Ibrahim Asimu Tanko

Male

Andile Gumbi

Heterosexual

Veil-crosser (Ihr)

Silversmith, locksmith, woodcarver

New York

Factionless

Additional information about this race:

In Ibrahim Tanko's own world, the race were known as ihr, pronounced [iħr] or [iʔr], a word that came from the local lingua franca. The ethnic minority he originally came from had turned it into eyrbi.

Flaws:

The race was affected by a set of four distinctive weaknesses known, after their origin legend, as "the curse".

1. Susceptibility to sunlight (the UV component):

All the members of his race were sensitive to natural UV radiation, and their ability to accumulate melanin in their whole body was a true blessing in that it was the one reason why sunlight was painful and debilitating to them, as opposed to fatal. For "black" ihr, the sun could only inflict fast-healing and, by the their standards, superficial burns that didn't quite reach fourth degree. Wearing thick woolen or leather clothes and a wide-brimmed sunhat or hood was enough to block it out. For "white" ihr, the sun was more dangerous and caused serious burns even at dusk and through closed heavy drapes or several layers of thick wool, though to be killed by it one had to be chained or stranded outside in direct sunlight for one to several hours, which was plausible only in the event of premeditated murder or suicide. There was a handful of darker-skinned subjects who suffered seriously too, due to a peculiarity of their genetic pattern, although, of course, this was far less common.

This was why light-skinned human candidates for being made into ihr were avoided as a general rule, unless they were to live in suitable conditions (for example, in catacombs underground) where they wouldn't be in constant pain or wouldn't need to take precautions at each step to prevent it, and wouldn’t risk being killed by exposure to sunlight while asleep.

While not life-threatening to those of them who had black tissues, exposure to direct sunlight caused excruciating burns – anywhere from first- to third-degree, depending on the time spent out in the sun, and on whether or not one's skin was covered by (sheer) fabric. On bare skin, third-degree burns could occur in less than an hour, sometimes even in minutes, depending on the time/solar angle, distance from the equator and the presence of reflective surfaces such as snow, ice, water or concrete. Even slight, short-term contact with sunlight caused tenderness that started with the outer side of the hands and the area where a UV-sensitive human would have a butterfly rash (lower forehead, nose, cheekbones), then spread to the rest of one's face and any remaining unprotected skin - followed by tingling, a burning sensation, searing pain and, finally, pressure or numbness if one was severely affected. In some situations, this was used as a punishment or a handy way of inflicting serious pain.

Their eyes were much more light-sensitive than those of humans, which makes sense for a nocturnal creature that has a natural instinct to sleep throughout the day and is harmed by sunlight to this extent. Even in humans, the ocular tissues are just as sensitive to UV radiation as the skin, or even more so, and the same is true for them – when exposed to sunlight, the eyes were hurt first, before enough time passed for any epithelial wounds to appear.

If pushed out into the sun, their instinctive response was to squeeze their eyes shut as tight as they could, giving a loud open-mouthed hiss from pain both in the exposed skin and in the eyes as their face uncontrollably gained more feline features. Those who lacked self-control go into frenzy. Those moments were enough for them to develop severe photokeratitis - within seconds, not hours, and outside the usual conditions, such as proximity to surfaces whose reflectivity is particularly great (the sea, ice sheets, snowed-over fields, solid whitewashed streets and walls), exposure to strong sunlight for an extensive period of time, or looking at an artificial source of UV radiation like a welder's arc or high-intensity flash without any goggles or other protective gear. At first, one was blinded; over the following ten minutes to two hours, one's vision was restored, but residual symptoms could persist for one or two nights, including sharp pain from any brighter light, itching, a sensation that there is sand, dust or some other foreign body in the eye, extensive watering (tears), general discomfort, and floating reddish, greenish or multi-colored circles.

If one of them was forced to stay up during the day and refused to go outside without a bulky blanket, hood or jacket to use as a makeshift shield for the head and face, it was because of this. It was not so much the fear of instant burns to the face and hands, which were very painful, but healed fast and didn‘t pose even a fraction of the danger they would have presented to a human, as they could easily survive full-thickness burns to well over 70% and up to 100% of the total body surface area that would have been guaranteed to kill a regular human; these didn't produce any of the common complications, such as septicaemia, wound infection, pneumonia, respiratory failure or renal failure, and there was no risk of permanent disfigurement. The short-term loss of eyesight was just as painful, but its immediate consequences could be more serious. Any situation that had forced one of them to stay awake while the sun was up and was about to drive them out of their shelter had to be grave enough as it was, and the last thing one wanted was to be crippled and completely powerless as well as in agonizing pain.

Depending on its intensity, artificial UV radiation also harmed them. For instance, a welder‘s arc would instantly blind them, just as the sun would have, and caused skin burns if one was standing too close. However, most human-made sources of UV light in their world, as in ours, tended to be weak and weren't much of a problem; certain lamps caused pain and watering in the eyes, but that was about it.

The ihr were characterized by a type of pervasive melanism - or melanosis, depending on whether or not one chose to see it as a condition or disorder – where melanocytes proliferated not just in the skin but also in the osseous, muscle and connective tissues and internal organs, making their flesh and bones look jet or coal black. This is what gave most ihr their distinctive appearance, which many found intimidating and bizarre: black eye sclera, black mouth, tongue and gums, and palms that are just as black as the outer side of the hand. Flesh wounds were black, too, and oozed dark deoxygenated blood, which again looked black, especially in poor lighting or at a distance.

The skin din’t have to be quite as melanin-rich as the internal tissues. Not all ihr were hypermelanistic; their complexion varied from pure black to mid-brown, perhaps even lighter, and, in the cases where the skin is lighter than the flesh, due to being translucent, it seemed to have a darker tint underneath.

According to popular legend, all ihr were "black", "white" ihr were just a figment of people's imagination and didn't exist, though once in a while the friend of a friend of a friend of a colleague's grandfather claimed to have seen one. In actual fact, the quantity of melanin was tied to one's genetic heritage. The vast majority of ihr started out with a phenotype we would identify as African, Afroasiatic or Southern Caucasian (Mediterranean), which were linked to the highest concentrations of melanin. For fair-skinned people who didn't tan that easily, there could be a considerable variation in outcome depending on their genetic pattern, with different degrees of melanin saturation, and the most diverse shades of brown, being possible. In a typical Northern Caucasian (Nordic) person, the concentration of melanin was low, close to negligible, and an albino or person with red hair, freckles and gray or green eyes had none whatsoever.

Pallor, if present, disappeared during the transition from human to ihr and was replaced by a healthy, flushed, rosy-cheeked complexion often described as "blossoming" (though their flush tended to be darker than human due to the darker hue of their blood, and was more ruddy, rust-red or brownish-red than pink). There may have been white ihr, but there weren't any pale ones.

Over the years, the more or less constant sunburn, ranging from mild to severe, eventually made the melanin production in the epidermis go haywire; who knows what the melanocytes even looked like at that point. In the same conditions, a regular human would have long died of melanoma, but their physiological defenses prevented any cells from becoming malignant in the straightforward sense of those words - as in, capable of causing metastases and destroying the entire body - so the skin simply changed its properties.

In those whose skin was brown, the uniform pigmentation was lost and a darker jet-black pattern started to show against the brown background, similar to the ghost markings on melanistic felines - the faint spots or rosettes on a black panther or the faint tabby stripes in a black domestic cat.

These markings were somewhat like watercolor blooms in that their edges were serrated or indistinct, as if the darker brown were creeping into the lighter brown and gradually dissolving in it. Their texture differed from that of the surrounding skin; they were thicker, more smooth and velvety to the touch, with a mild sheen. In certain types of lighting, they could make one think of a satin-weave fabric that has a glossy design on a duller background. In the beginning, they were difficult to discern and were only obvious upon closer examination, or if one studied the creature’s face or hands for a longer while. The effect was not unlike the one where a glass of tea has been brewed so strong it seems black, but once it's been lifted against the sunlight, one sees that the liquid is translucent and has a reddish-brown gleam, or, say, a cat looks black in the street, but when one examines its fur, it turns out to be an uneven brown that varies from chocolate to near-black. Later, the markings became sharper and more noticeable.

In those whose skin was already pitch-black, the color did not change, but the same shiny, velvety textural pattern appeared and became more prominent with time.

The lips darkened to a somewhat shiny black that extended for some 1-2 cm outside their boundary and then faded gradually into brown, and gained the same thick, velvety texture as the other skin stains. In some cases, the stain covered the entire nasolabial fold and formed a triangular streak extending to the middle of the chin. The same happened to the area around the eyes. The eye stain helped protect the tender skin around the eye against sunburn and prevented light from being reflected back into the eye, which was one of the factors that contributed to, or aggravated photokeratitis, one of their persistent problems, performing the same function as generous black or coal-gray makeup applied to the lower eyelid.

The look this created could be at once enigmatic, uncanny and frightening. Much like Western-type makeup, the black stains produced an impression of impenetrability and distance, and the same formal air. If they just barely outlined the contour of the eyes, one could come to resemble a figure from a mural in an Egyptian tomb, and if they were wider and began to fade some 1-1,5 cm short of the eyebrows or filled the entire eye cover fold, one could seem to be wearing a venetian half-mask, and maybe look a little like a ghost. The image could be especially striking if one developed "tear marks" that ran from the inner corner of the eye downward, along the wings of the nose, and from the outer corner of the eye sideways, toward the temple, slanting down beyond the edge of the cheekbone, and a fleur-de-lys mark on one’s forehead in the form of the letter "M" or the inverted letter "M" ("W"), like those seen in cheetahs or domestic cats with a classic or mackerel tabby coat. These then merged with the eye stain and, later, with the lip stain, creating an astounding and complex facial pattern.

The skin staining could be seen as yet another sign that one's metabolism was completely disoriented and was trying hard to protect itself from what it took to be casual torture by fire, so even the precious few physiological mechanisms that had still functioned in a sane manner up to this point no longer were.

If one compared a daara-conditioned warrior and an elder, both of whom could no longer shift out of the frenzy mode, the face of the former would seem a lot more "normal". It'd be a homogenous dark brown or black, the lips would be the same shade and wouldn't stand out; because of the way they blended into the background, he or she would look "lipless" from a distance. The elder, on the other hand, would have thoroughly black lips and eyelids and a sort of black watercolor wash all over their face.

2. A strictly nocturnal sleep-waking cycle that precludes full functioning during the daylit hours:

At dawn, their metabolism started to shut down; the heartbeat slowed, the body temperature dropped and levelled out with that of the environment and one sank into hibernation that lasts until sunset. In this state, they were paralysed, oblivious and unresponsive to their surroundings, and, as a result, vulnerable to various threats. Their limbs were cold to the touch, there was no palpable pulse, the pupils were dilated and didn't respond to light. In some, the eyes rolled back into the head, leaving only the white visible when the eyelid was lifted. The muscle tone varied; some became completely limp and manipulable, like waxen dolls, while in others every single muscle would lock up. In the latter case, their bodies became so rigid it was impossible to change their position, bend their limbs, or, for example, unclench their finger or toe talons without breaking the bones and ripping the tendons apart first. Unless specialized testing was performed, this condition was indistinguishable from clinical death.

It was not impossible to fight the urge to go to sleep and force the body to continue to function even after the sun rose, but one would be extremely weak, sluggish and drowsy, and could lose consciousness any moment. Typically, one exhibited many symptoms of moderate or serious muscle weakness (paresis): the fingers could not grasp objects strongly enough and they were likely to slip out and drop to the ground; the eyelids drooped, forcing the eyes to close; the tongue seemed to be made of cotton wool and wouldn't turn fast or well enough, making the words came out slurred as if one were drunk; there was a pronounced feeling of weakness in the thighs and knees and the legs appeared to be about to give way and buckle under one‘s weight, as if made of stretchable rubber or cotton wool. Reduced sensation or numbness (paresthesia) was also common, as was a heavy sensation in the extremities, described as having invisible weights tied to them or lead coursing through the veins instead of blood. Physical and psychological responses were considerably delayed, and to an unsuspecting observer, the person seemed to be drugged or sick with a high fever. On the night that followed, one was bound to be fatigued, much more so than a human who hasn't slept for one or even a few nights, and was un able to use one’s abilities to their full capacity because one’s body hadn't received the rest it required.

On the whole, it was easier to stay up after sunrise than to wake during the day once one had gone to sleep. Often, one was able to regain consciousness, and, in some cases, open one’s eyes, provided there were no bright lights around, but not to speak or stir, and faded out again in a few seconds.

The deep daytime slumber was an energy conservation mechanism that enabled the ihr to sustain their inefficient, high-maintenance metabolism, and it was been theorized that diffuse sunlight might serve as the trigger that signals the body to begin shutting down its vital functions.

There was an inverse correlation between the depth of the muscle paralysis and the quantity of melanin in the ihr's tissues; higher concentrations (a darker skin tone) were linked to better muscle functioning, shallower sleep and a limited capacity to respond to certain outside stimuli, which were part of the same general daylight resistance package, as it were. It was possible that the genes connected to the two were linked or a single gene determined both. In terms of survival for the race as a whole, though, it made less sense - one would think that it's the "white" ihr, who could be burned to death if left comatose outdoors for the whole day, that should have been able to awaken from the pain and at least crawl away into the shade or dig themselves into the ground, while a "black" one could well sleep on, as all they risked was having their skin burned off, which was painful, but not fatal and healed back quickly.

Just before daybreak, when the sky began to brighten, every ihr experienced an odd sensation most of them had trouble putting into words. Some chose to describe it as a strong, pervasive sense of an impending disaster, or of something being seriously amiss, an anxiety that was almost palpable in the air; one's skin crept and one's hair stood on end, though one couldn't tell for certain why. Others likened it to a sound, smell or subtle tactile sensation that was below the threshold level and therefore not registered by the senses, but still produced a response in another part of the body or in one's being as a whole. The most commonly used example was hearing a dog's ultrasound whistle while wearing tight ear-plugs. This was the body's signal to seek shelter before one collapsed or the sun came out and burned one's skin and eyes, a biological alarm clock of sorts. For the younger, the injured or the weakened, it could mount to a panic at the prospect of going into a coma while still out in the open and becoming vulnerable to every threat imaginable, and that, in turn, triggered frenzy. The sensation was euphemistically referred to as "the call of the earth" or "being called (back) to/into the earth" (used not only by those who slept in the ground in the literal sense, but also virtually by everybody who didn't), or the need to "go home" (also used by those who didn't have one, except for a self-dug grave in the bare ground).

Rest as we understand it - that is, lack of physical activity, relaxation, remaining in a reclining, lying or sitting posture - did little (if anything) to restore their strength and relative sanity. For this, they required the deep, coma-like daysleep. They were biologically incapable of human-like shallow sleep, but even if they had been, that wouldn't have been sufficient for bringing their nervous system function back to normal.

3. An elevated body temperature that produces an extreme sensitivity to cold:

Their body temperature was elevated to about 55-65 C, which produced a continuous sensation of being cold that was their – perhaps one shouldn’t use the word "curse" here because it'd be too strong, and there were far worse aspects to their condition (such as a much higher incidence of neurological and psychiatric disorders, psychological fracturing, a plunge in self-awareness and severe disruption in one's perception of oneself and one's surroundings) – but let's say that, despite seeming negligible on first sight, this aspect of their altered physiology was permanent and so all-pervasive that, for many, it drove home the point about [coming back wrong] or [no longer being human]. there was no escape from the cold - it was there every night, every hour, every minute, creeping into their bodies whenever a cooler wind began to blow, or they stood still a bit longer, or, say, their garments happened not to be thick enough. Most eventually grew used to the sensation, learned to live with it each moment of their waking lives and didn't expect to be warm most of the time.

As a result, all of them experienced a deep and perpetual physical discomfort, occasionally described as being about to catch fire on the outside and being about to turn into an icicle or having an icy wind blowing on the inside. There was a sort of feverish state, even a feeling of malaise, not unlike having a high fever of 38-39 C and being unable to tell whether one was hot, or cold, or both. If one was outdoors on an overcast day, the surface of one's skin burned, but inside, one felt a deepening chill. It was common to experience alternating heat waves and chills, accompanied by shivering and "ants crawling up one's back", comparable to the symptoms of influenza and other viral infections, or those developed by some women at the onset of menopause. It was very hard to combine the layers of woolen clothes, indoor heating or the intervals at which one took hot foods and drink so as to find an optimum balance that would feel just right and result in genuine physical comfort.

The rare moments when this did occur were sheer bliss. When it came, the warmth they had been craving so much caused their bodies to "zone out" on them, making them drowsy and sluggish, so they dozedand/or went to sleep (which could be as deep as the semi-comatose state they lapsed into during the day). Before they did so, they could spontaneously switch to pleasure-frenzy, called [naqtaara], and act a little crazy - laugh, purr, go through a peculiar cat-like set of movements where they opened their mouth wide, demonstrating the cat-like canines, threw back their heads and watched each other through the corners of their half-closed eyes. To an observer, they looked drugged. Warmth was intoxicating to them in the most literal sense of these words.

Note: the so-called ihr "purr" is a a series of short, intermittent rumbling sounds, rather like their growl or roar. Both resembled the sounds made by lions or leopards to show affection (but not the soft continuous sound made by domestic cats, servals or caracals). They were so loud they could hurt the ears, and quite startling or frightening, especially when they weren’t expected.

The extreme susceptibility to cold went beyond a mere subjective sensation. The cooler it was, the greater the gap between their internal temperature and that of the immediate surroundings, and the more heat was radiated into the environment and lost. If the thermometer showed less than -5 C, they began to grow lethargic and their reactions slowed down; at less than -10C, their bodies' attempts to compensate for the wasted energy became futile and they could no longer retain the temperature necessary to function, so a near-complete metabolic shutdown was initiated and they were forced into long-term hibernation. In their own world, this was why they never migrated into temperate and subarctic latitudes, where the climate would have caused them to remain asleep for half a year or so and to suffer from the cold throughout most of the other half. Even in subtropical climates, they experienced constant chills and were notorious for their unseasonable warm clothing, their fondness for hot drinks and their wide use of space heaters, primus stoves and other devices that allowed to maintain a higher background temperature. A typical sight was one of them swaddled in a woolen winter shawl or cape, "nursing" a thermos mug or "hugging" an indoor heater.

4. Pyrophobia:

The race suffered from an irrational fear of fire. Flames were less of a hazard to them than to humans, because their burns healed much faster and easier and with none of the usual complications, and only turned into a serious danger if they were engulfing and one was trapped in a burning building or forest fire with no chance of escape, but the sight of them caused a deep instinctive dread.

Unlike most other phobias, it didn't lessen after continued exposure to the object and repeated reasoning or self-assurance, but could be controlled or tolerated through an ongoing effort of will. Most small, stationary sources of fire tended not to be an issue. Upon seeing a candle, an oil lamp or a torch on a wall sconce one was likely to be startled and to feel a momentary wave of fear accompanied by trembling and a sudden weakness, but these would soon level out. However, if the same torch, or even something as tiny as a lighter were unexpectedly thrust in one's face, one would have a full-scale panic attack. A campfire or the opening of a wood stove inside a home felt like a considerable threat, and those who hadn't undergone fire-conditioning training found it difficult to force themselves to venture closer, even when they were shaking with cold. A larger conflagration, such as a house fire, triggered an intense and overwhelming fear even from a distance. In those who were younger or recently weakened by an injury or intoxication, the fear was much stringer and harder to manage, and got out of hand more frequently, resulting in devastating panic attacks; their instictive response upon seeing fire in any form was to shudder, shrink back and flee.

If one watched a feral pack sitting or standing around their trashcan bonfire, one could observe a curious ambivalent response: a wary, cautious, almost timid edging closer to the flames, step by step, stretching out their palms to warm them, then starting back as soon as there was a louder crackling sound or a larger tongue of flame leapt up.

Large, tall bonfires were widely used at facilities for daara-conditioned warriors, in some situations, to foster their self-control through teaching them to overcome the fear, and in others, to work them into a frenzy on demand. During rites of passage, walking through or jumping over one served as an additional test of courage; in bonding rituals for the members of the same unit, the frenzy caused by the close proximity of fire, combined with self-mutilation (whipping, slashing or stabbing oneself with a dagger), wild dancing and chanting, produced a special ecstatic state where all of them appeared to become a single organism. Sticking one's hand into a fire, having opened the nose clip and taking breaths to feel the stench of charred flesh and staring at the flames with a stony expression was a common method of demonstrating one's endurance and strong will.

In times when natural fire was the only source of warmth and lighting, they had to choose between two equally distressing options - that is, cold or fear. When electricity was invented, their nightly lives became somewhat easier, but warfare became worse due to the extensive use of explosives and incendiary weapons, which were effectively employed not only in their direct capacity, but also to induce terror and demoralize the enemy.

Diet and metabolism:

Ihr were obligate carnivores - in other words, they required the animal proteins contained in meat, eggs and dairy products to survive. Only they could be digested in full and serve as a source of the most essential nutrients. Apart from that, they needed the simple sugars (monosaccharides) in honey and most fresh or preserved fruit, such as glucose and fructose. These two components had to comprise, respectively, 75% (or more) and 15% (or more) of their diet, with the rest left for other, optional foods.

Colder weather or greater physical exertion increased their need for sugars, which were a quick, easy source of energy, including that converted into body heat, and, to a lesser extent, for fat. In contrast, injuries increased their need for protein, which was required to build new tissues or mend those that were damaged.

Dairy products were an important constituent of their diet, with milk, butter, cream, sour cream and soft cottage cheese forming about half of their protein intake. Their capacity to metabolise lactose was much higher than that of humans (who don't digest milk that well and sometimes suffer from lactose intolerance) and domestic cats (most of whom are lactose intolerant), though, ironically, this was a dietary habit most likely to be thought of as "cat-like". This went even for those of them who used to be lactose-intolerant as humans; apparently, the physical conversion eliminated the problem, as not a single ihr was ever known to have had it.

They could eat grains (wheat, barley, millet, rice, buckwheat) and products made from flour, but their capacity to digest them was limited; it was roughly the same as that of the felids or slightly lower, and much lower than that of the canids or humans. In their pure form, and in larger quantities, these foods produced indigestion accompanied by an unpleasant stomachache and diarrhea. Those of them who did choose to eat these products, for example, due to liking their taste and texture, would typically mix cereal or pasta with meat, lard and/or butter to improve the flavor and reduce the chances of getting an upset stomach. Bread was hardly ever made as it wasn’t worth the bother.

Leguminous crops and nuts were seen as a famine food because, in smaller quantities, they could serve as a partial substitute for meat due to their high protein content. However, these proteins had a different structure, lacked certain indispensable aminoacids, and were metabolized with considerable difficulty, one could survive on them for only so long before one started to exhibit the symptoms of starvation and became a danger to anything that moved. A common name for protein deficiency could be translated as lentil or bean madness, as it tended to occur in those who had been driven out of their hunting grounds or had wiped out any game within a wide radius and were forced to subsist on legumes.

Staple foods included milk, cream, fresh and dried dates, figs or grapes, raw or fried eggs, raw meat, raw liver and a thick broth made by simmering meat, bones and cartilage over a low flame for several hours, which was supplemented by the boiled meat left over from making the broth. Sometimes the broth was left to congeal into a jelly together with the shreds of meat. Aged honey and buckwheat honey, alone or mixed with milk and cream, were considered exquisite delicacies, as palatable as they were easy to digest, and were reserved for the most reverred persons, such as elders and distinguished free warriors.

Most ihr shared a taste for citrus fruit, and it was common to use lemon or orange juice to soak meat before it was cooked or consumed raw, or to flavor black coffee. Another popular favorite were fragrant fruit with a strong soursweet flavor, such as quince, mango or melon, which were often eaten chopped into small cubes or slices along with raw meat, or as part of cold, boiled meat rolls. It was common to like fresh fragrant herbs, on their own or as an addition to meat and broths - mint, thyme, basil and dill being the most popular but by far not the only ones - and crunchy, juicy green vegetables.

All members of the race were fond of pickled olives and tuna fish in any form, as they triggered the production of endorphins and other chemicals in the brain that brought about an elevated mood and a sense of well-being - much like dark chocolate, mint oil or vanilla do in humans - and were frequently used as comfort/mood foods. As such, they could be somewhat addictive.

The ihr had one food allergy (or aversion) in common with the domestic cat: any vegetables belonging to the genus Allium, including garlic, onions, shallots, chives, scallops or leek, caused a debilitating sickness that lasted several nights. The symptoms resembled anemia in a human and included fatigue, dizziness, feeling drowsy at night and a paler - or, rather, grayish or earthen, considering their complexion - shade to the skin and sclera. The substances contained in these plants caused the red blood cells to rupture, disrupting the supply of vital elements to the tissues. The body eventually overrode and rectified this, but the process could take 2-5 waking-hibernation cycles.

The poisonous properties of these plants were retained when cooked or processed, so it wasn’t just the raw bulbs or leaves that were toxic - any hot meal containing them would have had the same effect, and so would, say, garlic salt or granulated and powdered extracts.

The ihr did not necessarily dislike the flavors, however; some didn't care for them, others could be curious and/or enjoy them and eat these vegetables eagerly, unless warned in advance about their being poisonous (or "not good for us"). With onions or garlic, the gamut of reactions was the same as in humans and ranged from extreme fondness to disgust.

On a relative scale, the degree of toxicity may appear considerable, as other poisons that were much more dangerous, and perhaps deadly, for humans produced no physical response in them whatsoever, powerful beings that they were, while innocuous and universally common foods left them sickened and weak. But on an absolute scale, it wasn't that serious at all; the greatest risk was being incapacitated by the poisoning at a crucial moment when one had to be at one’s strongest and most alert. Theoretically, it was possible for the poisoning to be fatal, but no such incidents were reported in practice, as for this, one would have needed to eat about a kilogram or more in a single sitting, which was, well, impossible.

Their metabolism, on the whole, was closest to that of hummingbirds or certain insects. They had an insane basal metabolic level, 10 times greater than that of a human, at a modest estimate, which meant that they were constantly hungry and had to spend the greater part of their waking lives searching and hunting for food. Whatever was eaten was burned almost as soon as it was consumed. Feeling genuine satiation was as uncommon for them as feeling warm and comfortable. If an ihr had no animal proteins for two to three nights, they would go into a frenzy, attacking anything that came close enough; this was accompanied by a delirious state of mind with hallucinations, delusional thinking and profound disorientation. Afterward they would weaken rapidly, their movements and responses slowed down and they went into hibernation. That said, their bodies did seem to retain a small reserve of usable energy "just in case"; when an ihr lapsed into a coma due to starvation and was little more than dead for several decades, they could suddenly awaken and attack if they sensed a living creature approaching them. If substitutes such as leguminous vegetables, seeds or nuts were available, the starvation-fuelled frenzy could be delayed for up to ten nights.

Regeneration:

Their healing factor was massive. Broken bones mended quickly by themselves, even without immobilization; the entire skin epithelium grew back in the event of fourth-degree burns, and, if severe eye injuries were sustained, the ocular tissues were reproduced from the remainder of the retinal pigmented layer. Each tooth ould be grown from an odontogenic stem cell in the dental lamina that remained in standby mode while the tooth was intact, and, once that was lost or extracted, developed into a new tooth, which was situated under or just behind where the old one used to be, and, if necessary, could be moved forward a little as it became larger. Even entire internal organs were regrown in full after surgical removal, and lost limbs grew back over the course of several months. In effect, they could heal most injuries that would be lethal or life-threatening to a human with no special treatment other than the passage of time and quality food.

Decapitation, dismemberment, longer-term immersion in concentrated acid or lye, a massive explosion at close range or a major fire with no possibility to escape were guaranteed to kill them. A heart injury wasn't lethal, but caused severe weakness and inability to move around much; it also interfered with the circulation, thus disrupting regeneration in any other parts of the body. Injuries to the lungs or diaphragm made speech painful or impossible until the gaps in the tissue healed over and most of the coagulated blood was expelled through coughing. Brain damage was also dangerous. While nerve cells could grow back and heal just like any others, injuries to the cerebral cortex could cause permanent and rather unpredictable changes in their personality, behavior and memory. In a race already notorious for its mental instability, this had better be avoided at all costs. Neural tissue took longer to mend, too, so that, for instance, the partial or full paralysis and paresthesia produced by a broken spine could last around two or three months and disappeared from the top of the body downward, the legs being the last to regain their mobility and sensitivity (preceded by control over bladder and sphincter functioning).

However, regeneration could only occur if two conditions were met: there had to be plenty of food and as much rest as possible. When not in frenzy, an ihr was able to ignore deep slashes, stabs through the torso or multiple bullet wounds that would have been fatal to a human, and could continued to fight without showing any outward signs of the pain they were in (in frenzy the pain simply didn‘t register until one came back to one‘s senses, when it was bound to hit with a double force). However, straight afterward they would succumb to a sudden fatigue and a voracious hunger that could trigger frenzy. If the injuries were more severe, they grew drowsy as their body minimized or shut down the physiological mechanisms that weren't strictly vital and mobilized any resources available to repair the damage. In this state, they were apathetic and oblivious and did nothing but sleep and eat in repeated cycles; even when it was dark, they spent most of the time dozing and could only be roused if there was a need to move closer to a source of warmth, or there was a prey animal that could be killed and devoured. Their sleep was deeper, longer, more difficult to wake from, and more similar to clinical death. In the most severe cases, with extreme injuries and/or a drastic shortage of food, the coma-like state became constant and they could lapse into hibernation for many years to come.

As a rule, after sustaining an injury, the ihr was in a clouded, dim state of consciousness. Their higher intelligence went "offline", as it were, and they functioned on a very basic instinctual level where they were no longer capable of distinguishing between categories like "prey species", "my former species" or "my current species" - to them, any living creature was just a shape, warmer than its surroundings, smelling and moving like food. In this situation, cases of primary cannibalism (attacking other ihr as prey) and secondary cannibalism (attacking humans as prey) among them were common and well-documented, and there was a risk of killing a person they knew and were attached to simply because they hadn‘t been able to recognize him or her on time and were overpowered by predatory instincts. That it was unwise for a human to approach a severely wounded ihr with the intenion of administering first aid went without saying – their body would take care of itself, and whatever one could do for them wasn’t worth becoming lunch.

Predictably, the ihr never had any proper medical science to speak of. In modern times, they were still using the same primitive treatments that had survived intact since the bronze age, and never evolved beyond basic first aid for mechanical injuries meant to facilitate healing: sewing together the edges of large wounds and applying tree pitch or sap to the stitches, extracting bullets and other foreign bodies lodged in soft tissue, reattaching severed appendages, relocating joints, setting broken bones, using tight bandages, casts, splints, braces and other forms of immobilization. Most members of the species chose to forego them in favor of waiting and consuming as much fresh milk and meat as their stomach could hold to supply their body with energy and materials for building new tissue. On occasion, simple on-the-move treatments were used, such as licking the wound, using a cotton wool dressing soaked in saline solution, or bathing in the sea. if the damage was massive, they were likely to go underground or underwater to hibernate for a few months. Being immune to infection, they needed no disinfectants or instrument sterilization and sanitary norms were practically unknown. Anaesthesia was very rare, as the ability to bear pain in silence was seen as a sign of internal strength and courage.

The ihr didn't need to breathe and used their lungs only to speak, smoke, play a musical instrument, or, say, give a human CPR. During the transformation, the metabolism switched to anaerobic and the red blood cells were re-adapted to bond with, and transport an element other than oxygen, which is what gave ihr blood its dark burgundy hue. They did have a residual breathing reflex, but that was suppressed for social and cultural reasons.

Lifespan:

While their average life expectancy was even lower than that of humans due to endless vicious conflicts between clans and larger political formations (most were killed in their third or fourth year), potentially, they were a very long-lived race. A select few were rumored to have survived around five thousand years. As the centuries went by, their demand for energy and animal protein grew; eventually, they lapsed into permanent hibernation and died because their metabolism had crashed and their bodies literally consumed themselves.

Abilities absent in this dimension:

In their own world, the ihr were a distinctly supernatural race. They could shape-shift at will into leopards (mostly melanistic ones) or dissolve into a flock of long-eared desert bats or white-lined hawkmoths for fight-or-flight purposes. The claws on their fingers and toes could lengthen and become scythe-like in a matter of seconds; they sliced through flesh as if it were butter and carved stone or metal with ease, and the scars left over from wounds inflicted by them never healed, even in members of their own species. They were able to meld with the ground to avoid being dug out, or, alternatively, turn into a cloud of mist or dust, which was especially useful during the day, as this form was nearly indestructible and enabled them to sleep safely. Their perceptual capacities went beyond having heightened senses. For example, they could call forth a bird's eye view of their location, single out one sensory stimulus, such as a distant sight or faint sound, and make it clearer and more distinct, or see in pitch darkness without requiring any lighting whatsoever. The ihr and their clothing, or the personal possessions in close contact with their bodies wouldn't cast a shadow or reflect in mirrors and other shiny surfaces. The ihr had a close affinity with certain animals and were able to speak to them telepathically, to summon or command them, or to soothe them, making them docile, as long as the animal could make contact with them or see their body language; they were also able to taint the land or streams in ways that made various creatures stronger and more loyal to themselves after treading on the soil or drinking the water. The same ability allowed them to reach out to the animalistic side of humans, sending them into states of panic, rage or apathy, or to their own kind, producing or quelling frenzies. Other abilities included mind-melding with an animal to probe its thoughts and memories, sharing its senses and use them to explore one's surroundings, or possessing its body for a short time. Older ihr developed the powers of telepathy, empathy and mind-control/mental suggestion. The eldest ones, or large conglomerations of youngsters on a limited territory, could affect the weather and attracted strong winds, sandstorms and dry lightning.

All of these abilities were stripped from Ibgxe after he passed through the Veil.

Literature and literary criticism, pastel and pencil graphics, cross-stitching, postcolonial theory, cats, biology, wildlife, xenofiction, collectivism, photography, linguistics, foreign languages, cultural studies.

Diagnosis: too much "Vampire: the Masquerade". Prognosis: incurable.

The trail is clear. The animal's feet had pressed down into the brown moss, creating little pools of dark glistening water. Its scent is hanging in the air - a sweetish musk akin to sweat, faint at first, but becoming stronger and stronger with each breath until it becomes all-pervasive. Her prey is right ahead, just beyond the turn of a hill and not far. Soon, any moment, she will see it trudging away in that unmistakeable manner, deceptively slow and clumsy-looking. If it turns round, she will see the tiny black beads of its eyes and the massive horned beak capable of crushing the toughest stems and leaves.

She hops swiftly from hummock to hummock. With each step the soft marshy ground gives way, molding to the shape of the foot. The oilskin of her thigh-boots is watertight, with special double stitching, and there is not a chance that the moisture might seep through, but she can still feel the cold water through the soft thin sole. The sensation is invigorating, thrilling, and she catches herself thinking that this had never occurred to her before.

She slows down to a jog, then to a fast walk, and looks around. The flat reddish-brown plain stretches out as far as she can see, merging in the distance with the blazing milky-white sky. The streamlets and miniature lakes scattered across its surface are gleaming through the thin whitish haze. She squints. It is too bright to be outdoors without a sun-shield and she chides herself for forgetting hers, then wonders why none of the others had thought of bringing it along.

There is nobody in sight. But the others must be nearby, still within reach despite being invisible. She is still held just as firmly by the network of presences that has made her who she is, and the voices are rolling through her in a steady rhythm. Yet something has to be amiss, though she is uncertain what it might be. The voices have become more disjointed and are swimming in and out of focus. Far away, an echo of a cry that is not a cry. There are murmurs, whispers in an indecipherable tongue, now so distant she has to strain to catch them, now so close that someone seems to be standing beside her, gazing over her shoulder. She turns, but there is no-one there.

She climbs onto the top of the hillock, but her quarry is gone. The entire landscape has shifted; she is surrounded by dull, grayish-yellow limestome cliffs with scarce mottled patches of shrubs here and there. They speak to her in soft sighs, moans, as if singing the same few piercing notes that reverberate through the air again and again. She shivers. The scents brought by the wind are causing a stirring inside, and she glances around, unnerved. But there is nothing familiar about the sight and the internal churning continues to intensify and becomes sickening.

She finds herself gazing at one of the shrubs down the slope. One of its upper branches is touching her chest, and she reaches out and examines the clusters of glossy young leaves at the tip. They are wider, longer, more strap-like than the rest, and their bright coppery ochre makes for a sharp contrast with the dark milk-green of last year's foliage. She lets the branch go and watches it sway with each gust of wind. The sight of the leaves trembling against the gray sky is captivating and sorrowful; as she stands there, something within starts to resonate through her whole being like a taut metal string, stronger and stronger, until it is on the verge of snapping.

By the time the thrall breaks, the voices of the shrubs have become shrieks and formed a single disorienting chorus. The nausea comes in waves and, when she makes a a step sideways, she is so dizzy she stumbles and nearly falls. her legs wobble and seem to have a will of their own. She must seek a safe location, she thinks, somewhere close and dark where she can crouch until the tension subsides and she can make more sense of where she is. She notices a small, semi-rounded opening further down the slope, half-obscured by two young shrubs. She clambers down, holding on to ledges for support and feeling the hard rocks through the fine hide of her soles. Pebbles break out underfoot and roll down with a rustle. She climbs into the soothing shadows of the cavern, curls up and closes her eyes, trying to clear her mind and concentrate on who and where she has just been.

When she opens her eyes, she finds herself leaning back, sitting, but not in a way she is familiar with. She cannot move. She is surrounded by bright white lights, too steady and sharp to come from oil-lamps; as she watches, they sway, recede and start to close in on her. When they merge into a single field of blinding white and the pain in her eyes becomes unbearable, she shuts them tight and screams.

When her eyes open again, the lights are still swarming around her, but at a distance. As they begin to converge, a sudden weakness shoots through her limbs. The glare, though closer now, grows dim and the room beyond begins to sink into darkness. Between frantic gasps for breath, she struggles not to drown, not to let the dark water close over her head, stifling another scream rising in her throat.

There are some untrackable moments that stretch outside time and, once gone, leave a black gap in its fabric that cannot be stitched back together. Then her surroundings grow brighter. The lights, once again further away, have flared up, and it is a little easier to breathe. but her heart is still pounding, and she tries to steady its beating and to fortify her shaking, softened body. Focus on the sights and the sounds only. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Do not think.

There are green shapes hovering behind the lights - dull, shadowy, but she thinks she sees a strip of brighter, more vivid green flash past as one of them moves, and shudders. It should not have been there. The shapes, their shade, their outlines, which are somehow familiar, the odor that hangs about them - all of this fails to connect, to come together into a cohesive whole, though the thought seems to linger just outside her comprehension. When she tries to concentrate and grasp that elusive thought enough to give it a definite form, the weakness and the darkness are back and she has to fight hard to keep them at bay.

[Where are we?]

There are muttering sounds, slurred and indistinct. She senses the hair on her head and at the back of her neck begin to bristle.

[You shall tell us where we are]

More mumbling, as incomprehensible as before.

But something has changed. The light is no longer the same; suffuse and gray, it is filtering from everywhere at once. For reasons she cannot fathom, she is not as bothered now.

She stands, looks around. The wind is moist and green and she senses, with a thrill of recognition, that she is back on the tundra. But the location is strange. All around her there are dilapidated walls, crumbling and overgrown with moss. Most of them are a familiar rust-red, but some sections are brown, gray, yellow, even white. The structures are positioned at odd angles, as though sinking into the mire.

There must be other survivors, she tells herself. There must be others around. No-one wanders alone. We do not wander alone.

She looks down at her chest. Her clothing is now different. She is wearing light leather armor: a padded vest, elbow and shin guards, thick tube-shaped gauntlets with large openings for the thumbs. The tips of the claws that protrude from the suede undergloves are not as she remembers them - pale in color, almost yellow-white, like old ivory.

She realizes that this is a memory. And not hers, but of one who came before, ages past, when there were cities, or at least ruins of them. The end, and the beginning.

She is walking, as her predecessor had done, along a narrow passage. Underfoot, horsetails are sprouting through the reddish tiles and pushing them upward, their brittle segmented stems surrounded with webs of concentric cracks. The walls towering on either side are solid save for the occasional vertical slits, which, she knows, were intended for observing the street below. She raises her head and sees, high above, the remnants of the gallery that used to connect the two buildings; there is a large gap in the middle, and she can see the vaguely triangular, dual-lobed leaves of unknown plants over the sharp edges of the stones.

She is searching, as her ancestor was searching. But these are empty ruins. What can she find here?

RPG-D