Yikaria
The yikaria, or yakfolk, are an intelligent subspecies of minotaur found in the hidden mountain valleys of central Iroa. Little is known of their isolated culture beyond rumor and folklore, appearing in the legends and histories of Rhalpalkan, Tao-Tē, and Khaghat. Common folk regard the yikaria as "bogeymen," and claim they steal children and can possess mortals by magically crawling into their skin.
The first yikaria were minotaur born of the blood of Oheilion spilt in the final battles of the War of the Dawn. After Oheilion's exile to the Fields of Maurenchali, the minotaur joined their spiritual brothers in a brutal campaign against the elder mortal races known as the War of Broken Days. When the Heavenly Council finally brokered an agreement1 with the Bloodied Lord, some minotaur refused to accept the peace. They renounced their progenitor, calling him a coward and traitor to his children. These minotaur fled deep into the winding vales of Rhalpalkan, where they pledged themselves to the Unspoken goddess of power and deception, Rheseldar: the Kiss of Lies. They took the name yikaria and vowed to one day destroy the Bloodied Lord and subjugate all of mortalkind.
Basic Information
Anatomy
As a subspecies of the minotaur, yikaria appear to be a hybrid creature with the physical traits of both bipedal mortals and bovine cattle. They have the head, tail, and hoofed feet of a yak and are covered in bovine thick hair. While they are cursorily bipedal, their legs bend backward like the joints of other ruminant ungulates. Their bodies are more like other mortals, with the chest, arms, and five-digit, nailed hands of a human or similar intelligent biped. This is in contrast to minotaur, whom ordinarily have three-digit, hoofed hands—though this trait can be seen in minotaurs with mixed mortal parentage.
Yikaria are slightly smaller than minotaur and have less sexual dimorphism. Both male and female adult yikaria can grow to over eight feet tall and weigh almost three hundred and fifty pounds. Both male and female yikaria grow horns, though unlike minotaur, yikaria rarely use them in combat, preferring instead to adorn them with beaded jewels and metal casings.
The largest anatomical difference between yikaria and minotaur can be found their environmental adaptations. Yikaria are uniquely adapted to life at high altitudes, with larger lungs and hearts compared to the average minotaur. Their bodies, while extremely muscular, have large stores of fat to help them stay warm in frigid temperatures. This, combined with their thick layers of body hair and their almost total lack of sweat glands makes them prone to heat exhaustion.
Genetics and Reproduction
Yikaria mate in the summer and are usually sexually dormant during the rest of the year. Male yikaria typically take several partners during this time, with the specific individuals awarded by the community's leadership. Female yikaria gestate for a period of around nine to ten months, allowing young yikaria to be born in the late spring. Upon giving birth, infant yikaria will nurse for around five months and are able to run on their own after just eight months.
Yikaria, like minotaur, can interbreed with mortals, though human and orcish anatomies are the most receptive to insemination. Many male yikaria keep female mortals as slaves for this purpose, despite the fact that most mortals impregnated by a yikaria die in childbirth. Yikaria born of mortals appear to have the same anatomical traits and cognitive abilities as trueborn yikaria, leading some to speculate that the yikaria's unique magical capabilities derive from centuries of interbreeding with mortal sorcerers.
Growth Rate & Stages
After being weaned, parents pack their children off to communal creches where they are trained to have loyalty only to their race and god. Like minotaur, yikaria mature quickly, reaching adolescence after just a few years and adulthood around age 10.
Yikaria believe cognitive maturity can only be achieved after an additional decade of studying the arcane, meaning that young yikaria enter adult society at around age 20. This is reflected in yikaria life expectancy, with most yikaria significantly outliving minotaur. Yikaria begin to visibly age around age 70—when their hair begins to turn white—and they are believed to live well into their early 100s. This extended life expectancy is likely due to their culture's continued experimentation with the arcane and dark magics.
Ecology and Habitats
Yikaria are ideally built for survival at high altitudes, where oxygen levels and temperatures are low for much of the year.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Though anatomically best adapted to herbivorism, yikaria are consummate omnivores. Their diet is based around grasses and other fibrous plant materials and supplemented by fruits, nuts, and meats. Like the mortal communities of Rhalpalkan, yikaria consume large quantities of domestic yak milk, butter, and cheese. These yak dairy products are all high in fats and exceptionally good for putting on weight during the freezing winter months. Many stories claim that yikaria eat mortals and indeed, it appears that many yikaria do consider any and all non-yikaria creatures acceptable sources of food.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Yikaria are unsentimental by nature, coupling with one another only to experience selfish physical pleasure and produce yikaria offspring. They do not acknowledge heirs, passing their possessions on to adopted kin or to the state proper. As soon as their children have been weaned, yikaria parents take them to communal creches where they are trained to love and serve only their god, their kings, and their race. After completing the basics of their training, young yikaria are sent to study under the tutelage of an older yikaria as an apprentice. Typically, these apprenticeships are to learn dark magics as nearly all menial tasks and physical labors are considered beneath the purview of a yikaria. This does not mean that the yikaria are a lazy people—they simply would prefer to concentrate their energies on unlocking the secrets of the Old Magic while their slaves keep the gears of society turning.
Upon completing their training, the yikaria present themselves to their kings, who dictate the role the yikaria will fulfill for the state. These positions are of great social importance, as the yikaria are a competitive and hierarchical people. Yikaria society is ruled by theocratic sorcerer kings called heirophants. These heirophants serve as the representative of the yikaria's patron deity, the Kiss of Lies. All aspects of their society are informed by the worship their patron deity as directed by the heirophant. The heirophant decides which yikaria mate, what their job or position within society is to be, where they live and what residence they get, and how many slaves they are awarded. The goal of this vertical integration is to ensure that the entire yikaria people are collectively working at all times towards their culture's foundational goal: the destruction of Oheilion, the Bloodied Lord, and the subjugation of all life in the Material Plane.
Average Intelligence
While many minotaur are mischaracterized dimwitted brutes, the yikaria are known as cunning and dastardly manipulators. They have a drive for learning, particularly when it comes to secrets of elemental and dark magics. Knowledge that can be used to corrupt and dominate other creatures is highly prized and sought after, while knowledge that cannot be used by the yikaria is destroyed to ensure that it does not fall into their enemies' hands. This has allowed the yikaria to create a seemingly idyllic culture, where none of their kind are required to labor or suffer. This utopian existence is only made possible by the capture and breeding of mortal slaves, which they use for everything from farming to religious sacrifice and arcane experimentation.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Yikaria do not have the same nocturnal adaptations of their minotaur relatives. Their eye-sight in low light conditions is similar to that of humans and they have no enhanced perception abilities. Additionally, while yikaria are sometimes believed to have a better sense of direction and path recollection than most other mortals, they do not have the minotaur's incredible labyrinthine recall, which allows the minotaur to avoid ever getting lost in mazes or complex puzzles.
Interestingly, yikaria have no discernible odor. This is similar to many varieties of yak found throughout Iroa, though many scent-based predators can still pick up traces of yak smell. By contrast, exclusively scent-based predators cannot detect yikaria at all, making them seem almost invisible.
Civilization and Culture
Average Technological Level
Yikaria are highly advanced magic users, with a vast knowledge of the dark arts and elemental invocations. Their secret kingdoms are said to be constructed of gold and greenstone, granting them superior arcanist technologies and weaponry.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
As a near completely isolated species, yikaria have their own language, known as yik'yakari. Little is known of this tongue due to the isolated nature of the yikaria people, however it is believed to be related to mortal languages spoken in Rhalpalkan, Tao-Tē, and Khaghat. Many are also fluent in local languages and dialects, which they use to further infiltrate mortal societies.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
To appease their heirophant and the Kiss of Lies, yikaria frequently perform charnal sacrifices. These rituals are typically done in the Manner Elemental, so as to appease not only their fiendish patron but also the many elemental spirits that reside in their mountainous homeland. The Manner Elemental involves offering the spirits a victim through fire (immolation), earth (live burial), water (drowning), or air (tossing the victim from a great height). These sacrifices can be done with animals or monsters, but they are most often performed on disobedient slaves. For particularly important festivals or holidays, the victim may be feted and fattened beforehand to make a more worthy offering to the Kiss of Lies. It is widely believed that the souls offered to the Kiss become tokens passed among the devils of the Court of Mists, forever trapped within the Tyranny of Nine Hells.
History
Little beyond the legend is known of the yikaria's history. Much of what we know comes from scattered accounts of the War of Broken Days, where the yikaria formally split away from the minotaur who followed Oheilion. This story claims that they renounced the Bloodied Lord for coupling with sea goddess Lacorré and calling for an end to the conflict. The yikaria, so caught up in the hatred that had bore them, set off into the mountains of Iroa to establish a new race that fully embraced violence, knowledge, and power. They then offered themselves to the Unspoken goddess of power and deception, Rheseldar: the Kiss of Lies. Over time, their people disappear from most records, only popping up here and there with mention of assassinations, kidnappings, and massacres against mortals in the region. Their activity appears to have dropped off in the The Palladian Era, as the flow of the arcane was greatly diminished by the Exile Arcana. It is widely believed that their powers have resurfaced with the Sundering Arcana and that they have continued to grow in strength and become bold in this new Era.
Interspecies Relations and Assumptions
Yikaria are reviled by the people of central Iroa as fiendish, irredeemable entities on par with demons and malevolent spirits. This is largely due to the yikarian's tradition of slavery and kidnapping. It is said that during certain celestial phenomena, such as eclipses or the conjunction of the spheres, yikaria leave their hidden sanctuaries to wander the mountain villages in search of mortal slaves. They seek out children in particular, as their spirits are easier to break and they have not yet learned of the dangers of the world.
To lure their victims, yikaria perform a rare dark magic ritual known as skin crawling. The yikaria touches a resting mortal or giant, causing the victim to spasm violently for a brief moment as their bodies attempt to reject the possession. If the victim fails, the yikaria's physical body and everything on their person fades and the spirit of the yikaria is able to pass beneath the flesh of the victim. From here, the yikaria's is able to suppress the conscious of the victim and take full control of their body. The yikaria gains all the victim's memories, knowledge, feats, and proficiencies while retaining the yikaria's own intelligence, wisdom, and charisma.
The possession lasts until the yikaria relinquishes control of the victim and returns to their physical form. A yikaria can be expelled from the victim only by way of a dispel evil spell or if the victim is killed. However, if the victim dies while possessed, the yikaria manipulating the victim dies as well.
This foul practice has allowed the yikaria to facilitate the abduction of whole villages, the infiltration of their enemies' court, and the murder of mortal leaders throughout Iroa. As a result, the people of the Rhalpalkan have adopted many techniques to ward against their intrusion, such as placing warding spells throughout their homes, carrying protective totems, and vehemently destroying any yikaria that make their presence known.
Footnotes
1 The Lover's Concordant, brokered by the Heavenly Council and Oheilion after the Sea's Lover, Lacorré, "coupled with" or "embraced" the Bloodied Lord in a show of acceptance.
by Will O'Brien
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