Gharazh'uul - Characters

Gharazh'uul, also known as the Grand Zirthakha (or the Great Drakkhid), is the largest and most ancient specimen of the Drakkhid species ever recorded in The Sun Realm. Her titanic form, once believed to be a natural disaster or localized quake by desert nomads, is the last surviving remnant of a once-flourishing hive exterminated during The Great Serpent’s rampant predation in the late Third Age. Surpassing the size of a Sultanate basilica and shielded in a scaled carapace etched with ancient scars, Gharazh'uul is both a wonder of natural majesty and a relic of terrible history.

Origins & History

Once the Zirthakha (queen) of a thriving Drakkhid hive located near The Serrakhan Scar, Gharazh'uul nurtured the largest Drakkhid brood ever recorded. Despite flourishing for centuries, her hive was annihilated when the Great Serpent descended upon the region, driven by inscrutable wrath and insatiable hunger. In a desperate act of preservation, she tunneled deep into the sandstone ravines of the southern Scar, dragging her wounded bulk into the bowels of the desert, leaving behind shattered tunnels and a green blood. Only she survived.

She remained dormant for centuries, reclusive and slow to reform a brood, bearing scars not only of fang, but of instinctual memory. Her emergence during the Fourth Age, in proximity to the rising activity of the Serrakhan Sultanate, marked her return to the surface world—though she was no longer the apex predator of old, but a matriarch matured by harrowing experience.

Encounters with the Sunsations

During their travels across the Dune Sea, The Sunsations crossed paths with Gharazh'uul after discovering she had begun preying upon the Taun herd of a local merchant named Won. Rather than slay her, they offered tribute—sacrificing some of the herd to feed her resurgent brood in exchange for a truce. Gharazh'uul accepted, sparing Won’s caravan and withdrawing deeper into the dunes.

Their alliance was tested when the Order of the Flaming Sun attempted to trap and weaponize her, intending to unleash the Grand Drakkhid upon Shariz in a staged attack to elevate their standing with Sultan Hakim Atis. The Sunsations thwarted this plot by exposing Ser Menge and his knights, culminating in a battle beneath the ruins of their former chivalric temple. Arkhan, one of the released Primarchs of the Sun, was also unmasked during this conflict.

Legacy

Gharazh'uul now dwells in the southernmost expanse of the Dune Sea, near the distant Kroot enclave of Karthage. It is speculated that the Kroot offer Taun sacrifices to her in exchange for protection and access to her tamer broods—used by the enclave to defend against Sandwyrm and raiders alike. Though rarely seen, her movements shape the dunes like titanic echoes of a forgotten age.

Among the deserts people, Gharazh'uul is a living myth—a matriarch who endured the Great Serpent and now walks alone through the dune sea, causing tremors like some primeval song of a hive long gone.