Angrosh

The angrosh are a race of large tusked humanoids typically found dwelling in the wilder places of Avaria. Fierce warriors and skilled in the hunt, they are viewed with wary respect by their human neighbors. Nevertheless they are a tight-knit people, sharing deep bonds among those of their own clan.

Physiology

The angrosh are a striking people, unmistakable wherever they are encountered. They are quite tall, ranging from a very short 5'10" to in excess of 7 feet, with little difference in height between males and females. They have only four fingers on each hand, with heavy nails that are sometimes filed to rough points. Despite their tough and fleshy appearance, both the palms and the undersides of the fingers are highly sensitive to touch and quite nimble, if not quite as dextrous as those of an average human. Unlike their hands, the angrosh's two-toed feet are extremely tough and nearly impervious to extremes of heat and cold. Resembling a somewhat elongated version of the feet of a camel, they feature very heavy nails and a pad of thick tissue on the sole that binds the toes together with a flexible webbing. This allows them to walk in soft sand or snow without sinking into it and also gives them a good grip in rough uneven terrain.

Instead of hair, the angrosh boast a crest of porcupine-like spines that run across the center of their crown and down the nape of the neck. Depending on the individual, these spines can be either fairly short (a few inches in length) or quite long (up to eight inches), giving them anything from a spiky mohawked look to a draping mane of spines. The keratinous spines are hollow inside and therefore surprisingly light, yet very durable. Although the angrosh have no feeling in the spines themselves and can trim them with impunity, a bundle of nerves and muscle fibers at the base of each one makes them mildly sensitive to touch and capable of being slightly raised and lowered in a bristling effect. This is, however, largely an involuntary reaction to being angry, upset, or afraid.

An angrosh's body is also entirely hairless, but a thick and rugged hide provides more than adequate protection from the harsh climes they tend to inhabit. Their skin comes in a range of colors that roughly blend in with their local environment, from the rich ochres and golds of Hazari Desert angrosh to the ghostly greys and even white of the icy north, and may be either one uniform shade or lightly mottled. The texture of their hide is rough but not coarse, reminiscent of fine-grain sandpaper or sharkskin.

Angrosh have relatively small eyes, of deep rich colors and with a very piercing gaze, which makes it all the more noticeable when their distinctive third eyelid is closed. This eyelid is a tough translucent membrane that can be drawn across the eye, protecting it from windblown grit and the glare off sand and snow. It also plays a valuable role in keeping the eye moist, and can be used to blink free any particles that have managed to enter it. Although the membrane can be subjected to conscious control, more often it operates reflexively to protect the eye. Its closing may also sometimes be taken as a sign that the angrosh in question is extremely angry or agitated, as it also plays a protective role when an individual is engaged in close combat -- or about to be.

Perhaps the angrosh's most striking feature of all is their tusks, which protrude from either side of the mouth and may at the greatest extreme reach nearly a foot in length. More typically they are between three and six inches long, with no discernible difference between the sexes. Angrosh are born without tusks, but these begin to emerge around the same time that children begin to grow adult teeth, around seven or eight years of age. The tusks then continue to grow for several years, usually achieving their maximum length somewhere in the individual's early twenties. They may grow either relatively straight or curving, and are a whitish or ivory color that slowly darkens with age. The ends of an angrosh's tusks are naturally only bluntly pointed, but some cultures make a practice of carefully filing them into sharp points. Angrosh do have some feeling in their tusks and breaking or chipping one can be painful, though they are fairly durable. Despite this sensitivity (or possibly because of it), carving patterns into the tusks or setting them with inlay is a common rite of passage into adulthood, or of initiation into various societies.

Angrosh mature and age in a way similar to humans, and have comparable lifespans. A female angrosh's gestation period is only slightly longer at ten months, and their infants nurse and develop much like human children. Angroshi women are, however, only fertile at certain times of the year and therefore tend to bear far fewer children than their human counterparts. Although their lifestyles are often harsh, the angrosh are a profoundly hardy people, renowned for their incredible endurance and iron constitutions. If an angrosh can avoid dying by violence or mishap, it is not uncommon for them to live into their nineties or even longer.

Culture

The angrosh are a nomadic or semi-nomadic people, as the difficult environments in which they typically live are not well suited to a settled existence. They largely follow a lifestyle of hunting and foraging, though some tribes also keep domestic animals such as horses and skeggit. In the Hazari Desert some angrosh also have small enclaves where they tend date palms at isolated oases or nurture wild fruits and vegetables in mountain crevices, but even these half-wild garden places are usually only inhabited at certain times of the year. The tribes of the High Hinterlands are the most settled, moving seasonally between villages or encampments located at different elevations.

The angrosh are a loosely matriarchal society, with women most commonly occupying leadership roles such as chieftan, diplomat, or warchief. However there is no definite proscription forbidding men from assuming these roles, and where councils of elders are the primary governing body of the tribe or clan, these are usually made up of a mix of women and men. It is somewhat more common to find male shamans than female ones, but again there are few rules either assigning or proscribing such roles based on sex. In fact most angroshi shamans consider themselves something spiritually distinct from either male or female identities, renouncing the gender of their birth and considering themselves sexless. Overall, since there are few meaningful physical differences between males and females in terms of size, strength, endurance, or agility, most societal roles are split simply according to individual skill or preference, or sometimes along inherited lines.

Both men and women love hunting, using a variety of techniques to bring down prey. The most common weapons are the short javelin and the blowgun. Blowguns are especially esteemed, and every traditional angrosh is expected to craft their own when they come of age. Made of locally available materials, they may be crafted from specific types of wood or from bone or ivory. An angrosh always carries their blowgun with them, and no other individual is allowed to use it -- even to touch another person's blowgun is considered extremely bad luck which in extreme cases may only be dispelled by the purifying rituals of a shaman. Most angrosh do not use the same blowgun throughout their whole lives, but instead carve new ones at important stages in their lives, or following personal experiences that the individual views as having changed them enough to need a new gun. The blowgun is in some way fundamental way considered to be tied to a person's spirit or life essence, so as an individual grows and changes their blowgun must also change to reflect this. The old blowgun is disposed of according to precise rituals that vary from tribe to tribe. The darts of these prized blowguns are sometimes fashioned from the individual's own spines, pierced at the tips and filled with poison made from zsimik venom or plant poisons, but they may also be simple wood darts coated with the same poison.

Although angrosh prefer to stick to their own kind and their own wild lands, they do sometimes hire themselves out as guides across the desert or through the winding mountain passes of their homelands. Their intimate knowledge of the terrain and their knack for survival suit them for this role far better than any outsider, but hiring one can involve accepting a certain amount of peril, as it is not unheard of for an angrosh guide to lead their human parties into ambush by angroshi raiding parties. Close-knit and deeply affectionate with members of their own group, angrosh clans often have fierce and violent rivalries with one another, which has led them also to become skilled fighters capable of making quick work of small bands of humans. This has resulted in humans feeling a natural wariness towards any angrosh they might encounter, though in truth most angrosh have little interest in warring with humans as long as the humans leave them alone. They do however ferociously resist any encroachment of civilization onto their own territory and tend to view cities with superstitious dread, as places filled with restless and vengeful spirits displaced by the destruction of their natural realm. In spite of this, some angrosh can be found in urban areas employed as soldiers or guards; these are typically those raised in a less traditional lifestyle, or individuals who have themselves been displaced by violence or trauma.

However fiercely the clans may pit themselves against one another, and however renowned they are among humans for their wild and violent ways, within their own clan groups angrosh form strong bonds and are surprisingly gentle. Children, few as they are, are very much loved and not infrequently spoiled. Children are cared for communally, and adult angrosh are very fond of playing games with them, to the point where they can seem astonishingly ridiculous to the rare humans who witness them. Most adult angrosh marry in their late teens, and these bonds are expected to last for life. Marriages are meant to strengthen old bonds among clans or forge new ones, and most importantly husband and wife are committed to provide help to one another and to their kin. Most cultures, however, do not expect either spouse to remain perfectly monogamous, and each is free to take lovers with impunity as long as they do not neglect their support of one another and their shared relations. Due to the sensitivity of their palms and fingers, and the contrasting lack thereof across most of their hides, angrosh most commonly express their affection through their hands, clasping hands and twining and gently rubbing fingers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this also means they dislike touching strangers with their bare hands, and consider the common human gesture of the handshake to be inappropriate at best if not outright repellent.

Myths

Since few humans are closely acquainted with angrosh, there are numerous myths that surround them:

• Angrosh spines are dangerous! It is commonly believed that angrosh spines contain a potent toxin inside, and that an angrosh can hurl its spines like a porcupine (which porcupines also can't do, but never mind that). Most humans are consequently quite wary of an angrosh's spines, particularly when they're bristling. This myth likely arose due to the angrosh's hunting practices, utilizing poison darts made from their own spines and the venom of the zsimik.
• Angrosh can change colors! Many people believe that angrosh have color-changing skin that they can use to blend almost perfectly into their surroundings, the better to ambush innocent travelers. Angrosh hides do often roughly match the environment which their tribe is native to, but the color and pattern with which an angrosh is born is the same one they will have their whole life. The misconception likely stems from the race's use of body paint, along with their finely-honed survival skills which allow them to easily evade or conceal themselves from strangers.
• An angrosh with a veiled gaze means death! Like most myths around the angrosh, this is based on a kernel of truth -- an angrosh in close combat with a human will almost certainly have their protective third eyelid closed to guard against physical trauma. But since the membrane also reflexively closes to protect against the typically much more ubiquitous threats of sun glare and blowing sand, this "sure" sign of angroshi violence often sparks needless panic among any humans who happen to be nearby to discern it.