JUNO - The Uchafumlaji
The Uchafumlaji
As always, where there are creatures of the daylight, there are creatures of the dark. In this case, the Uchafumlaji are evolved from large nocturnal predators, lacking the Kuh, who survived by tracking sleeping diurnal creatures and trapping them so they couldn’t run away. Contrary to what one might think of creatures that move in the dark, the Uchafumlaji are not particularly concerned with stealth. They prefer intelligent tracking and traps, and cunning inventions.
The Uchafumlaji are massive, one and a half to two times the height of Kuhifadi. They have powerful hands and feet they use to tunnel through dirt, and they are very intelligent, when engaged in conversation. Contrary to the Kuhifadi, their skin is thick, pale to albino, and covered in armored bumps and scales. Their head is thick and rounded, somewhat like a porpoise, good for tunneling through the ground. Standing in the magical sun for too long will cause them pain from the solar energy beating on their skin. This is, in fact, why diurnal animals evolved the Kuh in the first place, to manage the harsh sunlight.
Modern Uchafumlaji trim their long claws back out of politeness, but will wear fabricated digging claws for when they need to go back underground. If coming to a Kuhifadi city, considerate members will be careful not to tunnel anywhere there are stilt structures that may be impacted.
Though they are vicious and calculating beings, after the Darksider Revolt, Uchafumlaji no longer hunt Kuhifadi except for a few conservative sects of their species. They still do not often go outside in the daylight, but if they do, it is fully bundled up, and the only way to tell them apart from an advanced Kuhifadi mage is their size.
The Uchafumlaji are talented with mechanisms and excellent designers, especially for items to block the sun’s rays and effects. They even have moving cities that will rise from the ground after dark to trade, and others that chase Juno’s twilight. Just as the Kuhifadi strive to learn more about the sun’s magic, the Uchafumlaji learn all they can of the world, its resources, and the animals that live therein. Some Kuhifadi mages even go to them to learn new technical skills and advanced covering and Kuh-blocking secrets.
These massive beings are separated into four genders, two of which are solely for reproduction and are rarely seen above ground. The other two genders are both referred to as “they” or “he” and while one gender is more suited to digging, the other is generally smaller and more suited to running down prey. Evolutionarily, the two types would work as teams to take down animals. Modern pairs will work together for decades on research or study, and form life-long partnerships.
Lacking the excess energy from the sun, nocturnal creatures such as the Uchafumlaji are generally slower to reproduce than diurnal ones. They find various ways to do this, often using an exchange of built-up bodily fluids, but this happens deep in the lower levels of their cities by the reproductive genders, and is rarely spoken of.
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