The Ku-Hakkara (pronounced COO HAH-cah-rah) are an gnoll people who live in the deserts of the Taizzan Expanse. Long relegated to the margins of an inhospitable land, these gnolls scrape by as hunters, scavengers, and raiders, using their improvisational ingenuity to their advantage.
History
The history of the Ku-Hakkara is long and tumultuous. Constantly driven into fights both amongst each other and against those living around the Taizzan by competition for the scarce resources of the desert, the clans and tribes retain long histories of their victories and defeats in battle, all of which shape their modern identities. The Ku-Hakkara as a whole have undergone cyclical periods of peace and warfare, building up prosperous communities that eventually decline and fall apart once they get too large to support themselves. In the modern day the Ku-Hakkaran gnolls are in a time of internecine violence, having turned once again to the raiding of other tribes, caravans crossing the desert, and the settled communities of outsiders to survive.
Other gnoll peoples elsewhere in the world, most notably the Bleached Bones and the Moon-Gazers, split off from the Ku-Hakkara during times of particularly pronounced strife to find new lives in other lands.
Geographical location
Ku-Hakkara settlements have been established across the Taizzan Expanse, especially in the western and southern parts of the region. Nomadic groups regularly wander the breadth of the desert, their travels taking them to places as far apart as the Banai Mountains in the Tirionite hinterlands, the Shedet Hills near the ruined cities of Akhom, and the edges of the Shields around Dur Untash and Kudurru.
Of the various gnoll heritages of Kishar, the Ku-Hakkara are the most likely to leave their traditional communities and tribes to journey the world more broadly. Often finding work as mercenaries or adventurers, individual Ku-Hakkara tend to travel wherever opportunities lead them, attracting a reputation as unconcerned who pays them as long as they get paid.
Culture
Religion
Ku-Hakkaran religion centers around the worship of their ancestors. The remains of the dead are often consumed as a sign of reverence, in feasts that bring together whole clans and tribes. Doing so is said to allow the living to learn the memories and gain the traits of the deceased, allowing them to live on in perpetuity. Not only family are consumed in this manner, but also worthy foes and other outsiders who have proved their strength to the tribe. Certain remains from the departed, particularly their bones, are then kept by their descendants so that they might further guide and assist their kin even after death - skulls are placed over hearths or near fire pits, and other bones are carried with each individual, often spoken to directly and asked for advice.
The Ku-Hakkara broadly eschew religious leadership, as it is instead the responsibility of each family and clan to keep to the proper traditions and consult the dead on their own and in their own ways.
Some tribes also adopt animistic beliefs, typically venerating the spirits of water sources in the harsh desert, while a small number of others have adopted aspects of the Chaskan and Kirnashal pantheons into their religion.
Raiding
Ku-Hakkara raiding parties regularly attack the settled communities that surround the Taizzan Expanse, especially those south of Tirione and in northern Amshan, which are generally less equipped to repel their raids than others. Their favored targets, however, are the caravans that cross the desert along the Golden Path, loaded down both with valuable goods and with foodstuffs. Though they are quite happy to take what they desire and leave any survivors behind, if possible Ku-Hakkara raiders prefer to take prisoners, who are then ransomed at extortionate prices. With their own economies based in barter and little interest in spending money with outsiders, these ransoms are usually demanded in alcohol, refined metal ingots, or sulfur, which is used by the gnolls for the production of their characteristic flares and explosive traps.
Society
One of the most defining characteristics of Ku-Hakkaran society is the inventiveness of the gnolls. They prefer not to mine or otherwise extract resources on their own, though they are fully capable of doing so, and instead fashion what they take, or more uncommonly trade, into any items they require. This tends to give the possessions of the Ku-Hakkara an extremely chaotic and makeshift appearance, though this belies the level of skill that goes into their construction. To outsiders the best known of these are their elaborate mechanical, alchemical, and explosive traps placed along the Golden Path and surrounding their homes, but the gnolls themselves are typically the most proud of their water collectors, telescopes, and especially armor, which despite its rough appearance, often extremely bulky and with the items used to make it still easily distinguishable, is some of the only regularly-worn armor capable of protecting against the nascent firearms developed in the Arrajan Wilds. The Ku-Hakkara have also begun to experiment with firearms themselves, often modifying them to simultaneously function as melee weapons or altering them to shoot rockets like their flares.
Architecture and migration
The gnolls are roughly split in population between settled and nomadic tribes. This ratio changes over time, depending on the degree of resource scarcity in the desert, but tends to return to that level as an average. Settled Ku-Hakkara prefer homes that are well-secured and hidden, building them within shallow caves or under eroded rock overhangs and minimally disturbing the landscape around their communities so as to obscure their presence. These structures typically have stone and daub walls that reach up to the rock ceilings above, small windows and doors, and chimneys that diffuse any smoke. Nomadic Ku-Hakkara, meanwhile, broadly eschew as much as is possible any shelter that requires time to set up, even temporary dwellings like tents. They seek refuge under natural formations when necessary, but otherwise prefer to move from place to place as quickly as possible, rarely camping in the same place on consecutive nights.