Shi'gah

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Shi'gah, loosely translated from Abyssal as "forlorn", are Gimrune that gave up part of themselves so as to save themselves. This happened in the southern reaches of Honmin. In the last centuries of the Horgon Era, the Blood Cults of Kezgihr gained steadily in power. This came to be a real problem when vampire lords starting taking over things. In the beginning, it was a guild or business, then a frontier outpost, then villages, and a few towns. The Gimrune traded blows and beat them back to their numbers were manageable, but over a very long time the vampires steadily increased in number and became more clandestine. At the peak of the Feeding of Kezgihr (1552 HE - 1798 HE), these blood-suckers numbered in the thousands.

Entire households have fell under the beguiling ways of these blood-sucking fiends spawned of the hateful lord Kezgihr. Some farms are completely untended, weeds growing amok, but at dusk, there is a scurry of movement from children and their parents, all moving with the grace of a cat yet sounding like mountain lions when they make a kill. I've witnessed them from afar, soaring among the treetops as an owl, lone Gimrune vampires, no more than 10 years of age, taking down an elk and several of them joining in the hunt to take down a dire cave bear. These out in the wilds, are just that, wild like the animals, but getting closer to civilization they have grown cunning, blending into the populace and hunting not too kill but to feed. The young and inexperienced vampires often end up killing their victims from overfeeding, which is the first sign to the populace that they have vampires among them. Legends of the south speak of similar things happening there with some areas devoid of life and only after centuries showing signs of recovery.

- Tiyabis, Warden Heirophant Adept of Silvanus - "Children of Kezgihr"

During the start of the Feeding of Kezgihr, hundreds of Gimrune from frontier towns fled the blood-starved vampires coming across Barba'gom. They made their way towards the Primus Hexaconta. To the Gimrune, this place had long been a forbidden area, home to golems, magical creatures and other guardians left there since the Creation War. The Gimrune that went to this ancient forbidden edifice decided that it was safer facing death by such creatures, than becoming a blood slave to the vampires or becoming one of them. In the Primus Hexaconta, they hid from the prowling vampires of the countryside. At night they barricaded the place, but rarely had to deal with a vampire bold enough to enter. During the day they tended the fields around the ancient edifice, then by dusk return to its safety. In the Primus Hexaconta, they found a number of secret chambers with blueprints and instructions for making constructs, mechanical contraptions, and replacing organic parts with mechanical grafts. After finding these, they now new why the place had such massive storage chambers holdings limbs, molds, preserved eyes and other organs, mechanical attachments, and so on. The blueprints that left the most lasting mark on the Grimrune of the the Primus Hexaconta are those on grafts. These grafts were not like maug grafts and others made for the Machined, instead they are made with a bit of a Spark of Creation. This keeps the host mortal and not turning into a half-golem when they add three or more mechanical grafts. The Gimrune were also soon to learn that being grafted made them invisible to the heat seeking sight of the vampires. It also had the plus of them not being sought out for feeding since a grafted Gimrune was much more of a danger than some peasant.

After four generations in the Primus Hexaconta, the people of it became known to Gimrune outsiders as the Shi'gah. The Feeding of Kezgihr was ended by the Shi'gah. Even though they were liberators of the Gimrune, the two have never got along well. Each look down upon the other with the Gimrune seeing them as abominations, often cold and calculating like a machine, while the Shi'gah see their brothers as a weaker form with their lack of "enhancements".

All Shi'gah have at least one graft. One is applied a few years after birth, and because they are Life Spark grafts, they grow with the patient. In Dema'tira, grafts can be acquired as gifts, awards, or through trade. For Shi'gah, the more grafts the better, with them being viewed as a form of status in their society.