Gharn

A gharn (pronounced /gɑrn/) is one of a large group of extraplanar life forms often summoned to Curcalen to serve as shock troops and living weapons. Most gharn are very large, the median mass of known gharn species being about six metric tons, though some species are much smaller. While they have some common characteristics, gharns encompass a wide variety of different forms and lifestyles. There are over eight hundred known species of gharn, though only perhaps three hundred are commonly summoned to Curcalen.

Gharns are native to the plane of Kalar. While they were previously believed to be apex predators there, recent evidence has surfaced to suggest that there may be other predators that prey on even the carnivorous gharn, and that make up for their smaller size and strength in numbers and tactics. Some Curcalish summoners have made attempts to try to summon these other predators, but so far with little success, although many doubt whether the effort is worthwhile anyway; even if these other predators do exist and can defeat gharns in large numbers, the gharns are still clearly more formidable individually.

Description

While gharns come in a wide variety of different forms, they are clearly taxonomically related, and there are certain features they have in common. Most obviously, all known gharns have six limbs and four eyes, save for a few types that clearly descended from six-limbed, four-eyed ancestors but lost some or all of their limbs or eyes somewhere in the course of their evolution. Gharns also share a common body covering, called lumae, which consist of a number of thin, hollow protuberances which vary from hairlike in some species to thick fingerlike or tentacular protuberances in others and which in many species grow into long, dangerous spines. Like many organisms, gharns typically exhibit bilateral symmetry and a high level of cephalization, though most do have the unusual feature of a so-called second head at the anterior end, which, while not a true head with its own brain and full complement of sensory organs, does usually have a functioning jaw and makes an effective weapon.

Like other beings of its plane, the gharn is not made of the standard sort of élan corporel, but of a rare sort of élan autre called élan brutal. This makes them tougher and more resilient than most spirilegian organisms, but makes them vulnerable to certain magics.

Anatomy

Superficially, a gharn's anatomy seems to be similar to that of a typical tetrapod: it has a skeletal framework, surrounded by muscle, or an analogue thereof, and with complex nervous and digestive systems. It is perhaps in the circulatory system that the differences between the gharn and other organisms are perhaps most apparent; while gharns do have circulatory systems, they come in the form not of tubular blood vessels but of looses spheres of assire that float freely through the gharns' bodies, emeating through their other tissues. This is most noticeable when the gharn is wounded; rather than red blood gushing forth from severed arteries, myriad tiny spheres of assire float through the air. (The color of the assire varies by species, and in many species the assire is actually multicolored.)

While the gharn's circulatory system may be the most obviously distinctive, however, the details of the other systems, too, differ in important ways. The gharn's skeleton is made not of bone, but of a much tougher substance called psaran; its muscles work similarly to a tetrapod's, but are differently constituted, and slightly more compressible. The gharn's nervous system operates not by the electrical and chemical signals of a typical animal, but by very rapid physical contractions.

One interesting characteristic shared by many gharns is their mobile teeth. The dentition of many gharns is not fixed in the jaw, but able to move rapidly back and forth or, in some species, in a cyclical path; in many cases, different rows of teeth can move past each other in opposite directions. This gives the teeth a much increased cutting ability, making the gharn's jaw act much like a chainsaw. This unusual adaptation is found both in herbivorous gharns, in which case it helps them saw efficiently through tough stems and branches, and in carnivores, in which it is used to slice through flesh and bone.

Varieties

All gharn are classified in the same class, Polemia (/pɵˈliːmiə/), after which they are sometimes referred to by the adjective "polemian" (/pɵˈliːmiən/). (This word is also sometimes, albeit rarely, used as a noun (often capitalized), as something of a more upscale-sounding synonym of "gharn"). The class, however, comprises nineteen different known orders with varying characteristics. Probably the two best known to Curcalish laymen are the armored, lacertine hulks of the order Tarascia and the bipedal, huge-mouthed carnivores of the order Abaddonia. Also frequently summoned are the squat, sharp-billed gharns of the order Cacociconiae, the enormous aquatic beasts of the order Exopristes, the thick-spined things of the order Dinericinia, the burrowing entities of the order Surrutores, the long-necked but slow-moving gharns of the order Centricolla, and the sharp-clawed, leaping forms of the order Desupernia. Stranger orders include the urodemic or caphatic order Ponepistatae, the tentacled Cracenia and Avilimacia, the serpentine Laqaquasia, and the spidery oddities of the order Ogumia with their myriad false limbs.

Other orders are more rarely summoned to Curcalen. The piscine or phocine Plauticipia are relatively small as gharns go, and the skittering Discursores even smaller. Gharns of the order Batalariae, which float on the surfaces of seas, are too inactive to be of much use to Curcalish summoners, and the huge but spindly gharns of the order Telibeluae too fragile. Those entities of the order Peramplia are enormous but slow moving and have, aside from their size, no particular offensive characteristics that would make them useful in battle. Finally, monsters of the order Pleridentata are certainly formidable and dangerous, but perhaps too dangerous, in that they seem to have an unexplained ability to resist summoners' commands and constraints, making their use too risky for any but the most reckless.

On Curcalen

Gharns are summoned to Curcalen for martial purposes, largely taking the place of (or supplementing) both regular soldiers and battering rams and other siege engines. Wars on Curcalen often involve thousands of gharns on each side, controlled by many summoners. Gharns find use not just in wartime, however; they are also used in hit and run attacks, in sabotage, and as instruments of (perhaps disproportionate) vengeance on the enemies of their summoners or their summoners' employers. Typically, gharns are employed with little in the way of detailed strategy, beyond pointing them at their targets and letting them go at it. Sometimes gharns are supplied with howdahs that allow their controllers or their allies to ride them in battle, letting them be supervised directly and double as a mode of transportation.

Most often, gharns are summoned for specific sieges or battles, and dismissed afterward if they survive. This both prevents their summoners from having to come up with ways to feed them for extended periods, and renders them easily expendable if necessary. It does prevent much training from taking place, but given the usual tactics employed with gharns in-depth training isn't necessary anyway. Rarely are gharns kept for any extended periods of time. There are, however, some exceptions. A few property owners maintain gharns as perpetual guards, the prohibitive cost of their maintenance being somewhat balanced not only by their actual efficacy but also by the sheer intimidation factor. Furthermore, there are some who keep the same gharns around so that they can augment them with various enchantments and empowerments, later either to sell them to some needy warlord or to use them in their own planned exploits. These developed gharns don't come cheap, either to raise or to purchase, but their versatility and power can make them well worth it, not to mention the potential surprise factor in fights with foes familiar with the abilities of standard gharns.