Ssurrans are heavy-set and hardy reptilian humanoids, sometimes referred to as “sandscale lizardfolk”. They are nomadic hunters and raiders that live and stalk their prey beneath the crimson sun. Like other Athasians, a ssurran’s day-to-day goal is survival.
Description[]
Ssurrans are a race of reptilian humanoids, distantly related to silt runners, but much larger. Ssurrans range in size from 4 to 6 feet tall and weighing anywhere between 180 and 225 pounds, and there’s little difference between male and female ssurrans in terms of body shape or size. Their thick leathery hide is found in all manner of earthen tones, and has seen them adapt well to the harsh Athasian climate and provides some manner of camouflage in the desert environment. Their heads feature a pronounced, toothy snout –-perpetually curved into a slight, sly smile-– and small, dark eyes. Their crocodilian appearance is completed by a thick, non-prehensile tail, between 2 and 3 feet in length, used for balance, posture, and communication.
A typical ssurran is clad in a loing cloth, bone jewelry, patchwork armor, assorted knickknacks, and battered trade goods, and armed with a bizarre assortment of weaponry from all across the Tyr Region, usually stripped from past victims.
Ssurran eggs are inedible, as is their flesh, but their hide is sometimes used to make heat-resistant scale armor.
The ssurran language sounds like grunts, growls, and hisses.
Personality[]
Ssurrans are a pragmatic people, concerned with the survival of themselves and their tribe more than anything. While they have a reputation about them as vicious wastelanders, there’s also a strange form of honor among some of them. They’re also a strangely devout people, praising the gods of the land and the sun highly.
Relations[]
Most ssurrans, as is true for most Athasians, contend with harsh conditions. This has led many ssurrans to live lives where they take by force what they cannot gain otherwise, and while some lead more fortunate lives – having turned to a life of trade and forging more productive relationships –-the common consensus regarding the ssurrans is that they are a plight.
Slavers and mercenaries often attack tribes of ssurrans in hopes of acquiring their young or eggs. These are then sold off to the highest bidder as exotic merchandise to then serve as slaves. A captive ssurran usually ends up as either a gladiators or bodyguards to the wealthy and powerful, or as a scout for a merchant house. Some ssurrans are so naturally adept at these pursuits that they earn enough to later be able to purchase their own freedom.
Abilities[]
Ssurran
The natural strength, fighting prowess, and cunning of the land serve the ssurrans well in most avenues of life, and this marks them out as worthy combatants and expert survivalists.
As they are hardened by the desert environment, they have adapted to the heat of the Athasian day and suffer no ill effects from hot temperatures under the sun.
The shamans of their tribes also possess a unique ability known as the “Sun Curse”, which sees them draw heat from the sun and then unleash the energies into a fiery attack that leaves the target dazzled, leaving them open for further attacks from the shaman’s allies.
Combat[]
Ssurrans are viciously fierce and disorganized fighters who prefer to overwhelm their foes by numbers and force instead of relying on more elaborate tactics. While some might call their methods “cowardly”, for ssurrans, the ideal battle sees them ambush their intended targets from behind in far greater numbers than their would-be prey. Should the opposing force prove to outnumber the ssurrans, or indeed put up more of a fight than what was anticipated, the ssurrans won’t flee instantly. Instead, they will focus their assault on one or a few members of the opposition, to tear them down. Once the battle is over, regardless of if the ssurrans won or not, they return to the battlefield to strip the corpses of the fallen, scarring or otherwise marking the dead as food.
In battle, ssurrans employ a combination of natural and manufactured weapons. They strike with dreadfully sharp claws and savage, snapping bites, as well as spears and clubs.
Society[]
Ssurran Druid
Ssurrans are a nomadic people who generally move in and out of an area within only a few weeks. As they move about, they trade, raid, scavenge, and hunt, always seeking shelter and food. They gather in loose-knit tribes, each one comprised of several different groups, some of which hunt while others raid any unlucky settlements they pass. The more honorable tribes tend to allow inhabitants to flee and only kill those that resists, but not all ssurrans offer such niceties. The ever-practical ssurrans then strip the settlements and bodies of the fallen for anything the tribe may need or have use of.
Beyond their roles as hunters and raiders, the ssurran tribe is connected through familiar bonds, with each member of the tribe sharing blood with a majority of the rest. Rarely do ssurrans live outside a tribe, with the few who do being either exiles or doomed to wander alone as the last of their tribe.
The size of a tribe can at times dwindle in size, particularly following hard times, but tribes have also been known to band together to form vast hordes that last for as long as need or firm leadership binds them. This often comes about when the ssurrans are faced by a great threat or common foe, and are usually led by a joint council of elders – formed from the shamans of each tribe, but at times, one central figure is recognized as the absolute leader of the entire horde.
The central figure in any tribe is its shaman, an elder whose duty it is to preserve the to outsiders surprisingly rich oral traditions of the ssurran people. The gods of this people are strange, but would be recognized as Spirits of the Land. Each shaman has symbols of their faith carved into their scales, and as they commune with the elements and cast their spells, the scales light up with magical energies. To outsiders their traditions may seem odd, but their belief system marks the ssurrans out as more than the primitive beasts that most Athasians view them as.
The Ssurrans of Trade Nest[]
In the far north, far beyond the confines of the Tyr-Region, lies the region of the Schorched Plateau. Here lies a village of some 1,500 ssurrans called Trade Nest. The ssurrans here are far removed from their southern kin, both in terms of distance and in attitude. Instead of falling into the barbarism of wandering marauders, these ssurrans make a living as merchants, messengers, and guides. They are friendly and love making deals, and have become an important part in the lives of those who dwell upon the Scorched Plateau, bringing news and goods from one settlement to the next. The ssurran traders are avid collectors of most anything, and the few southern merchant houses that know of them at all consider them to be nothing more than glorified junk dealers, trading garbage from one community to the next as if it was precious steel. Some ssurran merchants travel as far south as Kurn, itself far north of Draj, and others as far north as Saragar, the City of the Last Sea –-although they are never allowed into Saragar itself.
Trade Nest is the home base for several merchant tribes who all operate independently, but who all rely on each other as part of a loose confederation. Trade Nest is governed by the ancient Overchief of all the ssurran trading tribes, Ssuss’ees. The Overchief is as proud of his traders as any patriarch of the southern merchant houses. From this village, nestled on the shores of the Lava Gorge, caravans leave and enter regularly, packed with whatever the ssurrans themselves can carry and load onto their kwilits and fortress beetles – two types of large, docile insect that share the ssurrans natural resistance to heat. Raiders from nearby settlements sometimes attack the ssurran caravans, and to combat this, the ssurrans oftentimes have to allow a smaller portion of their cargo to be lost so that the majority may still reach its intended destination.
The location of the village, almost as close to the Lava Gorge as possible was a deliberate choice, as while the heat bothers almost everyone else, it doesn’t bother the ssurrans or their beasts of burden. This has kept Trade Nest safe from raiders and predators. For a price, supplies, information, and guides can be acquired in Trade Nest, and if visitors don’t mind the constant bombardment by hagglers, the ramshackle village can offer a welcome respite from the harshness of the Scorched Plateau. When venturing from Trade Nest, ssurran guides make for excellent companions for crossing the rest of the Scorched Plateau, and their caravans can be life-savers when all options have been exhausted and all hope seems lost, appearing out of a sandstorm or emerging from a canyon with wares, food, and water.
Ecology[]
Ssurran are natural scavengers and hunter-gatherers, but what they hunt and gather depends on the situation. All ssurrans are strict carnivores, feeding on anything they can fell. This includes other humanoids and they are known to particularly enjoy the taste of halfling flesh – apparently they find it soft and sweet, but with a piquant after-taste. It has been said that ssurrans have few natural enemies, but many required ones.
Since a large part of their diet consists of intelligent creatures, they tend to raid settlements and camps to capture as many as possible in one go. A successful hunt leads to a great feast where they offer sacrifice to their strange and obscure gods.
Sources[]
- Dark Sun Campaign Setting (Expanded and Revised). (1995) AD&D. TSR Inc, by Timothy B. Brown, Troy Denning and Bill Slavicsek.
- Dark Sun Creature Catalog. (2010). Dungeon & Dragons. Wizards of the Coast, by Richard Baker, Ari Marmell and Chris Sims
- Monstrous Compendium Dark Sun Appendix II: Terrors Beyond Tyr. (1995) AD&D. TSR Inc.
- Terrors of Athas. (2004) Athas.org, by Gabriel Cornier.
See D&D Encounters: Dark Sun