Kayal

The kayal, also known as shadar-kai or fetchlings, are a race of death-touched humanoids from Noctis.

Description
Kayal are humanoid, and strongly resemble the humans of Equis, save for their grey skin and dark eyes. Many kayal also tattoo themselves as a yearly ritual, a reminder that they are closer to death with each expansion of the markings on their bodies.

Personality
The personalities of most kayal tend to be morbid, bleak, and dour. They are prone to snap judgments and decisions, largely a consequence of their short lives.

Society
Because of their shortened life expectancy, kayal tend to live very fast. Many produce large numbers of offspring, with typical families birthing as many as six children.

Deaths are celebrated to a greater extent than birth among the kayal, with funerals being a very major affair and the most important rite of passage in a kayal's life.

History
According to the kayal creation myth, their race was created by Hemlocke, the goddess of death, who became jealous of her sister Jana's creations. Hemlocke enlisted the help of her other sister, Lef, to create a race in the dark side of Noctis. The creatures formed were the kayal, or "dark people." They resembled the humans then-recently born on Equis, but touched by the magic of death.

Untold years later, during the First Nexus War, an Elt named Orzan used powerful High magic taught to him by Albrek Bane to shatter the Lockean moon, employing it as a weapon. The ritual carried a tremendous price, killing huge numbers of kayal and shortening their life expectancy dramatically.

Notable Kayal

 * Albrek Bane, the Immortal of Death.