S02E05: Kahlaqrabs - A Deadly Scourge - TRANSCRIPT

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Welcome back! I hope these past weeks have been treating you well. I know that it's been a long time since I last uploaded an episode, and I hope that all of my listeners have been doing great since last I was able to speak to you! To give you an idea of what I've been up to, I've just successfully completed my studies, finished my murder mystery manuscript, and have been working on various short stories and books on-and-off ever since. Now, I am back once again to share some more fun facts, worldbuilding, and writing lessons!

Last time on this podcast, I told you all about sorranids, a type of creature in my high fantasy novel, The Pirates of Sissa. At least - I told you as much about them as I could without giving away some tidbits that I think you'll enjoy best when you learn about them in the book. This time around, I want to talk about the other fantasy species living in the Black Desert that I am very excited about and very proud of in terms of the amount of detail and work that went into these particularly nasty animals. These are the kahlaqrabs, which I introduced earlier on in episode 3 as deadly predators that look like a cross between a spider, a lobster, and a scorpion -- only, they're as big as a cow or a horse, and in some cases even bigger.

I also mentioned that the extinction of the desert gazelle, which was really the only animal capable of killing the kahlaqrab because of its ability to penetrate its otherwise impenetrable exoskeleton, was all thanks to the humans who extensively hunted them - who saw their powerful horns, delicious meat, and their gorgeous skins as a profitable opportunity and didn't pay any heed to the harm they were doing to the fragile ecosystem they were tampering with. While the legendary King Ustura tried to set things right by urging many hunters to hunt kahlaqrabs in return for great monetary sums, his struggle ultimately ended in disaster.

You can learn more about his story and how his kingdom fell mysteriously and suddenly at the height of this hunting spree, by reading my short story, The Legend of the Five-Thousand Shells, which has recently been revamped and is finally available once again via my blog! Check it out in the link below, or head on over to my blog, which is hybaiswriting.blogspot.com, and click on the Short Stories page! I think you'll really enjoy this short, fairy-tale-like read, and I'd love to hear your thoughts about it in the comments!

So, back to the main topic in this episode. I want to really get into the creature design concept of the kahlaqrab and what makes them so dangerous. But first, I want to talk about the origins of the kahlaqrab's concept.

This creature was first inspired by the sandwalker, which is a cryptid that apparently originates in Arabian mythology, though I haven't personally heard of any such creature in my lifetime, nor has anyone I've been able to ask about this sandwalker. I do wonder where the source material for this creature comes from. Nevertheless, it was a cool fantasy creature, if somewhat terrifying, and I knew from the start that I wanted to do something with it. You'll actually notice that a lot of the creatures that I mention in my fantasy novels are going to come from legendary or mythological creatures, usually from Arabian or Islamic stories. It's one of the ways that I would like to represent my culture in my writing. So, I decided to adapt the sandwalker for my book by using it as a basis for the creation of the monsters called 'kahlaqrabs' in my fantasy world.

The sources I found online about sandwalkers was very limited, and mostly referred to one entry in a book that I've never seen. All I had to go with was what it apparently looks like and what it eats. But that led me down a rabbit-hole in my mind. I found myself considering whether the myth might have originated from the sighting of a fossil left over from the Cretaceous period, where I believe that area was submerged underwater, if I've done my research right. I conducted a little bit of research online and found some prehistoric creatures I had no idea existed - creatures whose fossilized remains might actually give someone cause to think there was some kind of giant shelled monster roaming the desert - and they most definitely gave me some cool ideas for the kahlaqrabs in my book!

I also considered that the desert has a lot of scorpions, and they're nasty creatures that you really need to look out for when you're out there, so it also stands to reason that many desert-travelers would be terrified of the idea of giant scorpion-like creatures. This, too, might have given rise to the idea of the sandwalker as more of a scary tale rather than anything else.

From there, I took things several steps further and got into the nitty gritty details of how the monsters in my book, the kahlaqrabs, are born, how they live, what they eat, how they hunt, how they look, and so much more, making my final kahlaqrab concept very different, in my opinion, and very unique when compared to what was available online about this sandwalker creature. I really enjoyed figuring out their behaviour as animals, their reproductive processes, their habits and routines, and so on and so forth. It's actually a lot of fun to compile all of this different information that you can find online about a variety of real-world creatures and use them to imagine something else completely.

I called my monsters kahlaqrabs. The name kahlaqrab is one that I came up with, and that I'm very proud of, despite how difficult it might be to pronounce for some folks. It originates from the Arabic words for "black" and "scorpion" which I have put together to name this creature, since I didn't want to use the term 'sandwalker', given how different my creature turned out to be when compared to the sandwalker that I had read about online. Moreover, if I'm being quite honest, I wanted to use as much Arabic-language influence in naming places, creatures, and people as I possibly could in order to once again represent my background and culture within my writing. I've always loved the Arabic language, and this serves as a way for me to get to use it and share it even with an English-reading audience.

So, that was how the original conceptualization and evolution of the kahlaqrab came along. Without further ado, let us now get into some of the interesting facts about kahlaqrabs.

The kahlaqrab is truly a nightmarish beast, and with its hard, dark exoskeleton, it is able to camouflage itself into the desert sand, fusing with the black landscape until an unsuspecting victim stumbles upon it.

Here's an excerpt from an encyclopaedia written by renowned Belvatrian adventurer and writer Athor the Wanderer:
"A kahlaqrab can grow almost five times the size of a human. Its stinger is about as large as a human head, and extremely venomous and sharp. Its front pincers are large enough to enclose around its victim's body and have enough strength to completely crush them or split them apart in only a few seconds."

Let's talk a bit about how it hunts and what it eats. The kahlaqrab hunts big game in the Black Desert - namely horses and camels, and its favourite food is now long extinct: the desert gazelle. On occasion, however, if food is scarce, it will also eat humans or resort to cannibalism, eating other kahlaqrabs.

As you can probably tell by now, the kahlaqrab is easily the deadliest animal in the Black Desert, and what little we know about them we know through extremely rare cases of experimentation and observation, historical records and myth, and theories posited by renowned scientists throughout my fantasy world. Some have argued that the kahlaqrabs are naturally cannibalistic as a result of their unparalleled station as top predators in the Black Desert - a way to self-control the population, but this has not been proven.

Finally for this episode, before I wrap things up, I do want to note: While it is very difficult to kill the kahlaqrab, it's not entirely impossible. There are chinks in its armor, a weak spot here and there that can be taken advantage of. You can imagine it takes great skill and luck to take advantage of those weak spots with your sword. However, even if killed, the kahlaqrab can still be deadly. As the great Athor the Wanderer explains in his book, "The venom held in their stingers is only a concentrated version of the venom that pulses through their veins, seeping into their muscles. The meat of a kahlaqrab is therefore deadly to eat, even when cooked, and if ingested will result in almost immediate death."

So I have done a lot of other worldbuilding for this creature, and have most definitely refined it over time and probably will do some more as time goes on, prior to publishing this book. I've discussed how this creature reproduces, the kinds of rare genetic mutations it might have, and lots more. I might follow up this episode in future with more on these terrifying creatures, but I think that's enough to digest for today!

If you have any questions about The Pirates of Sissa or my writing in general, or if you want to request episodes about certain aspects of The Pirates of Sissa, please don't hesitate to drop by my social media and let me know there.

Thanks so much for tuning in for today's episode. Until next time!