Anga Kith

“I have long abandoned my quest to bring the Yurupari to light. For years, I wasted my time trying to understand the incomprehensible, to gaze at the face behind the mask, unaware that there had never been a face there at all. My duty as the Eyes of Avakra and the blessings of the All-Mother have eased my torment, but whenever the Dreams of the Warana take me, I can feel its presence at the edge of my being, waiting for the moment my spirit will falter. Yet, I remain here. Let this be a lesson, my Kith: we were born into torment, but we are not defined by it.”

—Ka’Raa, Anga-Kith Ur-Takra

Each Kith of the Primal Blood has a unique way of life and strengths that are all their own. Some, like the Feversong Kith, engage in spiritual practices that guide not only themselves, but also shamans of other Kiths throughout Paxos. Others, such as the Djurii, are known as the great berserkers of Ymiris. Each Kith prides itself on these distinguishing yet unifying traits, performing ceremonies to reinforce and perpetuate them. A few others, however, have become marked not by their blessings, but rather by the curses they bear. Of these few, Anga is perhaps the most infamous.

For the Primal Blood, dreams are sacred, as they were gifted by Ymiris herself as a way to see more than the mortal world has to offer, transcending the barrier of flesh and entering the realm of the soul. In dreams, they see visions of the past and future, deep truths about the nature of the world, and are prepared for the trials and tribulations to come. For the people of the Anga, however, an outside influence has corrupted this sacred communion, an entity whose mere name is enough to chill the blood of the mightiest berserker: the Yurupari.

As soon as a member of the Kith closes their eyes to sleep, they become prey in the hunting grounds of the Yurupari. The entity has not a single semblance, but rather, its visage twists to emulate the greatest fears of its prey. Some are hunted by a multi-limbed beast in unknown jungles, while others find themselves in the open sea, a grotesque presence beneath the dark waves barely illuminated by the moon, toying with its food before dragging them under. More often, however, dreams will come as a pitch-black, senseless void. There, a bony face with hollow eyes will greet its prey with silence, savoring the fear before torturing them by slowly gnawing at their bones as they watch helplessly.

To escape the Yurupari’s torment and deny it its sick pleasure, as well as to preserve their sanity, members of the Kith engage in whatever practices they might have at their disposal to forgo sleep at all. With the use of herbs and self-flagellation, some stay awake for weeks at a time, miring ever deeper in their fatigue, to the point where reality begins to dissolve before their eyes. In this half-awakened, half-dreaming state, their world is taken over by restless hallucinations, making it so a member of the Anga cannot trust their own mind. 

Struggling to keep their sanity, some shamans have trained in esoteric practices, shunned even by the Primal Blood, struggling to find a weapon they might use against the Yurupari in their nightmares. Some of these shamans never wake up again. Others are known to journey into the Malediction alongside Seekers, hoping to find within the buried ruins of ages past the secrets of the Yurupari and the means to fight it. Strangely, the Yurupari’s sway dwindles inside the Malediction, where its grasp upon the minds of the Anga falters. Some manage to find rest within the cursed lands, although the dangers of the place seldom make it worthwhile.

Berserkers of the Kith are particularly affected by the Yurupari’s torment, for within the dreamrealm, they are deprived of every ounce of their strength. There are no muscles, no tactics, no power to be found in dreams. They are laid bare and denied any comfort, reduced to the very weakling cowards they so despise. Some claim that time itself bends to the Yurupari within the nightmare, and assert to have experienced years of torment within a single night’s dream. In a strange tradition, members of the Kith create and adorn themselves with masks and armor representative of the Yurupari and its torment. These grotesque masks, based on the visage of the entity, allow the Anga to inspire a fraction of the terror they feel in the hearts of their enemies, and became symbols of the Kith as a whole.

Within the Primal Blood, most see the Anga as cursed by Ymiris and shun them, afraid that the misfortune of that Kith will become their own. Such Kiths will even abandon the field of battle when the Anga join the fray, be it as an enemy or an ally. However, there are those who recognize in the struggle of the Anga a quality all Kiths should aspire to embody: endurance against a near-unbeatable foe. Despite all the hardship they may face, the Anga have withstood this terrible curse and, in a way, made it into a weapon against their enemies. 

Whatever their weaknesses or strengths may be before the eyes of the other Kiths, the truth is the Anga live on a knife’s edge. They fight a cursed entity they do not understand, a monstrous being that doesn’t need to rest and denies the people of Anga the simple comfort of sleep. Each of them knows they are fighting a losing battle, and that they will one day be claimed by the Yurupari or by the madness and fatigue caused by sleep deprivation. Worst still, although none know what the Yurupari is, or where it comes from, many can feel in their bones what it desires and fear this fate above anything else. The people of the Kith fear that, once the Yurupari has fed on enough Anga souls, it will carve a path to the waking world through their very flesh, bringing its endless nightmare into reality.