Khizar

Plantlike humanoids, the solemn khizars live in harmony with the natural environment, and many strive to protect the wilderness areas they inhabit. While this often brings them into conflict with other species and cultures, khizars are eager to learn about others’ ways in an effort to understand them.

Khizars are humanoids with two arms, two legs, vestigial vines on their backs, and greenish-brown skin of tough cellulose fiber. They have hydrostatic skeletal structures and bleed a thick sap-like liquid if cut. Their limbs end in rootlike tendrils with some manipulative ability, but these are clumsier than a humanoid’s fingers. Khizars’ heads are actually complex seedpods; these tough, translucent membranes over woody latticeworks contain phosphorescent seed clusters that glow softly through the papery membrane, giving the species the nickname “lanternfolk.” The color of this glow shifts as khizars experience different emotions, and canny observers can tell khizars’ mood before they convey a word. Lacking mouths, khizars “taste” things by touching or handling them with their digits.

Originating in the wild expanses of the untamed continent Ukulam on Castrovel, khizars developed from carrionfeeding plants that used slow movement and crude empathic senses to find dying animals to feed on. They eventually grew to have full-fledged societies, though they hardly approach the population numbers of elves, formians, or lashuntas. With space travel becoming more common, some khizars have relocated to the Ice Wells of Aballon to protect those natural spaces from the native robots’ encroaching megaplexes.

Khizars have a strong sense of individuality, but they maintain no gender or cultural divisions based on appearance, caste, wealth, or other indicators. The only things ancient khizars competed over were food sources and having new and novel experiences, and they tended to solve competitions over the former by embracing the latter. Khizars tend to be very protective of the natural spaces where they live, sometimes resulting in violent clashes, and many have recently joined or allied with the Xenowardens in defense of certain worlds. Khizars are oblivious to many physical differences in other species, so they judge people by their actions rather than their appearances.