Mahksi

Native to the coastal regions surrounding Moru Kel, the mahksi are an amphibious race that spends much of their time beneath the surface. Mahksi children breathe only through gills, not developing lungs until the transition to adulthood. Mahksi age similarly to humans, and the age of transition is generally around thirteen or fourteen years of age. At this time, mahksi learn to hunt on land and build their lungs. Most mahksi spend the next two decades of their lives mainly on land, in the village of Panga that hugs the tideline just south of Moru Kel proper. Their village homes are said to feature submerged sleeping quarters or hammocks and to be lined in fresh seaweed. 

The mahksi grow taller than most humans, similar in height to the Nawabe. In addition to gills, they have slightly oversized hands and feet with webbing that extends to their knuckles. Those who have spent little time on land may have a greenish or bluish hue, though a few days out of the water allows them to shed these ghoulish tints from their skin, revealing a more healthy range of pale pink to olive to rich brown tones. Their kelp-like hair, however, retains hues of olive, emerald, turquoise, and sapphire and appears to both contain liquid and be perpetually wet on the surface. One wonders if a vigorous shake of a mahksi head would shower whoever is near! And with salt water or fresh? 

Government

The mahksi seem to be organized into only small local governments, with something similar to a mayor or village elder acting to coördinate local families. There is no real authority to the role other than respect for the officeholder.

Divided into two main groups, the coastal mahski and the deep mahski, they are a generally introverted folk. After damage to their kelp fields by some of the first large galleons that arrived at Moru Kel, they kept to themselves for decades. Trade with the indigenous Seta communities marked their only steady interaction with outsiders. 

In recent years, their relations with the humans of the city have improved: the use of broadbacks rather than longboats to load ships has decreased negative impact on kelp forests and marine life, and a number of treaties have been signed to protect mahksi interests in the bay. A few of their folk have become curious about the city, visiting occasionally to trade and see the sites. A handful have even moved into Moru Kel itself.

Commerce

While the mahski are not great traders, they do have need of bronze for their metal goods and a few other items. Aside from game, fish and seafood, coral, pearls, and artifacts scavenged from old Skandaran ruins beneath the waves are their primary trade goods (though their pearls cannot compete in quality with the Sagaran pearls from Mezzi Island). The saws of the sawnose are traded to the Seta people, who use them as actual saws.

The mahksi hunt fowl, rodents, and deer, but are especially fond of kernu and strongly associate the horned boars with their god Pañon.

Culture and Entertainment

The surface mahksi help to provide food for their kin who live in the kelp forest beneath Kilpo Bay and, while living in the village, mahksi seek mates. The courting process for mahksi seems lengthy and complicated, perhaps as they are quite devoted to those they ultimately choose. Mated pairs of mahski spend little time in Panga, coming onto land strictly to hunt. Pregnant females do not come to the surface at all.

Mahksi culture was little known until the great cultural scholar, Davian, recorded Seta accounts of their behavior. Davian notes:

As clothing is only a hindrance in water, the mahksi shun it by their nature, including when on land. They wear only straps of leather, around their waists, chests, legs, and arms, to which they can attach pouches or weapons. They express themselves by decorating their kelp-hair with shells, coral, and even living snails. Some even incorporate stones, metal, and spider silk.

This does not mean the mahksi are completely without art or culture. Sailors say the eerie whooping singing of the mahksi is reminiscent of the sounds of whales, heard underwater. The mahksi drumming, often dismissed as unstructured and chaotic, actually has a highly complex structure. Though the guiding beats are unfamiliar to most, creating the uneasiness many feel, mahksi drumming is sophisticated and should be appreciated as such. Their “loose” beats could be the foundation for an entirely new music!

The deep mahksi are tough warriors, routinely hunting sharks and fighting off dragon turtles and worse. Though some their villages are at the tideline, most deep mahksi traditionally spend only a small part of their lives on land. More of their young hunters have begun to spend time in Moru Kel, but few show an interest in becoming city dwellers. A robust folk, they favor bronze-prod crossbows and arbalests for hunting at range beneath the sea. Of interest is Davian’s discovery of the relationship between the mahksi and sea sentries. The mahksi and the swimming lizards share common enemies, amidst the kelp, and sea sentries alert mahksi to the presence of large predators, like hunter sharks, sawnoses, and sea lions. Mahksi and sea sentries have also been known to hunt together.

By contrast, the coastal mahksi spend much more of their time on land. They are primarily gatherers, but hunt to supplement their diet and sometimes for sport. Some speculate that the coastal mahksi are outcasts who failed to prove themselves beneath the waves. A stealthy, suspicious folk, they tend to stay out of sight and strike only when the odds are in their favor and they have the element of surprise. 

Mahksi favor the dory (spear) and xiphos (short sword), and have clung to traditional bronze weaponry despite the recent proliferation of cheaper, stronger iron goods: presumably the corrosive effects of the ocean are lessened with bronze metalwork.

Religion and Customs

Davian also learned the mahksi ways of worship. Not surprisingly they worship a deity very similar to Ptomir (likely the same deity under their own name). The mahksi water god is known as Maru, probably related to “Moru”, the Urek word for “sea”. Maru is their main god, viewed as creator, protector, and provider. However, the mahksi do not view Maru as having power on land and also pray to Pashan, who they call Pañon. They view Pañon as god of land, woods, woodland creatures and the hunt.

Coastal mahski can be seen celebrating Hakali, their celebration of Maru, throughout the month of Sear, when the Kilpo river slows between the spring rains and typhoon season. This is the best time to fish for silver eels, considered a delicacy by mahksi. After fishing, they gather together to share feasts of eels for dinner and “sing”, though their keening more resembles the howls of wolves than any proper tune.

The coastal mahksi also can be heard playing their drums in the jungle south of the city, during their spring ceremony of Maktoa. This celebration of Pañon precedes their first hunt of the season, which takes place during the first full moon after the rains subside, usually in Mudwash but sometimes in Cloudbreak.

Little is known about how the deep mahksi observe the gods, though Davian writes of undersea shrines in caves. Deep mahksi do surface during the night of the Festival of Fire, when the glowing necklace jellyfish fill Kilpo Bay. The mahksi, both deep and coastal, swim among the jellyfish; perhaps their nasty stings do not affect mahksi. Deep mahksi also join their coastal cousins for the Feast of Yoringo, a legendary mahksi hunter and warrior. This celebration takes place during the last full moon in the month of Sapping, and involves story telling and feasting.

Traits

Mahksi names are not strictly divided by gender, but they do have some names that seem to be more commonly used by one gender or another. The Ono tongue spoken by the mahksi has no sounds equivalent to the Urek B, D, F, G, J, Q, S, V, or Z sounds, though the ŋ (“ng”, as in “sing”) and X sounds do exist. A few of the coastal mahski have adopted names with these foreign sounds in them, but they remain unusual there and are unheard of amoung the deep mahksi.

Mahksi share a number of traits in common with each other.

Coastal Mahski

Deep Mahksi