Khossaal

The suraat (/su.ɽɑːt/) (*Devoratrix catafractatus*) is a vicious carnivore native to the Gaennid throneworld, Farahiid. Described as a avioreptid, it is a relentless pack hunter whose physiology seems purposefully designed to be truculent. One Dr. Raphael Pax, a prominent figure in xenobiology, coined the term ‘Belligerent Design,’ a concept that places the suraat beside those such as the ancient cassowary and emu. It is because of this pugnacity, the suraat has proven itself both incapable of domestication and as well as an incredibly difficult creature to kill. It is considered to be the most dangerous land predator on Farahiid.

The suraat occurs mostly in the dense Farahi equatorial jungles across all the continents, preferring the crowded flora to mask its movement and stalking behavior.

Thanks to Imperial law, humanity and the suraat no longer meet each other on a frequent, tragic basis as megacities are restricted to vertical growth and small communities know better than to reside close to mob’s hunting grounds.

## Etymology

The name 'suraat' is the combination of the Gaennid terms for "demon" or "imp" (Gannspek: *sufiir* /su.fiːɽ/) and "concealed" or "hidden" (*raaq'abr* /ɽɑːk•ɑbr/). The Komen term "hell leaper" builds upon the suraat's demonic motif while combining it with its primary take-down method.

## Physical Characteristics

Generally, the suraat’s body possess a quadrupedal frame of dense-but-light bones and dense, powerful musculature. This avioreptid, as an adult, stands between 1.23m and 1.52m at a quill-covered ridge starting at the neck and peaking between the shoulder blades.

Despite its muscular body, it possesses an overall shape like the Affrikkar-variant cheetah (*Acinonyx jubatus*) made for speed. Combined with their musculature, the suraat is capable of its high-speed pursuit hunting its species is known for. Four, long digitigrade fore-and-back limbs akin to the Affrikkar giraffe (*Giraffa*) with six widely-splayed, digits for stable walking whose sickle-shaped claws allow for safe climbing. To compensate for its natural agility and prolonged pursuit tactics, a long, flat-fanned tail further stabilizes vertical and horizontal locomotion and aides suraat with a powerful swimming tool.

The suraat head possesses a blunt, armored shape though with semi-forward facing eyes. Suraat boast powerful jaws, making use of two rows of serrated, Komen-variant shark-like teeth that seem to grow with randomized spacing from just inside the palatial roof and inner mandibular ridge to areas on their lips' external surfaces. Their mouths are notably filled with certain flesh-eating bacteria that is incredibly similar to Tuuzas-variant Komodo dragons (*Varanus komodoensis*) and pose a considerable danger to one's health should they be bitten and survive the encounter.

Its body is covered in a thick, leathery skin that is not only difficult to penetrate with claw and tooth, but with blades and conventional gas-operated weapons. The only weapons capable of easily dispatching suraat are linear motor weapons, whose velocities cut through said thickness as if wet paper. As such weapons are more often than not restricted to military and paramilitary organizations, all are discouraged from venturing into the wild, jungle regions left untamed by standing Imperial law.

### Cranial Structure

The skull is the most protected part of the suraat physiology. Whereas the thick skin does well to stop penetrative injuries, the skull is reinforced with thick armored bone plates that protect the brain, as well as form the moving parts for its mandible. The ocular assembly, too, featuring plated eyes that are situated not entirely on the sides of the head but tilted somewhat forward to allow the suraat its carnivore's field of vision.

### Legs, Locomotion, & Manipulation

Like the giraffe, the suraat’s font and back legs are about the same length. The radius and ulna of the front legs are articulated by the carpus, which functions as a knee despite being structurally similar to a human wrist. The creature’s bulk, while substantial for its size, does not reach that of the giraffe and so does not require the limbs to possess a suspensory ligament to support it. The fore paws are padded at the center while six digits terminate in sickle-curved claws and are splayed wide into a four-two pattern: four toes face forward and two back. Near the carpus, a heavy dewclaw provides the suraat anchors to climb trees in their jungle habitat. The back paws are similarly padded but only possess four sickled toes affixed in an X fashion.

The suraat makes use of six gaits like that of a domesticated waug (*Lupanis familiaris*): walk, amble, pace, trot, canter, and gallop. Walking, ambling, and pacing are achieved via moving the legs on each side at the same time. Trotting is done by moving the opposite fore and back limbs at the same time. Cantering follows a one-two-three-four cycling pattern starting with the left fore limb and followed by the right fore limb, left back limb, and right back limb. During a gallop, the suraat will reach forward with its forelimbs before pulling its back limbs around them to support its weight while bringing the forelimbs forward once more. Because of its streamline body, the long, fan-tipped tail provides the necessary balance to properly gallop. Momentum is maintained by bobbing its heavy head and neck up and down as it moves its legs. The suraat can reach a sprint speed of up to 85km/h, and can sustain a 60km/h gallop for several kilometers. During locomotion, suraat will bring their digits into a pinching fashion in forward motions and will open the palms wide when bringing them down onto the ground.

It has been noted that these creatures’ fore paws also have a limited gripping capability, something akin to that of a human hand. They have been observed using their paws to pick up objects to smell or taste, though there is no indication that they are capable of handling tools. Neither is there any evidence that such a thing will happen within an observable time frame.

### Sexual Trimorphism

Suraat are a trimorphic species and are thusly separated into three sexes: YY chromosome carriers, XX chromosome carries, and XY chromosome carriers, and are likewise known as sakuur (/sɑ.kuːɽ/; female), suraat (male), and sahuyaat (/sɑ.hu.iəɑːt/; qumale) respectively.

#### Females

The sakuur stands as the smallest of the three sexes. The female's smaller stature, while less imposing than the male's or qumale's, allows the sakuur a speed and agility to hunt fast prey. To make up for the lack of muscle that would have otherwise protected internal organs, females bear more and longer quills on their necks and down their backs. Of the three, sakuur sport scales of muddled browns while possessing a vibrant blue on their lips were their teeth grow, the base of their quills, and prominent dewlap that is left unfurled once achieving adulthood.

#### Males

Suraat are the middling sex in terms of size and musculature. Having both enough muscle as well as broader-faced skeletal structures to protect internal organs, males are observed to possess fewer dorsal quills than their female counterparts. There is, however, a smattering of vibrant quills above the eyes that form something of a eyebrow. While the quills on their backs are a ruddy orange, the eyebrow quills are a vibrant blue that indicates sexual maturity. Overall, males are a deep ruddy orange that lighten into a tan on the belly and chest. Black streaks along the ribs, like the blue eyebrow quills, indicate sexual maturity.

Male dewlaps possess the same blue as females, though are accented with black spotting that bunches at the neck and thins the further away they appear. Unlike females, however, a large white spot adorns the very end of the dewlap which is theorized to be used to frighten rival males and females as well as predators larger than itself. Males do not seem to loose the ability to furl and unfurl their dewlap.

#### Qumales

The qumale represents an as-of-yet sexual divergence seen only on Farahiid. While the sahuyaat possesses both X and Y chromosomes, they take up the role of a female in a dimorphic species as the offspring bearer. This new designation was drawn from 'Q' acting as a miscellaneous designation while also nodding to the sahuyaat's original title as "queen" which was dropped when it became clear that multiple qumales resided in a mob.

Across all known subspecies of *D. catafractatus* the qumale remains the largest sex with the most muscle and strongest skeletal structure, and specimens have been recorded reaching 460kg and 2.2m at the peak of their dorsal ridge in the most extreme cases. While their coloring is subdued in comparison to the male and female, the qumale's black-gray coloring is accented by a mane of bright blue, orange, and gold feather-like decorations that being behind the mandibular hinge.

Their dewlap, oddly enough, is the least pronounced of the three sexes and is only shown to have a dull blue coloration once adulthood is achieved. Instead of relying on the dewlap to intimidate rival qumales, the sahuyaat is capable of flaring out and shaking their feathery mane to assert dominance via visual superiority.

## Behavior

Suraat distinguish themselves from most species on Farahiid as their activity is dictated by their hunger. Over millennia of observation, the suraat has shown no discernible preference for diurnal, nocturnal, matutinal, or vespertine activity. Rather, the individual suraat will consume large amounts of food before succumbing to heavy, digestion-induced sleep lasting upwards of 40 hours. As activity cycles are dependent on the individual suraat's last meal, mobs will hunt and eat together to maintain active cohesion. The term 'asitiurnal' was created specifically to describe this odd behavior, drawing from the Greek word 'ασιτία' (Krysspek: *asitía* /ɑs.ɪt.iːɑ/) for starvation.

### Social Interaction

Suraat display strange social interactions, most notably concerning social ties within hunting collectives known as 'mobs.' Mob membership lies mostly along a suraat's sex, where males will make the majority of the population followed by qumales, and only hold onto females for as long as it takes for them to mature and disappear to live on their own.

Where animals native to Earth who exist within social or family groups exhibit strong bonds of loyalty, suraat possess no anchors to the mob they are a part of: they either are a part of the mob or are not. Mobs under observation will routinely lose and gain members without affecting the social climate. Suraat simply walk away and will sometimes return as if they had never left. Naturally, that renders a mob without a patriarch or quatriach where the group moves under the weight its own momentum.

Members will provide obligatory watch rotations while they enjoy the safety of the mob. Observers have noted that, despite the urge to keep watch for larger predators, other mobs, or even prey, mobs lack an affection that seems reserved for juveniles which is provided only by qumales. In a general rule, members of the same mob will not attack one another unless the mob experiences extreme agitation during a poor hunt. If numbers take a dramatic enough fall during these moments of extreme agitation, the mob may experience an 'implosion event' wherein surviving members will disperse and the mob will be considered dead.

### Home Ranges & Territories

Though mob membership is seemingly decided on a whim, a mob will maintain a territory which it will jealously guard against other mobs. Suraat that have moved from one mob to another will even attack those whom they hunted beside only a few days before with bewildering savagery.

## Relationship With Humans

Since settling on Farahiid in 5.477, humans and suraat have clashed violently and frequently. Because human nature spurs man to explore, examine, and expand, early Gaennid settlers quickly found themselves as prey to a new and terrifying creature. While they did find refuge behind quickly erected and fortified city walls, expansion proved difficult and exploration costly in both human lives and lost equipment.

As humans learned their newest rival's behavior and tactics, however, civil war broke out across the jungle regions that connected the Quwad and Kayrahiil continents. The conflict initially drew the attention of hundreds of suraat mobs and in some areas of operation were the leading cause of combat fatalities in the first year of the War of the Leaves. It wasn't until the conflict continued into its second year and technological advancement created better tools of war that the mobs plaguing both Northern and Southern forces moved to other locales that were fighting hadn't reached.

Now, almost 5.000 years after the start of the War of the Leaves, suraat mobs have returned to their original hunting and breeding grounds, having adapted to the carnage that still scars the region to this day.

### The Terminus Incident

"*These creatures evolved to make their habitats move for them because they couldn't be bothered to learn how to cooperate with it.*"
Raphael Pax, PhD. on the Terminus Incident, 10.439
In 10.439, Houndish smugglers successfully (in the loosest measure) transported a sakuur to The Terminus on Hundraath to act as a spectacle fight with an Thuulian combat growth.

Four weeks before the fight was to take place, Houndish smugglers landed in the southern Karaad subcontinent port city of Ne'zhayya. They'd entered Farahi airspace legally and hired a guide to take them to the nearby Umm Hasruuk jungle, claiming to be employed by offworld xenobiologists interested in obtaining local fauna samples from the region's safer areas. Upon arrival, it became clear to the guide that the men and women they were leading weren't interested in the requested fauna. When they tried to leave, threatening to contact the Imperial Police, the smugglers took the guide at gunpoint into the restricted areas known house several active *suraat'id* mobs.

Two days into their search, the party was ambushed by a lone sakuur. They lost their first party member immediately to a fatal bite at the neck. Their unwillingness to kill the creature proved problematic as they found that tranquilizing agents were unable penetrate the female's thick skin. Attempting to tranquilize the female only attracted its attention, and the smugglers lost another man only minutes after the first. The group attempted to disengage and return to the edge of the territory, but in the scuffle had lost track of their guide (who has escaped when the smugglers were occupied) and discovered they were lost. The sakuur stalked them for another three days, killing two more smugglers before what remained of the team was able to corner the female in their container using a wounded farraq (/fɑɽ.ɽɑk/; Komenspek: "leaf mouse") as a lure. Once inside, they used gas to subdue the creature so that they might rig a sedative breather for the journey.

The smugglers were able to return to Ne'zhayya without suspicion and left Farahiid and Imperial space before the guide got word of their actions to the proper authorities. Beyond putting a bulletin on their ship's identification codes, there was little to be done.

On the night of the fight, against the anonymous smuggler's protests, Terminus owner Gladys Larsa ordered the sakuur set loose into the arena to face against an alleged Amaterasa-class golem, though reports were unable to confirm the validity of this claim. As the female charged into the open, she sized up her far larger opponent and immediately lunged into the spectator seats. Because of the nature of the pit fights, there was no reason to modify the bleachers for safety. Knowing that she could never win against a foe so much larger than herself, the sakuur had chosen the obvious answer.

The resulting carnage saw twelve people killed in sixteen minutes by mauling, fatal bites, and general exsanguination. A further eighteen victims died after suffering immediately non-fatal bites within a 37hrs, succumbing to the harmful bacterium that lived in the female's mouth.

Ultimately, the Thuulian golem was able to engage and kill the sakuur before anyone else was harmed, but the resulting scuffle was described as absurdly disappointing by surviving witnesses. Footage showed the female scrambling to attack as many humans as she could while the combat golem repeatedly attempted to wrestle the creature into submission so to properly assail her. Because pit fighting strictly prohibits ranged weapons of any type, the golem's bludgeoning was long, frustrating to watch, and almost unsuccessful. Eventually the sakuur's skull collapsed under an intense, rapid assault via the Amaterasa's fists.

While Imperial authorities were powerless to convict all involved from 58 light years distance, they did not hesitate to use the incident as another in a long list of examples as to why suraat should be avoided at all costs.