Half-Kuzo
Half-kuzo can be found across the northern halves of Thiskel and Kalesten where kuzo run feral. The Forsaken Land is home to both more domesticated kuzo and feral kuzo. Unions between kuzo and other races are rarely consensual. The kuzo are a basal and instinctual race, and when a group of males comes across a lone female of any race, they will revel in the chance to have their way with her. Kuzo culture is brutal and gender stratified--kuzo females are equally abused. They also rarely venture far from the clan's base camp where they handle domestic tasks and raise the clan's young. The vast majority of first generation kuzo hybrids are sired by kuzo males.
Offspring born of these unions are often ostracized in human society, but in Kuzo society their higher intelligence and magical capacity can gain them high positions in kuzo clans. Half-kuzo can be around the same level of intelligence as the average human, but do not have potential for human genius. Due to this higher intelligence, they may not feel comfortable with the less intelligent kuzo, therefore ostracizing themselves from both societies.
One unique hybrid of kuzo that is the result of a consensual union is the Kuzo-Iengi hybrid, sometimes found in Thiskel. Kuzo and Iengi can form mutually beneficial alliances, which place the Iengi in a position of near-divinity to the kuzo. Female Iengi in this relationship may invite a kuzo chief (or even just any males) to mate with her. The resulting hybrids are taller, stronger, and more intelligent than kuzo and when they occur, often take charge of the clan, which can make them more formidable than a kuzo raiding party alone, as well as uniting other clans. Kuzo-Iengi hybrids can become serious threats to humans and other neighboring races.
Physical Appearance
Half-kuzo stand to inherit a number of features that humans and other races would find unattractive; sickly greenish or brackish toned skin, prominent and knobby features, oddly shaped ears, disturbing kuzo eyes, and other features. They are often an odd mix somewhere in between the appearance of both their parent races. Outside of a kuzo clan, these traits can lead to ostracization of a hybrid, and such displaced individuals rarely thrive socially. If they succeed in reproducing with non-kuzo, the traits gradually disappear.
Half-kuzo are often shorter than their non-kuzo parent's race (with the exception of kiar and smaller Ochae'nafod and may suffer the hunched posture of the kuzo--though many benefit from improved posture and more proportionate extremities in comparison to their kuzo kin.
Magical Abilities
The Kuzo have no inherent magic and low spiritual capacity, though they sometimes practice shamanism. Half-kuzo may have greater spiritual capacity than their kuzo kin, putting them in a position to be potentially powerful shamans amongst the clan if they chose that route.
Lifespan
Much like their cousins, the kiar, kuzo have a potential lifespan of around thirty years and mature 33% faster than humans. The offspring of a kuzo and a human or elemental race match will have a maturation rate that is slowed to 15% the rate of the other parent race. This means that the half-kuzo offspring would mature faster than their non-kuzo parent's race, but slower than a full-blooded kuzo. By the age of fifteen, a half-kuzo would be fully mature, equal to a twenty-five year old. In matches with the elemental races, aging is suspended at this point and will not continue until the final decades of the individual's life.
Kuzo-human hybrids have a lifespan of around 60 years, double that of a full blooded kuzo, but they age much faster than a human. Hybrids with the elemental races have ¼ the potential lifespan of their elemental race parent. Kuzo-kiar hybrids have the same maturation rate and lifespan. Iengi and kuzo matches, however, have the same lifespan and maturation rate as humans--as though the severely stunted rate of growth for Iengi and the highly increased growth rate of the kuzo cancel each other out.
