Deathlords of Xa’tac

It’s hard to write anything definitive about the Xa’tac civilization. Most people out there among the stars know them only as “Deathlords of Xa’tac”, but in this way they omit the long history of the Xa’tac people, most of which wasn’t that different from histories of other worlds – as in, not filled with gruesome ritual sacrifices and enslavement of millions into undeath. They have come to be known in this way due to their short and brutal rule of many worlds and the campaign of conquest that enslaved and completely exterminated multiple worlds. They became a threat so powerful the Burning Legion itself stepped up to destroy them. And once they were wiped out to the last man, the demons were content to simply fly away and never look back. The Deathlords of Xa’tac became a boogeyman that mothers scared unruly children with. But we can’t forget where they came from and how they became what they were.

Back in my element

For the longest time, I’ve been stuck on this groundling world with no way out, nor any way to meet more of my kind. All I had were these unfamiliar, strange people and too often I had to even pretend I’m something different. And now I’m in luck, because Krasha managed to open a portal to another world, one more familiar to me. I mean, it was just gnomes at first, and I don’t really like them (who does?) but it was the Gnadra Confederacy. Finally, I was back in a familiar territory. I would run back to my homeworld using this opportunity but I actually managed to get a well-paying job here, with the opportunity to use the knowledge that would have been useless on Wawhira, but to my present employer it’s gold. I’m back out of “miraculous trader” and into “interstellar guide”!

I’m a squawking wonder-worker!

Let me tell you, I am never appreciated! Both under Maginor Dumas and Verroak Krasha I have done nothing short of a miracle. I’m a squawking wonder-worker, that’s what I am! I got the crazy old… vulture-parrot-owl thing terocones. Terocones! In Stormwind! Nobody sells the seeds these days! Do you have any ideas how much haggling it took to get someone to concede some cones? Do you know what I had to trade in? Gold. Okay, that wasn’t particularly odd, but terocones! And before Krasha placed the order, I didn’t even know what a terocone is. No spelljammer has ever reached this planet, we know literally nothing about this place, so we never heard of terocones.

Recently, after Krasha broke that harpy out of her cage and he had to evacuate to his own tower, I decided to follow him. Yes, he’s crazy and never appreciates me either, but at least he pays well. Because the cook he got at first was some dumb vegetarian ogre, they couldn’t eat any meat in the tower. So who do they go to? To ME, of course. And I bought a whole crate full of fresh Tel Abim Bananas. I had to WRESTLE a goblin for them. You think they’re short and weak? Well, not only they’re barely shorter than me, not only I have hollow, avian bones, the goblin was also packing heat (by which I mean some crazy fire-suit contraption worthy of a tinker gnome). He didn’t want to sell for my gold, so I wrestled him down, took apart the suit and THEN he sold the fruits. I also borrowed some apples.

That’s just two examples! I keep getting him some really rare things that I often have to go out of my way to purchase. Sometimes I even strike something lucky by complete accident – I thought I bought a crate of Ragveil and it turned out to be some “Chamaeleon Lotus” that is very, very rare and even considered extinct on this world. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love doing all those crazy and rare business deals. That’s what I was made for. But I could use some respect and appreciation for my efforts. Maybe one day, I’ll earn enough gold to build my own spelljammer and escape this world back to Kwanhi, the dohwar homeworld. But until that day, I’ll keep on working.

Addendum: I took to using the word “squawk” as a substitution for expletives, as Verroak Krasha tends to do. I must admit, there is something to the sound of it that I seem to like.

Addendum 2: Apparently there are tinker gnomes in this world, as well as mechagnomes, so maybe a spelljammer did reach this world a long time but perhaps it crashed and no one reported back – but it seeded some things.