A Gateway: On Nahrzai

One can find Nahrzai wherever there are rivers, lakes, or any sizable body of water, and where it is warm enough. They are impossible to miss: easily nine or ten feet tall, fanged and clawed, covered in scales and spines, with tails that make them twice as long as they are tall. They are, in short, reptiles—though I believe many of them find the term “lizard” offensive. They walk on two legs, but I have seen them drop to all fours and scurry forward with alarming speed, for their size. In color, they are predominately red, with bright blue dorsal spines running the full length from head to tail. Gray markings such as stripes and spots are common, and now and then, I’ve seen Nahrzai who were mostly gray with only splotches of red.

While farther inland, it seems fashionable among Nahrzai to adopt Velka ways, such as wearing clothes—the closer I venture into Virelda by the eastern ocean, the more proud and, well, Nahrzai they seem. I have heard an amusing term spoken among these coastal Nahrzai, to describe their inland brethren: Riverstyle. Some speak it with a kind of indulgent disdain, rather like a Velka parent discussing the latest trends among their children, but there are many who hiss out the word like an insult—and so they intend it.

Nahrzai live all over the continent, except in cold places where the Vaskari thrive, or in dry deserts where the Kreth lurk. They require both warmth and water. While I am most familiar with the Nahrzai in the Myrneth region, I have had several memorable interactions with the coastal Nahrzai of Virelda. To anyone who happens to be reading my words: please keep in mind that neither the Myrnethi Nahrzai, nor those keeping the old ways in Virelda, represent the species as a whole. Tothas is a vast continent.

With that out of the way—Myrnethi Nahrzai are largely artisans of one stripe or another, given to carving from wood and bone just about anything from intricate charms to decorative support beams. If you see, in your own travels, a wooden column or a merchant’s cart or even a bone pipe, and it has a motif of waves and swirls evoking water—it is a fairly safe wager that it’s Nahrzai-made. Painting, jewelry-making, and tattooing are other common trades, and I have even seen troupes of Nahrzai singers. Their claws don’t seem to be a hindrance for even their more intricate work, and the tools they use, customized for Nahrzai hands, are quite extraordinary.

One may find their artistic bent strange, given their size and strength, but I feel safe enough in generalizing this much: Nahrzai are largely averse to violence, outside of hunting for food, and even this, as I’ve observed, they carry out as quickly and cleanly as they can. Now, this is not to say that a Nahrzai will not fiercely defend herself or her family—to one’s peril does one threaten anyone a Nahrzai loves—but I have never seen one instigate a needless fight, not even those whose demeanor seems unfriendly.

I realize that I used “herself” above. Every Nahrzai community I have encountered has been matriarchal, and the females tend to be slightly larger than the males. No Nahrzai I have ever spoken to thinks this is worth more than a passing comment, so I will not dwell on it, myself.

Nahrzai are long-lived. It is quite common for them to see five hundred years or more. They grow slowly and are considered hatchlings well into their second decade, when they hit a growth spurt and begin to mature at an astounding rate. By the time they’ve reached forty years or so, they’re nearly fully-grown, though they won’t be considered adults in Nahrzai society until close to their first century. They reproduce just as slowly, and it is not unusual for siblings to be decades apart.

What I—and indeed, most people who are not Nahrzai—find most fascinating about them is their sense of smell. To a Nahrzai, everything has a meaningful scent—and I do mean everything: from one’s state of health to familial relations and even feelings. They smell emotions. And as any Nahrzai will tell you: what they smell translates to colors in their minds.

It is barely scratching the surface to say that, for example, anger smells “red” to them. There’s a full spectrum of red alone—the bright poppy-red of anger borne of an insult; the dull earth red of anger that has cooled to lingering resentment; a dark, dense red of hatred. These are only three examples. There is far too much to write about here.

For now, suffice it to say: everything one feels will be picked up by a Nahrzai—and therefore, it is all but impossible to keep secrets. In fact, as far as I could discover, the Nahrzai do not have a word for “secret,” as Velka or Vaskari understand it. The nearest might be shamirei—the mysteries of the deep ocean where no living Nahrzai has ventured.

Indeed, one may hear a Nahrzai utter the word shamirei when faced with a difficult concept.

One might suppose that having one’s inner turmoils on full display to a Nahrzai’s nose would be cause for discomfort—and one would be correct. Though not so much for Velka, oddly enough. It is the Nahrzai who find it uncomfortable.

If you think about it, it is not so strange. Nahrzai are used to having no secrets with each other. If a Nahrzai develops a romantic attraction for another, that other quickly knows—and they either reciprocate, or they do not. There is no agonizing over whether the other returns your feelings. If a Nahrzai is grieving, the others know, and they will waste no time offering their support in whatever way they can. Grief and joy are shared. There is no “suffering in silence,” and the idea that suffering in silence is a noble thing—as is common among the Velka of Myrneth—is utterly foreign to them.

Now, with this in mind, imagine that you are a Nahrzai, and that a small, scaleless, pointy-eared friend of yours is overwhelming your senses with his desire for another, and layered upon this is his anxiety and sorrow over not knowing whether that other may ever return his love. Imagine you go to him to offer your support—and he rejects you, tells you to mind your own affairs. Not only does he reject you, but he also begins to bottle up his feelings, so that they fester and grow inside him—and you can smell every bit of it. Personally, I would go mad.

It takes a Nahrzai a lot of patience—with themselves and with others—to reach a point where they can deal with Velka on a daily basis. I once heard a Nahrzai say that it is like being under a thunderstorm that refuses to break.

I have said that coastal Nahrzai hold a certain amount of disdain for those they call “Riverstyle.” However, I should clarify—this is mainly a view held among those living in very small villages, where they do not often come into contact with non-Nahrzai, especially Velka.

Many of them look down upon inland Nahrzai, accusing them of forgetting the “old ways,” claiming that they are barely Nahrzai if they do not have saltwater in their scales. But inland Nahrzai have learned to live alongside Velka. I wonder if their Coastal brethren could do likewise.

(I have not been privy to many interactions between Nahrzai and Vaskari, though from what I have been able to observe, Nahrzai appear to find the catfolk easier to engage with. How curious it is that the so-called “beast races” seem more even-tempered and are better able to interact with each other. Is it simply because they do not suppress their emotions? I could not say. Though if this is the case, then I must be quite nightmarish for them to be around.)

—The Traveler