Ahxsmt (Race)

**Ahxsmt** is the name given to the hybrid offspring of humans and Cadanites. These offspring are considered unclean by both humans and Cadanites and are often killed in infancy if they do not die themselves.

## Anatomy

The Ahxsmt are twisted and malformed, often dying in infancy or in the womb. A Cadanite woman is able to reproduce with a human man but a human woman cannot reproduce with a Cadanite man. The reason for this is unknown, but all Ahxsmt are the result of a Cadanite mother. The Ahxsmt have twisted spines, making them stand twisted and slouched, with heights of six to seven feet reduced to five. Their faces are like a man's but short and deformed, with strange snout like snub noses and nubby 'horns' growing from their extended bony brows. These horns are actually bone growths and are not true horns.

The Ahxsmt tend to have larger eyes than humans, which have heavy lashes and sometimes malformed pupils. The teeth of the Ahxsmt tend to be too numerous for the mouth or too few, leading to the cramping of their swollen tongues. The body is covered in a fine fur which is often indistinguishable by the eye from their skin. The skin itself is rough and leathery and often mottled with spots.

Females tend to not grow breasts or hips or show any sign of fertility; they are sterile. Males also seem to never go through a puberty, having stunted secondary sex characteristics and genitals. The hands and feet of Ahxsmt tend to be missing digits. Most have cognizant delays that lead to a lack of learning to read, write, or speak.

### Growth

The Ahxsmt are born of an inter-species union not meant to succeed by the gods and are thusly malformed. The body itself denies them life, often being aborted in the womb by the mother's own immune system. Eighty percent are still born, ten percent die within days of birth, four percent within the first year, two percent within the first five years, and only four percent reach "adulthood". Childhood for the Ahxsmt is defined by the continuous strenuous pains of growth. The twisting of their body's means that the process of growing up is painful and often fatal. Ahxsmt's who manage to survive to the age of ten (adulthood for the Cadanite) without becoming invalids, will not undergo any puberty and exist in a nebulous sexless state.

Ahxsmt's are entirely sterile and cannot reproduce. Autopsies done on female Ahxsmt's by scientists in Sikkud-Al show that they possess either no or highly shriveled and blackened wombs. Male autopsies note the same of the testicles and glands. Both show extreme organ damage or malformation as well as the complete failure to develop certain secondary organs such as the appendix and certain glands.

Ahxsmt's live at most into their early twenties. An Ahxsmt slave named Ahkali was famed for her strange appearance and ability to sing very sweetly. She was owned by a traveling circus and was bought by the King Sunmeket Hathortep and was noted to live to the age of twenty-four. She died of a seizure and was found to be full of tumors upon examinations after death.

## Social Status

The Ahxsmt do not exist as a race like the others of Fayos. They have no culture, kingdom, or ancestral lands. They exist only as the products of unnatural unions, rarely if ever out of love. Thusly they are treated often as burdens, freaks, or piteous creatures. Their rarity makes them popular to own by the rich of Sikkud as slaves, usually to be kept in menageries with beasts and monsters. They can be seen sometimes in the streets of the holy cities of Cadan, where they live in the dust and beg for scraps of food.

In the North Ahxsmt are rarely seen. A small group was made in recent times after a freed Ahxsmt slave was brought to Justainia and shown to the people there. He is called Kain meaning 'pitiful' and is loved by the populous for being both a poor and pitiable creature and exemplifying the Justainian tradition of bloodletting and self flagellation through his twisted physique. Currently he lives in a manor house in Justainia where a small cult serves him as a saint. In Arimania, there is some hope for the poor creatures.