The Karku were an enigmatic race of the East and South native to Tanara, Vog Mur, and parts of the Mur Fostisyr. They were sometimes considered merely more intelligent Apes but usually seen as a race which was akin to both Trolls and Men, perhaps a kind of Half-Trolls or man- and troll-blooded Orcs. The Karku as a whole were further divided into two categories: the Krals, who had retained more intelligence and culture, and the Garks, a more primitive and bestial offshoot, often mistaken for mere monstrous animals.
In other media[]
In some other Roleplaying Systems Garks are described as crossbreeds of Goblins and Giants.
Notes[]
Neither wholly men nor wholly beasts, neither fully of the Shadow nor of the Free Peoples, the Karku occupied a strange place in the world. Some believed they were a lost tribe of Men, which had escaped Morgoth's experiments, similar to the Drúedain, others a kind of half-Troll, and still others an Orc-blooded aberration that had long since diverged from its origins. Or they could be degenerate men, warped by the Shadow.
What was certain, however, was their resilience. From the freezing north to the haunted coasts, they survived in lands where few others could, carving out a life on the edges of civilization—perhaps as they had always done, since the Elder Days.