The first real bit of world-building I did for the story was creating the Korrathi.
Sure, I had already created the town of Wolfbrook, and I had done a good bit of magic creation. But I didn’t count the magic stuff, because I have created the magic stuff over years and years of imagination. So the Korrathi were really the first real thing I did for the book.
It started with the eyes. I knew that I wanted a race of people with glowing eyes. I just had this image in my head of glowing eyes and nothing else. A dark hood, the entire face hidden in shadow but bright glowing eyes.
From there the rest began to take place. How was the rest of the face so easily hidden? Dark skin tone. Then, I needed a reason for both things. They evolved that way after centuries of living underground in complete darkness.
Now, from there I finished out their appearance. typically tall, six to seven feet tall on average. Broad-shouldered, and heavily muscled. They’ve adapted from climbing, hauling and fighting in cavern environments. Due to the mineral rich diets of living underground their hair, when they have it at all, would be coarse, dark colors, and streaked with metallic tints. Most of them keep themselves shaved.
Now that I had their appearance figured out, I delved into biology: They have high endurance and lung capacity, due to thin cavern air. Their eyesight is excellent in the dark, and they even have the ability to sense thermal temperatures. But these are limited on the surface during the daytime, as light of the sun does bother them. (They are not often seen on the surface)
Culture was next. Their society was built around vast subterranean halls, known as Deeps. They often stayed in extended families. Integrity is big for them, their word is binding. Breaking one’s word is a high dishonor, marking one as “sightless.” Such exiles often ritualistically ‘extinguish’ the glow in their eyes with a mineral paste in an attempt to regain their honor.
They are renowned for their craftsmanship with stone, gems and heavy weapon forging.
They favor oral history, rather than written. They have sacred echo chambers where the acoustics make a single voice sound like a chorus, they believe that the echoes are their ancestors helping to tell the stories of their history.
They believe in the Stonefather and Earthmother gods, a pair of slumbering gods at the heart of the world. To die, is to return to the stone, rejoining the divine dream.
The glow in their eyes is believed to carry the light of their ancestor’s souls.
