Revision 1

Overview

Sanzhana are winged creatures found across Vale Sangora. They are small, chubby, blue-skinned beings that have been described as looking like half-human moths, with wings that whisper as they move. They are not an enemy type in the ordinary sense. Their role in the game is economic: they buy teeth, and they pay in time.

The Teeth Trade

Sanzhana harvest teeth from the dead. Official gameplay footage shows one pulling enamel from corpses laid inside a ring of red mushrooms, and they are described as regular trading partners for bandits and other unsavoury sorts who have bodies to hand. Coen can enter the same trade, collecting teeth from those he kills or finds and bringing them to a sanzhana.

What they hand back is not coin. Sanzhana are able to manipulate the flow of time, which makes them the one confirmed exception to the otherwise fixed economy of the 30-Day Cycle. Creative director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz has said the intent was that they "allow you to play with the time limit," drawing on folklore in which pixies bend time, and that having an exception to a system the whole game revolves around was appealing precisely because it makes the world feel less predictable.

The exact rates have not been published. It is not known whether different kinds of teeth are worth different amounts of time, how much time a single trade returns, or whether the exchange has a cap. Those details should be treated as unconfirmed until the game is out.

Folklore Roots

Like most of the Bestiary, the sanzhana are built out of Eastern European folk material rather than standard fantasy stock. The design leans on the pixie and tooth-fairy strands of that tradition, where small winged creatures bargain for teeth and are associated with mischief around fate and timing. Rebel Wolves has followed the same approach with the Murohni, the Uriashi, and the other creature types drawn from Polish, Romanian, Ukrainian and Balkan myth.

Why They Matter

Every other confirmed way of spending time in the game runs one direction. Quests, travel, perk training at a Shrine, and even a stint in a cell after attacking a villager all take segments off the clock. The sanzhana are the only confirmed mechanism that gives any back, which makes them worth locating early for players intending to attempt the fullest possible run inside the rescue window. See Time as a Resource for how the wider economy works.