Sikna

According to surviving records and folk legends, a Sikna is a tragic and monstrous bilikuot native to the tropical and warm climates of Kivria. Their most notable feature was their cat-like eyes, described as bone-chilling by survivors. Sikna are the result of when young children, usually Henin, were hidden away to die far from their community after a coming-of-age ritual backfired and corrupted the child's spirit. The resulting Sikna is tethered up to a certain distance from its burial site. It will wander and predate upon passerbys until the following conditions are met:

1. The body fully decomposes
2. someone kills it outright, a second time
3. someone properly buries the corpse
4. captures and forces it out of the range of the corpse

Only if one of these four conditions are met can a Sikna's spirit pass on.
Sikna are believed to be extinct along with the ritual practices, lost to time and unwritten, that created the potential for such a creature in the first place. While Sikna were rightly believed to be dangerous, they were not monstrous in the least. They were merely a predatory species with a high hunting instinct which crossed wires with their desire to reach out to its former community prior to the disaster. The easiest way to escape a Sikna determined to hunt you is to somehow redirect it to another, more interesting target, such as your (soon to be former) horse. They cannot be outrun and they very rarely can be successfully fought without a weapon.

Sikna Boy in Woods by Aster Vela via Nightcafe

Origin/Ancestry

Tropics of Kivria, Henin in Origin

Lifespan

Unknown

Conservation Status

Extinct, except for one domesticated feral sophont, Kiyal-Lantana living in Haven under the close guidance of his adoptive family.

Average Height

3 feet tall

Average Weight

35