Home of the Loam
The Loam are a race born from disaster — a genetically divergent path from Salisyan evolution, mutated by the vast Savinn radiation of the eruption of 2634 B.A. Savinn-filled lava flowed south, devastating the land, and the Salisyans unfortunate enough to survive the ordeal became the Loam. Most of their infrastructure is a magnificent, intricate cave system leading to cavernous cities — the web of the underworld.
Rocky reptilian skin, curved horns, claws, and extremely powerful, muscular forms. Females average 1.8 m and males 2.3 m, with much larger upper bodies. They have two sets of fangs on the upper row of teeth, eyes in a range of deep browns that appear solely black, honed night vision and great hearing — with the tradeoff of being hypersensitive to overstimulation in daylight.
Males are extremely aggressive in battle and hard to keep calm; they depend on the starkly more intelligent females, whose bonding pheromones keep them civil. Potions and brews now let traveling males range further from the hive cities. A male without a source of calm descends into rage-filled madness. Those who cannot be calmed are Beastborn — bigger and more powerful still — sent away to other continents, and sometimes captured by other races for cruel entertainment or as warbeasts.
The Loam are individuals who work towards the same goal, often compared to a hive colony, building in the depths near lava deposits and other sources of heat. A rare subsect, the Volcanic Loam, live for thousands of years and are rumored to be the rulers of the entire race.