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The Mar have fought the Drakes for resources for centuries, but even the wizards fear those rare times when the Drakes organize an invasion. To better understand why, read the book.

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Damnen

Damnens are the most feared of all the Drakes of Marrishland, both because of their extremely high intelligence and their immunity to all magic. Damnens are large, strong humanoids with long claws capable of flaying a human alive and a sense of smell that allows them to locate and track prey almost without fail. Damnens are carnivores who derive no sustenance from vegetation.

The only known damnens live in the Dead Swamps. In order to maintain a steady supply of fresh meat, damnens keep herds of animals, including Drakes and Mar they have domesticated to their needs over the course of several centuries. To prevent inbreeding, they demand tributes in the form of living Drakes and Mar of any Drake tribes who live within their territory. These Drake tributaries also serve as a defensive buffer against any outside attackers. Little else is known about damnen culture, as they do not maintain diplomatic contact with any Drake tribe beyond their territory in the Dead Swamps, and those tribes on damnen lands never speak of the damnens.

(Overview contributed by Nightfire Tradition)

Tactics

Damnens earned their fearful reputation by employing a feint against Despar Palus's defenses to draw its army after them. The rest of the damnens then swept in and swiftly crushed the city, killing or carrying off any survivors. According to the accounts of mapmakers and others who claim to have escaped the clutches of these Drakes, the damnens did not devour their prisoners. Instead, they held them prisoner and bred them like herd animals, domesticating them over the course of many generations. Likely, this is a myth, as entering damnen territory and returning requires a mapmaker to pass through ochre and goblin territories twice - a feat on par with surviving three or more expeditions into the Fens of Reur.

In fact, the damnens' best tactic is never needing to fight their enemies. They have forged alliances with the goblins and ochres of the Dead Swamps and seldom need take any action against the Mar. Pressed into combat, damnens fight as ruthlessly as a mapmaker, making use of any stratagem they can and taking full advantage of their strength and thick hides.

If ever you face a damnen in combat and live, let me know how you did it. Accounts of battles between Mar and damnens almost always detail how a lone damnen stalked a large expedition, picking off members one at a time and dragging them into the swamp where their screams could still be heard by their companions as the damnen devoured them. By the end of these tales, the author is usually one of only a handful of survivors left by the damnen for no discernable reason except perhaps spreading stories of what happens to Mar who venture into damnen territory.

A mundane warrior might be able to kill a damnen while it sleeps - if damnens actually sleep, of course. No one has ever caught a damnen sleeping. Otherwise, a damnen will shrug off the first attack and then kill the warrior swiftly, either by raking with its sharp claws or by grasping and tearing off the human's limbs. A few texts from before the fall of the Gien Empire tell of battles between lone damnens and a dozen or more mundane warriors that ended with more Mar dead than alive. Wizards usually fare much worse unless they are practiced at using magic to enhance their combat abilities instead of targeting the damnen. Surviving a fight with more than one damnen at a time is a feat worthy of boasting. Weard Mucker Damnenbane is the only wizard in history to fight and defeat five damnens without help, and even he died of his injuries a few days later in spite of being an eighth-degree wizard.

(Tactics contributed by Weard Girdag Langat)