Gyari

## The Born Hunters

Similar to and within the genetic family of humans, elves, and dwarves, commonly found alongside nomadic horseman tribes of humans and occasionally among the dwarves of highlands, gyari mostly occupy temperate grasslands and forests. They're fantastic hunters and sprinters.

## Biology

Gyari are very similar to humans, but with a significant deviation in that they receive almost no nutrition from plants. The species can eat plants, but they experience almost no gain from it. Gyari have sharp teeth with an exceptionally strong jaw, second only to krelkin in terms of bite strength. They're shorter generally than the nomadic humans they can often be found near, around 4'9" for women and 5'3" for men, though can grow as tall as 6'4" with some regularity. There's a more reinforced leg structure with denser bones and stronger tendons. Gyari are the only species to have the incredible stamina in match for humans and have greater leg strength, being the pinnacle of ground run. Hair commonly ranges from red to blonde and the colors between them with occasionally darker shades, the eyes tend to be green, blue, or a muddled red. They struggle with swimming or steep climbing, but are the best runners of any species with exceptional leaps and bounds. Gyrai have slightly sharper ears than humans, though not nearly as strong or precise as those of elves.

## Society

There have never been any empires of the gyari, nor a nobility or other such system. There have been a few sprawling societies of a hundred packs or so. These existed in a few grasslands of the expansive frontiers at the later half of the Third Age. Mixed society with a few small hunting settlements on the outskirts of human city-states and some of the empires. Some exist within the massive empires that would largely be extinct by the beginning of the Fifth Age.

Very similar to humans but have sharp teeth with a stronger jaw and tend to be around 5 feet tall, though have a significant range to their common height with some being as tall as 6'3" or as small as 4'3". Gyari match stamina of humans and are faster on foot while being worse at climbing. Otherwise, physically they appear nearly the same as a human and are closely related. They are primarily carnivorous and can be described as living in packs most often. There are usually three to seven families to a pack, they set up a town as a home, these families often go out on long-term hunts lasting weeks or even months which are then brought back to the town. Commonly as a town expands a youth or perhaps a pair of youths from two different families will leave to settle elsewhere together, sometimes more than such a pairing will leave, but rarely will they travel together in such instance. They seek out other travelers of their kin to set up home with, or perhaps on rare occasion another a similar kin such as a human or dwarf.

Next we have the gyari which are a species that appear very similar to slightly shorter humans and fall in the same family with elves and dwarves but differentiate most importantly in diet and behavior, they're heavily obligated towards carnivorous, capable of eating plants but mostly used for flavoring with little nutrition to add, with a mouthful of sharp teeth and the second strongest jaws after the krelkins. They're the only kin who are better than humans in a marathon, though a bit worse at swimming and climbing. Gyari refer to their groupings as packs, with typically 3-7 families to a pack. A town is developed as the home, sometimes with multiple packs to a town, while often some of the families, though rarely all, will leave for a season at a time to go out into hunts. As children reach maturity and the little village expands often up to three will leave to explore and hunt and eventually find others to pair with and begin families and perhaps towns of their own. *Everyone* is expected to hunt in the gyari the moment they can leave.

Gyari live exclusively in small, loose federations of towns that have similar structure to a city-state if it was much more sprawling and less dense, or within other lands.