Concept sketches of various hominids for my fantasy world of Karsht:

Specifically on display are the

Nishkul, Drunzash,

Jintash, and

Fanjir

from top to bottom

Nishkul (Gnome): Younger race descended from the mingling of Fanjir and Trulgul. Nishkul are of long body and short limb, with large heads and noses and small eyes and ears. Males grow tusks and both sexes have spiny hairs growing along their limbs and brows owing to their Trulgul ancestry. Individually, Nishkul live almost if Trulgul but, owing to their unique psychology, they can be considered the longest living people. Like Fanjir, Nishkul exhibit distributed minds, thinking as a group rather than individuals. But rather than thinking as an amorphous horde, Nishkul intelligence is concentrated in familial units of a dozen or so individuals. These units form shared personalities of their own and are of deep spiritual significance to their members. As such, Nishkul tend to be perceived as mystical, locked in trance-like communication within their cliques. Combining the inquisitive nature of their Fanjir heritage with the memorization talents of the Trulgul, Nishkul cliques are ideally adapted to excel in the observational and experimental sciences and computational mathematics with their activities bordering on religious fervor. Nishkul collectives persist beyond the individual lives of their members so long as they can be replenished with new members but these must come from other collectives. Were the collective to reproduce internally through in-breeding it would result in increasing eccentricity and psychosis amongst its members. As such, each collective rejuvenates itself by exchanging the children of one community with another to ensure their collective health. It is not unheard of for unhealthy or diminishing collectives to replenish their numbers by forcefully adopting others into their group mind. The societal quirk of having a collective intelligence is that Nishkul rights prioritize the collective over individual members. Unlike Fanjir however, Nishkul comprehend that other peoples are more individualized and do not share their unique collective mentality. This makes it easier for Nishkul to interact evenly with other races, which is to their advantage given the scientific and mathematical services their race is famous for.





Jintash (Giant): Younger race descended from the mingling of Trulgul and Drunzash. Jintash are more peaceful than their Drunzash relatives but share with them a tall muscular stature and hairy upper body. Like the Trulgul they have wider, flat faces and large blunt hands. Unlike the Drunzash which are consummate hunters, the Jintash are intelligent enough to practice the art of herding animals and growing crops in their territories and excel at it. Jintash don’t use many tools but do have an appreciation for art, though it tends to prefer using natural elements as opposed to artificial ones. Typically, slow acting and peaceful, the only thing to summon their rage is the disturbance of their herds, gardens or art work. Once enraged and Jintash is determined to see justice fulfilled, using their keen sense of smell to track the offending party across the land in long, earth-shaking strides. Jintash live only with their mates and once their child is large enough to fend for itself, it is cast out to find its own home in the world. Their large stature and powerful musculature make them useful assets in manual labor, manufacturing and warfare but of little use to diplomacy or philosophy. And their talents with the natural world make them successful farmers, gardeners and animal caretakers.





Drunzash (Ogre): Elder race. Massively muscled savages with tall bestial heads and clawed digits. Drunzash have furry manes running down the back and sides of their head with fur covering their arms and legs. Their large ears and noses aid them in the tracking of prey and detecting the presence of mates or rivals. Drunzash only interact with one another to mate or fight, or when forced to do so by other peoples. This last thing is particularly hard to accomplish since Drunzash appear to disregard any sense of authority or civilization. If anything, they are outright hostile towards art and technology, only tolerating what many would consider to be the “natural” world. Despite this hostility, it has led some to romanticize their aggression as the preservation of this world against the destructive forces of industrialization and pollution. Like their Ulnfir descendants, Drunzash are not above eating other peoples and in fact will even eat their own kind though it is a rare occurrence with such cannibalism usually being in response to the killing of a rival in combat or scavenging when starving. Because of their large size and fast metabolism, Drunzash require large territories to keep themselves fed and live short violent lives. Their simple intellects and aggressive nature make them unqualified to serve any purpose in civilization except a martial one, and in that capacity, they are more weapon than warrior.Fanjir (Fae): Elder race. Have large round heads with long pointed ears and noses, and large dark eyes with mouths of small, sharp teeth. They lack brows and rather than hair have long manes. Their torsos are long and narrow, their body is covered in short hair with thin arms and long clawed fingers. They are simple minded and are as easily distracted as they are entertained. Extremely sociable with an apparent disregard for personal space or privacy and are in a constant form of communication with those of their kind around them, believing some to suspect their they possess a distributed intellect; individually they are quite stupid but collectively their intelligence scales with the density of their population, albeit becoming slower as communication becomes more limited across members. Fanjir isolated from others become psychotic or depressed, compelled to seek out companions and resolve the psychic trauma of their isolation. Their inquisitive and playful demeanor and their constant chittering makes them an irritant to those around them, only tolerated because there are useful as an expendable and easy-to-satisfy workforce for simplistic tasks. Fanjir curiosity frequently places them in danger but fatalities are hardly mourned as the loss of individual Fanjir is of no significance to the whole, especially if their death can provide useful information to the whole.