(Their reputation for military prowess helps. Even the Erorian Imperium, which is well-known for its habit of conquering and assimilating any settlement unlucky enough to fall within its self-declared borders, permits at least one khavar kingdom to function unmolested on what would otherwise be its turf.)

Physically, khavar are a diminutive, vaguely bestial-looking (by human standards) people, known for being hardy and stubborn. There are two main subspecies: subterrene khavar, who (you will not be surprised to learn) live underground, and the much less numerous aquatic khavar, who can breathe underwater and build their cities at the bottom of lakes and seas. In Standard Fantasy terms, they look like a cross between halflings and goblins: grey-skinned (or green, in the case of aquatics), with large pointed ears, snub noses, prominent teeth, and clawlike fingernails, but more human-like faces than most fantasy goblins have. They're three to four feet tall, built like scaled-down humans, and stand fully erect.

Subterrene khavar very much resent being called "cave goblins" by insensitive humans, since a) they live in tunnels, not caves, and b) goblins are scurrying, ratlike mythical monsters, to which not even the vaguest pretensions of culture are ever attributed in the lore. They are in fact a very sophisticated people: less preoccupied with fancy jewelry and carvings than their old fellow-tunnelers the elves, perhaps, but very into sculpture and heroic poetry.

I mention all this by way of background for Thomas Nemo's near-constant traveling companion, Norah Kal'mâk, who is a khavar woman-at-arms from the western mountain city-kingdom of Niúvac. Khavar's ages can be hard for foreigners to tell, but assuming they age like humans, she looks to be in her early twenties, with pale grey skin, blue-black hair, and extremely dark eyes that look red in certain lights. She stands about three foot ten—fairly tall for a khavar woman—and is lightly built but very toned. This is not often on show, since she routinely wears a kilted suit of chain mail with plate bracers and sturdy boots, but she carries herself like an athlete.

Norah is well-versed in many weapons, but specializes in two in particular. One is a double-bitted battle axe with a handle of suitable length that it can be wielded in one or both hands. She customarily wears this on her back when not in use. The other is a weapon which originated in the armories of Niúvac about twenty years before the time of the story, and which has since spread very slowly to a few adventurous other communities in the Ostvian West: a mechanically complex, fiendishly powerful repeating hand-cannon known by its creators as a keterak, and to almost all of its other adventuresome early adopters (from the translation of that word into Ostiv) as a thunderer.

(Norah's is in fact one of the most sophisticated thunderers yet produced, with numerous advances over the type to be found almost anywhere else in the West. Earlier khavar keteraks, and the knockoffs of same made by craftspersons outside Niúvac, used a separate ignition system, akin to that used in pre-Civil War revolvers, whereas Norah's takes cartridges, an innovation as yet largely even more unknown to the wider world than the thunderer concept is to begin with.)

Norah has an unusual piece of hardware that most people unfamiliar with khavar culture take for a bit of mildly extreme body art: a rectangular metal loop, like a squared-off link of chain, implanted in the bridge of her nose. This is called a khetra, and marks its wearer as a khetren—a complex and pretty much untranslatable khavar word which most humans who attempt it render as something like indentured servant, if they don't come right out and say slave. Neither interpretation does the concept justice, and in fact both are quite insulting to the khavar, the latter to a degree bordering on mortal.

A khetren is a person who has sworn a vow—in many cases a whole series of vows—committing him- or herself to the... well, again, service isn't really the right word, nor is protection, though both can enter into it. "Supporting the well-being of," perhaps. The object of these vows is usually a person, though it doesn't have to be; there are khetren who have bound themselves to institutions, to communities, even to abstract ideals (although those individuals are considered a bit strange even among khavar). In cases where the object of the bond is capable of thought and action, it brings with its certain responsibilities and obligations on the other side, too. Like khavar culture generally, it is far more nuanced and complex than a casual outside observer may tend to take it for.

In Norah's case, she's pledged herself to (in the Ostiv phrasing she sometimes uses, usually in an effort to deflect closer investigation by making a joke) "look after" Nemo. This was a decision she made as a very small child, basically as soon as she was old enough to even begin to understand the concept, and she has never swayed from it in all the years since, though virtually everyone she mentioned it to beforehand tried to talk her out of it. As to why she made this choice, I'll get to that in another post, as this one is already running pretty long and I need to crash.

Quiet and reserved around people she doesn't know, Norah's usual tactic in social situations is to let Nemo do most of the talking, since he a) is better at it and b) enjoys it far more. When she does speak, she has a wry sense of humor, usually with a deadpan delivery. Her demeanor toward Nemo is undemonstrative but affectionate, often shading toward indulgent amusement when he's having one of what she calls his "wizard moments". In dealing with others, she's unfailingly polite and has a capacity for great kindness (although, as is traditional among her people, she tends to be decisive to the point of ruthlessness in combat).

Though she presents herself as a simple fighting-woman, Norah is very well-educated; in fact, she knows considerably more than Nemo in her particular areas of expertise, namely languages, international affairs, and history, as well as the building techniques and folkways of the Ostvian continent's many underground civilizations, present and past. If things had gone differently, she could have been an archaeologist specializing in such matters, and occasionally, in her travels with Nemo, she has the chance to be one. She can also be an eloquent speaker when the moment is upon her, and is perfectly at home dealing with the highest echelons of society, because despite her armed and armored traveling persona, she's from those echelons herself. As the eldest daughter of Queen Kal'mâk the Just, she would be the crown princess of Niúvac if she hadn't chosen a different path.

As a bonus, here are virtual minis of Norah and Nemo that I bodged up on heroforge.com, just for funsies. To scale, even, more or less! :)

(Nemo doesn't always have the full Obi-Wan beard. Sometimes he prefers the Riverboat Gambler look. And of course HeroForge doesn't have anything akin to a khetra. It's a decent likeness otherwise, though!)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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