Inak

**Inak** [ee-nakh], otherwise known as "Two-toes" or simply "lizards," are small, saurian beings regarded as second-class citizens by most of Kasslyne. They possess varying floppy growths on their heads, which help distinguish between individuals, and only two toes on each foot, giving them their colloquial name.

As a race, Inak originally dwelt in subterranean caverns and lived their entire lives in near blackness. Because of this, lizards have poor eyesight and are strangely shaped, built for digging and leaping rather than running and fighting. Fortunately they have an excellent sense of smell and a fairly accurate echolocation ability. They can emit screeches that will temporarily deafen any humans in range.

In order to function in a society built for humans, Inak are often seen wearing high platform shoes which greatly increase their height and allow them to reach counter tops and other human contrivances. Two-toes are also often found with human patrols, as their keen sense of smell gives them great tracking abilities.

## Biology

Inak are fairly short in stature, coming only about to a human adult's waist. They are bipedal, walking on their two hind legs, and have two toes on each foot, the feature which they are named for by humans, with three fingers including a thumb on each hand. Their arms are proportionately long for their bodies, with their hands reaching to their knees. They have little by the way in visible gender dimorphism, and both sexes have head frills which can vary widely between individuals. Their frills and colors are genetic traits which can be passed down through generations and help pick out close family members. They can perceive the same spectrum of light as humans, though their eyes are sensitive to bright light. While they possess fairly thick skin, they aren't found in Alderode as the climate is too cold for them. Their lifespans are roughly the same as a human's, about seventy years on average.

Due to the structure of their mouths and lack of lips, their native languages often contain squeaks, whines, and growly fricatives. When speaking human languages, they have a pronounced accent.

## Culture

The term for themselves in their own language is Inak. They had a mostly oral tradition, using pictographs for writing. The Two-toes coined the term "spiderpaws" to describe humans, and use spiders to represent humans in their writings. There were once many tribes beneath Kasslyne but in the seventy years since humans announced their discovery most have been wiped out with much of their culture and heritage lost and the survivors have formed new groups.

They worship the old gods, Senet beasts, with Lady Ilganyag once having been one of their most important gods before she betrayed them for the humans. The tribe whose remains ended up building the Inaktown beneath Litriya Shrine were Lowing Shaensigin's worshipers, called her children, when Cresce started slaughtering them and forcing them from their homelands in the Red Marches. Children of other old gods whose descendants and culture have survived in weakened forms since the purge of their people include the children of Ynira and Amalessurkh. They have to hide this from their Kasslynian overlords who insist they become Gefendur even though that religion teaches that Inak are little more than beasts and worth no more than a dog or pig despite their culture and ability to speak because they do not have a demonstrably Kasslynian soul.

Most Inak living among humans eat human foods, but their traditional diet consists of things such as fungus and seaweed, turtles and small mammals, and various invertebrates. In the old days in addition to the mushrooms and lichen harvested by villages roving hunters would bring Varpies, snails, dried fish and particularly prized giant millipedes with them to villages.

Inak have no issue with relationships between same sex couples. Traditionally young men leave their village and travel to find mates and rarely stick around to greet their hatchlings after birth. By Inak standards, Cutter was considered quite handsome originally.

## History

Centuries ago, Two-toes made the mistake of having something Kasslynians wanted. The lizards were lords and protectors of vast underground ecosystems located miles beneath the crust and full of verdant bioluminescent fungal forests, oceans, and mines. The extent of their extractable resources, including a plethora of First Material ores was unprecedented, but the lizards, when humans came across them, were hostile and had no interest in trade. So the humans gassed them and took what they wanted.

This began a very protracted series of massacres - mostly of lizards, but lizards would sometimes make their way to the surface and set fire to human cities, kill children and livestock, poison wells, etc. The Two-toe massacres happened underground, out of sight of the human public, so that all most humans knew was that extremely hostile foreign reptiles were raiding their homes and slaughtering their most vulnerable. Opinions soured pretty fast.

Currently, underground lizards are almost entirely extinct and the survivors have had to adapt to the surface. It's not easy for them. Most countries have laws about where they can live, what limited rights they have, and what kind of work they can do, but it's overall a sorry situation. While "Two-Toe" has become common parlance for discussing them rather than their own word of Inak humans use "Roach Eater" as an insulting slur because beetles are a common part of Inak diet. Inak under Cresian rule cannot be paid nor spend Labor Points, leaving them at the mercy of their employers who are supposed to reimburse them with room and board. There is no regulatory body overseeing this to protect the Inak despite it being illegal to actually own them and Queen Sonorie being a proponent of extending Inak rights.

## Current Events (Spoilers)

**Sharteshane**
Nary Frummagem uses two-toes to assassinate Queen Sonorie's sister and heir Rilursa Sonorie. Following the revelation of Inak involvement against the queen's orders Inak in Cresce are forced from their homes and into internment camps, and attacked in the streets in retaliation for the actions of Inak they don't know in a country they've never been to.

**Litriya Shrine**

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