Called the Roaring Whip by the Elves and the Men of Ind, the sacred Rhombus is one of the earliest arcane artifacts created by the Khureshi Naga. Operating on audio transmission, it is the forerunner of many of the Khureshi's esoteric sonic weapons. The Rhombus has a deceptively simple design: an ornamented weighted airfoil blade attached to a long chord of rope or chain that the user swings in a small circle in a vertical plane or in a large circle in a horizontal plane. When spun the blade generates a roaring vibrato noise resembling a mix of animal cries and howling wind. By adjusting the extent of its circuit, the swing speed, and the plane’s rotation angle, the cadence of the sound produced can be manipulated, making it possible to code information or activate a variety of sorcerous effects enchanted into the tool.
Originally the Rhombus was a device that tapped into the Winds of Azyr and Ghur, allowing Snake Men users to communicate across vast distances, dispel elemental attacks and deflect the incoming lightning of Dragon Ogres that stalked the primeval world. Further improvements have seen it become a component vital to the weather controlling rites of the Naga. While it has retained all these applications, centuries of Chaos influence among the Naga brood-sects have seen the Rhombus deployed for more nefarious purposes.
The droning noise of the Rhombus has been adapted to scramble the minds of the weak-willed and pressure even the resolute, causing irrational fear or rage among warm-blooded beings. The captains of the Snake Men armies, the Pannaga Whirra, are the primary wielders of the Rhombus. Taking to the field in ostentatious armour to mark their status amongst the seething masses of other Snake Men, the Whirra make use of the Rhombus to pass down coded commands or to drive forward contingents of human Fang-Thralls in a bewitched trance, heedless of their own casualties. When the Snake Men armies stage a night raid out of the Hinterlands, their assaults are heralded by the eerie whirring of dozens of these instruments from miles away, spreading panic and trepidation among their targets long before their arrival.
In close combat, the Whirra entrusted with these instruments are adept at striking eyes, flaying skin and slicing unprotected joints and throats with the Rhombus’ blade. They can also be used to disarm and bind the enemy, then finished off with the Pannaga's polearm weapon. Bred for battle above all other concerns, the Whirra mature faster than their female counterparts in the Kanya, and gain the distinctive four arms of the Pannaga royal caste much earlier. Like their Kobra superiors the Pannaga Whirra also ride to war atop chariots, though more prestigious mounts are denied to them until they become Lords themselves.
Like the Kanya, the Pannaga Whirra are also accompanied by a blood-bonded spirit familiar. In the Whirra’s case this entity takes the form of the Bajang or Bandarsnatch, a darkly intelligent liminal being combining the physical traits of the gaunt witchian-cat and the tigerleech, a thaumaturgical co-creation of the Amaranthine Lotus and Ebon Stone marga. Acting as the hunting beasts of the Pannaga, the Bajang take the form of a carnivorous feline the size of a leopard, vaguely resembling the cruel Sickle Weasels of the eastern islands. Below their unnerving white eyes the Bajangs' jaws are reminiscent of a lamprey's, displaying double rows of jagged fangs in a circle. Their two long prehensile tails can snare prey from a distance, terminating into three-digit claws ornamented with cursed rings. The Bajang's strangest and deadliest trait however is the seething liquid mist that perpetually emanates from its haggard body, which can be directed towards its foes as a caustic fog of crawling tendrils.
In the wilds of the Hinterlands the Bajang can rarely be found lurking in the boughs of great strangler figs looming over forgotten battlefields, lying in ambush as opportunistic hunters. Bajang familiars are typically housed in a bamboo cylinder when not called to battle, morphing their bodies into little ghostly spheres that fit neatly into the containers. On the battlefield the Bajang skulk around the vicinity of their Pannaga wards while remaining largely ethereal, content to let the Whirra do most of the fighting while it savages foes unfortunate enough to be crippled nearby. If pressed to combat however, the swift Bajang inflicts its aggressors with a suffocating smokescreen that burns exposed skin and eyes. Prolonged contact with the fumes rapidly causes flesh, hair and bone to boil then melt, with the surfaces of objects touched by the vapours turning highly incendiary and remaining so for hours even after being doused with water. While the corrosive fog does not spread to a very large area, it is effective in countering breaches in the Serpent Hosts' lines or flushing out enemies entrenched in tunnels or smaller fortifications. The enigmatic ritual undertaken by the Snake Men captains to forge their bond with the Bajang, said to transpire deep underground and involving a cursed goblet offered to the Old Night, renders the Whirra immune to the effects of this killing mist.
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