Baraka

The Baraka are a hairy, treegoing Humanoid species that are likely indigenous to the plane of Waking Materia. They are close cousins of the Ong, though they generally lead different lifestyles and there is little historical record of the two peoples cooperating, and remaining civilizations are not mixed.

The Baraka superficially resemble another indigenous species, known as Watchers, though the expansive feathered wings of the latter seemingly reject any shared ancestry, unless the wings are a result of some manner of genetic or divine transmutation.

Appearance

See also: Ong & Baraka Image Gallery (External)

---

Baraka are broadly representative of Ur-Anthra or basal human traits. They resemble the more multiplanar Vanara, though their genetic closeness is questionable; there is no evidence of any significant Vanara population colonizing Antediluvian Materia, and surviving texts noting their resistance to the First Empires from "day one" of their arrival, further confirming the baraka's indigeneity. If they are indeed Ur-Anthra, this lends creedence to the "seeding" theory of Planar Anthropology, where the unique lineages spread with the help of conscious seeding efforts by an intelligent people in pre-history.

Society

Most Baraka societies were found in the jungles of Coreward Materia in the First Age, and thus they were decimated by the Deluge, as the demon-infested tsunamis radiated outward seemingly from the centre of the plane.

Only one major Baraka civilization remains in a verdant archipelago to the far Voideast of the Broken Empire, which the mainlanders call the Howling Fantods. They are a heavily warlike and protectionist people, disdainful of technology and little understood by neighbouring societies, but are little different than other humanoids in terms of raw intelligence. Appallingly skilled warriors, it is fortunate for the rest of the Broken Empire that they are uninterested in seafaring.