#OtherCreatures

We are among you...

Contributed by Fire_on_High: Naa'tak are one of the created races. Made from angels and Djinn, we tend to be a proud lot, fiercely devoted to honor. Tall, usually thin but quite strong, dark or red hair, occasionally silver, rarely blonde, eyes of every color humans know and many they rarely see. Naa'tak live in clans, usually, and often live much as we did in our time. Psionics is a skill we excel at. Almost every Naa'tak is an able telepath, at the very least. This makes for a society that tends to speak with blunt honesty. Anyone who knows me can certainly vouch for this. Most of us are naturally drawn to the warrior arts, which we excel at. Naa'tak are not too big on change though, and as a clan or race, can hold grudges for millenia, long after the act that started the war has been forgotten. On the other hand, favors done are also remembered, and one good deed done for a Naa'tak can continue to bring rewards for many years, although tis best not to abuse this. Naa'tak typically mate for life, sometimes to two different mates, if all are agreeable. We tend to be fairly open-minded towards any arrangement that all sides agree on and are happy with. Anyway, enough on now..a bit about the past.

As stated before, we are a created race. We were created about 88,000 years ago, by angels, using some of themselves, and of Djinn, and a few other races. As a result, many First Ones have mixed aspects, such as Dragon and Were, to contend with. I personally have had the angel and Djinn aspects split, leaving me strongly favoring the Djinn side. The First Ones tended to be ability-specialists, with one thing they had very strongly, much more so than anyone else, and then several weaker abilities. The born second generation, on the other hand, tended to have a wider range of abilities, but far less specialization of skills.

At the first, we were on another world, a red skyed mostly desert planet, but we weren't allowed to stay there for long. We didn't get along with the angels who created us, and so we were moved to an island here, I think in the hopes we would merely die out. This didn't work quite as they planned. We built a thriving society on our new home and did quite well for many years. The genetics and energetics that were used to make us were also re-used in the creation of several other races, as well as being used as breeders to prop up other races. The modern Atharrans, for example, are a mix of ancient Naa'tak and the original residents, an avian race that was nearing extinction, and quite possibly further down the road some Alderzani as well. There are also races that are descended from us, such as the Halians and Davar.

In the years that passed, the clan system was created, and the strict Naa'tak code of honor. There were many wars, between clans, and groups of clans, but none on the scale of the one fought before the code. Little is known about that period of time, except that the war was fought with great magicks and powerful weapons of mass destruction. The codes were created in response to the carnage created by these weapons, so that never again could entire cities and clans be wiped out in seconds. No man could kill honorably without an equal chance of being killed himself. Skill and bravery, not technology, would be the true test of a warrior. Since those days we have held this sacred. This isn't to say we rejected all knowledge from those days, in fact far from it. Blades forged during those wars are still carried with great pride, as many have proven so durable that they have lasted to the modern day, intact and useable. Also retained was much medical knowledge, such as anatomy, and the uses of medicinal herbs, which were, at the time, extensively studied. Plants that were once refined into their constituent chemicals are used to this day to treat the same illnesses, albiet without the technological modifications and refinements.

Modern Naa'tak keep many of the ideals and traits of our ancient ancestors. We often live similar lives, learn the same things, eat the same foods, and even speak the same language as ten thousand years ago. We can still read the books and scrolls handed down to us from our ancestors, still read the tales of heroes and their sacrifices for clan and race, their bravery and honor, and still look to the ancients as an example for ourselves.