Lakti
The Lakti are elite varhani warriors trained to ride giant megarthropods. Promising varhani are chosen at the age of ten to attempt to steal an egg from the lair of the jirrka large black and green arboreal megarthropods native to the jungles of Kemesh.
Those youths who are successful raise their hatchlings, catching their food and grooming them just as their mother would. After five years, the fifteen year old varhani and the five year old jirrka reach adulthood together and are strongly bonded. This bond is then blessed by an Uratik'k. This blessing allows rider and jirrka to communicate with each other as well as they could among their own kind.
The Lakti are feared by miners and other foreigners who brave the deep jungles. They hunt primarily at night, trapping their victims in web traps, ambushing them from the trees and attacking with poison darts and arrows made from the deadly paralytic poison of their jirrka.
The jirrka they are bonded to have a relatively short lifespan, living only some forty years, compared to the varhani, who commonly exceeds two hundred. After their jirrka have died, Lakti retire from the society, many becoming leaders of varhani tribes or turning to the path of the Uratik'k order. A few lose the will to live after the close bond is lost and give their bodies to a nesting mother jirrka as tribute and devotion. The young produced by a jirrka who has consumed a Lakti warrior are considered to be especially excellent companions for future Lakti.
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