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-----=====Earth's Dreamlands=====-----
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The Haruchai
As we left the bar a bitter chill had settled into the village of Endport.
The Captain turned up his collar to the cold and muttered
"'S cold enough ta raise the nipples on a Haruchai wench, though she'd
probably use them ta slice open your belly."
"Scu..urp..Scuz me..hic" I said with my usual eloquence. The blast of cold
air had served to wake me up a bit, but the 9 pots of ale were showing
their effects despite my best efforts to drink everyone ever born under the
table.
"Tha Haruchai, lad!" the Captain nearly knocked me off the edge of the
pier. I hit the border rope and fought to regain my balance as well as my
lunch, and he continued. "Only the most vicious, bloodthirsty, honorable,
and straight minded race ever to roam this or any other land."
Through the fog that clouded my brain I heard my self ask "...vicious,
bloodthirsty, HONORABLE??" Even this close to death, my storytellers
instincts were still at work.
"A course!" he said, slapping me on the back again. I cursed those
storyteller's instincts and hoped that my intestines were well anchored in
my stomach, because one more slap would send them streaming out the
fool hole in my head that I use for a mouth.
Somehow, I survived that night. And here is what I remember of the story
the Captain told me of the race called the Haruchai...
-----------
The mountains north of the Oshimo river contain one of the most
forbidding places known to the races of Marjhann. Eternal winters keep
the high altitudes at below freezing temperatures year round. Wood is
scarce and food scarcer-still.
In these unlikely conditions a race of man makes it's home. They are
known as the Haruchai, or stone warriors. The Haruchai live in the
shallow caves that can be found throughout the area and hunt whatever
game can be found in the forbidding environment.
Only the wisest of sages may know exactly why this race remains in a
land so fraught with dangers and impossible conditions, and these
learned men will not part with the knowledge. Suffice to say that the
Haruchai remain because it is the land they call home, and they will
know no other.
As if the terrain and climate weren't enough to keep this race busy, the
Haruchai have been embattled in a bitter Clan war for as long as they
have existed. Five different factions each vie for the best territory, for
wood, for food, for anything that might sustain their kind. So the stone
warriors war not only with nature, but themselves as well.
But raw materials are too valuable to be frittered away on machines of
war, so these men use no weapons in their combat. They attack with their
bare hands and feet, and with deadly force.
So a Haruchai's life consists entirely of training the body and mind to
fight for life. If there can be any reason that this poor storyteller might
guess for their remaining in that mountain region, it might be due to the
fear that moving to a lower clime would make them lazy as a people, and
thus open to attack by one of the rival clans. But this is only an
uneducated guess.
Whatever their own reasons, the Haruchai have little dealings with other
men. They remain exclusively in their mountainous home, and the only
time a Haruchai is met outside this land is when he/she has been outcast
or sent on a mission of vital importance.