Trazon
The Sinforged
Born from the decaying souls of mortals sentenced to punishment in the Below, the Trazon are demonic goat-like beings known for their cruelty, cunning, and militaristic dominance. These ambitious creatures have risen to power in the first four layers of sin, where they wage relentless wars against each other in a constant struggle for control. While devils and demons claim much of the Below's notoriety, only the Trazon possess the rare ability to traverse between the Six Layers of Sin, using the polluted rivers of lost souls as both transportation and fuel for their hellish dominions.
The Trazon are a brutal, cunning race of goat-like humanoids born not from love or nature, but from the tortured souls cast into the Six Layers of Sin. Created in birthing pits by infernal rituals, each Trazon is shaped from the essence of the damned and emerges fully grown into a world of endless war and ambition. They serve powerful noble houses in the hellish planes Below, where loyalty is fleeting, treachery is expected, and only strength and strategy can ensure survival. With a militarized society obsessed with dominance, the Trazon climb social ladders forged from backstabbing, brutal efficiency, and unrelenting cunning.
Despite their demonic origins and cruel upbringing, Trazon are intelligent and fiercely driven. Every facet of their society is built around advancement and control. A Trazon adventurer in Erenel walks the world with calculated purpose, perhaps exiled from the Below or sent to achieve a goal that furthers their house’s standing. They are viewed with fear and awe, often cloaked in mystery, bearing polished horns etched with victories and eyes that burn with ambition. To be Trazon is to be a weapon shaped by hellfire, unleashed on the world above with a purpose only they truly understand.
Trazon Power Structure
Trazon society thrives on hierarchy, ambition, and the constant threat of betrayal. Each city or stronghold within the Below is ruled by a dominant noble house. An entity defined by its wealth, military might, and political influence. This leading house commands authority over lesser houses, which must walk a dangerous line of obedience and rivalry. Alliances are fleeting, and a single misstep can turn a vassal into a usurper or a ruler into a corpse.
Every house, no matter its status, maintains a private military. These forces range from disciplined armies to mercenary bands loyal only to coin. Internal power struggles are common, with military coups, backroom assassinations, and carefully orchestrated collapses shaping the ever-shifting political landscape. The leading house must balance dominance with diplomacy, for losing the loyalty of subordinate houses often means losing power, or worse.
Yet it is this very instability that fuels Trazon innovation. In a society where survival demands cunning, betrayal often drives progress. Trazon excel in warfare, alchemy, arcane engineering, and political manipulation, always seeking an edge over their rivals. Their civilization may be brutal and merciless, but it is also terrifyingly effective.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Trazon resemble horned goat-humanoids, standing upright on cloven hooves. Their muscular bodies are cloaked in thick, coarse fur that varies in color from ashen gray and deep auburn to rich browns and shadowy blacks. Many Trazon shave or dye their fur in intricate patterns, a declaration of allegiance to their noble house and a mark of individual expression.
Their most prized physical feature is their horns which can be curved, jagged, or spiraled. These horns serve as trophies and are often adorned with precious metals, carved with battle marks, or gilded with family symbols. Horns are sacred, polished regularly and never used in combat. A Trazon with cracked or dulled horns is seen as a disgrace, a living failure in a society that values power and prestige above all else.
Genetics and Reproduction
Trazon are not born in the traditional sense. They are conjured into existence through a gruesome process overseen by Woe Callers, sinister figures who harvest the decaying life essence of condemned souls drifting through the wretched waterways that connect the Six Layers of Sin. Once enough essence is collected, it coalesces into a Sin Pustule within the birthing pits of a Trazon house’s capital. These grotesque sacs resemble glistening slime cocoons that, over three weeks, gestate and rupture, birthing a fully grown Trazon into the world.
From that moment of emergence, a Trazon’s life is brutal and unforgiving.
by Aakhra
They are immediately thrust into military training, where survival is far from guaranteed. Instructors are known to execute fledgling Trazon for minor failings, enforcing discipline through terror. Those who survive are assigned to their house's ranks. However, individuals who demonstrate talent, such as alchemy, strategy, or engineering, are instead apprenticed under skilled artisans to support the house’s war machine.
Occasionally, a noble house will commission a Sin Pustule and lay claim to the emerging Trazon. These chosen few are granted a place in the family hierarchy and raised not for battle but for ambition, trained in diplomacy, manipulation, and the treacherous art of survival among the political elite.
Death
To the Trazon, death is not a passage to paradise but the ultimate failure. It robs them of their conquests, their schemes, and their status, leaving their legacy to be picked over by rivals they likely despised. Because of this, a victorious Trazon does not simply slay their enemy, they obliterate them. Bodies are burned, dissolved, or offered to unholy rites to ensure no resurrection or reclamation of power can occur.
Most Trazon do not live long enough to fear old age. Their lives are spent on bloodied battlefields or navigating the treacherous politics of their infernal society, where betrayal is as common as breath. For the rare Trazon who survives into elderhood, their fate is no kinder. Trazon houses often sacrifice aged members in soul rituals, extracting their essence to forge weapons, animate constructs, or empower arcane engines of war. To grow old is to become fuel for the next generation’s ambition.
Civilization and Culture
Naming Traditions
Trazon do not inherit family names in the traditional sense. Upon emerging from a Sin Pustule, each is given a name by the Woe Caller who oversaw their creation. These names often carry sharp syllables, infernal tones, or guttural weight meant to reflect strength, pride, or ambition. A Trazon publicly honors their allegiance to a noble house by appending the house name after their given name. This suffix serves not only as a declaration of loyalty but also as a means of navigating the power structure. For example, a Trazon named Karash born into House Erelhei would be known as Karash Erelhei. Names are sacred in Trazon society, and to strip a Trazon of their house title is a grave insult, usually issued as punishment or exile.
Masculine Names
Brunu, Co’haad, Eshuur, Karash, Srimbar, ZaavrusFeminine Names
Chavni, Estervira, Ganshea, Mahima, Ra’deesh, YaniraMajor Language Groups and Dialects
The Trazon speak Forsworn, the shared and sinister tongue of the Below. This language is a warped evolution of the four Ancient Elven dialects, shattered and reassembled through dark intent and infernal influence. The result is a speech pattern both elegant and cruel, known for its precision and its peril. In Forsworn, many words sound similar but carry vastly different meanings, an intentional complexity that makes deception effortless for devils and dangerously easy to misinterpret for outsiders.
To speak Forsworn fluently requires rigid discipline and an acute awareness of context. Mistaking a word or pausing in the wrong place can drastically alter a sentence’s meaning, sometimes turning a respectful greeting into a declaration of war. As with its speakers, Forsworn is a language of masks, veils, and barbed meanings fitting for a race whose roots lie in betrayal and ambition. The language itself bears the legacy of the Elves who followed Vyse Tyranal, the Fallen Elf, and were twisted into the devils and demons that now reside in the Six Layers of Sin.
Common Forsworn Sayings
"Nal’ekir, nal’reth, nal’karas." - Translation: Three truths, none spoken.
"Shora’tel vi rann." - Translation: The pact is never silent.
"Votha’kai num irhal." - Translation: Obedience earns legacy.
"Zurvek tal resh’kar." - Translation: Blood remembers the blade.
Lifespan
Around 200 years
Average Height
Medium (about 4-7 feet tall) or Small (about 2-4 feet tall), chosen when you select this species
Geographic Distribution
by Dean Spencer
Notable Trazon Houses
Among the Six Layers of Sin, certain Trazon houses have risen to terrifying prominence. These noble families control vast armies, manipulate soul economies, and exert brutal authority over their respective domains. Each house holds a capital city in one of the first four layers, ruling with a blend of martial discipline and infernal cunning.
House Anvernia
Leader: Rizadrin AnverniaSin Layer: Broken Reach (Capital: Avizert)
Led by the brutal strategist Rizadrin Anvernia, this house commands a relentless war machine that thrives in open conflict. Avizert’s spire-topped fortresses loom over battlefields soaked in ash and blood. Known for their brutal indoctrination and efficient soul-harvesting rituals, Anvernia wages endless conquest and tolerates no weakness.
House Kathanor
Leader: Ishdrim KathanorSin Layer: Blood Fathoms (Capital: Vorg’aut)
From the flooded ruins of Vorg’aut, Ishdrim Kathanor rules a realm of madness and mutation. The house embraces hematurgy blood magic and abyssal experimentation, creating nightmarish weapons from flesh and bone. Their warriors fight like wild beasts, and whispers suggest Ishdrim communes with something deeper than sin itself.
House Erelhei
Leader: Anireth ErelheiSin Layer: Nydus Hive (Capital: Streghi)
Master manipulators and keepers of secrets, House Erelhei is led by Anireth Erelhei, a matriarch whose web of spies spans all six layers. Streghi is a hive of shadowed passageways and whispered deals, where poisoned daggers in the dark speak louder than declarations of war. Erelhei rarely fights directly, instead unraveling enemies from within.
House Netherion
Leader: Lyvar NetherionSin Layer: Angel’s Bane (Capital: Xivanis)
Xivanis is a citadel of twisted grandeur, where Lyvar Netherion broods beneath a sky choked with blighted light. House Netherion sees itself as the right hand of Edictor, Toll of Light's End and obsesses over subjugating divine power. Their magic and war machines draw heavily from corrupted angelic relics, making them deeply feared, even among fellow Trazon.
by Ede Laszlo
Soul Shard
In the hellish depths of the Below, the currency is measured not in gold, but in the essence of suffering. Soul shards, glimmering crystals forged from the remnants of punished souls are the lifeblood of Trazon economies. These shards are created through forbidden rites that trap and refine the raw torment of mortals judged unworthy by Bedoma the Last Guide as their spirits plucked from the waterways that flow between the Six Layers of Sin.
Because the Trazon themselves are born from this same essence, a proper soul ritual can release a Trazon’s condensed soul as a shard upon death. These rituals are common practice, especially when an aging Trazon has outlived their usefulness. To waste such a resource is unthinkable. The soul shard is then collected, bartered, or hoarded for its arcane potency.
In Trazon cities, soul shards carry immense power. They serve as currency, as spell components, and as fuel for infernal machinery. Though outlawed in most parts of Erenel, black markets dealing in soul shards persist, and daring mortals pay dearly for even a fragment of this corrupted essence.
Playing a Trazon
While the Trazon are native to the Below and shaped by a society of ruthless ambition and cutthroat hierarchy, those who find themselves in the mortal world often adapt in surprising ways. Whether exiled, on a mission from their house, or pursuing power in new lands, a Trazon adventurer must learn to operate beyond the structures of the sin-bound cities they once called home. This doesn’t mean abandoning their cunning or pride, but it does mean understanding the value of alliances.
A Trazon adventurer will still view life through the lens of strategy and status, but they are not mindless agents of chaos. Despite their infernal origins, a Trazon in a party will typically strive to be a functional team member, seeing the adventuring group as a temporary "house" to advance their own goals. They are unlikely to throw themselves into reckless, chaotic evil acts that would jeopardize their survival, especially when survival means maintaining the chance to rise further in the world. A clever Trazon knows that the path to power is paved not only with blood, but with patience.
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