Zari - Lizvar Ethnicity

Zari Lizvar are among the tallest of Arora’s people, standing between two and two and a half metres, with massive torsos, long arms, and broad necks. Their heads are crowned with hardened plates and short horns, whose shape and size vary by bloodline. Males are larger, with heavier brow ridges and thicker neck plating. Females, though leaner, often bear more distinct cranial crests and luminous scale patterns, seldom seen by outsiders.

Movement is slow but deliberate. They do not waste energy. Every gesture is loaded with intent, from a tail’s flick to a jaw’s clench. Their sheer mass means they cannot pass unnoticed, and they do not try to. Among the Zari, to be seen is not weakness, it is warning.

The Zari skin is a map of origin, struggle, and intent. Their scales range from obsidian black and rust-red to basalt grey and ash-white, often overpainted with ochre, bone-paste, or war pigment made from the blood of hunted beasts. Scars are honoured, never hidden. Each one may mark a duel won, a beast slain, a brother buried. Ritual scarification is common, especially among shamans and those who have faced a Daerhys and lived.

Indu Zari favour more muted tones and ceremonial precision in their markings; long winding spirals, clan glyphs, and ancestral sigils traced in fine lines. Uus Zari are bolder, with harsh slashes of colour across brow and chest, often reapplied before battle. Scale filing and horn-carving are rites of maturity or mourning. Teeth may be stained black to mark a failed challenge, or gold to honour a kill too great to speak aloud.

Clothing among the Zari is minimal but symbolic. Natural armour removes the need for heavy garb, but ornamentation is worn for meaning. Males often wear hide sashes, bone-threaded belts, and claw-spike talismans around the arms and neck. Females, especially those of high status, wear layered cloaks of scaled leather or ceremonial veils that obscure the face entirely. All ornament is earned, nothing is worn without reason.

Cloth is rare, often bartered from human merchants or stolen during raids. Most materials are gathered from their kills: sinew, gut-thread, Rhysar hide. In Indu, Zari adorn themselves with weathered stones, braided hornstraps, and shell tokens from sacred wells. In Uus, ornamentation is more aggressive, fangs of fallen rivals, glassy black shards of Ferro Stone hung in defiance or worship.

In Indu, Zari inhabit semi-permanent strongholds: cave-complexes, ancestral stone-rings, and fortified plateau-camps. These are sacred places, watched by shamans and guarded by those too old or maimed for war. Stone fire-pits, bone cairns, and Ferro-shrines dot the courtyards. Life here is patterned, structured, ritualistic, heavy with memory.

In Uus, settlement is an act of denial. The Zari roam in bands of twenty to forty, setting up skin-pitched shelters and sand-hung bone frames for shade. Each camp is temporary, marked by totems and ash rings. In Uus, home is not where one sleeps, but where one last survived. The clans here are more aggressive, more volatile, hardened by the need to move quickly and kill cleanly. Their dialects are shorter, harsher. Their lives are loud, and brief.

Subtle differences in horn structure, scale patterning, and pigment density mark the divergence between Indu and Uus Zari. Uus-born are typically darker of scale, with thicker bone ridges and broader snouts, adapted for constant exposure and long-range travel. Indu-born are often paler, with more ornamental features and heightened olfactory senses for cave-dwelling and long ritual fasting.

Some tribes claim these traits denote spiritual favour, that the black-scaled are chosen for war, and the pale-scaled for vision. Whether this is superstition or coded social bias, the distinction shapes clan roles and tribal expectations. A pale-scaled male born in Uus is often considered cursed or lost. A dark-scaled female in Indu is seen as ill-omened but powerful, and often raised to shamanic duty regardless of aptitude.

Daily life for most Zari is a rhythm of labour, ritual, and preparation for conflict. Males train, hunt, patrol, or challenge one another. Their days are shaped by the hunt, the watch, the chant. Rest is taken in brief, honourless stretches. The wounded are tended quickly. The weak are tested constantly. Indu Zari follow stricter patterns, rising to chant the ancestor-rolls, fasting in the heat, feeding in the night. Uus Zari operate on motion, they march, they scout, they stop only when the body threatens collapse.

Females lead domestic and spiritual continuity, but rarely appear outside secure strongholds. In Indu, a female may oversee birth-chants, fire-cleansing, or the blessing of Ferro Stones. In Uus, she may ride in a war caravan, flanked by ten guards, her face never seen, her voice carried by a male mouthpiece. To see a female in battle garb is to know a tribe has risked everything, and no longer cares who sees it burn.

The Zari diet is protein-heavy and carnivorous. They hunt the immense fauna of Tukhan, horned karkadons, burrowing scythe-serpents, sand-roots that scream when cut. Rhysar meat is the highest prize, though many who try to bring one down are never seen again. Ferro-rich organs are consumed in ritual meals, overseen by shamans who interpret the echoes of ancestors in the blood.

In Indu, meat is boiled in earth-pits or smoked over volcanic vents. In Uus, it is fire-roasted and eaten raw when time is scarce. Preservation is done with ash-salting and gut-packing. Dried marrow is a common trail ration, and fermented bloodmead, known as Skarzu, is drunk before hunts or rites. Meals are communal, but access is earned. No Zari eats without having bled for the pot.

Beauty among the Zari is not softness, it is control, endurance, and fire unextinguished. Males are admired for visible signs of resilience: scar-maps, fracture lines, even maimed limbs worn proudly. Females are venerated for clarity of gaze, intensity of presence, and the quiet force that survives unseen. Ornamentation enhances these ideals, never concealing them. No Zari paints over a scar they did not earn.

Courtship is indirect and rare, as mating is a tribal concern more than a personal one. Still, emotional bonds form, often through shared hunts, combat trials, or years of mutual silence. For those males who know they will never sire, chosen kinship becomes its own form of love. Families are born of alliance, grief, or vow, not always blood.

The gender roles of Zari society are not fluid, they are carved in bone. Males are the visible force: warriors, hunters, challengers. Females are the rare root of continuity: venerated, guarded, and kept from danger even as they preside over it. Their voices carry weight but not freedom. To be female is to be sacred and confined. To be male is to be endless, expendable, until proven useful.

No tribe tolerates deviation lightly. A male who does not fight is often shamed or exiled. A female who seeks to leave sanctuary may be punished, or worse, venerated into silence. Still, within tribes where need overwhelms tradition, these roles bend, briefly, dangerously. Legends exist of female blade-speakers and male birth-wardens, but they end in fire, always.

Zari rites of passage are brutal but deeply respected. The First Blood Trial marks the passage into adulthood, requiring the youth to either down a predator unaided or return bearing proof of surviving three nights alone in a Ferro-scarred place. Those who fail may try again, if they live. Those who refuse are cast out.

Some tribes also mark puberty with horn filing, ceremonial branding, or silence-vows that last for a full moon cycle. Among Uus tribes, coming of age may require surviving an encounter with a Rhysar herd or returning with the remains of a Ferro Stone untouched by fire. Indu rites are more ritualised, with chants, fasting, and the donning of scaled cloaks made from the tribe's dead.

Death is not feared by the Zari, but dying poorly is. A clean death in battle is honoured with feast and chant. The body is burnt with Ferro ash, and the bones are carried by the tribe until they can be buried in an ancestral cairn. Those who die from weakness, cowardice, or disgrace are left to the sands, their names never spoken again.

Shamans lead the funeral chants, invoking the path of the fallen into the earth, and offer cracked bloodmead to ease their journey. If a Zari dies far from home, a companion is expected to remove a tooth, a scale, or a blade-hand and return it to the tribe. This is called the Bone Vow, and it binds the living to the dead.

The Zari value strength, loyalty, and endurance. But beyond that, they believe deeply in earned place, that no honour is granted by birth, only by act. Betrayal is the gravest sin, even more than cowardice. A Zari who lies to tribe or kin must atone in blood or exile. A Zari who abandons a bonded partner is already dead, even if they walk.

Conversely, honour binds. A debt paid becomes part of a warrior’s name. A promise made beneath the moon is sacred. Even enemies are granted respect if they fight well and die cleanly. There is no shame in defeat, only in surrender.

The Zari speak Zaric, the sole language of their species, belonging to the Lizvaric language group. Zaric is coarse, rhythmic, and built around short syllables and drawn-out pauses. It is a language of breath and force, suited to wind-scoured plains and echoing canyons. Many words carry multiple meanings, depending on tone, rhythm, or accompanying gestures.

Dialectal differences between Indu and Uus are few but distinct. Uus speakers often drop final syllables for speed and precision, a habit born of battle and command. Indu Zaric favours longer cadences and ritualised phrasing, influenced by its deeper traditions of oral chant. Despite these differences, all Zari understand one another, for to lose shared speech is to risk severing the root of all memory.

Zari art is visceral and harsh. They carve stories into bones, paint with blood and ash, and dance in thunderous rhythms upon iron-plated stone. Instruments include hollowed horn-drums, stone flutes, and jawbone rattles. Decoration is rarely permanent, designs are often re-applied before rites or conflict, their impermanence reflecting the tenuousness of survival.

In Indu, art tends toward solemnity. Dancers wear cloaks made from scale-fragments and feathered trophies, moving in slow, deliberate circles to mimic the migration of ancient Rhysar. In Uus, expression is raw and explosive: painted war-masks, echo-stomps that shake the sand, and thunder-chants that raise clouds before the hunt. Each form speaks of land, spirit, and the brutal pride of being Zari.

The oldest Zari tales are not lessons, they are warnings. Stories of ancestors who challenged Daerhys and were shattered. Of bloodlines broken by cowardice. Of tribes swallowed whole for ignoring omen and rite. Each myth ends in fire, or silence, or scar, and in every tale, survival is earned, never assumed.

Among the most venerated is the saga of Mozha the Bone-Crowned, a female warrior said to have slain not just a Daerhys, but a Siriat itself. Some tribes claim she walks still, her bones burning in the body of every storm. Others believe she was a lie made to keep hope from fading. Either way, her name is spoken in every tribe, and never without fear.

Few Zari rise to historical prominence across tribes, as their society does not celebrate singular heroes unless they become part of ancestral memory. Yet there are names that echo even in rival chants: Vargel the Ash-Keeper, who held his tribe together through nine summers of famine. Thurek Redvoice, who united three rival clans long enough to break a Directorate column near the Impan foothills. Vahari of the Still Claw, a shaman who survived the Ash Convocation and returned bearing a heart that never beat, and yet still sings.

These figures are not saints in the human sense. They are not paragons. They are necessary scars, proof that the Zari have suffered, resisted, and endured.

The Zari do not keep records in books. Their history lives in chant, in scar, in painted bone. The earliest memory speaks of emergence, not from heaven, but from beneath, from cracked earth and molten silence. They say they came before the sun cooled, before the winds forgot what they carried. The truth is murky, but their belief is firm: they were here first, and they were never meant to leave the dust.

The separation of Indu and Uus tribes occurred gradually. After the first Directorate wars, many Zari in Uus retreated deeper into the interior, clinging to wastelands where even human engines could not tread. In Indu, more contact with humans led to hybrid rites and guarded treaties, yet also greater loss, of land, of practice, of certainty. Indu tribes still remember the names of the cities that buried them. Uus tribes remember only their ghosts.

The Tukhanni Tributary was named by outsiders, not Zari. To the Zari, there is no Tributary. There is only the land that bleeds and the kin who still walk it. The rest is fire-lie and war-myth, and none who name it truly own it.

Names are formed from short, powerful syllables that carry meaning across generations. Children receive a birth-name based on their father’s name, modified by deed or omen. For example, the son of Thozek Bone-Treader might be named Tharn or Zekar. The mother’s identity is seldom included publicly, both out of reverence and secrecy, to speak a female’s name outside of ritual is taboo.

Upon surviving their coming-of-age rite, a Zari may receive an earned-name from the war-chief or shaman. These names mark personal achievements, such as “Blood-Taker,” “Storm-Ender,” or “Ash-Walker,” and may be changed later if greater deeds are achieved. Some rare few receive a third, spirit-bound name during moments of ancestral visitation or shamanic trance, but these are never written or repeated.

The Zari trace lineage through the father’s line, with clan marks carved into scale or bone once a child has completed their first survival trial. Each tribe maintains its own unique markings, often tied to totemic beasts or ancestral warriors. These markings are both visual and olfactory, special oils or smokes are used to encode family scent upon the body, preserved through generations.

Family structures are heavily patriarchal. Fathers serve as mentors, instructors, and defenders of honour. Female Lizvar, as rare as they are, are never directly involved in lineage discussion unless they are shamans or matriarchs, a rare and high position that requires both political weight and ancestral legitimacy. Brothers, cousins, and uncles form tight kin groups known as tal-rasks, warrior-bands that fight and hunt together under a common scent and creed.

• Brask, A common male name denoting toughness and lineage from bone-grinders of Uus.
• Kelvarn, Male, meaning “He Who Survived the Heatless Night”, often passed to sons of winter-born lineages.
• Zharra, Rare female name meaning “Ash Root,” usually given only to first-born daughters of high blood.
• Vurri, Gender-neutral, traditionally used for orphans or adopted kin, later adapted into various earned-names.
• Thozek, Male, means “Treader of the Dead.” Often reserved for those born during Rhysar hunt seasons.
• Mokta, Female, meaning “She Who Bears Flame.” Considered a sacred name, used only by shamans or war-mothers.
• Ozkan, Male, an older name now mostly found among Indu clans; associated with iron work and Ferrousto rites.
• Drauveth, Gender-neutral earned-name meaning “One Who Was Not Claimed by Death.” Given to lone survivors of tribe loss.

Names may combine into longer forms when spoken in ritual: e.g., Brask-Talun, son of Tharn, storm-marked and bone-bound. Most Zari, however, use only one or two syllables in informal speech, preferring brevity and clarity in the heat of survival.

Uus lies to the west of the Tukhanni plateau, a fractured land of basalt flats, dust-cracked riverbeds, and obsidian caves known as “the Throatlands.” Zari here are fewer in number, but more fiercely insular, often building fortified cave-complexes or living nomadically along deep canyon routes. Uus clans are known for preserving more ancient forms of chant and ritual, often invoking ancestors older than any remembered name. Their rites are considered more “pure” by traditionalists, though harsher in punishment and more secretive in practice.

Tribes in Uus are notoriously reluctant to trade with outsiders, even other Zari. They view the Alemni as a poison, a sickness that eats land and memory. Stories are told in Uus of the “First Retreat,” when their people were forced into the ash-choked west, and some chieftains still keep maps drawn in blood, marking lost valleys and sacred stones now under foreign rule.

Indu, to the east, is larger and more accessible, with wider gulfs of scrubland and more exposed hunting grounds. Though still a wasteland by any other people’s standards, Indu boasts more stable trade routes, limited water access, and deeper entanglement with Alemni agents and traders. Zari in Indu are more numerous, and more politically divided. Dozens of clans vie for power in the canyon-markets and salt roads, some openly raiding others, some allying with human outposts, however tenuously.

Tribes here are more pragmatic, more willing to experiment with Ferrousto rituals or integrate foreign steel. The paint worn by Indu warriors is more colourful, their armour more elaborate. Yet many Zari from Uus scorn these warriors as too soft, too compromised. The Indu tribes answer with scars, not words. Their strength is real, born not from isolation, but from contest, survival, and the cold, daily threat of extinction.

Beyond the wastes, many Zari travel as sellswords, exiles, or emissaries of fate. The most visible of these are mercenaries in service to frontier lords, hunting companies, or black-market Rhysar brokers. Others travel alone, guided by dreams, revenge, or the unspoken hope of some final battle worthy of remembrance. The largest Zari enclaves outside Tukhan are found in southern Valenfar, particularly in border cities near the Impan passes or in the underbellies of directorate ports where violence sells well and questions are cheap.

Diaspora Zari often maintain strict ritual discipline, burning sacred oils weekly, reciting bloodlines before meals, and carving their kin-mark into stone, steel, or skin in foreign lands. To lose one’s rites, it is said, is to die while walking. Even in exile, they remain Zari. Even in chains, they bleed for the bones of their fathers.