The Ramships of the Black Water Mahrukh. (Mah ROOK')

The Mahrukh of the Blackwater, masters of Sea and Sand, created in the last Iteration a mighty fleet. These ships of the line, armed with both cannon and ramming prows, remain a terror on the waters. The vessels are driven forward by the winds, and by the oars of fully two hundred mighty oarsmen. The cannon provide flank protection, and an occasional opportunistic broadsides, but those are not only difficult to coordinate, and not really in the idiom of the rampaging Rukh battle fleets.   Instead, The Hai Hroth, select Mahrukh of the first hatching, take these ram-ships to the limit, taking advantage of a design and purpose that staggers the mind. The prows, bonded with the most magical of metals, are honed sharp as knives and driven by a keel cut from the finest Eldrin forest a rukh axeman can fashion. With a seasoned Hai Hroth at the helm, they are as mighty halberds, cutting and piercing ships and boats in twain.   What makes the Rukh ram ships the most dangerous, however, is the magic bred into the timbers of those keels. As they turn toward the target, the deep booming voices of the Rukh oarsmen are led in song by bard-trained master singers, who lend melody and direction through drum and hellion pipe. Even the words, though Eldrin, carry forth an emanation that activates those magnificent keels, giving a form of limited flight to the vessel. It is thus that the terrors of the Black Water transform under song into a horror of the shore, as the mighty vessels are literally lifted from the waters, and skim over the ground. The effect of seeing a flotilla of the Rukh fleet lay siege to a coastal city, ramming the very defenses and offering with their height an opportunity to breach them, is a crushing blow to the morale and well-being of any sensible city defender.   One may stand a chance against a Rukh in a street fight. One may hold his own on the high seas. But one rarely experiences a Rukh raider blitzkrieg and lives to tell of it.