Kithar

Trade follows routes. The Kithar follow trade.

A diffuse network of information brokers, logistics agents, and silent partners, the Kithar operate in the spaces between the established powers. They have no claimed territory, no military fleet, and no governing body that any outsider has located. What they have is presence: a Kithar agent is everywhere cargo moves, everywhere information changes hands, and nowhere that can be pointed to on a chart.

Behaviour

The Kithar trade in what others overlook: route data, personnel records, old logs that the original owner forgot to delete. They do not manufacture goods. They manufacture knowledge. A Kithar broker can tell you where the Korrathi will raid next week, what the Teralith are paying for gate calibration parts, and exactly how much Blackwater knows about your cargo — assuming you have something to trade in return.

They are not hostile. They are not friendly. They are transactional, in a way that makes the Teralith look sentimental.

Relationship to the Ancients

The Kithar predate every successor civilisation except Blackwater — and the two have an unspoken arrangement: Blackwater owns the logs, the Kithar own the routes. No Kithar agent has ever confirmed whether their network extends into Ancient-era records. The assumption is that it does, and that the price for that data is beyond anything any faction can pay.

In the field

You will not see a Kithar warship. You will not need to. When the Kithar want something from you, you will receive a message — no sender, no trace — with terms. If you accept, the transaction completes on its own. If you refuse, the same silence continues, but your shipping manifests will start appearing on Korrathi bulletin boards.