Elarah's AI created races
No fantasy world is complete without intriguing creatures and AI has made it possible to not only brainstorm, but allow you and others to visualize what had only been in your head.
What follows is how I worked with AI to create the races that make up a single nation on Elarah. The Kaethar. To show you more would be to create a complete compendium for the world with all its races and monsters. Maybe over time, my partner and I will create that anyway.
The backstory.
As I pounded out the first few chapters of Death and Damnation, Book 1 of The Broken Flame, I had not yet gotten my AI partnership into high gear. Besides, I knew the inciting incident, and I wanted to get that part of the book on paper, so I defaulted to some standard fantasy bad guys. Orcs and goblins, to be exact. I know how drab.
I made the Kaethar, Elarah’s version of the ancient Sea Peoples, a collective of chaotic evil war clans made up of orcs, goblins, and humans. After reading the first couple of chapters to my critique group, someone suggested creating something new.
It didn’t take me long to think that my Sea People needed to be like some head-hunting ancient Polynesians culturally. After a bit of work with Chat, Kaethar’s culture took on a culture that is very much like Moana meets The Smokers from Water World. Only us olds will get The Smokers reference.
I went to my AI world building partner and asked chat to come up with creatures that took the place of goblins and orcs in stature, lived on land, and were based on the history of Polynesia. Chat came back with two races and added some Melanesia, and Micronesia history into the synthesis. After much tweaking of the initial creation, I settled on the maktiki and the ka’ura.
The maktiki
(Swarming Berserkers & Saltbringer Shamans – Goblin Equivalent)
Physical Description
Small but wiry humanoids, standing 4 to 5 feet tall, with leathery, sea-darkened skin ranging from barnacle-brown to black-green.
Faces are expressive and wild, with toothy grins and eyes that glow faintly like moonlight on stormy surf.
Hair is tangled or shaved into crests, often adorned with fishbones, coral piercings, and wet kelp.
Society & Culture
The maktiki live in anarchic flotillas lashed together from shipwrecks, driftwood, and scavenged sails. Their rafts are living totems of chaos, always moving, always unstable.
They are true zealots of Mor-Azon, believing the god's rage churns through them like crashing waves. Where other Kaethar might conquer, maktiki aim to unmake.
Swarming Berserkers: Maktiki warriors are fast-moving, foaming-at-the-mouth marauders who attack in mobs. They overwhelm larger foes through sheer frenzy, and many are known to leap off ships mid-battle just to bite and claw at fleeing sailors.
Saltbringer Shamans: Twisted spiritual leaders who use salt as both a symbol and a weapon—hurling it like burning sand, cursing wounds with decay, or conjuring brackish sea spirits. Their spells often carry chaotic, corrosive effects and are guided by dreams of storm and wreckage.
The ka’ura
(Tidehammer Shock Troops & Wave-Splitters — Orc Equivalent)
Above is a Midjourney animation based off a prompt that chat created of the picture of a ka’ura at the top of the article.
Physical Description
Towering (6.5–8 feet tall), massively muscled humanoids with bald heads and dark basalt-black skin etched with pale blue lines like tide marks.
Eyes swirl like stormy whirlpools, reflecting their connection to Mor-Azon’s roiling power.
Societal Characteristics
Fewer in number than the maktiki but far more feared; every ka’ura warrior represents the raw, unstoppable force of the sea’s fury.
Serve as Kaethar’s elite Tidehammer Shock Troops, wielding immense coral-hilted weapons, smashing lines of defenders like crashing breakers.
Wave-Splitters: Ka’ura battlecasters who call upon Mor-Azon’s might to conjure tidal surges, seaborne blasts of force, or maelstroms of whirling blades of water. Their spells combine brutal strength with elemental devastation.
Their creed demands they live without chains or masters—except Mor-Azon himself. They believe drowning enemies feeds their god’s insatiable hunger for chaos.
Shared Cultural Themes
Both maktiki and ka’ura see storms, shipwrecks, and coastal ruination as holy acts—manifestations of Mor-Azon’s desire to destroy all that is rigid and lawful.
Together, they form the chaotic spearhead of the Kaethar’s sea reaver fleets, waging war on order itself wherever waves touch the shore.
Primary Inspirations for the maktiki:
1. Tiki figures (Polynesia – especially Māori and Hawaiian traditions)
Why it fits: Tiki are often understood as the first humans or deified ancestors. The maktiki name riffs on this, twisting the “Tiki” concept into something more feral and unbound.
Their worship of Mor-Azon echoes how tiki statues are sometimes seen as vessels for divine or ancestral energy.
2. Vicious water spirits and trickster beings (Melanesia & Micronesia)
Example: Some cultures describe small, dangerous creatures that live near the water and steal from humans or play malicious pranks—closer to fey or goblin behavior.
The maktiki berserker swarm evokes these unpredictable spirits, turned up to eleven with chaos and bloodlust.
3. Shamanistic salt and sea rites
In many island cultures, salt and sea spray have ritual purification or spiritual power. The Saltbringer shamans tap into this, weaponizing it as chaotic magic.
Their belief in interpreting tides and dead fish signs is inspired by real-world coastal divination practices.
Primary Inspirations for the ka’ura:
1. Oceanic warrior societies (Polynesia & Melanesia)
The ka'ura reflect the ethos of cultures where strength, courage, and mastery of the sea were essential to identity and survival.
Their Tidehammer role echoes real-world elite warrior castes—like the Hawaiian koa or the Fijian bati—whose duties often involved both war and sacred protection.
2. Navigation and the sacred ocean
The ka'ura’s Wave-Splitter battlecasters are inspired by the spiritual importance of ocean navigation.
In Polynesian tradition, navigation wasn’t just a skill—it was a sacred calling passed down by wayfinders who could read the stars, waves, and currents.
Translating this to fantasy, their magic channels the ocean’s violence and motion itself.
3. Volcanic and elemental body imagery
The basalt-black skin and glowing veins were inspired by the volcanic geology of many Pacific islands.
In many Pacific origin myths, islands are born from divine or fiery acts—the ka'ura reflect this elemental ancestry, especially in how their appearance resembles hardened magma infused with divine force.
But something was missing.
The human piece of the Kaethar. I was already envisioning them like Māori warriors, but I wanted to give them some culture too.
The Taraki
(Human Seafaring Raiders of the Kaethar Confederacy)
“The tide carves all things, even the bones of kings.”
Overview:
The Taraki are a fearsome human tribe among the Kaethar, known for their tidal raids, sacred tattoo rites, and brutal practice of ceremonial head-taking. They view themselves as the chosen of Mor-Azon, born to break boundaries—between sea and land, life and death, self and spirit.
Origins & Culture:
The Taraki claim descent from a storm-walker, a mortal who was swallowed by the sea and returned with blue fire in his veins—an avatar of Mor-Azon's unmaking will.
They see war, drowning, and conquest not as crimes but as acts of divine art. All that is still must be broken. All that is bound must be cut loose.
Taraki longboats (called vaelai) are carved with cyclonic spiral sigils and figureheads depicting drowned gods or broken anchors.
They believe that captured souls (via head-taking) feed the sea’s hunger and lengthen the life of the taker. To die without a head taken is a curse—they will be forgotten in the tide.
Appearance:
Taraki warriors are covered head-to-toe in ritual tattoos called kai-manu (literally, “tide markings”). These geometric spirals and wave patterns are inked using obsidian needles and jellyfish venom, which causes scarring and iridescence under moonlight.
Each tattoo tells a narrative—raids survived, heads taken, storms conquered. The more ink, the more honored.
Warriors often shave their heads, leaving only a topknot adorned with bone hooks, teeth, or shark fins.
Religious Practices:
Every Taraki carries a shark-tooth dagger used in either battle or ritual sacrifice. Losing it is a grave dishonor.
Their priests, called Wavebinders, collect the skulls of slain foes, binding them into rafts and casting them to sea as offerings. Some are kept and worn as sacred masks by champions.
They believe that when Mor-Azon unbinds the world, the Taraki will be granted command of the “Tide of Names”—a great wave made from the blood of all those they’ve slain.
Role in Kaethar:
Taraki form elite boarding crews and serve as navigators and storm-prophets for Kaethar war fleets.
Unlike the chaotic maktiki or stoic ka'ura, the Taraki are introspective killers—cold-eyed and poetic about death.
They are known to chant storm-prayers as they row, their songs eerie and layered with harmonics that seem to echo underwater.
Real-World Inspirations:
Headhunting cultures of Borneo, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands, especially the ritual meaning behind taking skulls.
Māori tā moko and Samoan pe’a tattoo traditions, where ink is tied to personal legacy and warrior status.
Lapita and Polynesian wayfinders who crossed thousands of miles of ocean by reading stars and waves.
Oceanic myths about being swallowed and reborn from the sea, often linked to deities of death, sharks, or tides.