Carchardons
The species of bipedal shark-like creatures, the carchardons (or "carchies") are a strong and mean-streaked race. They reside in their home islands of Mentalin, the remnants of an ancient and powerful empire long forgotten and laid to waste. Strong aquatic hunters, they are merciless and vicious, and are slowly falling to a rising power within their own islands.
Basic Information
Anatomy
The carchardons resemble large humanoid sharks, with the great teeth and make-up of sharks. They possess great strength, rivaling the oroc’mac, able to breath and smell underwater, and are famed for their great appetite. There ancestors long ago possessed great prehensile tails to aid in swimming, but modern carchardons no longer possess such features.
Figure 1. A carchardon inside the ruins of their ancient empire
Growth Rate & Stages
Carchardons begin birth as small pups, live from their mothers. They grow and mature slowly, and are known to be strong and fit when adults. They reach the mating age after about 14 years, and during this period develop great strength, enhanced muscle development, the ability to breathe and last underwate longer, and overall greater physical and mental abilities. As carchardons get older, though few make it that long, they grow weaker like all other species, but also develop a deeper connection to the Old Ones.
Biological Cycle
Carchardons regularly loose their teeth and tiny scales and are constantly growing them back. In addition, they have regular mating seasons.
Additional Information
Geographic Origin and Distribution
The carchardons are found exclusively within the Mentalin Islands, their ancestral homeland and chosen place of residence.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Carchardons are known to have extremely good sense of smell, particularly in the water, able to trace down a speck of blood and follow it to its source, but otherwise possess normal sense. There is however, one unique feature, a special organ found on their noses that allows them to sense electromagnetic pulses in water. Though this is only a weak skill, it gives hunting carchardons a "sixth sense " of sorts.
Civilization and Culture
Average Technological Level
The carchardons use relatively primitive, but often effective, tools and weapons, things easily fashioned from whatever is available to them. This includes clothing from skinned animals, tools made from rope, leather, stone, and simple yet effective wooden boats. Some carchardon have learned the skills to forge crude metals, yet generally they use simpler tools.
Major Language Groups and Dialects
The carchardons have a strange and guttural tongue that involves growls and roars and all sorts of complex vocabularies, and there are a plethora of dialects based on the many regions of the Mentalin Islands.
Culture and Cultural Heritage
The carchardons have a unique culture, valuing strength and ultimate service to the Old One and their clans as most important of all. They view the great natural disasters that plague their islands not as threats, but as welcome challenges to test their resolve. The community is placed as more important than the individual, and their heroes are those who took the harder path and won.
History
They were originally aqui, a specific group of raqui, who heard the “call of the Old One” and migrated to what was the then the prison of the Old God(dess) En’Raka. She had slowly, over millenia, weakened the mental chains in her prison and subtly lurded a large group of aqui to the Isle of Mentalin. Through various guises, she taught them dark magical arts, and very slowly over many generations sculped and reformed the aqui, who cnamed themselves the ca'chardons. En'Raka appeared to shamans and elders in local areas and slowly gathered them together, in the hopes of reforming her own empire of ages past. In time the Ca’chardon Empire rule over Mentalin and the surrounding seas.
Figure 3. An example of one of the mighty and magical warriors of the Ca'Chardon Empire
This empire was cruel and expansionist. They were the first true empire on Telarith after the ancient rule of the Old Gods and the coming of the Titans, and quickly established their rule across the various ocean domains around their island. They oppressed their former aqui, who had become the merfolk, lording over them with their dark and ancient armies and navies.
Figure 4. An example of a ca'chardon lord.
However, the oppressed merfolk were numerous and eventually mastered their own form of magic. After a long war they successfully overthrew the ca’chardons and broke Mentalin apart. Atargatis Ladoomiath cast the Curse of Legs, using an ancient Titan device to do this, both destroying the island of the ca'chardon and which dooming the ca’chardons to lose their tails and remain stuck on land. The empire was completely destroyed, and the remaining survivors became the carchardons, and began the eternal hatred between merfolk and carchardon.
For thousands of years after this, the carchardons were often divided into petty domain and under various warlords. They lived primitive and harsh lifestyles, frequently attacking nearby ships or merfolk. But throughout their history they have formed large kingdoms and empires, and were great threats when united into great hordes, that prowled the seas and the lands of Telarith.
Most of these brief unification ended as quickly as they began. However, any attempts at conquest have been made virtually impossible, though many empires have tried (including the aj'ra, lithryns, sekryns, merfolk, etc.) because the carchardons are known to unite under such circumstances.
During the Great Darkness, the Mentalin Islands were less affected by the chaos of the world, and the carchardons themselves remained aloof from the rest of the First Alliance, stubbornly refusing to ally with them. The mysterious Stone Prophet led the disparate tribes and kept them allied during this period.
Figure 5. The Stone Prophet
Following the Great Darkness the carchardons were brought into a golden age thanks to Skarrsaf the Great, First King of the Golden Imperium. A legendary king, he ruled with an iron fist, but was much beloved by his citizens. From the north he ruled a vast trade empire, with massive fleets that set sailed and conquered various portions of land in the post-Darkness world. His small empire last for over 200 years before wars with the resurgent merfolk finally ended the dream of an imperial carchardon empire
Figure 6. The legendary Skarrsaf the Pink-Scaled.
And so for thousands of years the carchardons have remained relatively primitive and isolated from the affairs of the world. Even when they began attacking the nations of the League of Allied Kingdoms they remained reclusive.
But what no one knows is that growing power and darkness spreading in the Mentalin Islands. The carchardons hear the whispers of the Old One and are working for to return En'Raka to the world, with promise of power and eternal dominance as their rewards.
Common Myths and Legends
The elders and story-tellers of the carchardons keep no written record, but instead tell the myths and stories of their people orally, through dramatic tales around campfires. Many tales focus on the history or heroes of the tribe, or of the great Ca'chardon Empire. But the most widely revered hero of all is Skarrsaf the Pink-Scaled.
Every tribe claims the Skarrsaf came from their line, and has a unique variant about his origin and deeds. However, all agree that he was the greatest champion of the carchardon people in their entire history, and he is revered as a great mythological hero and even more to some tribes. Skarrsaf is what all carchardons aspire to be, the very pinnacle of their ideals and values.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Lifespan
50
Average Height
6'1"-8'2"
Average Weight
5k-7k lbs.
Body Tint, Colouring and Marking
Carchardons are known for their unique style of tattooing and marking their bodies in a variety of strange symbols. These markings and tattoos are given by the elders of each community, representing great feats and deeds the figure has done.
Figure 2. An example of a typical carchardon. Note the body tatoos.
Geographic Distribution
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