Tamil the Untamed and her Menagerie
Tamil the Untamed has met many triumphs in her storied life. The smallest, yet perhaps the most impressive, was to astound the citizens of Mizani- even Hekima, the Everlasting Wisdom, the sphinx who rules it.
The City-State of Mizani is the most cosmopolitan city that has ever existed. Born on the Nexus Isle where all surviving divinities gathered to broker peace after the Cosmic War, Mizani remains a meeting place for people from all over the world. A crossroads of riches and intrigue, a crucible of art and science, the Mizani have seen it all, and consequently, their bored detachment and blasé attitudes are renowned across the continents.
But when Tamil arrived in Mizani’s harbor seven years ago, eyebrows raised in baffled stupor: a sobekine, a crocodile woman, arriving at Mizani on a gnomish ship! And as she walked off the deck, she was followed by a swarm of beasts- great chimerical cats, some only seen in disreputable travelogues, others truly unknown, all tamely following her like the retinue of a highborn lady.
The Greater Sobekine Tribes are probably the most feared of the Untamed Tribes, rivaling the gnoll-raiders in their cruelty and brutality. But where the caravans are undisciplined and rowdy, the Greater Tribes are organized: their hatred for all other beings is bound in religious dogma followed with ecclesiastical zealotry. The Greater Tribes believe that the War in Heaven and the Collapse were not only a cataclysm but blasphemy against the Demiurge and Creation Itself- a crime which all sapient beings were complicit in, a sin only blood could redeem. Not one sobekine has ever been known to defect or apostatize, for not a one has ever escaped the Southern Beastlands and reached the shores of “civilized nations”.
Except for Tamil.
Her harrowing story included the predictable beats- a moral epiphany, family betrayal, a dangerous escape, survival in the wilderness, exotic shamanism, and the charity of strangers. It was unclear if this tale also happened to contain an iota of truth, but no one truly cared for such details.
Where her tales wouldn’t reach, money would. Tamil arrived at the ports of Mizani with a handful of Blood Rubies, the gleaming stones that sobekine sarcomancers fashion out of their ritual sacrifices. Again, Tamil was sure to leave obscure whether these Blood Rubies were actual gems or just some kind of colored glass, but the novelty was such that they were valued as precious stones.
Tamil was almost immediately presented with offers from various nobles and powerful people of the city, all eager to have her in their courts. Alone in the Nexus City, she was the only thing that truly felt fresh and exotic, at least in living memory (local elven ambassadors would cite at least a dozen other “unique characters” to have made landfall in the City over the centuries, to the annoyance of anyone present). Despite being raised in a vicious social hierarchy devoted to xenophobic murder (or perhaps, because of it), Tamil played politics exceedingly well. She quickly attained self-sufficiency divorced from the whims of fickle benefactors and defenses against the rapacity of smooth-talking sycophants.
When the Great Accord was signed a thousand years ago, Mizani was divided into blocks, and the blocks were divided among the nations. Some of these lots of land were reserved for people who refused to join the Accord, hoping they would eventually change their minds. Nobody except the members of their assigned nations could claim the blocks, and so they remained without buildings. The block set aside for the Southeastern Tribespeople was used as a dump for broken vases, shattered glass, and any kind of non-reusable and nondecaying trash. Some zebubs, the flyfolk, made camp there, scavenging what they could to earn small coins.
Tamil reclaimed that depressing plot of land and erected tents upon tents, a foundation upon which to build her menagerie. She showed off her “pets” for a price as entertainment, pleasing diversions for the Mizani city-goers. She employed the already present zebub scavengers as ushers, but otherwise managed the menagerie herself. All to great success- visitors abounded, all curious to see up-close a real manticore, a macaw-griffin, a seropard, all performing tricks of dazzling complexity and skill, better than the best trained animals.
Tamil was above all else a shrewd entertainer- she knew that the City would soon grow bored of her pets, and quickly made plans to differentiate her business. She became not only an impresario for her beloved beasts, but also a merchant of exotic pets. Accordingly, she started to lend her services as an advisor to explorers and adventurers. Coin flowed, and Tamil was soon able to construct a nice little villa for herself over hills of broken things. Glass shards were covered in dirt and grass, transforming a mountain of junk into a pleasant leaning garden. The machinery of the business ran like greased clockwork, but like greased clockwork that same machinery soon found itself unable to stop. The menagerie gave Tamil fame and recognition, and if she wanted to keep the coin coming, she would eternally have to keep it fresh and interesting. And so it was that Tamil went on an expedition to bring back new and exciting attractions.
As any visitor would quickly realize, Mizani culture is absolutely enamored with cats. Cats are everywhere, cared for by everyone and protected by law. A strange but understandable attitude- after all, the City is cared for and protected by Everlasting Wisdom, the Last Sphinx. For this reason, Tamil searched the world for felines of every shape and form to present to her audience. She gained, among many other nicknames, that of “the Cat Collector”.
After years of travel, Tamil finally acquired the most precious specimen of her menagerie, and quite possibly the reason for her fall: she came back from her last voyage with a sphinx.
The arrival of the new sphinx, named M’zaha (soon deformed by the Mizani accent into simply “Mazda”), was a sensation, and the menagerie’s queues stretched across city blocks. But soon the novelty turned sour, as the appearance of Mazda ruffled some feathers and struck some nerves.
While no organized religion has been established around Hekima, she is nevertheless de facto revered as a goddess. Indeed, if any being in the world could claim the title of a god, it would be her-the Eternal Wisdom is the last being possessing a Spark of the Divine, capable of performing gargantuan magical feats with a single glance. No surprise, then, that hundreds went to visit Mazda, looking to see if the sphinx had some sort of connection to their ruler. Could she be a lost offspring? Another native of the lost Plane of Balance, from whence Wisdom sprang? A transcendent being? A herald of the return of the Demiurge?
The visitors were disappointed. In the shiny new cage of the menagerie, they were met with a deeply bored and boring creature. Mazda would nap for hours, and when awakened, she would complain endlessly about the temperature, the food, and all the visitors present. The sphinx was clearly sapient and intelligent, capable of conversation in a dozen different tongues, but her statements were rarely straightforward. Even the simplest concepts would be wrapped in a complex blanket of double-entendres, metaphors, and obscure references. Eager for oracular wisdom or illuminating insight, the public interrogated her, but she always answered with convoluted riddles that, upon further contemplation, revealed themselves as insults or disparaging remarks (causing many querents to groan to themselves in the middle of the night, hours after visiting the sphinx). The sphinx which Tamil had brought to Mizani was no divine being like Widsom- just a big cat with a woman’s face and a bad attitude.
A lot of people now wish to see Tamil and Mazda exiled. Others defend them, largely half-heartedly. Some want Tamil to relinquish Mazda to the Academy for further study, and others demand an explanation as to the sphinx’s origin, something that Tamil has so far kept top-secret. Rumors from the Palace of Balance say that Everlasting Wisdom herself, a being devoted to neutrality and equality, has requested special surveillance of the menagerie.
The menagerie, as well as Tamil’s villa and the entire Southeast block, is now heavily guarded by Mizani watchkeepers. Many citizens want Mazda either dead or for themselves: she is either a mockery of the beloved Wisdom to be cleansed, or a unique specimen to dissect. Tamil herself is put into question- did she really defect from her tribe, or could all this be a complex conspiracy of the Greater Sobekine clans? Why has she tried so strenuously to elevate her own political position? Why won’t she disclose where M’zaha comes from?
These days, the visitors are getting antsier and antsier- some bring rotten tomatoes and eggs to soil the vile sphinx-pretender, others attempt to smuggle in magical probes and homunculi for unauthorized tests. Tamil seems like her usual confident self, welcoming all guests to the menagerie with her ample sixty-tooth smile, but her humble zebub retinue will whisper differently. Bribed with cream-filled pastries (a temptation stronger than any loyalty), the insectoid staff will confess that Tamil spends her late nights crying, cursing her actions and begging the horrified attendants for a vague and undefined forgiveness.
The Psittagryph
The psittagryphs, or macaw gryphons, tend to live in the gray areas where the natural Southeastern Forest of Uxali merges with the artificial ecosystem of the Mechanical Jungle. They hunt the clockwork fauna that crawl through the trees of these forests, and their beaks act as nutcrackers, crushing the metallic exteriors of the artificial beasts. The gryphons subsist upon Ichor, the liquid that makes the construct running, their blood if you will.
Ichor is synthesized by the mechanical trees from sunlight and minerals, and the Macaw can drink it, but once it runs in the tubes and vessels of a clockwork animal becomes more nutrient and appealing. The Ichor of the Matras, the artificial people devoted to the True Order, is particularly appealing and the Macaw will attack lonely wanderers, usually, clerics updating the holy algorithm in the main Nexus Groves.
The Seropard
The Seropard may just appear like a weirdly proportioned leopard: their long necks and torso make them look silly and clumsy. In reality, they are perfectly adapted to their environment and have some aces up their sleeves.
The seropard lives in the Savannas south of the Gnome Sheikdoms, where the powders of the Dust Desert meet a tall grassland. The Seropard can stretch and then employ a lot of hunting tactics typical of snakes: they slither unseen among the high grass approaching the prey, to then coil and spring in an attack. They also ambush dropping from the lonely acacias unto the victims there to take some shelter from the sun. Even the small group of rocks and boulders that dot the landscape could be a deadly trap: a Seropard may be ready to jump on you from a small opening among the stones.
The Glyph Tiger
The Glyph tiger is the king of the Ash Steppes. They can not only hunt yaks and other herding animals but also their ghosts. The Glyph Tiger has two pairs of eyes, one able to see the “imprints” of the soul’s dead (the spirit). The Ash Steppes are so effective in creating ethereal undead that even non-sentient begins will leave one after departing. Apparently, the Tigers have a way to “digest” a spirit, probably to integrate the diet if living prey is scarce.
The Elves of the Khanate give great importance to the Glyph Tigers, it is said that the Ash Elves’ alphabet was crafted after the stripes of these beasts. But the elves themselves declare the alphabet and the stripes are similar because both approximate the “real scripture”, the written language of reality. Whatever the truth is, the Elves hunts tiger on specific religious holidays and use their fur as oracles, being able to read the stripes as glimpses into the unknown.
The Ruin Serval
The Triton peninsula and the islands of the Confederacy are filled with ruins: ruins of other times, of other versions of this world, alien reality altogether. Even if the origins may be suggestive and wonderous, for the layman these are just rocks with peculiar shapes or strange carvings on them. The animals treat the landscape with the same indifference, using the crumbled remains of a temple that never was like any other cave.
The Ruin Serval, thanks to its horns, it’s able to get an impression of the past, being able to follow its prey in its narrow nest between the rocks even if they don’t leave any physical trace. Elsewhere this task would be impossible: a life leaves some “corrugations” in the mana fields, but they would eventually become so many that make it impossible to discern them. Wizards have to use an active spell to do that, they could not only sense the mana field and get such detailed information.
But in the fragments bay and ruin hills of the peninsula, the otherworldy remains to act as a “contrast medium”: the otherwordly nature of the environment makes evident the traces of creatures of this world.
The metaphor used is that while normally the mana field is a “beige” background, the Ruins give a “pink” background, making a lot of otherwise fading shades pop out.
The only real challenge for the Ruin Serval is the No-Mouse, a small rodent that evolved to leave no trace, on the world, on the mana field, and even in the mind, being forgotten as soon one sees them.
The imperial manticore
The manticore of the holy infernal empire descends from the true manticore of hell and lives near the ruins of the nine circles, where their ancestor roamed. The true manticore were some of the torturers of the damned, making the sinner pay through humiliation and mockery. The existing manticore has the same ability to induce shame and derision: everyone who hears their giggle will feel embarrassed and naked. They use that to taunt their prey: many would be compelled to attack the grinning and mocking beast, just to make it stop. The Manticore has just to scratch the victim to make it harmless: their many stings are coated in a powerful poison that will paralyze anyone causing intense pain both physical and mental (the few survivors describe the feeling as the burning of acid and your worst memory mixed togheter).
If someone would run away from the discomforting laughter of the manticore they will nevertheless catch them: manticores, while not intelligent as persons, are smart indeed, and they always hunt in pairs.
The Minor Sphinx
Many rumor circle about the M’zaha, the sphinx Tamil brought to Mizani.
Some think it is completely artificial, a flesh golem, maybe powered by the stolen art of a Matras, the constructed people of the south.
Some think it’s a mutate manticore, they share the same cruel joy for mocking and taunting after all. Maybe the shamanic power of Tamil could have reshaped the beast a little.
Some think it’s the product of the island east of the Angelic unison, famous for the amalgamation, that somehow she was able to bring here, despite them dying far from those shores.
Some say that the sphinx is a dream of the Dream Landscape, and who knows what bloody ritual Tamil had to do to create a body for it, surely some impious sacrifice she learned from her barbaric tribe.
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