The word Arraqu (a term from the Assyrian Magog language meaning “green ones”; the actual native name being Tuptal, “human”) signifies a culture of geographically isolated farmers, herdsmen and small crafting villages that settle the dales and hills of the Sillani mountains. Like most post-human races on the face of Earth, they descend from escaped slave stock of the otherworldly masters from the now-forgotten past.
Their moss-green skin and ascetic composition lend them a certain similarity with the slender reeds they sow in wide irrigated terraces. A proclivity to stand still for hours at a time  brought with it a misled reputation for tardiness. The truth is very different – being a very introvert people the hectic mannerisms of other races (foremost among them the hated Magog) alienate the Arraqu.

From the tenth year on, hair growth begins in Arraqu males. Their head hair is straight and resembles silky threads of a metallic hue. Women grow foot-long silver threads from the wrists along the arms up to their shoulder blades; visiting people often find they resemble birds when they spread their arms. Beards are uncommon in both sexes.

Clothing is worn in layers, and often very thick due to the cold of the highland passes. Garments of plant fibre or the skins of the great amphibian livestock they keep in shallow pools are prefered materials. Arraqu (or rather, Tuptal) interaction happens mostly inbetween members of a family; the extended families and clans  only gather for certain festivities in scattered ancestor temples to celebrate, barter and arrange marriages. The temples are also considered hordes of old knowledge: their collections include banishment spells against the demons and horrors from the deep pits of the ancient ones, as well as a few preserved artefacts handed down over generations. Arraqu tales are full of proud exorcists, speaking of enduring battles against nightmarish creatures fought in and by the minds of legendary priests of old. Some legends hold it was the threat of powerful sorcerers, summoners and all their legions that made their people climb the mountain and find life in isolation, although the greatest enemy nowadays is the Magog empire. Where once the foothills had been settled, they have now fallen to the red-skinned conquerors; their smelting ovens hungry for burnable wood as to create ever more weapons. Now that the hills have been all but deforested, the conquerors yet again look to enslave and remove the Tuptal people. The cold valleys between the mountains have great reservoirs of water; whole forests grow on the cliffs and mountainsides. Repeatedly Magog troops dared small missions to claim some of the lands. Most of them ended in a few burnt down villages and humiliation for the leading commanders – even though the Arraqu appear calm and peaceful they are very much able to defend their homeland. More than oneself-proclaimed conqueror fell victim to sudden landslides, cut-off icy passes or whole storms of arrows and thrown missiles. What the Arraqu of today lack in technology and strength of arms they make up for with stoicism and knowledge of terrain.

There are no noteworthy towns per se in the land of the Arraqu. In the last couple of centuries, and especially decades, the importance of the temples grew, though. Strongest among them is Hala, House of Ghosts.
The temples serve as gathering places in face of the threat of Gog; here council is held regarding the defence of the mountain ranges when the isolated villages face overwhelming force. By now a permanent war council has been established in Hala.

In the city of Gog many Arraqu serve as slaves; most of them are used as scribes, copyists and accountants, being too weak for manual labour in comparison to other slave stock. They are held in low esteem and often collectively punished when word of failed conquest reaches the empire, as to prove dominance over the hated enemy by humiliating defenceless captives where actual victory seemed impossible. The simple people of Gog enjoy such displays.

Meanwhile, scouts and explorers from Gog bring news from the far western lands. They report of a realm of similarly green-skinned people, obviously of the same species as the Arraqu, but with a different language and very different culture. They are rumoured to be lords of a strong kingdom in the deeper lands, riding thundering beasts and able to shape the glass plains with their magic. This may or may not be related to the oldest Magog records from the founding days of the empire of primitive city states of the green-skinned race laying in regions under rulership of Gog for a millennium. It seems their species was once amongst the most widespread, before the arrival of the Magog in this world.

The typical Arraq is no adventurer; his people is too prudent for the lure of risk, the search for doomed treasures and ancient royal tombs. An Arraq adventurer would be a free spirit among his kind; where his people look into the past and only at what is their own, he seeks the world beyond the cliffs. The mountains are a wall to him just as much as for all of his race, although not one of defence and security, but one to climb and surpass. His journey  can never end far from, but only via the outside world and all its wonders. Most Arraq know little of the world. Their temples hold great and dusty archives and knitted story-rugs, but mainly deal with their own myths, history and traditions. An Arraq walking the path of xenophilia and curiosity is not to be trifled with – he may be fragile-looking, but his mind is strong, his will impenetrable. More than one secret has been lifted by one such unusual person.
Other reasons for leaving the homeland may be the search for enslaved relatives, a rare case of vengeful desire or the reclamation of holy relics. Some Arraq priests travel the land as banishers and exorcists, attempting to purge the out-worldish demons from the world and prevent their return to the world. If he must use grimmer tools and perhaps claim possession of a few of the beasts himself while doing so, the price may be worth paying if it means he has a shot at saving future generations…

The Tuptal speak their own language that follows very rigid rules. They use syllables with fixed meaning (many of them, unknown to them, deriving from the language of the ancient Snake sorcerers they once escaped) which are arranged to form terms and sentences. The word for human consists of Tup, “wise”, and Tal, “creature”. The most important livestock of the Arraqu, the Búoptal, is called after Bú, “friendly”, Op, “source or spring”, and Tal; therefore meaning “friendly being from the spring”. The pitch of a syllable signifies whether it describes an object or an attribute. For example, while Bú is friendly, Bu is friend. Verbs follow a weirdly abstract system; one “does” not, but one is a “doer”.
Typical names consist of up to three syllables. The name knows no grammatical gender and most names are used for men and women. Sometimes male sex is signified by the suffix”-u”.
Buban (“friend of cloud”), Honlakí (“singer of ghost merciful”Sänger-Geister-gnädig, Geisterbesänger, eine Art Schamane), Pantalha (“Pan-being house”, the Pan-tal being a kind of huge iridescent snail.)

Arraqu characters in D&D-like systems would have decreased strength and increased wisdom or intelligence. Those who grew up in the mountains will fare well at survival and guerilla tactics in that terrain, while slave-borns may be good at dealing with pain.