The Relationship First #
Before the individual stat blocks: the Hunakoi and Besu are defined by their relationship. Neither entry makes full sense without the other, and the symbiosis is the creative core of both species’ presence in Thothia and the Isle of Dawn.
The division of labor: The Hunakoi are architects of extraordinary vision and geological knowledge — they understand stone at the structural level that comes from literally being made of it. They can design constructions of breathtaking ambition. What they cannot do is carve detail, work fine stone faces, inlay precious materials, or execute the intricate surface work that makes a monument rather than just a large rock structure.
The Besu are master craftsmen at the small scale — carvers, jewelers, inlay workers, miniaturists. What they cannot do is move the enormous stones, direct the fundamental geological structure, or work the deep architecture that requires both giant strength and giant-scale geological intuition.
Together: The Hunakoi and Besu build things that neither could build alone. The canyonlands of the Aurora River contain their work — monuments, temples, carved canyon walls, underground sanctuaries cut into the living red stone — that are recognizably part of the Nithian heritage but built to a scale and with a detail integration that standard Nithian architecture does not achieve.
I. Hunakoi — The Red Stone Giants #
The canyon walls are buntsandstein — red sandstone, iron-rich, warm in color even in shadow. The giant who steps out from the wall is the same color. This is not coincidence. This is what it means to be born from the stone of a place.
What Hunakoi Are #
The Hunakoi are a subspecies of stone giant native to the red sandstone canyonlands of the Isle of Dawn, specifically the canyon system through which the Aurora River flows. They differ from standard stone giants in skin color (deep red-ochre, matching the local Buntsandstein/red sandstone geology), cultural integration with Nithian civilization, and the specific friendly disposition that Jennell Jaquays identified as their defining characteristic: “not monsters.”
The Buntsandstein principle: Stone giants are oviparous — females lay crystalline eggs that grow in contact with the earth. The stone of the hatching cave absorbs into the developing young, giving the giant the geological character of its birth-place. Standard stone giants, hatching in grey limestone caverns, are grey. Hunakoi, hatching in the warm red sandstone of the Aurora River canyonlands, are red. A Hunakoi born in a grey limestone cave would be grey. A standard stone giant whose egg was transported to a red sandstone cavity would produce a red offspring.
“Set apart as ‘not monsters’”: Jaquays’s explicit description. The Hunakoi’s friendly nature, integration with Besu craftsmen, and participation in Nithian cultural life means encounters with them are fundamentally different from standard stone giant encounters. They are people of the canyon, with roles, relationships, and purposes that extend beyond territorial defense.
Spellcasters (Wicca): M5 notes that Hunakoi have both hunters and spellcasters among their numbers. In Skills-Based BECMI terms, Hunakoi spellcasters follow the arcane tradition (the RC term “Wicca” for non-standard MU practitioners maps to the MU class with flavor modification). The Hunakoi Wicca are architectural magicians — their spells focus on stone, earth, and the geometric principles underlying grand construction.
Core Statistics #
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice | 9d8* (avg 41 HP) |
| AC | 17 |
| AV | 4 (melee) / 2 (missile) |
| HR | +9 |
| FR | +10 |
| FD | 20 |
| Move | 120 ft (40 ft encounter) |
| Attacks | 1 weapon (stalactite club): 3d6 OR 1 boulder: 3d6 (100/200/300 yd range) |
| No. Appearing | 1d3 (1d8) |
| Save As | Fighter 9 |
| Morale | 9 |
| Treasure | Type E + 5,000 gp (in stone architecture and carved objects, not coins) |
| Intelligence | Average-High (INT 11) |
| Alignment | Neutral |
| XP | 1,000 |
| Height | 14 ft |
One asterisk: The canyon camouflage ability (see below) — more powerful than standard stone giant camouflage.
INT 11 (slightly above standard stone giant’s 10): The integration with Besu craftsmen and Nithian culture over millennia has developed the Hunakoi’s spatial and aesthetic intelligence beyond the baseline. They are not exceptional thinkers but they are better reasoners than their grey cousins.
Skill Slots (4 total — 9* HD = 4 base + 5 at 9 HD + 1 asterisk; Average INT 11) #
| Slot | Skill | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | HR Investment (Basic) | HR +9 |
| 2 | FR Investment (Basic) | FR +10; stone giant stability in canyon terrain |
| 3 | Redstone Canyon Camouflage (innate, special) | In red sandstone terrain: completely indistinguishable from the canyon wall when still; surprise on 1–4 on d6; even when moving in natural canyon terrain surprise on 1–2. Standard stone giant camouflage is 1–3 in cave/mountain. The asterisk |
| 4 | Architectural Stone Sense (innate) | Detects structural flaws, hidden chambers, and load-bearing properties of any stone construction within 30 ft; can assess whether a structure will stand, when it was built, and what stone type was used |
The Hunakoi Wicca (Spellcaster Variant) #
Approximately 1 in 8 adult Hunakoi is a Wicca — an arcane spellcaster following the stone-architecture magical tradition. The Wicca are not combat specialists; they are the design intelligence of the clan’s building projects and the magical anchor of the Hunakoi-Besu partnership.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice | 9d8** (avg 41 HP — same; the asterisks reflect spellcasting) |
| Save As | MU 5 (Wicca level varies; typically 4th–6th) |
| Spells | 4th-level MU equivalent: 2×1st / 2×2nd / 1×3rd / 1×4th |
| XP | 1,175 (9**) |
Wicca spell focus — architectural and geological:
| Level | Typical Spells |
|---|---|
| 1st | Detect Magic (identifies magical veins in stone), Read Languages (reads Nithian architectural glyphs) |
| 2nd | Levitate (positioning large stone blocks), Locate Object (finding specific stone types within 120 ft) |
| 3rd | Stone Shape equivalent (shaping stone without tools — the Wicca’s primary utility spell) |
| 4th | Move Earth equivalent (at small scale — 10 ft cube; used for precision foundation work) |
The Wicca as partner: A Hunakoi Wicca working with a Besu master jeweler can produce architectural inlay work that no non-magical team could achieve. The Wicca shapes the stone cavity precisely; the Besu sets the inlay. This is the combination that produced the carved canyon reliefs of the Aurora River valley.
The Forge of Rathanos Period #
Current Situation — The Forge of Rathanos #
Four hundred years of slow Thothian decline have changed everything about how the Hunakoi and Besu live.
The mass building projects that defined the height of Thothian civilization — the great necropolises, the monument complexes, the temple construction programs that required Hunakoi muscle and Besu precision in combination — have slowed to a fraction of their former pace. Political reforms have reshaped the court’s priorities. The old ways that valued the partnership of giant and gnome in service to pharaonic ambition have given way to a more inward-looking administration that regards the canyon communities as a legacy obligation rather than an active asset.
The reforms included a formal grant of freedom to the Hunakoi and Besu — simultaneously a genuine political concession and a convenient resolution to the court’s reduced need for their services. With freedom came relocation: the court offered the Hunakoi and Besu the Forge of Rathanos, a broken red stone desert in the shadow of the Anvil of Rathanos, a landlocked peninsula jutting into the Plateau of Thothia.
The Forge of Rathanos is not a comfortable gift. It is a harsh landscape — broken red rock, intense heat, sparse water, no existing infrastructure. What it offers: red sandstone geology that the Hunakoi can work as naturally as breathing, isolation from a court that no longer quite knows what to do with them, and enough distance from Thothian political complications that the partnership can operate on its own terms.
They took it.
The New Warrens #
The Hunakoi’s response to the open desert was instinctive and immediate: they went down.
The warrens of the Forge of Rathanos are carved straight into the desert bedrock — complexes that descend rather than spread, mimicking the canyon geometry the Hunakoi have always inhabited but in inverted form. From the surface, the warren entrances are invisible. The Hunakoi have applied their canyon camouflage expertise to the flat desert floor with the same thoroughness they applied it to canyon walls: the entrance to a complex that houses three families and forty Besu looks like a section of broken red rock.
Warren structure: Each complex descends through several levels, widening as it goes deeper. Upper levels house Besu — the shade and stable temperature of depth protect the smaller gnomes from the desert surface. Lower levels house the Hunakoi, who are comfortable in the rock regardless of depth. The deepest chambers, cut into the water table, are the Besu’s hidden oases — pools of groundwater accessed through carved channels, surrounded by carefully maintained gardens that receive indirect light through angled shaft-cut channels.
The shaft gardens: The Besu’s solution to underground agriculture is one of their greatest engineering achievements of the current period. Angled shafts cut through the rock redirect desert sunlight to underground growing chambers at angles that track the sun’s movement through the day. The result: gardens 30 to 50 ft underground that receive sufficient light for date palms, vegetables, and the medicinal plants the Besu have always cultivated. The geometry of the shafts is the joint work of Hunakoi Wicca and Besu Craft-Masters — the same partnership that carved canyon walls now calculates solar angles.
The Besu and the Aqrab #
The Besu’s hidden oases produce more than food. The underground geology of the Forge of Rathanos contains gem-bearing veins that surface mining would never find — the Besu, working at depth with their Master Craft skill and their geological intimacy, have located and developed several significant deposits over the past four hundred years.
These gems are the Besu’s primary trade currency with the outside world. The Aqrab caravans that cross the desert margins of the Plateau of Thothia have become the Besu’s essential supply line — provisions, tools, materials the warrens cannot produce, and occasional news from the wider world. The Besu pay in cut gems evaluated at Aqrab-standard pricing, which is to say at fair market value, which is to say at a rate both parties respect.
The Aqrab perspective: The Besu are unusual trading partners by Aqrab standards — they do not haggle (a shared Lawful principle with the Aqrab’s own Ma’at-nefer), they pay in gems of verified quality, and their needs are consistent. A caravan that serves a Besu warren has a reliable, predictable client who will be there next season and the season after. The Aqrab find this professionally admirable. Some Aqrab have developed long-term relationships with specific Besu Craft-Masters that function as trading partnerships spanning multiple generations of both species.
What the Aqrab do not know: The full extent of the gem deposits. The Besu share what they choose to share and keep their geological surveys private. An Aqrab who asked directly would be told, accurately, what the Besu are prepared to trade this season. The question of what else is down there would be answered with polite silence.
Semi-Independence #
The Hunakoi and Besu of the Forge of Rathanos are not fully independent — nor do they want to be entirely. The relationship with Thothia is complicated but functional.
Building contracts: The Hunakoi still sell their construction services to Thothian institutions. When the court needs work of genuine quality — a new burial complex for a pharaoh of traditional sensibilities, repairs to ancient structures that standard labor cannot properly execute, the occasional commission from a wealthy noble who knows the difference between Hunakoi-quality stone work and what the court’s current contractors produce — they hire through the Wicca-Elder. The work is done at the Hunakoi’s terms, at the Hunakoi’s pace, and at a price that reflects the scarcity of their services now that the court has reduced the relationship to occasional commission rather than standing partnership.
The militia contingent: A small number of Hunakoi — young males primarily, following the same cultural pattern as mountain giant mercenaries — have taken positions in the Thothian militia. The sight of a 14-foot red stone giant in desert-patrol formation is unusual enough to deter most threats by reputation alone. The militia values them for their canyon camouflage capability in the red rock terrain of the Plateau, their resistance to heat, and their boulder range that makes them effective against threats before those threats can close to fighting distance. The Hunakoi militia members are paid in kind — tools, materials, access to Thothian stonecutting resources for the warren projects — rather than coin.
The court’s attitude: Mixed and slightly guilty. The freedom-and-relocation settlement was genuinely well-intentioned by the reformers who negotiated it. Four hundred years later, the current court’s view is more complicated — some ministers regard the Forge communities as a resource they’re no longer fully utilizing; others view the Hunakoi’s persistent capability and the Besu’s accumulated wealth (in gems, in craft skill, in four centuries of underground agricultural development) with the specific discomfort of a patron who freed their dependents and found the dependents thriving without them.
What the Hunakoi and Besu think: #
_They are aware of the court’s complicated feelings and find them mildly amusing. The warrens are theirs. The oases are theirs. The gem deposits are theirs. The partnership between giant and gnome has been refined over four hundred years without a patron’s direction to compromise it. They sell building services because the work is good and the payment enables the warren projects. They provide militia support because young males need an outlet and the relationship with Thothia is worth maintaining at a practical level. They do not mistake this for the old dependence, and they do not miss it.
Guards and Companions #
No cave bears: The Hunakoi do not use cave bears as the standard stone giant does. The Besu serve a similar function as alert-network. Additionally:
- Giant desert scorpions: 1d4 in each Hunakoi family’s territory, treated as working animals (similar to the Aqrab’s Giant Scorpion draft teams). They are not trained to the degree the Aqrab achieves, but they recognize Hunakoi by smell and do not attack them.
- Trained rock-lizards: Large monitor-type lizards adapted to canyon terrain; serve as message-carriers between Hunakoi family groups. Each family has 2d4.
The Hunakoi Leader (Wicca-Elder) #
Every Hunakoi clan has a Wicca-Elder — the oldest active Wicca, who serves simultaneously as spellcaster, architect-in-chief, and diplomatic liaison with the Besu community.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice | 11d8** (avg 51 HP) |
| AC | 17 |
| AV | 5 |
| Save As | MU 8 |
| Spells | MU8 equivalent: 3×1st / 2×2nd / 2×3rd / 2×4th / 1×5th |
| Alignment | Neutral (Lawful tendencies) |
| XP | 2,125 |
The Wicca-Elder’s 5th-level spell is typically Transmute Rock to Mud (reversed: Mud to Rock) — the architectural apex, used to seal cavities, create foundations, and occasionally to immobilize hostile intruders who disrespect the canyon.
II. Besu — The Nithian Gnomes #
The name comes from Bes — the bearded household deity of ancient Nithia, small of stature, depicted with a crown of feathers. The Besu would find this comparison appropriate. They are small. They are everywhere. They make the things that make a house a home. They also make the things that make a knife a knife and a trap a trap, but that is a different aspect of the same skill.
What Besu Are #
The Besu (feminine: Besetu) are a population of Nithian-cultured gnomes — the gnomish people shaped by millennia of life within the Nithian Empire and its successor state of Thothia. They differ from standard RC gnomes in cultural alignment (Lawful rather than Neutral), spiritual tradition (Nithian-influenced worship of household and craft deities, Bes foremost among them), and their specific ecological role as the precision-craft partners of the Hunakoi.
Origin: The Besu’s presence in Thothia predates clear records. The most historically credible account connects their origin to the dark period when Nithian mages experimented with creature-combination magic — the same rites that produced gnolls from gnome-troll combinations apparently consumed a large portion of the gnomish population in what is now Ylaruam. The survivors — those who escaped the ritual or were already in Thothian territories — became the Besu, shaped by Nithian culture and by the specific partnership with the Hunakoi that gave them a protected ecological niche in the canyon territories.
Three populations: The Besu exist in three distinct populations corresponding to three gnomish subtypes:
| Type | Environment | Primary Role |
|---|---|---|
| Rock Besu | Canyon floor and underground | Miners, stonecutters, jewelers, architects |
| Marsh Besu | Nile-delta and coastal wetlands | Boaters, fishermen, reed-workers, water engineers |
| Sky Besu (rare) | Elevated desert plateaus and cliff-faces | Navigators, flying-vessel crew, sky-watchers |
The Rock Besu are the most numerous and the most directly partnered with the Hunakoi. The entry below covers primarily the Rock Besu, with notes on the other types.
Core Statistics — Besu (Rock Gnome) #
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice | 1d8 (avg 4 HP) |
| AC | 15 |
| AV | 1 |
| HR | +1 |
| FR | +1 |
| FD | 9 (Small — same FD penalty as standard gnomes) |
| Move | 60 ft (20 ft encounter) |
| Attacks | 1 weapon (crossbow 1d6 preferred; chisel as dagger 1d4) |
| No. Appearing | 2d4 (5d10) |
| Save As | Fighter 1 |
| Morale | 8 |
| Treasure | Type C (primarily worked objects and gem-stones rather than raw coin) |
| Intelligence | High (INT 13) |
| Alignment | Lawful |
| XP | 10 |
| Height | 3–3½ ft |
Lawful alignment: Unlike standard gnomes (Lawful-Neutral), Besu are fully Lawful. The Nithian cultural tradition — Ma’at, cosmic order, the right relationship between all things including the relationship between small craftsmen and giant architects — shaped a population that genuinely believes in obligation, in contract, in the rightness of things being as they should be. A Besu who makes a commitment keeps it. A Besu who accepts a commission executes it. This is not merely social convention; it is how they understand the world.
Besu treasure: Type C in worked objects and gemstones the Forge of Rathanos gem deposits — cut stones of several varietiesCommon finds include carnelian, jasper, agate, and pyrope garnets, as well as unique locale-specific stones like red beryl and sunstone.
INT 13 (above standard gnome INT 10): The Besu’s high INT reflects millennia of specialized craft development and the cognitive demands of the Hunakoi partnership, which requires translating giant-scale geometric vision into small-scale execution precision.
Skill Slots (2 total — 1 HD = 1 base; no asterisks; High INT 13) #
| Slot | Skill | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Master Craft — Stone and Gem (Expert) | Stone carving, gem cutting, inlay work, and fine architectural finish at Expert level; assesses gem quality and value automatically; +20% to any craft-related check |
| 2 | Hunakoi-Reading (innate) | Can interpret Hunakoi architectural direction — the non-verbal communication of a 14 ft giant to a 3 ft gnome has developed into its own gestural language; Besu understand Hunakoi design intent where outsiders see only a giant pointing at a rock |
Besu Leadership Hierarchy #
The Besu hierarchy parallels the standard gnome hierarchy from BECMI_Gnome.md but with Nithian cultural framing:
Common Besu #
Stats as above. The craftworker, miner, or fisher of the community.
Craft-Master (1 per 20 Besu) #
Equivalent to gnome Leader. 3 HD, 10+ HP, Morale 10 for nearby Besu.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice | 3d8 (avg 14 HP; minimum 10) |
| AC | 16 |
| AV | 2 |
| HR | +3 |
| Save As | Fighter 3 |
| Special | All Besu within sight: Morale 10; Master Craft skill at legendary level — can identify any worked stone object’s origin by examination |
The Craft-Master’s role in the Hunakoi partnership: When a Hunakoi Wicca and a Besu Craft-Master collaborate on a design, the result is the highest quality work either can achieve. The Craft-Master translates the Wicca’s stone-shape magic into specific carving sequences that the common Besu execute. The Wicca shapes the macro-structure; the Craft-Master directs the surface work; the common Besu execute under direction.
Clan Elder (1 per 100 Besu) #
Equivalent to gnome Chieftain. 5 HD, 20+ HP. Carries a wand of stone detection.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice | 5d8 (avg 23 HP; minimum 20) |
| AC | 17 |
| AV | 2 |
| HR | +5 |
| Save As | Fighter 5 |
| Special | Wand of Stone Detection (unlimited uses; detects hidden doors, traps, and structural weaknesses in stone within 60 ft); +2 damage all attacks |
High Besu — The Bes-Keeper (Unique per community) #
The spiritual and diplomatic head of a Besu community. A 7th-level Cleric in the Nithian tradition, always aged, always bearded (regardless of gender — a Nithian cultural affectation in honor of Bes), always wearing the feathered crown associated with the deity.
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Hit Dice | 7d6 (Cleric d6; avg 24 HP) |
| AC | 17 |
| AV | 2 |
| HR | +3 |
| Save As | Cleric 7 |
| Spells | Cleric 7: 3×1st / 3×2nd / 2×3rd / 1×4th |
| Special | The Bes Crown (see below) |
The Bes Crown: The feathered crown worn by the High Besu is an actual magical item — an artifact of Nithian craft that functions as a Helm of Alignment Awareness (detects alignments within 30 ft) and provides +2 to all saves against hostile magic. The crown is a symbol of office; the Bes-Keeper who wears it is the community’s living connection to the deity and to the compact with the Hunakoi.
The High Besu’s Cleric spells focus on craft-support and community protection:
- Bless (4th level): used on major construction projects to sanctify the work
- Cure Light Wounds: community healing
- Detect Magic: quality control on magical inlay work
- Hold Person: defensive — the High Besu’s personal protection
- Remove Curse: maintaining the integrity of Nithian-bound objects
- Speak with Dead: consulting the accumulated wisdom of past Bes-Keepers, whose bodies are interred in the canyon wall niches the Hunakoi prepare
Besu Cultural Notes #
The Bes connection: The Besu’s patron deity is Bes — in Nithian tradition, a household deity depicted as a bearded dwarf wearing a crown of feathers, associated with protection of home and family, artisanal skill, and driving away evil spirits. The Besu identify with this depiction literally (they are small, most are bearded, they make things, they protect what is theirs) and cosmologically (the deity is a protector-craftsman, which is exactly what the Besu consider themselves to be).
Nithian cultural alignment: Where standard gnomes are defined by their kobold enmity and gold-obsession, the Besu are defined by their craft tradition and their relational obligations. They do not have the RC gnome’s automatic kobold hostility — they have something more considered: awareness of who has and has not respected the compact of craft. A kobold who has damaged their work is an enemy. A kobold who has never done so is simply an unknown quantity, to be assessed.
Besu script: The Besu use a modified Nithian hieroglyphic script adapted for small-scale use — their version has more detail glyphs for material properties (seventeen words for types of sandstone alone) and fewer administrative glyphs than standard Nithian. Their written records are carved into stone rather than written on papyrus — the canyon walls contain Besu clan records going back to the Nithian period, interleaved with the Hunakoi architectural carvings in a bilingual visual tradition that neither race’s scholars have fully decoded.
Death and burial: Besu dead are interred in wall niches in the canyon rock, prepared by Hunakoi partners. The niche is sealed with a carved relief (Besu work) showing the deceased’s craft specialization and clan history. The wall contains generations of Besu dead, their records carved around them. The High Besu can speak with these dead through the Speak with Dead Cleric spell — the canyon walls are simultaneously a cemetery, an archive, and an oracle.
The Marsh Besu #
Briefer treatment for the second population:
Environment: Nile-delta equivalents, coastal wetlands, and the reed-boat culture of Thothian waterways.
Role: Boat-builders, fishermen, reed-workers, water engineers. The Marsh Besu build the reed boats that navigate Thothian waterways and maintain the irrigation channels of the delta.
Relationship with Hunakoi: Indirect — the Marsh Besu have less frequent contact with Hunakoi than the Rock Besu, but share the general cultural framework. When major delta engineering projects require both giant-scale earthwork and precision channel construction, Hunakoi and Marsh Besu work together.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral (slightly less fully Lawful than Rock Besu — the water environment is less amenable to the architectural permanence that shapes Rock Besu philosophy).
Stats: As Rock Besu except Move 60 ft ground / 90 ft swimming; +2 to all saves near water; familiar with 1d4 additional boat-related skills.
The Sky Besu (Rare) #
The rarest Besu population — potentially connected to Nithian flying vessel tradition (as the source notes: “a third option corresponding to Sky Gnomes might work with Nithian flying vessels”).
Environment: Elevated desert plateaus, cliff-face communities, and potentially crew of the pre-imperial Nithian flying vessels of which fragmentary evidence suggests existence.
Role: Navigators, sky-watchers, instrument-makers. If the Nithian flying vessel tradition is part of the campaign, Sky Besu are the gnomish crew and maintenance specialists.
Status: Extremely rare; their plateau communities are difficult to reach and their knowledge of aerial navigation is unparalleled. A party seeking a Sky Besu navigator for a high-altitude journey or flying vessel operation will find them cautious but willing — at the right price, in craft goods rather than coin.
The Hunakoi-Besu Partnership in Practice #
A Construction Project #
A Thothian Pharaoh commissions a new necropolis complex in the canyon territory.
The commission flows: The Pharaoh approaches the Hunakoi Wicca-Elder through the Besu High Besu as intermediary — direct approach to the Hunakoi without Besu introduction is considered disrespectful and will be rebuffed. The High Besu negotiates terms: what will be built, over what period, using what materials, and what the Hunakoi-Besu community receives in return.
Design phase: The Wicca-Elder walks the proposed site with the senior Craft-Masters. The Wicca uses Architectural Stone Sense to assess the bedrock. The Craft-Masters assess the decorative program. Over several weeks, a design emerges — the Wicca-Elder’s geometric vision translated into specific carving sequences by the Craft-Masters.
Construction: Hunakoi hunters quarry stone blocks from canyon faces beyond the territory proper (not the sacred canyon walls). Hunakoi workers position and join the major structural elements. Wicca use Stone Shape to smooth joints and refine geometry. Meanwhile, Besu Craft-Masters direct gangs of common Besu in surface carving, progressing from rough blocking (Rock Besu) to medium detail (trained common Besu) to fine work (Craft-Masters and selected apprentices).
Completion ritual: The High Besu performs the Bless over the completed work. The Wicca-Elder inscribes the clan seal in a location only the Hunakoi and Besu will know (standard practice — they sign their work where the patron cannot see it). The commission is delivered.
What the Pharaoh receives: A monument of quality that standard Thothian construction cannot match — stone-shaped to precision, surfaced with carved reliefs that integrate perfectly with the structural geometry, blessed by the Bes tradition. The ushabti archivists who document these structures note the quality difference immediately; sesh-ushabti sometimes consult Besu Craft-Masters for authentication of ancient Nithian objects.
Encounter Notes — The Forge of Rathanos Period #
The invisible warren: The party is crossing the Forge of Rathanos — broken red desert, intense heat, apparently empty. They are looking for water or shelter. Nothing is visible. Then one of them steps on a section of rock that sounds different underfoot — hollow. The entrance is ten feet to their left, and it has been there the whole time.
Below: a Besu community going about its business in the cool underground. Shaft gardens three levels down. A Hunakoi family’s quarters two levels below that, enormous chambers carved for 14-foot inhabitants. The Besu are cautious but not hostile — strangers in the desert are either in genuine need (in which case the Besu Lawful tradition and the Aa-khet principle shared with the Aqrab applies: provide emergency necessities) or are looking for something specific (in which case negotiation is appropriate).
The building commission: The party has been sent by a Thothian noble to commission a construction project from the Hunakoi. Getting here required crossing the Forge — the warrens are not advertised. Making contact requires finding the Besu first (they are the interface) rather than approaching Hunakoi directly. The High Besu assesses the commission, the client, and whether the project respects the principles the partnership operates on. If it does: the Wicca-Elder is consulted. If it doesn’t: the party is politely informed that the partnership is unavailable for this particular project.
The Aqrab caravan crossing: An Aqrab caravan is making its semi-regular run to a Besu warren. The party encounters it and either joins it (the Aqrab will accept paying travelers) or observes it arriving at what appears to be a featureless red rock face — and then a section of the rock opens, and small gnomes emerge to receive the goods, and several Besu Craft-Masters evaluate the gem payment before transferring it to the caravan. If the party knows what the Aqrab are, this is a useful observation: there is a community out here that can afford Aqrab pricing and pays in cut gems. That means significant underground geology. That means the Besu know things about this desert’s subsurface that no surface survey has ever captured.
The militia giant: In a Thothian border garrison, the party encounters a Hunakoi serving in the militia. He is red, 14 feet tall, carrying a stalactite-club adapted as a military weapon, and wearing a Thothian militia badge that sits slightly comically on his chest. He is younger than most Hunakoi the party might meet — this is the cultural outlet for youthful aggression, the same pattern as mountain giant mercenaries. He is straightforwardly friendly, professionally competent, and periodically homesick for the warrens. He is also an excellent source of information about the Forge of Rathanos terrain and the warren communities — if asked about them with appropriate respect, he will describe what he considers appropriate to share, which is considerably more than any Thothian court official knows.
The court commission problem: A Thothian minister has hired Hunakoi labor for a building project and is treating the Hunakoi as the court’s predecessors did — as directed labor rather than as contracted partners. The Hunakoi have stopped work and sent word to the warren. The Besu High Besu has appeared at the construction site to formally suspend the commission. The minister is furious. The party has been asked (by whom depends on the campaign context) to mediate. This requires understanding both the Hunakoi-Besu position (the work was commissioned on specific terms, those terms have been violated, the commission is suspended until the terms are honored) and the minister’s position (the court is accustomed to a relationship that no longer exists). The mediating party needs to understand that the Hunakoi are not being difficult — they are holding to the terms of a contract, which is exactly what Lawful behavior looks like when the other party forgets the contract existed.
