A people known as the marru once lived and warred in the world, but their civilization has long since passed into the waste, devastated and destroyed by internecine wars of terrible magnitude. As a result of these so-called Flesh Wars, the marru turned to a little-understood art called spawncraft, and in so doing created living weapons to wage their battles. These spawncrafted creatures have come to be known collectively as the spawn of marru, but are more commonly referred to as marruspawn. The marru were advanced in other areas as well, but all their arts couldn’t save them from destroying themselves. However, marruspawn linger on in forgotten and blasted wastelands across many worlds. The marru understood the stratified nature of the multiverse, and in their wish to ascend closer to heaven, they built their strongholds on the tops of pyramids, so that religious observances and rituals could be conducted as close as possible to the divine realm of the sky. While later cultures saw and copied the marru structures in their own building styles, it was the marru who first perfected the form. Primeval pyramidal structures that date back to the Flesh Wars still contain bloodthirsty marruspawn.
Full-grown marruspawn stand 7 feet tall and resemble ebony-hued, jackal-headed humanoids - mostly. Different types of marruspawn were crafted for different purposes in the ancient war, and thus their outward forms might vary. All types of marruspawn can interbreed, though the progeny of such unions is never a hybrid of two forms - it is always one of the original forms created by the marru.
Marruspawn come in three distinct types, though others may exist:
- Marrusaults are brutish warriors. In ancient days, armies of marrusaults darkened the once-green plains, fighting for the will of the marru. Bred for fighting, each marrusault knows its worth in any conflict. Hardy survivors, marrusaults eked out existence where many of the weaker or more specialized spawncrafted creations of the marru perished with their masters. Still, a marrusault depends on the equipment and other resources it gains from swearing service to a marrutact. Sometimes a marrusault goes rogue these creatures often find death in the waste, their bones posing a mystery to travelers who come upon them.
- Marrulurks are sly assassins. Sometimes victory is gained through guile rather than through headstrong charges into battle. This consideration led to the marru's creation of the small and slender marrulurk subrace. The marru used these creatures as assassins or treacherous adjuncts to units that also included marrusaults and marrutacts.
- Marrutacts are the powerful overseers that command their brethren in the event of a skirmish and provide magical support. In the long periods between conflicts, marrutacts also lead their sibling marruspawn. The marrutact commands by birthright, ordering the lesser marruspawn subraces as it desires. The sign of a marrutact’s authority is the staff it wields, a symbol of the forgotten spawncraft lore that raised desert jackals to a race of intelligent creatures of amazing ability. Lesser marruspawn rarely question the decrees of a marrutact, though among themselves marrutacts scheme and argue, each eager to put itself forward as the supreme commander of all surviving marruspawn.
- Marruspawn Abominations are mistakes - they are immensely powerful marruspawn that have a spark of godhood. Delving too far into their lore of spawncraft, the marru dared to add the blood of a deity to one of their force-bred creations. Seeking to spawn a champion marruspawn, they instead created an abomination. This mistake ended the marru, though the histories are unclear how - either through the machinations of the deity whose essence was stolen and infused into the creature, or by the waking abomination itself. Abortions of spirit, the abominations live on, nurtured by their quasi-deific powers and the pure, undiluted hate of their forebears and all naturally formed creatures.
Many other types of marruspawn were crafted, but most of those rarely breed true; their bloodlines have been lost along with that of the progenitor race.