Neshezu

Neshezues are big, orc-faced orangutans with a hint of goblin. A male stands about 5 feet and weighs about 175 pounds, a female roughly 75% of that. Shaggy red-brown hair covers them, their arms span over 7 feet, and their stubby legs are poor for walking. Evil, clever, and intelligent, they live almost wholly in the trees.

Warriors carry scimitars, daggers, and other pirate arms, routinely poisoned (usually injected type O or P), and 10% also bear wheel-lock pistols. Apelike strength adds +1 to melee damage. Nocturnal forest dwellers with 60-foot infravision, they hate bright light and suffer -1 to hit in sunlight.

They climb at movement 12 and swing through branches and vines at 15. They prefer ambush, entangling foes with nets and vines and striking from cover in hit-and-run raids. A neshezu in the forest that is not in melee has AC 2.

Every 25 neshezues follow a 3 HD leader fighting as a 3rd-level fighter, with three aides of 8 hit points each and a pistol apiece. A band of 150 or more has a 5 HD chieftain fighting as a 5th-level fighter, guarded by six 2 HD warriors, each with a pistol and +2 to melee damage. There is also one shaman (up to 8th-level priest) per 100.

Their loose clans infest the western woods of a wizard-governed nation whose rulers have failed to clear them out. Clans run like pirate crews, rank going to the strongest, cruelest, and most treacherous. Villages perch high on platforms of planks and woven vine, reached by swinging and by handholds spaced beyond most humanoids' reach.

Their forebears treated females as breeders and laborers, but neshezu females now own the deadly poison lore, favoring subtle, multi-part ingested poisons the victim never notices until too late. The lore keeps a wary truce between the sexes, and many a chief owes his rank to a wife skilled with poison.

Neshezues live about 30 years. They prefer raw, fresh meat but will eat almost anything.