The somaki- (soh-MAKE-ee), whose name is simply Primal for "sapphires"- are perhaps the most reckless and distrusted race of Elwens. Fractured by internal woes and internal wars, they have never maintained any semblance of cohesion. They are not easy prey for outsiders, though, given the power of their magic and their fierce willingness to disagree with anyone, not just their kin.
Come among them, if you will- the sapphire Elwens, the Rogues of the World.
PHYSICAL LOOKS
Somaki are stockier than many other Elwens, and heavier through the arms and shoulders. They may weigh as much as 220 pounds, and sometimes do not stand much taller than 5'7". However, a good part of this weight is due to their skin, which is not precisely skin, but planes of dark blue sapphire. This jewel is mostly opaque, not quite clear enough to give a glimpse of bones and organs, but clear enough that glimpses of fire flash from within it. Somaki are sometimes in danger of being hunted down by people armed with chisels- but not many of them actually die in such confrontations, given their magic (see below).
Their skin is as much protection as heavy armor. Swords and knives turn on a somak's skin, and arrows and crossbow bolts shatter unless they manage to stick in one of the "joints" between the planes. Chisels and heavy axes are the only weapons to which sapphire Elwens have a marked vulnerability.
Their eyes are often sapphire, a clear jeweled blue, or green, or some other bright color. Their hair lies close to their head, and varies enormously: sometimes true hair, usually in springy curls of dark blue or dark green; sometimes faceted strings of finely beaten sapphire. When they bleed, if they do, their blood is clear blue, and shines as it runs over their skin.
Somaki die most often by violence, surprisingly enough given their innate protections. If they do not die so, they live about twelve thousand years.
EMOTIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY
Somaki show every sign of being incorrigible rogues. Some legends purport to explain this (see below). They often have no sense of other people's privacy, while working furiously to preserve their own, and will strive to find out secrets, by stealing them if necessary. Many somaki are thieves and assassins, a much higher proportion than is common in other races, and rare are those who show much liking for order or stability.
Somak societies are not so much societies as extended arguments. It is generally agreed that someone has to live on and mine the land, and other people should guard them from danger, and someone has to settle disputes between families rather than individuals (those are settled by duels, unless one of them manages to assassinate the other first). But no sapphire Elwen particularly wants to do it. Thus, miners and guards and leaders are chosen by lot, and sometimes they pick brilliant ones and sometimes they pick failures. It doesn't matter greatly save to those sapphire Elwens who have to live under these burdens for a period of ten years each.
Those somaki living free are not accustomed to reverence of any kind, and it is extremely surprising that they worship any gods at all. However, some are devotees of Epakohta, and others of Nystze. It is suspected that the wild dancing of the first and the essential chaos of the second well fit the sapphire Elwen character. However, it should be noted that the number of somak priests, as opposed to Rogues of the World who might make a casual gesture in a god's direction every so often, is extremely small.
Somaki tend to approach life cheerfully, and crave excitement, which is another reason they deliberately choose dangerous professions. Life is a thing to be held lightly, and they give the same light regard to death. Few ever work to "improve" the world as it is commonly understood, even when they have children. They work instead to improve things for themselves, and arrange intense experiences. Intensity of everything- emotion, color, danger- is what they most live for, and somaki have been known to commit suicide out of boredom.
Somaki among other races are a wild and distrusted influence, unsurprisingly. However, their assassins are good enough to be hired fairly often.
MAGICAL GIFTS
Somaki thrive in part because their powerful magic guards them. Their abilities are not very numerous or varied; on the other hand, there is no reason they need to be.
Common to all somaki are:
Sapphire touch. A Rogue has only to touch someone of alien race to turn him into a statue of sapphire. Needles to say, their enemies are quite careful to avoid a casual touch, though somaki can control this power and don't use it all the time. They may sometimes grab someone on purpose, not transforming him to sapphire but giving him a good fright.
Azure web. This creates a sticky, immense web of blue strands, capable of binding an enemy to a wall or floor. Somaki may use this to increase their chances of escape, or to hold someone placid while they toy with him. Very few weapons save the sharpest can cut the web.
Cerulean light. All sapphire Elwens can call a faint blue light at need. If they are in extreme danger and can do nothing else, they can also cause blinding explosions in the middle of this light that seem to mimic the effects of lightning.
Present in some somaki is:
Troublestones. This is the ability to enchant sapphires so that they mimic the effect of the legendary Troublestone, a huge night sapphire that spreads chaos everywhere it goes. This effect is not as severe as that of the Troublestone itself, but can be devastating to a merchant who unsuspectingly buys one.
A very few somaki have:
Safire. This takes the form of a stream of blue fire that strikes someone dead as soon as it touches them. The victim's skin then flakes off to reveal a new, smooth blue skin, and they rise as zombies under the control of their creators. Somaki gifted with safire are now rare, since their enemies make a point of hunting them down.
ORIGINS AND MODERN SETTLEMENTS
Somaki were born in the south of the province then known as Lishimon, before the derkusi turned it into the Barren Desert. They have wandered widely since then, especially venturing south into the Tableland, north into Caladariz, and west into the Frigid Waste, but they saw no need to leave the fertile sapphire caves of their birth, and stayed right where they were when the province was no longer so fertile. The stars supposedly created them stubborn, but not as they are today.
That took the curse of the goddess Asroa to accomplish. Asroa was once the goddess of love, and she became angry when the sapphire Elwen assassin, Sappho Emeraldblade, spurned one of her priests. Asroa set out to torment Sappho. The assassin at last grew tired of it, tracked her down, and killed the goddess in a battle of wills. Asroa cursed the sapphire Elwens as they died to be as lawless and wild as the woman who had slain her. This doesn't seem to bother the sapphire Elwens greatly, however.
Sapphire Elwens wander widely as individuals, and live in ephemeral mining towns for the most part. The only two great cities are:
Emelo. This city in the southern Barren Desert conducts trade with the glass dragons frequently. The somaki here are a bit more settled and inclined to devote their furious energies to trade- though that doesn't keep them from enchanting sapphires into troublestones and sending them forth in the world every now and again.
Kenton. Without a doubt the largest sapphire Elwen settlement, this city of over half a million somaki is in the Steamlands between the Barren Desert and the Frigid Waste. Somaki mine, play, assassinate, scheme, thieve, and trade here. Exactly what keeps the city from exploding at the seams is any visitor's guess.
LANGUAGES
Most somaki originally spoke Sephira, their ancestral tongue, but their languages have followed their arguments and dissipated. There are too many local dialects, all proudly claiming the status of language, to list, but a few of them are:
Alora. The heavily inflected language of Kenton- though less baroque than its parent Sephira. Alora has nine cases for all nouns, and many of its verbs are irregular. Some outsiders suspect its speakers of frequently changing the words on purpose.
Sephira. The language spoken in Emelo and eastward is still called this, changed though it is from its parent. It has shed some of its inflections, but keeps eleven cases for nouns and an exquisite range of formal and informal variations in forms of address.
Alao. The language that supposedly birthed Alora, though in truth that tongue has become pure Alora and this is another language that happens, coincidentally, to have the same name. This is the language spoken by the southern sapphire Elwens of the northern Tableland, less heavily inflected than its ancestors but just as puzzling with its reliance on stress.
