Patreon Insights: Magic Part 3 - Genesis

Yesterday I touched on the Divine and their role in Resonance. I also touched on genesis, or more accurately abiogenesis which happened in much the same way that it was theorised to have happened on Earth, though with a few extra pushes and guidance along the way. That is not what I'm going to be talking about here. If anything, Genesis is a wee bit of a misnomer as we're going to be talking about how the different races came to be and none of them were created in the sense people typically think when they here the word. This is because all the races came into existence through process of evolution with some of them also experiencing Resonant Metamorphosis. This is true for all life on Illyria. The focus of this Insight will be on Resonant Metamorphosis and what exactly that means for both live on Illyria and the Divine.

To start off, Al'duur and Humans are not the result of any true Resonant Metamorphosis beyond the subtle influences of the Heart of the Sun, the Goddess, and Illyria. They instead evolved naturally from a common ancestor after the two groups were separated by tectonic activity and an ocean. As is typically the case, the Al'duur and humans evolved in accordance with their environment and the influence of the prime deity that watched over them.

So what about the other races? Well in the time that Ardent Tears is set, we have three more races on top of those already mentioned. The Kairosi, Miriel, and Ferran. There are two mechanisms in which these races came to be. The more common of these two mechanisms is being God-touched.

For a race to become God-touched, a few things need to be in place before anything happens. First, a god needs to have ties to the group in question. The group in question cannot already be God-touched or Moon-touched. There is a catalyst for the change. For the sapient races, they usually have their own gods that have a more defined relationship with them, which fulfills that criteria. The second criteria is usually a simple binary case, but it gets a little more complicated when mixed race individuals are in the equation. My general rule of thumb is that someone that is less than 1/4 God-touched, they can become fully God-touched but any traits from their God-touched ancestry are lost.

The last criteria is typically due to the group's existence being threatened in some way. This is due to such events having a profound effect on the god and the Resonance they share with the group in question. This is especially true if the group is sapient. If they are wiped out, the god will become less defined, but if they survive the Resonance will be stronger for triumphing over disaster.

At this point, the god has a choice. They can either let the event that is acting as a catalyst pass, or they can tie themselves to the group in much the same way that the prime deities did in the beginning. To do this is risky business as it makes the god mortal in that they will cease to exist if the group dies out. On the flipside, the god will become much more powerful if they survive. Alas, if the group is sapient, they must consent or seek out the change for the Resonance to be strong enough for any changes to occur.

Once the process starts, the group starts changing to adapt to whatever environmental pressures they are experiencing as a result of the catalyst that is in play. The change isn't immediate and may even take several generations to reach it's conclusion, but the moment it starts, the group is now a distinct race/species and can be considered God-touched. Additionally, any changes that do occur won't necessarily follow the same logic as evolution. Some adaptions might skip a few steps or jump to a completely different approach to the problem. Some changes may not even strictly directly benefit the race, at least not immediately. Whatever happens, however, you will still be able to recognise what the race was before being God-touched.

The example I'll be using for God-touched races is the Kairosi. If you would prefer to wait for more details about the Kairosi to be given in story, skip ahead to (end of spoilers).

So the Kairosi were originally a group of desert nomads on the southern continent which is now known as Terian'el (in Ferran, Midiran, and Særan that is), which translates to the Ashen Eye. This name alludes to the catalyst for their transformation. The desert in the centre of Terian'el is seismically active and above a super volcano. A series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions in the area around 5000 years ago resulted in a great storm that engulfed the desert and prevented anyone from escaping. As I'm sure you can imagine, this gave rise to an environment that one wouldn't exactly call hospitable.

Many people died as a result of the storm, but the Kairosi persevered and reached out to their God. When all seemed hopeless, they persevered and their God answered their prayers. The first change that occurred was that they became resistant to the noxious gasses that were being produces. They also stopped growing quite so many terminal hairs. This soon led to them adapting to the immense heat and restricted access to water. Kairosi barely sweat. Instead, their cells are able to function at higher temperatures than one might expect. Alas, this did affect their ability to adapt to the cold which is why you won't see many in cooler environments.

After those initial changes, the Kairosi started to transform to be more in line with the Kairosi of today. Their skin darkened to the point of being like obsidian The reason for this was two-fold. On one hand, they were producing more melanin to deal with the increased levels of UV that was breaking through the ash clouds as a result of damage to the ozone layer. On the other hand, the ash and soot was fusing with their genetic makeup in a way that made their flesh much hardier than most other people. The best way I could describe what their skin feels like is pliable glass.

The other main change that Kairosi experienced was to their eyes. To protect themself from the ash, they acquired a nictitating membrane or third eyelid like you might see in many birds, reptiles and amphibians. This membrane is notably more translucent than is typical which grants them improved vision whilst blinking, though it isn't perfect.

There are other small details about the Kairosi that I could include here, but I'll leave that for the story proper.

(end of spoilers)

Now before I move on to the Moon-touched I will say how the gods know making a race God-touched makes them mortal. To put it simply, Kairosi and Miriel aren't the only God-touched races/species to have ever existed. They are just the only human-derived races known to be still alive.

Anyways, moving on we have only one human derived race that is Moon-touched by way of the Ferrans, though there are many more Moon-touched species. Like with the God-touched races, Moon-touched go through a series of rapid changes, though these changes lack the guidance of a catalyst. This is due to what causes a race to become Moon-touched. 

In short, a creature that isn't already Moon-touched or God-touched becomes Moon-touched when it is bathed in the shadow of a double solar eclipse. Physically speaking, this should be impossible as the moons are never new at the same time. At least, they shouldn't be. What allows this to happen is our old friend Resonance and the union of the Goddess and the Heart of the Sun. Because of this, Resonance would conspire to bring the moons and sun together for a brief moment every few thousand years. When this happens the orbits shift until the moons are new at the same time in such a way that double eclipse occurs. After the eclipse, normal orbits are slowly restored.

During a double solar eclipse, Resonance goes out of whack in the area covered in the shadow cast by the moons. It is this Resonance that causes the the chaotic changes experienced by the Moon-touched races. Unlike the God-touched races, however, the lack of guidance with the Moon-touched results in there being a chance of some of the changes being incompatible with life. The changes aren't completely random, however, as members of the same group will experience the same changes. It is possible that they will gain properties and traits that are associated with other nearby creatures, which is part of the reason the Ferran have feline qualities.

The other big factor with in Moon-touched transformations is local myths and folklore. As mentioned yesterday, the combined zeitgeist of the two realms plays a big role in Resonance. Because of this, certain aspects from various myths and legends play are added to the potential changes that can occur. However, because of the chaotic nature of the event, this changes aren't always applied to the creatures that these myths are based on. This is what led to the strange and terrifying abilities of the Vhoraks. It is also worth noting that Moon-touched are not explicitly tied to a god, though they typically develop a stronger connection to any the Goddess and any combination of the other two prime deities.

With all that said, in spite there being key differences in how God-touched and Moon-touched come into existence, once all is said and done, they are much the same. They can both reproduce with their parent race, but not any other races that are derived from the same parent. A mixed race individual can only reproduce with another person of a different lineage as long as one side only possesses at most 1/4 Moon-touched/God-touched blood. This limit of 1/4 is also the go to baseline for determining if an individual can be become fully Moon-touched or God-touched. 

It is worth noting that this is only an estimate and there are other factors at play. For example, Rowan and her family are not eligible and neither will their immediate descendents. Granted, now that I am trying to come up with examples where the 1/4 mark holds true, I'm drawing blanks. They aren't super rare, but most are either not important in the grand scheme of things, are yet to be revealed, or are sitting squarely in spoiler town. I guess in this instance, you'll have to take my word for it.

Anyways, after that slight gaffe, I'll move on to one point that I haven't really addressed. Towards the start I stated that being God-touched was more common. If you look at the five humanoid races, this seems obvious, but if you analyze what I've said in the paragraphs that followed, you might have a few questions. For one, how could enough gods take the risk of bonding with a group for God-touched to be more common? And two, how could there have been enough events to serve as a catalyst for God-touched to be more common? The answer to both is "not enough". 

Why then did I say they were more common? Semantics and perspective, really. Due to the fact that there has been only one double solar eclipse in recorded history with the second most recent one being alluded to almost a thousand years after the fact in a language that is no longer spoken or understood, most Illyrian scholars see it as a one off event. A group becoming God-touched, however, has been recorded many times since it was first observed. Furthermore, the most recent example of a group surviving the God-touching process was a lot more recent, with it being dated to just over 237 years before Rowan was born. There have also been a few cases since then, but none that have survived to the present day.

So as you can see, I was approaching it from the perspective of of an Illyrian scholar. As the author and creator of this world, I will admit that their are significantly more Moon-touched races/species around today. Even when you take the only the most recent double solar eclipse, they are the majority. To be fair, though a lot of the older examples of Moon-touched races/species have evolved a fair bit since their initial transformations, but they are still classed as Moon-touched.

Now, before I conclude this Insight, I was to talk about the one super-continent sized exception to these mechanisms. Dreis, the supercontinent to the west where the Al'duur evolved is a special case. In part due to the influence of the Heart of the Sun, but also because of the overwhelming concentration of Resonance Crystals on the continent, the creatures that evolved there started integrating the crystals into their biological make-up. This has resulted in them gaining some unusual qualities that don't necessarily align with what one might expect from the specific crystals that have been integrated. It is also why Al'duur are so large in comparison to humans and the other races, despite a common ancestor and why they cannot reproduce with humans. 

As for why this makes Dreis a special case in regards to the mechanisms discussed above is due to how the Resonance Crystals interact with the Resonance of a Double Solar Eclipse or a god trying to bond with a group. Basically, the Resonance Crystals within the fauna and flora of Dreis effectively create a form of destructive interference when interacting with these processes. As such, the Resonance fizzles and no changes can occur. When this happens the fauna/flora also lose access to any special abilities granted to them by the Resonance Crystals for the duration of the event, but they do return.

Of course, now that I've teased more about Dreis, I will now refuse to touch upon it until we eventually visit there in the far future or I decide to do another Insight on one of the creatures or plants that can be found there. Is this me being a wee bit of a troll? Maybe, but it was relevant to the Insight and it is something I can point to if it seems like I'm pulling stuff out my arse when we get to Dreis. Anyways, it is now time to...

Run awayyyy!!!

And to also apologise for this Insight being super late as a result of my ADHD meds and DnD.