Nyarri
First contact with the nyarri only happened about 20 years before the current events of Tale of Inpherna (The 262nd year of the Age of Stars). Not much is known about their origins or how many nyarri colonies exist. The nyarri people you meet on Searadith are travelers from far away.
Most of what we know about the nyarri is from this painting of a traditional nyarri warrior running through a sandy desert. The painting was brought back from a far off world by a searadithian traveler.
The nyarri are more difficult to understand than most. It is not helped by their use of distinctive growls or purrs at the end of words to change their meaning. But the nyarri are also naturally guarded about the meaning of some of their words. And so a link of understanding from one novaborn to another cannot be made to quickly learn their language.
The nyarri are secretive creatures. They will gladly trade goods, music, art, and services with other species. However, knowledge about themselves, their people, and their technology are kept hidden.
Desert Nyarri
Nyarri races come from multiple lands, including desert, jungle, forest, and snowy mountain biomes.
Nyarri Sun Priestess
This is one of the first drawings of the nyarri, designed by Brittany Harper back in 2015.
Nayrri are a cat-like bipedal race from a far off world. Here we see a nyarri priestess playing the gourd-harp. The nyarri’s love of music is a poorly kept secret. They love to lounge about in the sun listening to the strum of the gourd harp’s gentle cords.
The level of water within the gourd harp can be changed to match the pitch of the desired song. The nyarri also seem to love the symbol of the sun seen topping the gourd harp, as many use it as ornaments to adorn their clothing.
Nyarri Armor
The Nyarri primarily wear armor that protects against the heat of the sun. The dominant nation being in a desert area. They have a level of technology similar to humans from Searadith but more Egyptian in culture and design.
Desert walkers, the oldest of the nyarri cultures, are proud people who walk upright. Most nyarri naturally have an arc in their upper back, but the desert nyarri wrap young backs to train them to stay upright. Much of their day is spent drinking water from gourd-like vessels to keep cool, playing music, and lounging through the day (they take a lot of cat-naps). They hunt at dawn and dusk when it is cooler and the desert creatures come out of hiding. They are the main ruling nation of the Nyarri Empire. The Emperor lives here and rules his vast kingdom from his Egyptian-like sandstone palace.
Other Nyarri Cultures
Above are a small number of the hundreds of possible fur variations of the nyarri. No two nyarri have identical spots, splotches, or stripes. Nyarri men and women can be hard to tell apart as they both can have the same fur coloring. However, Nyarri women have slender jawlines and nyarri men have larger, more square jaws.
There four main cultural groups of Nyarri, which are interbreed-able. There are the snow-striders, the savannah-runners, the jungle-climbers, and the desert-walkers.
Desert-walkers were talked about in the Nyarri Armor lore post.
Jungle climbers live in the trees of the tropical jungles. They have brown fur patterns that work well with camouflage in the jungle. They are a member state of the Nyarri Empire. They build homes, high up in the large trees, out of sandstone which they buy from the Desert Walkers in exchange for the delicious fruits and animals that thrive in their jungles.
Forest Nyarri – A lesser group, off-shooting from the jungle group that lives in the forests. They are a part of the Nyarri Empire, but very much a minority group. They are typically considered to be a part of the jungle group.
Savannah runners are lean and nimble for traversing vast open lands and have short patterned fur. They are Nomadic and not a part of the Nyarri Empire. They have developed lean bodies well adapted for running and can run up to 80 mph. They are, however, unable to leap as high as other nyarri groups who can leap as high as 15 feet into the air.
Snowstriders live in snow covered forests high up north and have long and thick layered white leopard spotted fur to protect from the cold. They have the smallest population of all Nyarri and are the most culturally independent. They are partially nomadic and build habitats of ice. They are not part of the Nyarri Empire.