The swamp dragon was long ago shepherded out of its cold fen by Dirt-hooves at the commission of the Peach-teeth. Such creatures began their life as tadpoles that the Ur-Father drops into bogs rich in minerals and nutrients. The tadpole gorges itself such that it grows a horned body of prodigious size and earth-shaking strength. Its hunger grows with it, leaving it perpetually foul-tempered and needing to be placated with prisoners for it to feast on their meat and their frightened souls. The tied-up prisoners screamed and struggled in their bindings as one by one they were snatched up by a great tongue and pulled into the venomous maw. Some of them were bashed into the tusks to pulverize them on their way to the teeth. Others were burned by burps of caustic breath or corroded by wretchings of stomach acids. Its malevolent intellect savored variety in ways to torment its food. Appetite satisfied, the swamp dragon allowed the ungors to domesticate it so long as it continued to be fed.
Today, it was fitted with a harness and attached with a howdah. It lowered itself onto its belly next to a hill so that Yun could lead his wife and daughter to their seats. Family aboard, the swamp dragon rose to its feet and began its plodding departure, to the delighted applause of the herd. Yun stood to wave farewell, but the shaking made Mogala hold on to the railing, then on to her mouth.
“The Ur-father’s blessings are, as much as Pusbloom may try, innumerable,” began Yun, “yet, somehow, I don’t think motion sickness is one of them.”
“Ugh, shut up, I need to—” cup her mouth again. Yun took Kazha off her hands so that she could vomit over the railing onto the dragon’s back, the expulsion adding to slime slick scales.
“Would you rather the pox toads and rot flies?”
“Ugh, no, I—”
While mom was occupied, dad introduced Kazha to her world. Those great mountains that scrape the sky wrap all around to shield them from danger. Just as his arms are holding her now, the Ur-Father erected the mountains long ago for the day when his promised people required sanctuary. Beyond those mountains were servants of the death god, enemies of life. The death god spread his fires across the stars in a quest for slaughter and destruction. Their ravenous hunger depleted worlds into barren husks, destroying themselves as much as they destroyed others in a relentless pursuit of omnicidal apotheosis. They only produced corpses, their erections graveyards atop cemeteries, mausoleums that housed dead masquerading as living.
It was only the Ur-Father who stayed their hand on this world, but He wages a war beyond the breadth of the sky that requires His attention across incalculable stars. His will touches this world, and soon they will meet His children who tend to His garden’s encroachment, but it was the purpose of mortals to defend this sanctuary, to douse the flames, and to spread His garden. Whether it takes a hundred years, a thousand, a million, they would survive, they would endure, they would thrive, and, one day, a dawn would come when death has been cast down, and all would join the Ur-father in his eternal estate.
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Among the hills and mountains around them now were the Gor herds, tribes interconnected by paths beaten into form over time by their hooves that tread the forests. The encampment they left was the Peach-teeth, who guarded and vanguarded the western passages, and for that, were seeded with blooming peach trees that kept them well fed with plump fruits. The mountains of this region are the most craggy, with thick forestry filled with beasts, making the Gors the only people who can comfortably navigate the terrain. They experience constant battle with some of the most elite forces of the Aquilans, and so their ironhorns and wargors were famed and envied for their valor, sought out for their teachings, and the chance to serve under them on the frontlines.
Behind the Peach-teeth bulwark were other herds.
The One-Eyed had long ago sacrificed an orb of their lineage for innate wisdom and composure. Where many gors lose themselves to bitterness, frenzy, and lust, the One-Eyes see clearly to the needs of managing the tribes, acting as counsel, liaisons, and even invited as chieftains capable of leading with clarity unburdened by petty desires or jealous rivalries. Some say they can read the arcane skeins and peer into one's soul.
Then there were the Iron-teeth—
“Bunch of no-good, swindling apostates is what they are. No daughter of mine will be besmirched by the aseptic paws of those black-toothed dogs—”
Mother had given up on her rest and put herself back into vomiting just to get that tirade out. The Iron-teeth are the most industrious-minded of the herds. Rather than relying on the intermittent bestowing of gifts or false bravado, they prefer the certainty of metals that they can craft with their own hands. In place of rituals and offerings, they forge many of the weapons and tools preferred by the herds, facilitate the trade of munitions and other products manufactured in other regions of Sinui, and brew alchemical concoctions from ingredients considered sacred property of the Ur-Father to mother’s herd; indeed, their sacrilegious methods have seen those herds come to blows in more tumultuous times, tox-horn stimulants and pox bombs turned against bray-shaman neoplasms and plague spells, peace only brokered by One-eyed mediation.
Next were the Dirt-hooves, a nomadic people who see kindred with the forest beasts of this world in their shared history of persecution by the Imperium. They roam the land in harmony with their beasts and are sought out to help with taming and domestication, as the Peach-teeth had done with this dragon.
Finally, at the other edge of the region, the Pale-furs were closest to the garden, closest to the Ur-Father, and are the shaman herd that Mogala hails from.
“Yes, my little one,” she took back Kazha once she was done outsiding her insides, “we receive visions and messengers from the Ur-father and his maggotkin. To be a Bray-shaman is to guide lost souls, to lead ritual and ceremony, and to spread the song of life far and wide. Those who do not commune with the daemonic are still touched by His will: the fluxbray, whose prayers are answered with growth beyond the limits of their births, and the pestigors, who are infested with the littlest children of the Ur-Father so that they may spread the children to the world in their travels just as we do with you.
This will be your home with me when we return here. No matter what fate becomes, you will always have a place here, and I will always love you.”
