Torkgahr
"Long snouted, razor tiny teeth, and pale blue, this mocking species strain of Torkan reside within the river realms of tropical climates, and are bulbous in size. Their arms are snubbed, and their legs wide and bulky." They carry refined combat skill, which is the strain's whole character: they are the Torkan who fight well rather than merely hard.
They are also the diplomats, and the reason is in the mouth. A Torkgahr jaw is a needle full of tiny teeth built for fish, and it physically cannot take a bite out of a person, which is the single fact that has put them at every peace board in the wet country.
Body
Seven feet and four hundred and fifty pounds, lighter framed than the rest of the species for the water, long snouted, pale blue, bulbous in build, with snubbed arms and wide bulky legs. The plate, the face domes, the sealing throat flap and the two-state heart are the species' and work exactly as they do in a lord.
What they do not have is the bite. The jaw is built for fish, which means a Torkgahr cannot mark a bite-log at all, and in a people whose entire ranking is the depth of a mark in banded hardwood, that settles everything. They swim faster than anything else in the class.
Society
Being unable to mark a bite-log, they were shut out of every lordship in the wilderness age and spent it learning the only two things left, which were the water and the argument. A Torkgahr thinks faster than anything in the species and they are mocking by temperament and enjoy the position enormously.
Every clan of any size keeps one and calls him the mouth, and the joke among the other strains, worn thin by now, is that he is the only mouth in the house that is safe. Other peoples will sit with a Torkgahr and will not sit with any other Torkan, and the Torkgahr have built two centuries of leverage on the accident of their teeth.
Country
The river realms of tropical climates: upper country, broad warm water, clan houses built half into the current and entered by swimming, with the hall above the waterline and everything else below.
A Torkgahr hunting party spread across half a mile of river coordinates by tail slap and jaw clap alone, felt through the face domes rather than heard, which is the thing that makes the strain impossible to fight in its own water.
Lore
Summary
Extended Lore
Still unwritten in the record for this entry.
- Where the river realms lie on the map of Nu
- Which courts and councils keep a standing Torkgahr seat
- Whether any clan has ever raised a Torkgahr to lordship rather than to spokesman
- What the two centuries of leverage have actually bought them, beyond a seat at the board