The Sorians: Top Of The Food Chain

In the deepest parts of Adel are communities of creatures that shunned the Adelian civilization. During the Aptoan Empire they went unconquered, and beyond it they remain unbowed. The Sorians are proud and strange creatures. A few of them do live among the Adelians, but they tend to be outcasts from their own society, for one reason or another. The Sorians have a great orthodoxy of customs, and any who violate their taboos are exiled if not destroyed. For the most part, Sorians exist apart from the Adelians, leading an agrarian lifestyle outside of anyone’s notice. But many Sorians leave seclusion in search for plunder, or are misled into doing so. Many Sorians, under warchiefs who believe their people have grown too stagnant or scared, have become common bandits and warmongers, harassing the Adelians or intruding into any region that allows them.

Origin of the Threat

Sorians are large, bipedal lizard beings, with many-fanged snouts and frills running along their heads and backs, hairless scaly bodies and powerful builds. The Sorians have always been creatures of two worlds. They were part of a food chain of strange predators. But they were also sentient, reasoning beings. They were both violent and carnivorous in nature, and yet adept at agrarian pursuits. They fostered many plants unique to their communities, and can raise farms in even the worst environments. To the Sorians, the world is theirs to cultivate, for they are the strongest, God’s chosen.

While the Adelians developed great societies, incorporating various tribes and creatures and ultimately (and tragically) building an Empire, the Sorians kept to themselves. Theirs were territories in the harshest places, in the deepest jungles, in forests hidden in canyons and crevices in the earth, in volcanic caverns, and other places where they would not be disturbed. The Sorians were isolationist to an extreme. They believed the Adelians were not worth dealing with. After all, the Sorians were the real owners of the world, and the Adelians had yet to display anything noteworthy. Contact with them would only upset the Sorian’s single God, since the Adelians worshiped many. Sorians had no real curiosity to understand their world, unlike the Adelians, and over time the raw knowledge base of both civilizations on all subjects became quite disproportionate.

Slowly, the Sorians began to see the changes in the world, and slowly they reacted. During the Intolerable War they saw the devastation the Adelians were wreaking on each other, and they slowly joined. The Sorian communities at large had at first wanted little to do with this, but many among them saw a chance for plunder and glory the likes of which they had never seen. There was a battle all across the world and the Sorians knew that the stakes were the world itself – the world they owned. They had seen firsthand the power of the Aptoan Empire – some were humbled, some angered.

Numerous Sorians rose from out of hiding. They divided themselves, no longer as communities, but as warbands and fractions under various leaders. Their motives were various. Some joined the Empire when its riches and need for warriors were both at their greatest height. Some joined the Rebellion, perhaps taken by their ideology, perhaps not. Some merely struck out on their own, owing themselves to nobody and taking everything they could.

After the Intolerable War, those Sorians who remained and aided the rebellion were allowed to settle with the Adelians in the new Nations. They were few, and fewer still exist today. The majority were those who sided with the Empire, and those who struck out for themselves. Their ancient communities were gone, torn apart by their own –  though some might still exist, still keeping alive the secluded ways of the Sorians.  Some Sorians grew loyal to the Empire and still carry out a misguided campaign for the will of their long-dead adopted sovereigns, believing them to be lost emissaries of their God. Some lead small warbands, hiding within the Nations, attacking where they can and enduring the reprisals as best as they are able.

Modus Operandi

Sorians are no longer as secluded as they once were, but their family groups are still very much out of the way. Many Sorians have tried to reform their lost communities, and still exist in caverns and in the deep forests, or in high mountains or other inaccessible locations. These communities will often experience in miniature the same rifting that occurred during the Intolerable War, and fractions of the group will often strike out, along with whoever they can convince, traveling to more populated locales. These Sorian Warbands either serve as mercenaries or turn to banditry, though a few among them decide to settle more peacefully – often those who are bullied by their bigger and dumber cousins and would like to be away from them.

No one has concrete numbers on the Sorian population, but warbands and bandits are increasingly common, suggesting some fecundity. Sorians leave their communities in search of plunder and power at the expense of the Adelians, whom they consider just a more sophisticated kind of prey animal. Sorians have been known to eat Adelians on occasion, but they oddly prefer vegetables as a meal. Sorians will often back off if they get compensation – if they aren’t paid, violence will ensue.

When the military does not deal with them, adventurers and locals do. Sorian Warbands try their best to evade the authorities but they never do so long. Eventually, a group of 7 foot tall lizardfolk will be discovered. Sorian Warbands caught by the army are fought with lethal force, but allowed to surrender or to fall injured and be captured if lucky. Sorians on the wrong side of a fight with adventurers usually end up dead, unless the adventurers are particularly merciful.

All Sorians believe in a single Sorian God, who etched his words unto the soil and gave the chosen Sorians rule over the land and its creatures. Sorians read about this character in The Good Book (their only book), and do not believe in Adel’s polytheism regarding Spirits. To Sorians, spirits are just animals, and Sorians even refuse to believe magic exists, even if they see it. Sorians approve of slavery, and do it to Muks and Spirits where possible, but they also hold the contradictory ideal that Sorians make better labor, and so often they will change their minds and free whatever they were enslaving and do the work themselves.

Sorians have their own language, but since the Intolerable War most of them have forgotten it and now speak in an growling, accented drawling version of New Adelian, and have coined their own colloquial insults and terms, such as referring to cowards as “yellah” and to dead people as having “fawmed they last bit ah cottin.” Sorians have names such as Pa’ Bigjaw, Big Willard, Billybob, Miss Jacklyn – which is to say, names with few if any patterns at all.

Powers, Allies And Equipment

Sorian’s greatest assets are their large size and powerful bodies compared to Adelians. They rival even Damakran in strength, and can pick up and throw a Iomadi of any size with ease. Their scales are no substitute for armor, but most Sorians forego armor nonetheless. Their bodies can endure a great amount of punishment before giving out.

All Sorian weapons are repurposed tools, as Sorians fight with whatever they can carry on their backs, having little concept of a supply line. Sorians use machetes as their primary melee weapon, of increasingly larger or smaller sizes, and some carry hammers or pickaxes that they use to bust through rubble. Sorian’s ranged weapon is a double-barreled shotstaff firearm called a Rockgun. Its design is rougher and larger than the Adelian’s, and it fires, essentially, a spray of rocks. Rockpistols perform much the same function. Adelians are puzzled as to how rockguns work – probably some of the rocks used are explosive.

Sorians are not all drawling layabouts. Some Sorians are born with what their kind calls a “shine,” an incredible aptitude for something. A Sorian warlord with the Shine may call himself a General, and know as much about battle tactics as many Adelian generals. A Sorian inventor with the Shine is dangerous, able to leapfrog the technology of the warband with rudimentary steam engine golems, which though rickety and noisy and smelly can be quite potent in battle. A Sorian Warband with a Shiner among them can be a dangerous and alien enemy to the Adelians, behaving like no other Sorians do.

Most Sorians are naturally temperamental and short-sighted. They are also extremely prejudice against other Adelians, though they find that particular favor quickly returned. A Sorian has spent all of its life learning that its foes are small, cowardly and beneath its notice, and this education is hard for them to shake. This not only leads Sorians to arrogance and prejudice, it also makes them vastly underestimate their enemies. A Sorian believes it needs no plan but to appear and start a battle that it believes it should eventually win – at least until it sees itself nearing defeat. That being said there are Sorians more intelligent than this. They are often intelligent enough to know they needn’t partake of battle themselves when their comrades will do it so willingly, and serve as masterminds by manipulating bigger, dumber Sorians into carrying out their plans.

Sorians will often press Muk lizard-goblins into joining them. Muks help Sorians make up for whatever number of Sorians didn’t join them when they first set out, and however many they have lost since. Muks are thieving, erratic little creatures, but not necessarily violent or evil in nature – but with a Sorian threatening to eat them, they can become quite troublesome. Muks are often tasked with being cannon fodder, or collecting materials for the Sorian war effort.

A Sorian warband that becomes too large and influential can become a major threat. Sorians, despite not believing in spirits, easily attract numerous demons and wicked spirits who can smell the blood in the proverbial water. With the aid of brutal spirits like the ogre-like Oni and cunning, flying spirits like the eel-tailed Awakuira, the Sorians can form groups with deadly reach and a varied arsenal. Such hosts, should they become large enough, are known as Sorian Migrations, because Sorians gather more of their kind and often intend to trample Adelian communities to establish their own in their stead. Sorians sometimes even attract Dragons, who will gather the whole group and force them to do its bidding, essentially bullying the bullies.

Sorians As Antagonists

Sorians can be used for a wide range of plotlines.

Sorians can be a typical “warband creature,” with a host of bullied servants and slaves forced to fight alongside it as they threaten villages, attack caravans and perhaps even kidnap people for a snack.

Some might make the Sorians more sympathetic and capable of understanding. Sorians are not monsters – they are sentient beings with a motivation for what they do. Often this motivation is greed, but not every Sorian is a power-mad warchief. Sorians are like people, and among them there are those who are capable of as much good as Sorian society and culture will allow them – usually these are the ones hiding away from Adelians. In some stories, they may even be in the right. They might just be misguided, or misdirected against the characters, an effort by a greater evil to defeat or distract them.

Sorians are physically imposing, but they lack many skills that the characters will have, such as magic or reliable ranged weaponry. They also lack the training of an Adelian soldier or martial artist. Sorians will often swing in a wild, mighty and roaring rage as the characters use tactics and technique to overcome them. Even their size might be turned against them.

Sorians led by, or who count among their roster, the creatures they call “Shiners” pose an even bigger threat. With Sorian shiner technology and leadership, they can become a real force to reckon with.