Senet beasts

**Senet beasts** are ageless creatures that wander the world of Kasslyne in a variety of wondrous forms. Legend has it that these creatures precede the khert, having been created first, and are not bound by the same natural laws that bind the rest of the world. Standing apart from their less fortunate living kin, senet beasts do not and cannot age, nor do they have a place in a food chain, nor are they subject to disease. Many senet beasts can perform feats that are for all intents and purposes "miraculous" as they fly in the face of what natural law finds permissible.

Because they preceded the khert, senet beasts possess their own separate and unique khert fields, making them worlds unto themselves. This separate nature suffuses their flesh, making them natural producers of various First Materials.

Senet beasts cannot reproduce but violent trauma can kill them as easily as any other creature. As such there are fewer and fewer of them all the time, and more species extinct than there are extant.

## Known Species

### Wandering Roots (Mamalen Entek)

These docile creatures, now extinct, were a sort of mobile plant, each as large as a small hill. They spent their days foraging for dead animals which they would swallow and store in an inner chamber where decomposition could feed the creature's roots. Wandering roots were acutely empathetic, and in ancient times humans would seek them out to act as judges. Able to sense a suspect's guilt or innocence, the wandering root would devour the evil man and ignore the innocent.

### Spindleworms (First Silkworms)

Spindleworms metamorphose eternally back and forth from caterpillar to moth every year. They were domesticated long ago as sources of First Silk. Their handlers know when they're ready to emerge from their cocoons, and the creatures allow them to unravel them and harvest the silk. This has been going on so long that the silkworms/moths don't even have the instinct to tear free any longer, and wait for their human helpers to undress them.

There is a healthy population of domesticated worms, which is why First Silk is the most common First Material.

### Efheby

Also called naga, or skullpilots, efheby are purported to be the last senet beasts that the Twins created. They have the upper torso of humans but the lower body of a powerful snake. Fiercely territorial, efheby do not enjoy the company of their own kind, preferring to remain alone in the wilderness hunting or in the cities of men, sporting and studying with humans. Cunning, venomous, and shrewd, efheby have survived the predations of mankind for thousands of years, selling him his shed scales and amassing vast, hidden fortunes. Efheby venom is unlike typical snake venom in that it attacks the brain, permanently destroying a victim's will and opening his being to exploration and control. Refer to Chorley's explanation here.

### Salt Lizard

Known only through legend and thought to be extinct, Salt Lizards were enormous sentient reptiles that lived in the subterranean coastal caverns of western Cresce and Alderode. Worshiped as gods by the Two-toes, salt lizards lived in darkness on a diet of seaweed and sea water. Their bodies were able to remove excess salt from their food and excrete it into refined, caked, scaled armour. Excess salt was collected by the Two-toes who used it to preserve fish and craft medicine.

In the mines of Avelpit there is a blind salt lizard, resembling a big, beautiful chandelier of a flightless dragon with sky blue eyes. She drinks brine and sweats the salt, so she's all encrusted with white crystals of First Salt. She has been one of the gods of the Inak for centuries or more. The Inak would sacrifice to her, and Lowing Shaensigin would give them salt to preserve their food. She can speak and make demands and tell stories about the first days of the world. Duane met her during the Foi-Hellick Affair.

### Water Women (Llemülin)

Also called nereids, these feral predators are water-breathing primates who once populated the oceans and rivers of all of Kasslyne. Armed with the ability to telepathically control water, they were once a deadly threat to human sailors and bathers, but have been hunted to the brink of extinction. The water women are blue and green skinned with various patterns with powerful gills and retractable claws. Their intelligence is debated but they can be heard from the shore speaking to each other in a strange language of clicks and squeals.

### Stormbringers (Llemülin)

Also called sylphs, stormbringers are the male counterparts to nereids, and are often to be found sporting with their wives over the waterways of the world. Stormbringers seem to be made of a fifth State of water, something between gas and plasma, that is invisible to the human eye but which has strange effects when manipulated by nereids. Coitus between the two results in fierce storms that can flatten crops, sink ships, and conjure murderous winds and hail. Stormbrings are unable to retain memories for longer than an hour however, and often disappear into the upper reaches of the atmosphere for months at a time, perpetually rediscovering the stars.

### Mountain Ogres

Long extinct now, mountain ogres were fierce giants of enormous size who stalked the plains of Kasslyne in ancient days, eating boulders, building fortifications of stone and earth, and shaping the land to suit the purposes of its first senet beast inhabitants. A great sorrow befell the mountain ogres at some point however, and thousands of years ago they laid down upon the earth to die and become the great mountain chains of Kasslyne. Uaid was created from the corpse of a baby mountain ogre.

### Typhoon Whales

Resembling whales made out of stormclouds, typhoon whales are large senet beasts that fly above the open oceans. Highly intelligent, they are known to toss hurricanes back and forth at each other for fun.

### Suncrumbs (Analae)

First fireflies, all but extinct due to the superstitious proclaiming them "Yerta's sparks" and grinding them up to consume hoping for healing and luck.  These tiny creatures were the only source of First Light left after the end of the senet world.

### Lady Ilganyag

The last of her kind, Lady Ilganyag now lives in the Khert. In her first form, she resembles a large raven, but with a more dinosaurian tail, a longer neck, the legs of an ostrich, teeth in her beak, mysterious markings on her upper beak, and three pairs of human-type breasts, whose nipples house razor-sharp claws. In her other form, a red, slender, humanlike torso emerges from her bird mouth, with long, spindly arms, long black hair, red tentacle-like projections, and a mostly human face. At one point in time she was worshiped by the Two-toes, and is the namesake patron of the Black Tongues.

1. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/676384437474295809/what-did-first-senet-fireflies-look-like-normal
2. ↑ https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/676364489389735936/what-is-analae