Kualani

Thousands of years ago, stone cities and vast pyramids dotted the pale landscape of Loxidas. Tall figures with antlers ruled from obsidian thrones and commanded vast armies. However they were skittish folk and, knowing there was the vast unknown of the universe outside their scope of understanding, they began to choose ignorance over sentience and generations later, the once-proud race had devolved into quadripedal animals with no concept of sentience.

A typical Josso nuclear family: A mother, a father, several mittens and, quietly popping and rumbling away in the corner, a Kualani. The Kualani towers above the rest of the family, with the tips of its antlers scraping the ceiling. The eerie shadows on the wall are cast by its internal furnace, which glows out from between its exposed ribs. The furnace is a unique engine which consumes wood and water and produces the fire that drives the Kualani. They’re steam-powered, essentially. The voice the Kualani speak with is rough, grinding gears and hissing steam. It rises to its feet from its designated corner, steam billowing gently from its open, toothy mouth. The two little mittens scamper up its long, slender legs, climbing its exposed carbon steel ribs like a ladder and perching on its shoulders. They flap their little wings in excitement as the colossal cyborg, petite hooves making no sound, carries them up to their respective rooms. They hiss and spit and squabble over bedtime and the Kualani gently puts them both to rest. When they ask it to tell them a story, it obliges. It speaks of soft lavender grasses and miniscule yellow flowers. It speaks of waterfalls glittering like crystal and in the softest voice it speaks of its mothers and its herd, wandering through skeletal ruins of ancient civilization. The two mittens listen, enthralled, until their large black eyes close and they sleep. The Kualani settles between the two tiny beds and the glowing red lights in its eyes go dim. The rumblings of its inner workings quiet and it is still, for now it watches over sleeping babies.

Physical Description: Kualani are 8 to 10 feet tall on average, with some reaching 11 to 12 feet and some being as small as 6 or 7 feet. Their hands are made entirely of metal, with long, sharp fingers tapering into almost needle-like points which can be folded back into soft pads. Some have enormous racks of steel reinforced antlers while others received large curling horns which are better for bludgeoning than any kind of piercing. They weigh 1 ton and above, with metal compensating for the large lack of internal flesh-and-blood organs.

Kualani are an engineered race. They began sentient, opted evolutionarily out of being sentient, and then the Josso invaded and forced them back into sentience through the use of technomantic enhancements. Their bones have been replaced with steel, their front hooves with long needlepoint fingers. Almost everything remaining of the once noble Kualani deer has been replaced with carbon steel and forced into cognizance by fire and magic.

Society: Kualani outside Josso society are not sentient: they’re deer. Inside Josso society, where their bodies have been torn apart and reconstructed, they’re caretakers for the Josso children. Kualani can’t reproduce and there are only as many as the Josso create.

Relations: Kualani have little interaction with races other than the Josso: however, they have been known to be purchased by Nazu and seem to work well with them. Kualani have no interactions with Dhouma and even in the wild rarely encounter them.

Alignment and Religion: Kualani are neutral by nature and neutral good if they develop their own conscience. They have no concept of religion.

Adventurers: Kualani adventurers are Kualani who developed their own conscience. Josso call them “gone rogue,” but conscious Kualani are paladins more often than they aren’t paladins.