Khaasta

"Keep your teeth sharp, but keep your wit sharper."
-- Khaasta proverb.

Khaasta are a reptilian race of wanderers native to the Outer Planes, measuring from six to seven feet tall and covered in spines and colorfully patterned scales. They live as thieves, slavers, cutthroats, highwaymen, cross-traders, thugs, raiders, and knights-of-the-post. They're carnivores and scavengers; they eat wild game, stolen cattle, portal-kill, and the occasional unlucky sentient. They're trusted by few; even tieflings are sometimes seen in a better light.

"If you walk with a khaasta and a tiefling, stab the tiefling in the back and wait 'till you reach your destination before you stab the khaasta." -- Khaasta proverb.

Khaasta live in bands with others of their kind, traveling the planes of chaos and beyond on their giant lizard mounts. They sleep in brightly colored and wildly patterned tents, and wear clothing of solid colors that accent their scales, along with dark tattoos of the simple geometric shapes that make up their writing system. They ordinarily range between the Abyss, Pandemonium, Ysgard, Limbo and the Outlands (including Sigil), but they venture th rough virtually any unknown portal they encounter unless they have pressing business elsewhere. This is in part because of their natural curiosity ("We're curious when it's useful to be curious," they protest), and in part because as they have no innate planeshifting ability they need to know as many routes as possible for trade, travel, and quick escape.

"A missed portal is a missed opportunity." -- Khaasta saying.

As a result, khaasta are found nearly everywhere in the multiverse, and often they return to odd places on a regular basis. Khaasta have a knack for discovering portals others have never thought of looking for, so they have camps in all manner of strange realms, demiplanes and halfworlds.

Sometimes a khaasta band is stranded in a place for a long time. In these rare cases, they have to prey exclusively on one another, developing agriculture, roads, and coinage (usually bronze, a metal of great importance to the khaasta). When a portal out opens up, they're usually eager to escape into the wide worlds where they can once again act as parasites on other races. Khaasta can't trust other khaasta, but it's nice to be able to pretend to.

"Why trade when you can cross-trade?" -- Khaasta saying.

Khaasta, male and female, constantly strive to outdo one another in status and wealth. Once, in the distant past, khaasta proved their superiority by killing any who would challenge them. Eventually some began adopting non-lethal attack forms. They found that this system allowed the band to survive better, and the practice became common.

"It's better to be alive to try again than king of the dead." -- Khaasta saying.

Some contests include:

Head-butting.
A game where two combatants are strapped together back-to-back. They each try to fall on top of their opponent.
Tail-tripping.
Lizard racing.
Tongue-wrestling.
Bronze dice throwing.
Riddle-contests.
Competitive tattooing.
Slave combats.
Shouting matches.
Drinking games.
Rough hugging.
Staring contests.
Story telling.
Boasting.
Praising, where two opponents try to out-complement one another.
Leaping.
Prank wars.
Portal ball.
Bariaur taunting.
Thieving contest.
Lizard "chicken," where the opponents see which can ride their lizards furthest toward a precipice (for instance, the edge of an earthberg in Ysgard or a shaped region in Limbo) without falling off.

"There's no virtue in poverty." -- Khaasta aphorism.

Khaasta can also gain status through wealth, fine children, portaljacking, and through getting the better of others outside the band.

Despite the continual competition, khaasta love their bands. They have to, because about the only thing that can stand a khaasta is another khaasta.

"Only the dead stop struggling." -- Khaasta proverb.

In many bands, there is one khaasta who does not strive for status with the others. This is the Wise One, a shaman and advisor who acts as educator, lorekeeper, historian, spiritual and physical healer, and all around grown-ups for the band. Wise Ones carry about bones of bronze. They are not permitted to bathe or remove parasites on their own, though they may have children of slaves do this. They are considered legally dead (and their apprentices are called the Dying) because of their passive roles and because they act as surrogates for the dead creator god.

Religion:

"We were supposed to be seeded on to some fertile prime world.
A beautiful place where we could set roots and grow.
Become a great people.
With countries, and empires.
And houses, and nests.

"Our Creator spit us out.
Dumped us in the netherworld.
Just before the Enemy killed him.
On our own before we could even hatch.

"We now walk the lands of the gods.
A race never created.
Stillborn, never alive.
Always running.
Never resting.
Taking what we can from who we can.

"Some believe in great goals.
Destinies of ultimate ascension
Or glorious dissolution.

"We don't have goals.
You can't finish when you never started.
We make our own destinies
One gouge at a time."

--Khaasta 'Uncreation Myth'

When khaasta worship any gods at all, they worship motley collections of Powers from throughout the multiverse that seemed powerful or clever at the time. They have a few of their own racial divinities, hardscrabble demigods who remain alive out of wit and orneriness, but they don't bear them any particular loyalty. Khaasta gods include both a fertility and an infertility goddess, a god or goddess of magic, a patron of gaming, a warrior, and a patron of trickery and subtlety.

Biology:

"If someone builds a wall in your path, don't knock it down. Climb over it and use it to defend yourself against those who would follow." -- Khaasta proverb.

Khaasta have a fertility cycle tied to the heavenly bodies that would have orbited their unfinished world. The females go into heat about once every sixty days. Long ago a khaasta decided that it was really inconvenient to not be able to schedule her mating times herself, so she searched for and discovered an herb that allowed her to go in heat instantly.

If a female's "time of the month" passes and she does not mate, she loses a point of intelligence and wisdom each day until she does, at least with something. Some remove their own ovaries rather than face this.

Male khaasta within fifty feet of a female in heat gain a -1 cumulative penalty to attack rolls and saving throws for every ten minutes they try to resist her. Consequently, most male warriors take herbs that render them impotent. In some cases, they make themselves eunuchs.

Because of this lack of fertile males, female khaasta often mate with other species. Males sometimes do the same, but usually this is a display of power and a bid for status. These males carry bottled pheromones around to allow them to mate with no female khaasta involved, or to hinder fertile male opponents.

An impregnated khaasta has a gestation period of three months, at which point she lays her eggs in a padded box and the band carries them along until they hatch. At least, that's the ideal situation. Khaasta being how they are, female khaasta have always felt there had to be a way of making the gestation period shorter. Khaasta being nothing if not tenacious, they found one.

The Rite of Prri-ka allows a khaasta heavy with eggs to transfer her burden to another living creature. The rite is extremely painful to both involved (it involves teeth and claws, and is very tiring), but khaasta feel that the convenience is worth it. Legend has it a heroine gained the ability by mating with a slaad.

Not surprisingly, most khaasta have at least a little alien blood running through their veins. Slaadi and xill are particularly sought-after as mates, since those with recent slaad or xill blood are able to undergo the rite of Prri-ka with little or no pain (and, in the latter case, because four arms can come in handy). Khaasta also sometimes mate with dragons, draconians, bullywugs, siss'nek, troglodytes, chameleon men, humans, orcs, goblins, tanar'ri, abishai, barbazau, yugoloths, gehreleths, giths, nathri, yuan-ti, kuo-toans, sahuaghin, kocrachons, coatls, spellweavers, wraithworms, lizard men, avagas, salamen, salamanders, bariniths, bylars, nightaurils, resshas, carnifexes, morkoth, shranas, slinks, yurtles, and zyssks.

"It's good to grow up fast, but there's still nothing like a squirt of fresh lizard blood." -- khaasta proverb.

After a 180 day incubation, khaasta are born intelligent and ready to hunt on their own. At least, they would be if it weren't for the custom that demands the band members shatter the eggshells ninety days early. This is both for pragmatic reasons (it's easier to rope a lot of young ones together and lead them along than it is to haul around a lot of eggs) and philosophical ones -- it's thought best to give young khaasta a taste of the world's cruelty as early as possible. The infant khaasta can walk, but at this point they're blind, scaleless and toothless. They're fed the hot blood of the lizard mounts and guarded by the warriors.

"'How wonderrful your people have surrvived such adverrsity intact.' Barr that! We'rre intact because we forrce each otherr to be. Luck had nothing to do with it." -- a khaasta Wise One.

When a khaasta is born, others in its band look it over to determine if it can function in every way other khaasta can. If it can't -- for instance, if it has no mouth, no opposable thumbs, or the wrong kind of reproductive organs -- surgery is attempted to correct the problem (nearly every khaasta has old surgical scars). If that doesn't work, the young one is chopped up and fed to the lizards. Even as they grow up, khaasta are watched carefully to ensure they behave like khaasta and not like some other, foreign species, and if they do they face exile or death. In this way the khaasta race and culture is preserved, not because khaasta feel loyal to it, but because it's theirs and preserving it is a way of spiting the cruel multiverse that wants to take it away.

"If you have young ones tearing at your flesh, don't kill them. Herd them toward your enemies. If you have emotions tearing at your mind, don't stifle them. Herd them toward your goals." -- Khaasta proverb.

Young khaasta are fiercely protected and dutifully raised for the first ten years of their life, after which they are considered adults. Khaasta do bear their young real affection, but they're pragmatic about their emotions, considering them to be tools to be used to help do what they want to do anyway.

Khaasta vocalizations:

"A good lie and a quick exit are better than bronze." -- Khaasta proverb.

Khaasta make trilling cries and rattling hisses and growls. When speaking Planar Common, they tend to roll their "r"s. Khaasta laugh silently, with their mouths open. Observers think they look like panting dogs, or like they had started hyperventilating just as they started trying to bite someone.

Khaasta insults:

Stirrup -- a khaasta of inferior status.
Beaky -- a stupid khaasta.
Monkey -- a human or other apelike creature.
Eggshell-- a khaasta of superior status.
Mating with a Slaad -- a khaasta who attempts something stupid for a potential reward. This phrase has been adapted by tieflings in Sigil's Hive Ward for use when they want to admit stupidity but hide any potential reward from authorities and strangers.

Example:
"What was your partner doing sneaking around the Gatehouse last night?"

"Bar that! She was just mating with a slaad!"

The Hardhead hears the phrase as describing something merely stupid, because only khaasta and a few tieflings can see any possible reward in slaad intimacy.

Other khaasta slang terms:

Tin -- a successful heist.
Copper -- A successful escape.
Bronze -- Success. "That was pure brronze, that was."

Character classes:

Khaasta can belong to any class, but all except the Wise Ones consider themselves to be warriors. Magicians are commonly Jackals and Spellthieves, and thieving skills are pretty essential. Priests are rare, since the Wise Ones have monopolized that role in traditional society. Occasionally a khaasta outcast will become one, but they are viewed with suspicion.

Khaasta and the factions:

Generally speaking, khaasta of a single band will all belong to the same faction, though occasionally one or two will try a new one in an attempt to convert everybody else and gain status by "being the firrst to see the trrue way."

The Fated: Khaasta are perhaps more closely drawn to the Fated than any other faction. The idea that people fail because they deserve to, and that because people deserve to fail they *will*, is very attractive to them.

The Athar: Many khaasta make up for their feelings of inadequacy compared to races whose creators are still alive by being very contemptuous of Powers in general. The Athar are another popular faction.

The Bleak Cabal: It's hard for a species that spends so much time working for nothing but greed and wandering around in Pandemonium to see a greater purpose in life. Khaasta sympathize greatly with the Bleakers.

Xaositects: Khaasta khaositects are fairly rare, but considering the amount of time they spend in Limbo, not unheard of. Khaasta khaositects are much like xaositects among any species.

Doomguard: "There's no profit in Entropy" is a slogan that many khaasta live by. Why should a khaasta join the Sinkers when what they want to do is rise? Others have taken that statement as a challenge, and they try to manipulate Entropy to their advantage, making as much as they can from things falling apart.

Godsmen: This is a faction that's all about gaining status, as the khaasta see it. Becoming a god! That's a goal a khaasta can respect. Khaasta love the Godsmen, and they've even started a fraction that's dedicated to being the first to replace the long-dead Creator.

The Lost: This sect of exiles, based in Pandemonium and Carceri, sometimes sees its share of khaasta, but no more than any other race common in the region.

It's very rare to see a khaasta join the Fraternity of Order, Mathematicians, or Xaosologists, because their culture just doesn't value logic, seeing it as something that gets in the way.

The factions khaasta like the least are the Harmonium, Mercykillers, and Planes-Militant.

Some khaasta have taken it into their heads to build a god that can replace their creator, or even build a prime material world for their race to live on. What status that would bring! Unlike patient dwarves, khaasta visit their collections of proto-matter and cosmic energy reservoirs rarely, spending most of their effort in finding the "quick fix" that will get the job done in their lifetimes. Other khaasta are satisfied to try and find a world suitable for the khaasta race to dominate, and they spend a lot of time exploring portals to the Prime.

Lizard mounts:

Khaasta riding lizards are large, speedy creatures covered in crude, overapping, and half-finished tattoos that are the results of young khaasa practicing on them. The lizards often have hideous surgical scars resulting from experimental alterations by aspiring chiurgeons and emergency prri-ka rites.

Khaasta lizards are omnivores, content to forage on young trees and small animals but capable of devouring most any garbage their masters need to get rid of. There are some places the khaasta go where it's not a good idea to leave too many signs of their presence or diet lying around.

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