The main language of the Nazrani is the Narra tongue.

Due to their isolation on the islands, very few Nazrani know the common trade tongue and those that do can often only speak a broken version of it. In the Aina o Ka La there are a handful of dialects, depending on which island you hail from, but they are spoken over the same base language so they have little trouble understanding one another.

As a Nazrani, if you know the common tongue, you use it as little as possible and you never speak it to another Nazrani as it is seen as a terrible offense. They believe that speaking anything other than the voice of their Gods fills their spirit with poison and causes their voices to fade. Some have even been known to cut out their own tongues to appease the Gods after losing their voice (though typically loss of voice is attributed to catching an illness from traveling).

Shades of dark skin make up the population of the Nazrani community, varying from bronze to deep earthy tones. They are a warrior people; their build is tall and lean and you will never encounter an overweight Nazrani on their home islands. They use tribal scarification and tattoos to denote their birth isle, their purpose within the clan, and the many stories of their lives. Symbols are often used for empowerment and honor, and also as a means to denote those who have defiled the Gods.

Their hair is dark in color, and their eyes typically shades of brown and green. What marks them furthest apart from other humans is the retention of strong canine teeth. Unlike other human races, the Nazrani have retained a mostly carnivorous diet, and their fangs are thus much more pronounced. (On the mainland, this has led to false accusations of Vampirism.)

Their apparel is sparse and often crafted from light, woven plant-based textiles. Leather is a rarer material, spared only for those of high station. It is very unusual to find a Nazrani wearing armor crafted from metal – they create theirs from whale bone and hide. They adorn themselves with ornaments of sea glass, clay, shell, bone, wood, ivory, and volcanic stone. Gold, silver, and gemstones are a rarity among their people on the islands and often treated with wonder and awe.

The part of Aina o Ka La inhabited by the Nazrani is a tropical paradise born from the fiery pits of volcanoes. Many of them still spit flame and stone to this day, burying the occasional tribe – or a whole island – with the fury of the Gods. On the larger isles, rainforest dominates the interior, whereas the coasts are all fine black sand and palms hunchbacked under the wealth of their bounty.

Storms seize their lands often, brought merciless and black from the expanse of Asherah ocean in the south-east. When it rains, it pours – and the Nazrani have adapted. Their tribes are small, and when they are not on the move tracking game, they settle down deep in the jungles, where even the strongest wind is reduced to a meek breeze by the ancient trees. Often their homes are built suspended between these old trunks, supported by branches as thick around as four men.

The Nazrani differ from the more common Human races in a few ways, most of them largely born of their long-isolated life in the Aina O Ka La archipelago.

By and large they are a race of expert hunters, evolved to move more quietly than their cousins on the mainland. They have an uncanny aptitude for blending into their environment and stalking their prey until they can strike them down unawares. The Nazrani that can be found beyond their home islands are thus often recruited by various assassin guilds for their innate skills in the arts of stalking and shadows.

Of course, the Nazrani that can be found beyond their home islands are exceedingly rare. This is largely thanks to their isolated and insular nature, and despite the prosperous (if illegal) trade brought in by Cerak At’Thul, the race have yet to be converted to the modernized ways of the continent.

Thanks to millennia of an exclusively hunting lifestyle, the Nazrani have also evolved to become almost entirely carnivorous. They supplement their diet with plants largely for the purpose of digestion rather than necessity.

While their tribal ways make up a large part of what it means to be Nazrani, it is also the root of some of their less admirable qualities. From observing strange astrological rituals to various beliefs held in relation to everything, from water to fire to plants, the Nazrani are terribly superstitious. Even those few that venture into the world beyond tend to retain their faith, which is oftentimes too savage and bloody for the more civilized societies of the mainland. (Though reportedly some Nazrani get on fabulously with certain older Orcish tribes.)

The Nazrani are a Human offshoot that has been inhabiting the Aina O Ka La in some form or another since anyone can remember. When the first merchants went exploring the southwest of the Asherah ocean and found the archipelago, the Nazrani were already there, living much the same way as they do now.

Even in the centuries since, the race haven’t changed much. Though more and more of them can be found on the mainland thanks to trade, slavery, and the occasional rebellious soul, the Nazrani are still a rare sight.

“A successful king only fears three things in his life – illness, old age, and Nazrani assassins.”