Iziakvar
The Iziakvar are the commonest strain and the plainest. Various shades of green, with scaling that varies in size and density from one to the next; the discernible marks are horned and bumpy patches, and beyond that they "can be defined as randomized as Nu'umans." Five and a half feet, a hundred and forty pounds, the middle of every measurement the species takes, and the strain most likely to be found doing an ordinary job in an ordinary town.
They sing beautifully, and the singing is the only remarkable thing about them, which in a people who rank each other by the hardness of a plate is a considerable advantage.
Body
The singing is anatomical. The throat sheet that lets the rest of the species breathe underwater is, in the Iziakvar, thinner, longer and hung under tension, so that air driven over it makes a tone the way a reed does. Nothing about it was designed; it is a fault in a working organ that happens to sound like a gift.
The cost is exactly what the change implies. They breathe underwater badly and drown in half the time, and a Sung Scale on a coast is kept out of the water like a child. Their hide grades firm and makes coats and saddlery.
Society
A scale-hold of any standing keeps a Sung Scale to sing the Counting. The rest of the species sings under the diluted venom of the Wind Lady spider, with blood in the mouth from it; the Iziakvar sing without venom and are prized for it, and to sing the Counting drunk on venom is the worst breach of manners an Iziakan hold can suffer.
Outside that office they are unremarkable by trade and by temperament: farmers, salt-makers, tanners, market sellers, hired blades, and the ordinary run of an Iziakan street. Because they are the middle of every measurement they are also the strain outsiders picture when they picture an Iziaka at all, which no Iziakvar has ever found flattering.
Faith
Vaeyar in her breathing face, Vay'ssar the Breath-Mother, the wind that carries song. An Iziakvar sings the Counting with its face turned to the sky so that she will hear the names first. The Hardening runs underneath it as it runs under every Iziakan faith: the world is the whetstone and the god is the hand on it.
Lore
Summary
Extended Lore
Still unwritten in the record for this entry.
- Which country the Iziakvar come out of, if any, since the record fixes none
- What a Sung Scale is paid, and whether the office can be held by a soft-scaled singer
- Whether the throat sheet fault breeds true in a crossed clutch