032 – Pattu’ljaki

Plenty of ruined realms in Posterra are hardly imagined by most to be liveable by anything that isn’t entirely desperate. Live, as we know, finds a way, but some places are too morbid to think of them as inhabited, even less so when you start considering sapient life. And yet, even in such locations tribes of hardy folks strive on shreds and detritus. While sapient might be a big word, they surely do use tools, organize in some fashion, build ramshackle shelters… Like the regrowing pygmies of the Gloomdome, the humongous underground cavern that harbours the biggest, rotten graveyard in the world, piles of bones seemingly without end. In this ossified land they make their shacks of bone, craft their tools made of bone and consume old and new marrow, gnawing on – yes, you guessed it – bones. They are small, ungainly, with rolls of mortified, tough flesh. They have powerful, huge teeth, praised by the craftsman of the other lands for their extreme toughness and durability, compared to diamonds. And they have one uncanny ability, either a peculiar twist of the mutated genome or some remnants of the arcane they devoured long ago from the bones of the powerful wizards. They regrow, from even the most grievous injuries, easily mending their grey forms in mere moments. If not for their aversion to light and outsiders, as well as their preferred diet, they might’ve posed a threat to the outside world. But for the time being, they are just one of hundreds of secluded communities that only a bold adventurer might try to visit.