Editing New Jhelom (section)

===The Murder Born===

; The Chasatha : An entirely female Race that looks to be women with the lower half of snake, and some other snake-like features. They come from the Isles of Smoke. The Chasatha trade gems to New Jhelom with excellent properties for making magical artifacts. The Chathasa trade these for beautiful human slavegirls. The Chathasa actually devour these maidens whole and living. This foul deed apparently lets the Chathasa maintain a youthful sheen for all their lives, and an extended lifespan. It's rumoured that if they do not do this at least sometimes, they become more and more snakelike, until finally regressing into actual serpents. Generally only the more human-ish Chathasa trade at the Capital. The Chathasa also taught humans the arts of Assassination. The Chasatha are said to be descendents of the First Assassin. Their bite can kill, agonize or subvert men. But if they try to eat a man, their throats seize up and they die. 

* The Chasatha from the Isles of Smoke are all demons. They are like women, but half snake. They look alluring, but their fangs can poison men - leading to death, agony or submission. They come in their Shrouded Ships to trade sometime - they demand beautiful slave girls, which they exchange for their rare gems (invaluable for mages). But the dark truth is that they devour these hapless maidens, swallowing them whole and alive, like the snakes they are. The darker truth is the reason for this - the tales of Chasatha immortality is true, and this is how they maintain it. But they say that a Chasatha cannot eat a maiden who bests her in a competition of music or dance. How these are judged, I do not know.
* The Chasatha were the first to teach the Empire the Art of Silent Death. The Assassins of today trace their arts back to them.
* I heard the flesh of men is poisonous to the Chasatha. The flesh of a man will cause their throat to constrict and choke them. This is a valuable clue if you ever find yourself fighting one.
* The Chasatha are the only ones able to enter the terrible bejeweled city due to their relation to the first assassin... who is their father. The city, it is said, once was the center of the world, but was tainted as the cursed immortal slayer plied his trade, and mastered every method of slaughter, turning the Isles of Smoke into a charnel house of horror over many centuries... his sons became the Perched, his daughters became the Chasatha... who share no love for one another barring horrible, incestuous mating sessions held once a century.

; The Perchers : An entirely Male Race that pollutes the empty streets of the Isles of Smoke, that look hideous and twisted. They occasionally mate with the Chathasa, but aside from that the Chathasa avoid them.They are said to be descendents of the First Assassin. The blood of women is like acid to them.

* The Perched have grown strange on the Isles of Smoke, and they are said to have gained a semblance of sentience. Their hideous dialect spills from their crooked maws as bubbling pitch, marring the gemstones people risk all to acquire.
*: Such gems are said to whisper to their owners the secrets of the Isle of Smoke's former masters.
* Just as the Chasatha die if the flesh of men reaches their throat, so does the blood of women scorch the Perched, even in small amounts.
* For this reason, when the Perched find or capture a living woman, they pierce her from afar with crude javelins, or bring her to bay with cruel snares, the better to keep her in their lightless vaults for sport.
*: Some say they breed these women to captured men, before devouring them, and raise the babes in blindness to be slaves and servant caste. In place of these children's eyes, they place gems coated in their caustic, defiling pitch, and though they cannot "see" after the fashion of mortal men, their silent, uncanny prowess unnerves those who set foot on the Isles.
*: They are silent for their tongues are cut out, and offered to the barghests.