To think such otherwise brutish creatures would be capable of such creative work just speaks to the deep wonders the world holds if we just pay attention.

On nights of the full and dark moon, Screaming Maws will gather to howl in complex, haunting harmonies that are equally beautiful, unnerving, and moving.

Collisions are frequent, which usually results in bloody wrestling matches, though the wounds largely appear superficial. Winners of these matches usually feed the best, and will lead charges into battle.

Truly terrifying to witness one charging into a fight, ridden by an equally terrifying div (or goblin in my own tongue).

Leadership changes frequently as it seems to come down to screaming matching between members, sometimes charging towards one another to see who will veer off first.

The Screaming Maw are, by and large, knuckle walkers, but are surprisingly nimble and swift, equalling the pace of a horse at a moderate gallop. Of special note, I’ve also witnessed Screaming Maws that allow themselves to be harnessed up and ridden by members of their sibling tribe, the Trap Jaws.

An individual *can* put up the trappings as a potential buy-in, an invitation, for others to similarly engage.

It's why it's important to put up outdoor decorations displays for others, at least for Halloween.

If you want the ritual, the magic and engagement, then something else has to give. The day still only has 24 hours. Energy is finite. You can't add without subtracting somewhere else.

The question becomes: what are people actually willing to sacrifice? Is what they'd gain worth what they'd lose?

It's how magic happens. We have to create a liminal connection between spaces in order to provide us a path between the everyday and the experience.

After some time, these piles are sifted through for the most usable remnants, as these are seen as having the heart of strong iron. These bits are then reforged into new arms.

Any captured weapons are ceremonially broken and left in communal rust heaps. From what I can gather, the “weak iron” of their foes must be allowed to die. They hold elaborate funerals when breaking the weapons up.

(Note: I attempted a small bloodletting of my own on my belt knife mimicking their technique, but saw no effective difference in my knife’s quality. I’ll continue using my whetstone. Tribal superstitions make for a poor maintenance plan.)

Curiously, they perform no conventional weapon maintenance: no sharpening, no polishing, no oiling. Yet, their blades keep their edge and sheen as if freshly forged.

They’ll regularly raid adjacent tribes, capturing other hapless creatures only to sacrifice them, capturing their blood in large ceremonial stone basins, where many of their weapons lie waiting. In quieter seasons, they’ll sometimes select one of their own for the dubious honor.

They hold the belief that iron is a living thing, always hungry like they are, and that its appetite must be fed with blood. ‘Feeding’ takes the form of opening veins across the forearm and drizzling a trickle of blood on their blade, speartips, or arrowheads.

The implication here is that qualia is the sensation of that metabolism, with the end product of metabolism being resolution of liminal states.

The resolved states themselves act as further catalysts derived liminal states leading to their own resolution chains.