sold to eavesdroppers as charms and do nothing.
Country
They work the oasis roads and the caravan verges rather than woodland, since their country has little wood, and the Verge there is the line between the well and the open desert rather than between the trees and the field. Dens go under rock and under the walls of a caravanserai; the range is a stretch of road and a set of watering places.
The steppe populations work the same way across dry grass, and the dark muzzle mask is the mark of them.
Regard
What they take is information. A Foulek in a caravan camp has heard every conversation in it, including the ones held quietly two tents away, and sells all of them. They are the least violent and the most feared of the kin by anyone with something to hide, and a caravan master who knows what is sitting outside the firelight prices the knowledge in before setting out.
They keep the brush-marks like every other kin, and on a desert road the marks go on well-heads, gateposts and the stones of a caravanserai, cut on the jumping bearing so that another Foulen standing right can read them in the dark. This range is held. This one pays.
Lore
Summary
Extended Lore
Still unwritten in the record for this entry.
- Which desert and steppe countries hold the Foulek roads
- Who buys from them at the far end, and what a caravan's business is worth
- Whether the steppe and desert populations hold the two Nights together
- Whether a Foulek has ever been kept openly as a listener by a court