The Winter's Oasis Wiki

Romps and Reconstruction in Loka: Steam, Magic, and Mysteries in the Frozen Wasteland.

The Akhu are a mysterious, undocumented tribe of rat-like pasu who dwell deep underground and shun the surface for reasons not entirely clear. As the only known member of their tribe to be spotted on the surface - a fundamentally confused creature by the name of Hematite - might generously be called an ‘unreliable narrator’, very little if any is known about the akhu, if indeed they even exist.

According to the (admittedly faulty and occasionally contradictory) knowledge of Hematite, the akhu are miners of great skill, who live their lives far beneath the surface - so far, in fact, that the commonly-held belief is that the surface doesn’t even exist, or at best, is something of an afterlife where good akhu go when they die. Their diet seems to consist mostly of mushrooms and other lichen, supplemented with meat from various underground beasts. The size of the tribe, and of the areas under its control, seems to fluctuate wildly from barely a few thousand in a sparse collection of tunnels to more than the population of four cities combined in one massive, hollowed out cavern lined with gemstones as tall as a man.

Given the nature of the situation, it is unlikely, barring the sudden discovery or arrival of more members of Hematite’s supposed tribe, the truth of the matter will ever be settled.

Categories: Tribes