Snoloth Country

North of the Urgun Plateau, and East from the Witch Elven Empire lies a vast expanse of rocky hills between which are stinking moors.
This is the territory of the snoloths, who live in primitive stone houses and cultivate bog crops to eat. The houses form small villages all across Snoloth Country. [discussed]
The snoloths are lazy and grouchy at first glance, however, they apprieciate travelers from distant lands.
As they make shit slaves the witch elves leave them alone. However there is a large buffer zone between the two races.
== The Empty Moors ==
Near the center of the continent of Giantstep, the land can reach incredible levels of aridity. Since all of the winds that bring rain with them have discharged their waters long before reaching the center of the continent, barely any water falls in the area, giving birth to places such as the Ogabo Desert and the Kinga Badlands. The presence of the Suritas Range also means that all the rains that could fall from the closest sea, the Inner Sea of the Frog, are blocked by the mountains, and during the summer periods, the water usually follows the path southwards, leaving the center with barely any refreshment from rivers.
And yet, there is a small stretch of land between the Murky Lakes and the Ogabo Desert covered in patches of yellowish green. A very thin vegetation covers the land that, by all metrics, should be a deserted wasteland. This is because of its underground system. Due to geological activity, a lot of subterranean waters end up in the aquifers under the area, which has led to some spots where water pressure has caused some to trickle to the surface. However, this is by no means drinkable water. The underground of the area also holds many pockets of sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorus, hydrogen, natural gas and many of its derivate compounds. So when the water comes out, it usually comes mixed with these chemicals, alongside with quite a lot of gasses. And since there is little to no rain, the chemicals just pool in the surface in great natural ponds. Walking around the place is a dangerous proposition, since the ground is very thin at very unsuspecting places, where a careless traveler might step on a seemingly safe spot and have the land crumble under him, drowning him in deadly muck. And if the lack of clean water is not enough, the area is hard to breathe, with many of the gasses being heavier than air and accumulating near the pools of chemicals. Sometimes a change of wind can bring with it an inodorous gas that could paralyze or even kill a man without him noticing until it is too late.
This has turned the area into a rather deadly place, where the few plants, fungi and other living organisms had to adapt to ridiculous levels of chemical exposure. Some of the bushes and grasses in the area have developed massive root systems to try to find unpolluted waters, and all of the plants and fungi have developed an innate resistance to pretty much all chemicals and toxins. All plants growing there are poisonous, without exception, not because they have evolved to be so, but simply due to the sheer amount of chemicals accumulated within them.
There is barely any animal life in there. Outside of some insects, mollusks and simpler organism, the area is not suited to sustain a complex ecosystem. Sulphur worms grow near some of the toxic vents, somehow synthesizing nourishment from whatever bit of organic waste that falls near them. Microscopic algae and plankton cover all water in the surface, being the only organism that absolutely thrives in the more polluted places, and in fact they have adapted to the deadly region so much that they cannot reproduce without high amounts of chemicals in the water. Over time, they began colonizing areas outside of the water, covering all stones and patches of land that could be covered, competing with the hardened bushes and grasses in a surprisingly complex evolutionary battle. The animal part of the ecosystem is pretty much all based around many different kinds of mollusks. Hundreds of water slugs and snails have evolved to feed on the algae and plankton, and many snails and slugs evolved to hunt the herbivores in turn. The ecosystem of the region is poorly understood by outsiders, since the difficulties of just staying there make learning the ways of the region an extraordinary hazard.
== The Snoloths ==
In this region, only a single sentient species has been able to not only survive, but also thrive. The Snoloths are sentient mollusks, with a body mostly resembling of a snail, but with a complexion and biology unlike any of the other sentient people in the world. Their body can reach the 4 meters of length, and mostly consists of a singular limbless mass of muscular meat, the majority of which is protected inside a shell, which can take different shapes and sizes depending on many factors. Under this mass of meat, they have a massive muscular structure that is used by the snoloth to crawl around, being its only real means of locomotion. In their front half, a torso of sorts is able to go straight to reach a height of near 1.8 meters, mostly due to the elasticity of their gelatinous body. From that torso, the snoloth can sprout a couple of “pseudo-limbs”, which number may vary depending on the size and age of the snoloth. These are not very complicated appendages, lacking the complex hands with digits other species have, but its blubbery meat can turn into different shapes according to the individual’s need. They can also grow what can be described as “suction cups”, allowing them to grab items with relatively skill and precision.
At the top of their torso, the snoloths have a massive head, the same width as their torso. This head is devoid of most features, with the exception of a pair of eyes, a mouth and two olfactory tentacles. Their eyes are quite simple, so much so that the snoloths are quite blind, though their eyes are located at the end of extensible tentacles, which can be expanded and moved around to make up to the poor optics of their eyes, to get closer to whatever they want to examine. They can move their eyes independently from one another, with a field of vision of 360º. Their mouth is very simple, only having enough muscle to allow them to bite whatever they are eating. To mulch it appropriately, inside of their mouths they have thousands of microscopic teeth, designed to grind down whatever they are eating. This allows them to eat pretty much every soft matter, from plants to meat, but things such as carapace or bone are too much for them, having no real way to grind them down. This process is also very slow, so snoloths will dedicate many hours of the day simply eating. This process is so slow that snoloths have developed the ability of eating while sleeping. They also can never choke on their food, since their muscular body will adapt to whatever they are eating, so far as its dimensions aren’t many times bigger than the snoloth’s. Under their mouths, they have two olfactory tentacles, which are able to detect very minute differences in the composition of the air, essential in an environment full of toxic gasses. The snoloths can retract these features, alongside their entire torso, at blinding speeds if they feel threatened. However, doing so is very taxing, so they will only use their fastest speeds in cases of life or death, hiding within their protective shell.
The snoloths boast of a massive shell, which takes more of a third of their total body weight. Within this shell, they can fully hide themselves, something essential for them since their homeland has no real building material, and as such, their shell is the only place they can use to protect themselves from the elements. Their shell has been hardened by the elements, and while it is not as hard as hardened [steel], is incredibly resistant to chemicals and any corrosive element. The snoloths can retract their entire body within their shell, covering the exit with a very dense mucus that allows the snoloth inside to keep its internal temperature and humidity level. The diameter of the shell can reach up to 2m, and while its shape is mostly a flattened spherical spiral, there is a wide range of forms present in the species. If the shell is ever cracked, the snoloth will begin to emanate a slime from the wound, which will solidify near instantly in contact with air, and once hardened it has the durability of cement, protecting the snoloth’s inner organs.
Their body is a remarkable resilient structure. While its inner biology is quite simple, its organs are remarkably small, and that allows the snoloth to have multiple, redundant organs. This is theorized to be due to the need for backups in case of chemical poisoning, with organs such as lungs, intestines, stomach and even heart being able to shut down in case of damage, to then activate the backup organs and live as if nothing but a mild headache or stomachache had happened. The snoloths are known to have two hearts, three pairs of lungs, at least three stomachs (some have more) and four kidneys and four livers working overdrive to clean the body from noxious substances. Most of these organs are always safe within the shell, with the only major organs not present there being the brain and the gonads. Most of their outside body is made of the muscular structure used to crawl around, and the snoloths have developed the ability to contract and move around their circulatory systems and organs to different parts of their body. A snoloth can be seen with a spear going right through his head, and it wouldn’t inconvenience him at all due to him having moved his brain to his torso before the impact.
Their body is also covered in an incredibly dense cover of slime and mucus, which has the ability to preserve the water within their bodies and even absorb moisture from the air, something vital since water is a commodity in the region. This slime is highly toxic, since they excrete most of the poisons and chemicals they absorb through their skin, mixing with the slime and making anything that enters in contact with a snoloth die a painful death, as the toxin concentration can reach extraordinary levels. And as if all that wasn’t enough, snoloths have incredible regenerative abilities, being able to just regrow chunks of their body, and even entire organs, if given enough time. The only thing that they can’t regrow easily is their shell (which takes a very long time to heal once damaged) and their brain, which is irreplaceable.
The snoloths are hermaphrodites, they have male and female sexual organs. However, they cannot reproduce by themselves, they need to mate with other snoloth to be able to reproduce. When two snoloths want to mate, they will move their reproductive organs to their front extremities. Once moved, they will then grab each other’s appendices until both of them end up fertilized, in an embrace of sorts. Witchelven explorers and raiders who have seen this process live have deemed it as “disgusting”, “sinful” and other pejoratives of that sort. A year after the act, the snoloth will give birth to live snoloths. It is now known that snoloths do lay eggs, but due to the extreme pollution in the environment and the relative fragility of the embryos, the snoloths willingly keep their eggs inside of their body so as to protect their spawn until they are big enough to survive outside. Snoloths have between 2-3 children when they give birth. During early childhood, their shell is very frail, so the parents will make sure they do not get into trouble that could hurt their organs. Snoloths usually only reproduce during the few days of the year when rain falls from the sky, generating enough moisture for child rearing.
Snoloths have a very slow metabolism, having a much slower heartbeat than any other sentient species, and also having much slower reactions than any other race (with the exception of emergency retraction in the case of danger). Their habitat is scant of resources, and they need to save as much energy and water as possible. This has allowed them very long lifespans, easily reaching the 200 years of age, with some elder snoloths able to reach twice that number. However, a snoloth will quickly die if it’s withhold from water, they need to keep their moisture levels high at all times. And while their biology is design to preserve body liquids, and even absorb moisture from the air, their metabolism crashes quickly when they don’t have enough water. This makes snoloth behavior to be as leisurely as possible, to avoid exerting themselves and losing body moisture. Their locomotion is also designed to save water. Instead of moving through by generating a coat of mucus and sliding on it, like regular snails, the snoloths’ body is designed to move through sheer muscle power, with the massive muscular structure under their bodies capable of moving them around. The only time they generate slime to move is when the environment is too irregular or the inclination is too high. In this cases, they will excrete a very viscous and sticky substance to glue themselves to the surface, or to protect their undersides from harm. This allows them to crawl 90º inclines with ease, though they are not built for stealthy movement, since not only this takes a comprehensively long amount of time, but the amount of slime is left visible for all to see.
== Society and Culture ==
Snoloth culture is very primitive. Snoloths move around their lands as hunter-gatherers, eating anything edible they can find. This is harder than it looks, since many of the plants and animals in there have such a concentration of toxic chemicals within them that the effort of processing it could be more energy consuming than whatever nutritional value they could gain. They also move around in search of unpolluted waters, since they absolutely need moisture to survive. Their bodies can filter most chemicals, but they would still rather avoid the strain to their bodies that causes. Snoloths travel alone, since food is not as plentiful to sustain big groups. As such, the snoloths will only form groups right after the scant rainy days every year (or every couple of years if they are unlucky), allowing the plantlife to burst into explosive life. When snoloths find groups, they will see if they can find a partner to mate with. The mating process is always preceded by mutual courtship, in which both partners test each other to see if they would appropriate progenitors. They will judge each other by how well fed they are, the shape of their shell and the amount of trophies glued to it. Many snoloths hunt snails to survive, and they will stick their conches to their shell as a show of success. Once a familiar unit has been formed, it will only last until the children are capable of surviving on their own, which is relatively soon. Snoloths consider outsider concepts such as marriages as absurd, having no real place within snoloth society.
Snoloth have developed a very crude weaponry. Since there are no trees in the Snoloth Country, wood tools do not exist, and the lack of vertebrates also cause the absence of bone tools. Instead, snoloths make tools out of stone, which is hardened and stuck together through their own slime and gunk. They are mostly used to dig around in search of water, and their weapons are nothing but hardened clubs. These are not to be underestimated, however, since behind those clubs lies a massively muscular body, with enough force to crack bones with ease. Still, it’s rare to see snoloths using weapons, since their proficiency with those is very limited, and they are useless against other snoloths anyway. Snoloth fights have been described as some of the most brutal spectacles in the world. Since each snoloth has little chance of breaking their opponent, they will move their stomachs to the front of their body and just spew acid to each other, biting each other to try to eat each one another. Cannibalism is common, but these fights are rarely fatal, more due to the snoloth’s miraculous biology rather than to a lack of ferocity from the combatants.
Snoloths are divided into many different groups depending of the shape of their conch, though their lack of an actual society makes most of this distinctions pointless and only relevant in the eyes of a snoloth. The snoloths are very superstitious about their shells, and take great care of them, cleaning as much as possible and painting ritual symbols and icons on them. Those who survive a cracked shell are looked upon with a mix of distrust and admiration, since it means they are dangerous enough to endure one of the few things that could kill a snoloth: a cracked shell.
The snoloths follow a very animistic religion, praying to the spirits of the toxic fumes so they can allow greenery to grow unpolluted. They will make offers of snail conches in seemingly random areas as a sign of respect and worship, which has led to veritable mountains of snail shells, still growing after many centuries. In particular, the spirit of the spiral is the most common worshiped spirit, and it could be considered their main deity. The spirit of the spiral makes the world go around, moving time forward while at the same time keeping the seasons moving along one after another in predictable patterns.
== The Snoloth Raids ==
The land of the Snoloths is a barren and toxic wasteland, barely able to sustain a stable population of them. As such, snoloths are constantly trying to expand their borders. During the drier periods, the snoloths have gathered from times immemorial and moved towards the southern and eastern borders of their moors. Tens of thousands of snoloths move each year to the lands of the Urgun Plateau, the Murky Lakes and other regions in search of greener pastures. It is not well known what causes the individualistic snoloths to suddenly group up in the thousands, but it is believed to be a natural response to a lack of food within the moots. Naturally, a population movement like that puts a string on the local economy. The snoloths raid grasslands and crops in great numbers, becoming a threat to the local agriculture as they can pretty much eat everything they can swallow. At first glance, this would seem impossible, as the snoloths’ speed and size would not only make them awfully easy to spot, but the local population would also have more than enough time to prepare countermeasures for the incoming invaders.
The reality is more complicated than that, as snoloths are notoriously hard to combat without the proper tools. A pitchfork, spear or any edge weapon is pointless against a snoloth, who can simply move their organs out of the way and continue eating. Trying to break the shells is also pointless, while not invulnerable by any means, it can definitively outlast a farmer’s tools, and even a local smith will have problems with his tools agains the snoloth shell. Fire could be effective, but their slime is able to withstand high temperatures as well, and even if it does not, getting fire near the concoction of chemicals a snoloth from the moors carries could end up in an explosive end. They could build walls lined with salt, but it is not particularly easy for farmers to wall their entire crops, and it could be even more expensive than the loss of the crops. Thus, the snoloths can pretty much crawl slowly to the fields, eat everything that they can unopposed, and leave [before] the local authorities decide to send appropriate aid to the farmers (which, taking into account these would be border farmers, might not be a priority big enough for them to even bother).
This has turned snoloths into surprisingly effective raiders. It is said that, before the Azan Empire was formed, they could reach all the way into the Oront Mountains and the Widows’ Lakes before going back to their home. Once Azan became an established power, however, their reach shrunk considerably. A fight between a proper army and a snoloth horde is a curious thing to see, as armies abandon things such as reconnaissance, cavalry or any rapid reaction forces, and just walk towards the snoloths to convince them to go back. Their presence usually means that the snoloths, seeing a proper fight, will refuse any risk to themselves and just turn back peacefully. Nowadays, with the Azan Empire shrunk a lot from its heyday, it is the Witchelven Empire and the towns from the Urgun Plateau the main recipient of the snoloth raids. In particular, Snoloths have proven to be very successful at attacking witchelven outposts, since the witchelven find the snoloths repulsive, and the borders between the Snoloth Country and the Witchelven Empire are quite empty.
Many snoloths will overlap their reproductive cycle to match with a raid. Since the most vulnerable part of a snoloth’s life is their childhood, many families go to greener pastures to feed their spawn as much as possible, so as they gain enough size and strength to survive the chemicals of their homeland. Attacking a snoloth’s offspring is a remarkably bad idea, though. Snoloths are extremely protective of their spawn, and they will burn themselves out of exertion if they must to protect their children. And considering the sheer amount of muscle a snoloth has in their body, they have a strength that could bend iron and break stone, more than enough force to squash any potential threat.
== Foreign Relations ==
The Snoloths are in one of the harshest places in the entirety of Giantstep, and the sheer toxicity of their home means there can be no foreign representation in the moors. As such, only Snoloths permanently live in the Snoloth Country, since any other creature would die of poisoning after enough prolonged exposure. The only places where other sentient species could be seen is in the border, where the chemicals in the environment are less dense. The snoloths, however, are incredibly resistant, and the only reason they haven’t expanded more outside of their moors is the pressure from the local populations to avoid keeping masses of snoloths eating their crops and fields. There are a few minuscule communities of snoloths spread around Western Giantstep, from back when Azan wasn’t really established, living mostly isolated from the rest of the society, only ever interacting when they cross into a neighboring field. These snoloths have lost their chemical toxicity, since they aren’t poisonous by themselves, but rather the toxic buildup from their homeland makes them toxic. This also makes this snoloths live upwards to 1000 years, since their hyper-regenerative organism isn’t burdened by the lethal concoctions of their home.
This long lifespan is particularly appreciated in intellectual circles. A lot of members of the magical communities of Azan and its former provinces are snoloths, since even if their intelligence is not as great as other races, the sheer amount of experience can compensate for it. Many young wizards will be taught under snoloth master wizards, to be taught the value of patience, as well as to preserve their wealth of accumulated knowledge. In the Isle of Wizards, the Ancient Order of the Most Practical Wizards values its snoloth members greatly, as they are some of the oldest (if not the outright oldest) of their order, and they hold a wealth of information. They do need help accessing archives and libraries of sort, though, since their slimy appendages could damage the delicate parchment and paper of the ancient tomes.
The vast majority of the snoloths, though, live within the Snoloth Country, near the center of the continent. The most frequent interactions they have with their neighbors is when a snoloth raid is formed. It is said that, back in the days when Azan was at its peak, many azanese merchants and alchemists dealt with the snoloths to access some of the rarest and more dangerous chemicals in the area, in exchange of great amounts of foodstuffs.
Nowadays, the presence of the witchelven blocks all possible contact with the region. The witchelven despise the snoloths. They are absolutely repulsed by every aspect of them, finding their biology, their way of life and their mere existence as “disgusting”, “sinful” and “degenerate”. They can do little about them, however. The snoloths are awful at slave labor, and fighting snoloths is seen as something below witchelven raiders. Their usual hit and run tactics are pointless when just walking around is enough to outmaneuver the snoloth raiders, something that takes the thrills from the attack. Light skirmishers are also pointless, since the snoloths’ resistant bodies can take one hell of a punishment and simply keep eating, just moving their organs inside their shell while they eat. Using poisoned weapons is even more pointless, as their bodies are used to much worse. Preemptive attacks to the Snoloth Country is not possible, the witchelven forces would die before doing anything of worth. The only real thing the witchelven forces can do is to send wizards and elite forces, something that many of this groups will outright refuse to obey, since sending the cream of the crop of the proud witchelven to dirty their hands with snoloth slime is far beneath them. And so, these forces will only show after the snoloths have gone back to their home, to tally the damages and inform their lords. This is a great shame for the authorities of Mors, but due to the relatively unimportant damages they cause, they don’t put that much effort into solving it.
The raids to the Urgun Plateau are something entirely different. The more dispersed forces of Ghülam and Bashur'ut can actually push back the snoloth raids, since the militias are composed of farmers who know well how much a snoloth can eat if left unchecked. They will get their hands dirty to flip the snails on their shells and just pour salt on them until they surrender and leave. However, they have managed to settle a deal with the snoloths, which basically amounts to the urgun farmers to willingly offer the snoloths any bit of unusable leftover from the harvest. The snoloths can pretty much eat anything, and they are not picky eaters, so getting what in other circumstances would be just stubble to burn in exchange of not going further is fine by them. As such, snoloth raids never go further than the lakes, where the farmers bring their waste for the snoloths to eat. The presence of the sweet water is also a bonus, since clean water is an absolute delicacy for the snoloths, and they will drink as much as they can before going back to their homes.
Snoloths do not bother to attack the regions to the north and to the east. The Ogabo Desert and Kinga Badlands are simply too dry for the snoloths to survive, and trying to raid the swamps of the Bog Witch is suicidal. On the other hand, it’s rare to receive attacks from those directions, as there is little of value for the populations of these places in the Snoloth Country. Even the monsters and horrors from the bogs and swaps cannot survive the chemical concoctions in the air, and keep their distance. From time to time, a giant monster will dare to cross the polluted lands of the snoloths and die, creating a feast for the snoloths who find it.
Snoloths are terrified of travelling through sea. While salt is not lethal to them as it is for most snails, they find any skin contact with sand extremely painful, as their bodies go into overdrive to preserve the moisture within. Their slimy exterior usually protects them from direct contact with rock salt, but against a great mass of salt water, their bodies simply cannot come up with a solution and collapse into a coma. And of course, snoloths cannot swim. Snoloths can hold their breath for quite a lot of time, which they use to cross rivers and lakes by simply going through, but the sea is something they simply cannot overcome. If a snoloth goes into a ship, you can expect it to keep itself inside of their shell for the entire voyage until the voyage is done. This is why snoloths keep themselves far away from the coast and cities near it.
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