Novisius

[vorthosjay]

Anything you can tell us about Slivers?

Yes. But like, what specifically? It's tough to answer broad questions like this. If you just want everything, mtg.wiki has a good grounding in what slivers are.

[novisius]

You have opened the floodgates my friend, I have, like, 50 specific questions that you will be sent overtime now.

[novisius]

Flesh Crimes - Part 3

Vampyrs - Parasites of the Living

Visually, these creatures don't look horrifically different from a Human. Their skin is paler (rgb + 15%), their eyes have shifted to a more red color (something like r + 50 and bg - 50%), their ears become more pointed, their canines extend by something like 25 to 100 percent. They can distend their jaws into a horrific wideness, making them capable of 'biting someone's face off' in a near literal sense.

Predatory Instinct Talent; When rolling for intimidation, multiply their intimidation skill by their tier minus the target's tier. If the target is highly invested (gm's discretion, having levels in an invested path, or having an investiture score), add one to the Vampyr's tier for that roll. If the target is a cognitive or spiritual being, add the target's tier for that roll. GMs may have groups or crowds take an 'average tier'. This talent does not have any positive effect against others with this talent.

The bites of Vampyrs deal keen damage.

The souls and blood Vampyr's accumulate, eventually forms into great power. They have a goal which is has a number of steps to accomplish equal to the number of times the goal has been accomplished plus one. Each time the goal is accomplished, they gain an electron, and each shell grants them the benefits of a hemalurgic spike of their metal (minus the detriments of having hemalurgic spikes). Without appropriate talents, they have no particular method to accumulate electrons.

The innate investiture from local stars harms Vampyrs irreparably, they gain half as much health from levels. They can only survive by feeding off of 'living' blood of other creatures. Normal food sickens them and they have no need for water as they get all of their hydration from blood.

Vampyrs have a few talents they are able to access, two pseudo trees and another standalone talent.

Standalone Talent

Throw Voice

A skill some Vampyrs choose to cultivate is the ability to through their voice and speak without moving their lips. These traits are not invested in nature, as such, non-Vampyr characters may be allowed access to this talent.

The exact nature of the talent's benefits are up to you and the gm to negotiate, this talent is somewhat akin to having an expertise in ventriloquism I suppose. It could go beyond, granting the ability to whisper in someone's ear from across the table or sound as if you are on the opposite end of a hall, or it could be as simple as ventriloquism.

Blooddrinker Talents

Draining Bite

Advance goal for each opportunity the bite attack gains (on a crit and if stakes were raised) if keen damage was dealt and the target has either blood or a soul. If the target has blood and dealt keen damage, deal 1d4 vital damage to the target and either gain 1 investiture or roll a recovery die and regain that much health, do both for an opportunity and neither for a complication. If the target has a soul, dealt keen damage, and an opportunity was gained, roll tier minus one d4s as spirit damage and gain 1 investiture. If exactly four or sixteen spirit damage was dealt, gain an additional goal progress and gain an additional investiture, the target loses a trait as if drained non-fatally by a hemalurgic spike of the vampyr's metal. The special effects of the bite attack gained from this talent can only be used once per scene (wholesale, this is all of ability with multiple if statements).

Flowing Blood

Requires Draining Bite Talent

At the start of your turn, if you aren't downed, heal an amount of health equal to the number of shells you have. This trait does not heal injuries.

Blood Lightning

Requires Draining Bite Talent

Using investiture, you turn your own blood into plasma and jettison it out from your flesh. Mechanically, for two actions you may deal a number of d4s, equal to half recovery die maximum, in energy damage in the form of crimson lightning. Can spend 1 or more investiture to add that many d4s to the attack. Range equal to (tier plus shells) times 5 in feet. A Discipline attack. Then take vital damage equal to the max value of your recovery die. If the stakes were raised, on a complication, take twice as much damage, on an opportunity, take half as much damage.

Deatheater Tree

Voracious Appetite

When something with a sufficient soul, that you perceive, dies within tier plus shells feet of you, you may roll a d20 against their spiritual defense. You may raise the stakes, you have an advantage if you are the one who killed them, you always succeed on a 20, and you succeed on a 19 if your tier is 4+. If you succeed, you progress your goal by a step. For each opportunity gained during this roll, you may progress the goal by an additional step instead of gaining any other benefits from the opportunity or gain an investiture. For each complication, the gm may have you take trinangular d8 spirit damage (1d8 for one, 3d8 for two, 6d8 for three, and so on) as the soul resists being consumed by you.

Each Death, a Life

Requires Voracious Appetite Talent

If you would die, instead lose all current progress with your goal and lose all electrons in the valence (outermost) shell, then regain half your health. If you don't lose any electrons, you die like normal.

Touch of Decay

Requires Voracious Appetite Talent

For an investiture and one or more actions, you can remove charges or investiture from an invested being or object, the amount removed is equal to your tier for each action expended. This action does not give you any special knowledge on how much investiture or how many charges are in the invested being or object.

''To make a Vampyr, inject them with the black Cabalisk, ideally in the form of an ampule.'

The fluid used to transform a Human into a Vampyr is a form of 'spiritual nanites', little spider-like contraptions. Something that crawls on and alters the spiritual web of the subjects. This change in identity is inexorable it seems, though exponentially slower the more heavily invested the subject is. A Drab, someone with slightly less than 1 BEU, can be changed over the course of four months.

A side effect I have yet to be able to weed out is that these forced changes makes the resulting Vampyr vulnerable to the innate investiture from stellar bodies.' - Notes from the journals of Galas Yanan

The fluid itself takes a black coloration, assumedly due to the intent of Ruin, though when the surface is agitated or at the peaks and valleys of ripples, there is a deep crimson color that appears for a few moments. The texture/consistency of the fluid is not quite water, it is always considered to be somehow 'off' from water, yet clearly reminiscent of it. When in contact with air, it evaporates as if it has a halflife of around a minute and four seconds.

Where it is sourced from is not quite known. Either Yanan produces less of these or the changes are so subtle and slow that no major populations have popped up yet. The first may be a blessing, the second is a disaster waiting to happen.

[novisius]

Flesh Crimes - Part 2

Lyches - Soul Tyrants

They look almost like human skeletons, their sternums are longer, their faces have more crests and ridges making them have the appearance of being more ornate, they lack the hyoid bone, and their fingers are solid black claws. Impossibly bending despite seemingly lacking joints and feeling as if it is made of solid bone. The pointer finger on their non-dominant hand is easily two or three times as long as the one on their other hand. In their chest cavity lies a crystal with ethereal ominous red threads that wrap around the crystal, slowly weaving to form new layers. Their eye-sockets, should they function, have pinpricks of small red flames within them, which move similar to how a Human's pupils would. Finally, any wounds they sustain seems to be replaced by the metal of the Lych's metal, replaced claws becoming abyssal black in short order after being fully healed (and thus, opposable). This could be as simple as looking as if the bone was repaired with kintsugi after refusing severed parts or healing a cut or it could look as if the bones have been transmuted into the metal having been regrown entirely. They do, however, become numb and, in some special instances, lose function like normal (such as their eyes being lost making them blind). Some amount of their healing does replace and repair with bone rather than metal, but this is only particularly noticeable on the Bloodmakers of their number.

Their claws give them a natural weapon that deals keen damage. They also, being made effectively of bone, have an innate deflect value of 1.

Their longer claw can glow a crimson, as if being superheated from within, rather than being the solid voidlike black as usual, and they can 'prick' someone or something. If they prick a willing living organism, that organism now tithes to the Lych, as if they were storing into a metalmind perpetually. Though it requires a connection to be established for the Lych to benefit from the Tithe, (the Lych's presence time plus the organism's presence time) once the Lych begins to benefit from the Tithe, the tither gains the benefits of the nascent feruchemy of the Lych's type (they can not advance it to true feruchemy unless it is gained from another source). If the object was organic but non-living, then it rapidly decays and cools, obviously using investiture, the Lych consumes it as the calories of the matter are transferred to it. The Lych can similarly drain liquids, but that will use the claw like a straw and not cause it to glow.

Wounds to the bones bleed and rather than marrow within the bones, there seems to be flesh within. Another oddity is that they possess lifespans, roughly quadruple that of a human's, or atleast quadruple that of a remaining human's given the age converted.

When they speak, their jaws open based on the volume of the speech, but it doesn't move otherwise (unlike a normal human which can move their jaw to enunciate words). These creatures, despite assumptions to the contrary, need to breath, though they do so through their 'skin'.

When they receive a tithe, they inject a sort of spiritual virus that acts as a transmitter, the nascent feruchemy being a byproduct. A Lych can return/end a tithe should they wish, though this requires physical contact with the tither in question. An ended tithe results in the nascent feruchemy remaining.

As for the crystal, that is their atomic shenanigans. Simple equation of '((number of 'electrons' they have plus one) divided by (number of beings tithing to the Lych plus one)) times four years' to gain a new electron (can't gain any without anyone tithing naturally). The number of shells they have grants them an additional perpetually tapped charge of whatever their quality is (or an additional per scene or day use of said quality if those rules exist). Inversely, the effects of storing qualities forever will naturally harm the tithers. Four years, increasing by four years every time this occurs (four years of tithing, then another eight years, then another twelve years, and so on and so fourth), they permanently lose one of that stored quality as they continue to store and tithe. Removing more and more of their soul, never to receive it back, unlike the typically unharmful nature of storing and tapping like feruchemy is usually.

A Lych can use Feruchemy like normal, with normal metalminds and the like. Their bones, however, can be used as innate metalminds, which, as a consiquence, prevents them from getting the integrated metalmind talent. These metalminds have a capacity equal to their tier times the number of electrons they have in charges and shares the space with every quality the Lych has access to/stores within it (such as senses and pain using the same space but not being able to convert pain charges to senses or vice versa). This metalmind can not be emptied over the course of downtime.

They do not possess any additional talents.

''To make a Lych, inject them with the grey Cabalisk, ideally in the form of an ampule.'

The fluid used to transform a Human into a Lych is a form of 'spiritual prion'. Something that changes the very soul and identity of the victim into that of a Lych's. It will cause them to waste away until they finally succumb to the changes, at which point they will ignite into invested flames, burning away their flesh to induce the changes required in a mere few seconds.

The wasting is slow, the fastest recorded was sixteen days on those who were already on the verge of death, and the longest was sixteen years on fairly invested individuals, such as third ideals.

Though, if injected between the C1 and C2 vertebrae specifically, we can see up to a two hundred and fifty six times decrease in wasting uptime. Anywhere else in the spinal cord merely results in a four to sixteen percent decrease in wasting uptime.

An odd quirk I've noticed is that the wasting is particularly aggressive in the metal's quality, and that death must be induced from the wasting.

Perhaps disguise as chronic diseases? Can't guarantee subjects wouldn't opt for euthanasia' - Notes from the journals of Galas Yanan

The fluid itself takes a grey coloration, assumedly due to the mixing of Preservation and Ruin (though not the color of Harmony), though when the surface is agitated or at the peaks and valleys of ripples, there is a deep crimson color that appears for a few moments. The texture/consistency of the fluid is not quite water, it is always considered to be somehow 'off' from water, yet clearly reminiscent of it. When in contact with air, it evaporates as if it has a halflife of around a minute and four seconds.

Where it is sourced from is not quite known. Though identifying victims was easier in the past. Before Harmony released them, his servants were instrumental in discovery. They would avoid them instinctively, much like a normal human would avoid their delicacies. We have been able to retain a few of them on call for the purpose of identification, but...

[novisius]

Flesh Crimes - Part 1

Güls - Hunger of the Flame

As they grow older, their 'internal furnace' grows stronger across the board, a sort of 'knight radiant efficiency increase' so to speak. This is the electron shell related bit. Goal based on in-game time, and probably something like 'the number of electrons you have in the outermost shell times (shells plus 1) steps required to get a new electron, each in-game month a step is completed'.

Each shell amplifies their metal's allomancy by an investiture, however, every so often, when their metal is depleted, they suffer from additional withdrawal effects. (at 1 shell, 3 shells, 6 shells, 10 shells, 15 shells, etc.) Perhaps they also gain additional 'nascent allomancy' at these points while they are depleted of the power, this primarily depends on how the nascent allomancy and withdrawal works.

Living meat they consume (using the same timescale as 'living blood' for Hemalurgy, which at this moment I don't actually know what that is) is transformed into their metals (they can basically use the drink vial action as an unarmed attack that deals keen damage, if they deal damage, gain that much investiture and lose the depleted status on every metal they have).

They have another function, they are capable of consuming their metal for their caloric needs rather than simple food. 1 Investiture for a standard day's worth of food and drink in the plotweaver system, the shells add another standard day's worth of food and drink required to not go hungry each day. The furnace, after all, needs more and more fuel to burn brighter and hotter as long as it does.

At the start or end of a scene (chosen on a scene by scene basis), the Gül loses 1 investiture.

Visually, they have an internal glow of an inner flame from within their ribcage somewhere. It flares with their pulse and as they breathe in. The glow is brighter while awake than when they are asleep or unconscious.

Their sclera and irises is what has been turned black, their pupils have become a highly reflective, near glowing, white.

Two premolars and one incisor (all pairs) are transformed into canines, their front pair of incisors become 'canid incisors' and their remaining premolars and molars become 'canid molars'. Their 'lips' fuse to their gums, revealing their teeth.

The final visual change is that, as they acquire more shells, they find it harder and harder to retain body fat. The exact reason for this is theorized to be caused by different mechanisms, but ultimately the same reason. One is that they supplement more and more of their diet with metal as they require more and more food, another is that they simply burn more and more calories passively.

Their body heat is higher than a human's, getting higher and higher as they accumulate more shells.

They can get a talent which causes blood no older than their shell in hours appear as a glowing red to their eyes, even if it has been 'cleaned' or in darkness. Sort of like an ultraviolet light that affects blood only.

They can get another talent that causes their allomantic metal to glow. They can see metal through a number of inches of stone or feet of wood (or similar material), equal to the number of shells they have. They can not see through metal of any variety, but the glow of the metal can be used to identify the allomantic purity of the metal.

''To make a Gül, inject them with the white Cabalisk, ideally in the form of an ampule.'

The fluid used to transform a Human into a Gül is a form of 'spiritual CRISPR'. Something that changes the very soul and identity of the victim into that of a Gül's. Unlike normal CRISPR, their offspring will also be Güls.

Though, through the five hundred seventy-eight trials, there was a statistically significant increase in conversion success rates with those who were injected prepuberty. The process of puberty itself aiding the the transformation. Otherwise, the process ranges between a literally agonizing sixteen days and a metaphorically agonizing sixteen years.

This isn't an exacting art like Hemalurgy after all.' - Notes from the journals of Galas Yanan

The fluid itself takes the white coloration from the spawning shard of Preservation, though when the surface is agitated or at the peaks and valleys of ripples, there is a deep crimson color that appears for a few moments. The texture/consistency of the fluid is not quite water, it is always considered to be somehow 'off' from water, yet clearly reminiscent of it. When in contact with air, it evaporates as if it has a halflife of around a minute and four seconds.

Where it is sourced from is not quite known. Clearly from Yanan's facilities somewhere, but there is a large difference between a facility with an Unraveller, his flesh forges, and his markets. Though, we suspect that the Unravellers have something to do with distilling these ampules.

[novisius]

Plotweaver - Metal Monsters

Unrelated to my recent dragonmirror shenanigans, we are back with the metallic arts hyperfixation.

Remaking an odd thing I made, monsterifying the metallic arts. The metallic arts are the various magic systems that interact with the sixteen metals in the cosmere.

The first three are Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy. The next two are mental definitions, Aethers (since they react heavily to the metals it appears) and Fabrials (which are explicitly related to the sixteen metals). Scadrial First. /j

Anyways, I am highly autistic (shocker), which gave me the 'I like putting things in boxes' sort of autism rather than anything cool like 'I'm actually really smart' autism. So, each of these monsterified races have access to one metal, except in rare cases, sort of like how a Mistborn do.

So, in order, we have the Basalisk, the Lych, and the Vampyr. To be honest, I haven't thought as hard on the other two as I would like to. My initial ideas are a Wiht and the Lotos.

So, another common theme I have, bc I am a nerd with random hyperfixations, is generally gaining power in a manner similar to electron shells. The other two patterns are the conversion into these creatures being via Helminths, and the final pattern is that they all have a feature that is 'painted with black 4.0' for some reason (look man, I dunno, it just happened somewhere mentally).

Basalisks - Hunger of the Flame

So, the goals for these creatures was to make them end-positive. The general inspirations I've had so far with these creatures were a bear burger my uncle made one time (very good), camp-fires/bonfires/'allomancy is described as burning', and wendigos.

They have five modes of using Allomancy.

The first, they have a dim embers, extremely weak, yet still there and occurring. The second a normal sparking, weaker than burning with the benefits of utilizing the metals slowly, but still requiring metals. The third a normal burning, requires metal as normal. The fourth a normal flaring, stronger than burning at the cost of extreme metal consumption rates. The final is being tentatively called 'Nova', significantly stronger than flaring, yet, it all but eviscerates the metal reserves of the Basalisk.

As they grow older, their 'internal furnace' grows stronger across the board, a sort of 'knight radiant efficiency increase' so to speak. This is the electron shell related bit. For the purposes of the Cosmere RPG, the exact nature of this is not something I am sure of. The shells are the additive/multiplier to the power of these things. Goal based on in-game time, and probably something like 'the number of electrons you have in the outermost shell times (shells plus 1) steps required to get a new electron, each in-game month a step is completed'.

Generally speaking, they are, like all of the monsters here, made rather than born.

They have another function, they are capable of consuming their metal for their caloric needs rather than simple food. 1 Investiture for a standard day's worth of food and drink in the plotweaver system, the shells add another standard day's worth of food and drink required to not go hungry each day. The furnace, afterall, needs more and more fuel to burn brighter and hotter.

As for conversion, their flesh is infested with near transparent worms. If another were to consume a Basalisk's flesh, as is the standard consequence for consuming most predator's flesh, the consumer would receive the parasites themselves, converting the consumer over time into Basalisks themselves.

Their sclera is what has been turned black.

Visually, they look similar to humans, except for an internal glow of an inner flame from within their ribcage somewhere. It flares with their pulse and as they breathe in. The glow is brighter while awake than when they are asleep or unconscious. The two pair of premolars behind their canines are changed into canines themselves. Their irises and pupils grow in size, something like 25% (?). The final visual change is that, as they acquire more shells, they find it harder and harder to retain body fat. The exact reason for this is theorized to be caused by different reasons. One is that they supplement more and more of their diet with metal as they require more and more food, another is that they simply burn more and more calories passively.

Basalisks are warm to the touch for Humans and their breaths are often visible in even 70 degree weather. When a Basalisk takes keen damage from a melee attack, their attacker suffers energy damage equal to the Basalisk's tier as their molten blood comes into contact with their assailants. Basalisks take their tier less damage from all sources of energy damage and they are acclimated to the environmental effects/temperatures of hot and cold climates. They can use a focus and two actions to exhale a cone of flame. The cone is their tier times 5 in feet and the damage is a number of d8s equal to their shell number in energy damage.

The final ability that they have is 'injecting spiritual venom' from their bites (which can deal keen damage). The bite causes a dull burning sensation, which grows more prominent as they gain more shells. This venom slowly transforms the victim into the Basalisk's metal (afflict X spirit damage) and can only be removed via invested healing of some variety. (0 shells it deals 1 damage, 1 shells it deals 1d2 damage, 2 shells it deals 1d3 damage, 3 shells it deals 1d4 damage, 4 shells it deals 1d6 damage, 5 shells it deals 1d8 damage, 6 shells it deals 1d10 damage, 7 shells it deals 1d12 damage, 8+ shells it deals 1d20 damage) (should the victim be reduced to 0 health, they instantly die and are transformed into the material. Otherwise, there is no mechanical detriments to the venom unless you and your gm come to an agreement.)

Lyches - Soul Tyrants

The goal for these was to make them end-neutral. Inspiration was primarily feruchemical savantism, the hierarchy book series, and, of all things, Thrax.

So, they have the ability to 'tap' from other people.

Let's start visually- they look almost like human skeletons, their sternums are longer, their faces have more crests and ridges making them more ornate, and their fingers are solid black claws. Impossibly bending despite seemingly lacking joints and feeling as if it is made of solid bone. The pointer finger on their dominant hand is easily two or three times as long as the one on their other hand. In their chest cavity lies a crystal with ominous red threads that wrap around the crystal forming new layers. Their eye-sockets, should they function, have pinpricks of small red flames within them, which move similar to how a Human's pupils would. Finally, any wounds they sustain seems to be replaced by the metal of the Lych's metal. This could be as simple as a cut being healed to look as if the bone was repaired with kintsugi after refusing severed parts or healing a cut or it could look as if the bones have been transmuted into the metal having been regrown entirely. They do, however, become numb and, in some special instances, lose function like normal (such as their eyes being lost making them blind).

Their claws give them a natural weapon that deals keen damage. They also, being made effectively of bone, have an innate deflect value of 1.

Their longer claw can glow a crimson, rather than being the solid black as usual, and they can 'prick' someone or something. If they prick a willing living organism, that organism now tithes to the Lych, as if they were storing into a metalmind perpetually. Though it requires a connection to be established for the Lych to benefit from the Tithe, the Lych's presence time plus the organism's presence times. If the object was organic but non-living, then it rapidly decays and cools, using investiture, the Lych consumes it. The Lych can similarly drain liquids, but that will use the claw like a straw and not cause it to glow.

Wounds to the bones bleed and seem to have flesh within.

When they speak, their jaws open based on the volume of the speech, but it doesn't move otherwise (unlike a normal human which can move their jaw to enunciate).

When they receive a tithe, they implant a helminth into a host, which infests the bones of the individual and then messes with their soul to enact the tithe. A Lych can return/end a tithe should they wish.

As for the crystal, that is their atomic shenanigans. Simple equation of '(number of 'electrons' had plus one) divided by (number of beings tithing plus one) times four years' to gain a new electron (can't gain any without anyone tithing). The number of shells had grants them an additional perpetually tapped charge of whatever their quality is. Inversely, the effects of storing qualities forever will naturally harm the tithers. Four years, increasing by four years every time this occurs, they permanently lose that stored quality as they continue to store and tithe. Removing more and more of their soul, never to receive it back, unlike the typically unharmful nature of storing and tapping like feruchemy is usually.

A Lych can use Feruchemy like normal, with normal metalminds and the like. Their bones, however, can be used as innate metalminds. These metalminds have a capacity equal to their tier times (shells plus 1) charges and shares the space with every quality the Lych has access to/stores within it (such as senses and pain using the same space but not being able to convert pain charges to senses or vice versa). This metalmind can not be emptied over the course of downtime.

When a Lych dies, a number of individuals who are tithing to them spontaneously combust, the flames becoming crimson over sixteen seconds before they go out. When they do, what is left behind is a new Lych. The number is equal to the number of 'shells' their tithed Lych had on death. When sucessfully transformed this way, damage done to the Lych due to their tithing in life is repaired.

Vampyrs - Blood is Lives

The goal of these was to make them end-negative, which I struggled with for the 'conversion' part. Inspiration was primarily...well...vampires...though I did take a bit of visual inspiration from the...I think it was the Neomorph? The newest xenomorph human hybrid I believe.

These things, despite being end-negative, ended up with the most 'stuff' oddly enough. They have four main powers; the first is blood lightning, the second I'm dubbing as 'predatory instinct', the third I've been calling 'unholy resilience', and the final is their ability to consume souls via blood.

So the first (blood lightning), mechanically, for two actions you may deal a number of d4s, equal to half recovery die maximum, in energy damage in the form of crimson lightning. Can spend 1 or more investiture to add that many d4s to the attack. Range equal to (tier plus shells) times 5 in feet. A Discipline attack. Then take vital damage equal to the max value of your recovery die. If the stakes were raised, on a complication, take twice as much damage, on an opportunity, take half as much damage.

The second (predatory instinct) is 'multiply your intimidation skill by the difference of your's and the target's tiers (plus 1) if (your tier is higher than the target); divide your intimidation skill by the difference of your's and the target's tiers (plus 1) elif (your tier is lower than the target)'.

The third (unholy resilience) has three effects;

At the start of your turn, if you aren't downed, heal an amount of health equal to the number of shells you have.

If you would die, instead lose all current progress with the racial goal (more on that in the next ability) and lose all electrons in the valence (outermost) shell, then regain half your health.

Gain half as much health from levels.

You can only survive by feeding off of 'living' blood of other creatures. Normal food sickens you and you have no need for water.

The fourth is the ability to drink blood, a natural attack or an rp sort of action. Until I get hemalurgy rules, I'm not sure how I would want to measure how to actually gain progress and get electrons, though this is how they gain electrons. With each shell they have, they gain the benefits of an additional hemalurgic spike of their metal. If you were to consistently feed off of a single target over enough time, the gm may permanently lower your victim's quality as if it was stolen by a hemalurgic spike, lowering your feeding efficiency on that target.

They have another skill they tend to cultivate that isn't an actual power- basically throwing their voice and speaking with their lips closed.

Visually, these creatures don't look horrifically different from a Human. Their skin is paler (rgb + 25% (?)), their eyes have shifted to a more red color (something like r + 50 and bg - 50%), their ears become more pointed, their canines extend by something like 25% (?), their tongue changes, and their hair becomes the abyssal black. Their tongue extends and becomes like a fleshy tube, ended with a maw of fangs.

Conversion is a messy affair, somewhere around shell three to five, a Vampyr will feel compelled to sire a new Vampyr (if they haven't already). Their stomach acid can be regurgitated, within it lies eggs of the horrific helminths of this monstrous variety. Once they get it into a normal Human, over four weeks, the individual will undergo a dangerous fever. In 99% of cases, this will kill the person. However, should they survive, they will change into a Vampyr themselves, a contortion that takes but a single night and is not painless. Because of this high mortality rate, Vampyrs seeking to sire their own may poison water sources for entire cities, decimating the populace in the hopes that atleast one person will survive.

Wihts - The Desiccated Darkness

So...Wihts, they are a recent addition to the concept of the metallic monsters. I love dnd's Wights, so that kind of ended up serving the main inspiration of these things.

Anything these things touch, they drain the moisture from. Should they kill something with this vital damage, the body will dissolve into a black oil or sludge, only to reform later as animated Midnight Essence under the Wiht's command of the same size of the slain creature. Until they successfully sever connection to the essence, they must feed the essence their investiture/moisture.

This attack costs a focus, deals a number of d6s equal to their tier in vital damage, for every 6 rolled and opportunity gained, the attack deals an additional d6 of damage and grants the Wiht an investiture. They can 'overgain' investiture, up to their maximum, but they can not expend this 'overgained' investiture. Once they have full 'overflow' and maximum investiture simultaneously, they lose all of both and gain an electron. Whenever they gain a shell, they increase their maximum investiture by the number of shells they have.

For each shell the Wiht has, they can control a medium sized Midnight Essence without expending their own moisture.

They resemble a desiccated body, however, their arteries are not shriveled tubes, they are filled with the abyssal black as a fluid, their blood. Their veins, generally, can be seen through their skin, and their blood evaporates exactly sixteen seconds after it has been spilt, into a harmless black mist. Additionally, their back, from their tailbone to the base of their skull, appears to be some sort of mark or tattoo made of midnight essence.

If a Wiht is willing to expend a vast amount of moisture/investiture, they can shape and mold one of their midnight essences into a midnight centipede, about the size of their forearm. This creature can fuse to the spine of a Human, converting them over the course of ten weeks into a Wiht. Once fused, removal will prove fatal to the host.

Lotos - Ghosts in a Shell

The Lotos are another recent addition, and it took me quite some time to figure out any sort of identity for these creatures. In the end, I went with the greek lotus eaters as the primary inspiration for these monsters.

For these we will start with the conversion first- Their Helminths have a symbiosis with a fruit tree. The fruit is not unlike a pomegranate in form, but nutritionally, a single fruit can feed a full grown human for an entire day. The seeds are eggs of the Helminths, which will hatch and change the host in the night. This conversion causes convulsions, sometimes fear, and sometimes screams of pain. When they awaken, they will now be a Lotos.

Visually, they are changed little, their corneas are flat and smooth (the eyes are perfect spheres), their irises the metal of the Lotos as a disk of woven metals, and their sclera and pupils are a pearl-like stoney material. Their nails are abyssal black. Over time, around their eyes, growths that could be described as roots or vines will radiate from their eyes under their skin. These growths slowly shift as they are each a Helminth.

As for what Lotos are, they are a collective mind. One in every sixteen forms a new 'root' of a collective, the rest form connections with the nearest root of the same metal overtime. Once the connection has been established, they will now be linked to that collective until the link is severed. Before connecting to a root, the individual will be instinctively drawn to a root, should they be deprived of the connection or are not within a certain distance of a collective, they will begin to physically degrade, starting with bleeding tears, then coughs, hives/rashes, boils, poxes, wasting, until they finally simply die. For each non-root individual mind linked to the collective, that is an electron. For each shell that collective has, the intellect and willpower of each member is increased by 1 (ignoring usual maximums). When one dies, their soul is transported to and stored within the root, retaining the mind in fewer bodies for the collective.

The metal of the root dictates other potential abilities and attributes the members could have, such as higher retention of individuality, lower retention of individuality, greater physical abilities, lowered physical abilities, 'sleeper cells', transferring of memories into or out of the collective, etc. These abilities become more pronounced the more shells the collective has and is a gradual shift/addition after connecting to the collective.

A collective can initiate a process which transforms one of their members into a tree, the same sort which Lotus Fruits grow from, removing the individual from the collective. Alternatively, they can add themselves to a tree making the tree larger/healthier. This creates structures or patterns that often look like human faces and/or limbs on the Lotos trees.

Lotos have an extremely strong preference to consume Lotos Fruits over any other form of nutrition.

[novisius]

Pathfinder - The Angle of Cosmology

By further random demand, this angle will be the next I give my initial thoughts on.

Despite how new I am to this setting/system, I have to say that this is one of the ones I feel the most knowledgeable with. Despite this, it is the one that is being warped from the base setting, arguably, the most. Do have to say though, that dragons are conceptually fascinating given their newest redesigns.

This setting takes an entire planet, one not unlike ours. However, their elemental planes have been reduced to six moons that orbit around the world, where they lack even a local star. The void of space is filled with negative energies, while the core of the world emanates positive energies.

As a consequence, the surface of this world and her moons are cold, desolate, lifeless landscapes. Beneath the surface, however, are societies, nations, countries, seas, forests, mountains, and valleys. The closer one gets the to core, the longer life they live, the healthier they are, the warmer it gets, and the thicker the atmosphere gets. A rare few brave the surface, and a rarer few seek to leave their homeworld to explore the moons, or the voids beyond.

The dragons are lifted, basically directly, from pathfinder 2e.

Drakes and Linnorms are environmentally adaptive/diverse species.

Blights are formed around Dragonmirrors which have caused the deaths of numerous challengers.

Elementals live on the moons, I usually tone down the number of elementals that exist, however I generally and genuinely like basically every elemental I read of, so most of them will remain, with the exception of genies, who were extinct due to the war.

The Administrators are 'the formians', they have a few castes, in particular, several 'military' castes, having to defend their own subterranean territories and to guard their workers to and from various tasks.

The warforged are manufactured upon the surface of the world.

'Goblins' I am lifting, conceptually, directly from the pathfinder kobolds. Building warrens around beings or objects of power and then gaining adaptations related to said beings and objects is just fascinating and, as they were conceptually going to be goblins, felt very 'gobliny' to me for some reason.

Humans be doing human things.

There is a species of dragonish humans, I don't know exactly what they are called, but a species I need to look for later.

Elves follow one of the six passions, each one related to one of the six elements, and granting them one of the 'half-elemental' heritages.

The Arcane gain access to various spells rather than heritage feats.

Warforged are mechanical beings who's hearts are connected to the elemental planes. Kinetisists are common amongst their (relatively) mindless brethren.

Benevolent and Malevolent spirits tend to act as guardian spirits of many settlements and churches.

Not confident on the ethereal and astral locales rn.

[novisius]

Symbaroum - The Forest of Death Angle

By random demand, this is the first angle I will be writing on.

This angle, I had a very vivid image of how to fit it into the mold, so, this is what I have thus far for this setting while I have been thinking on it in passing (gots life to life ya know).

The main visual of the system's base setting is Davokar, the forest of darkness. So, I use the heart of that forest as the negative energy location, which immediately made me think that I could make a gradient to positive energy, which, in this system, is a sort of cleansing energy, typically associated with the sun and fire. So;

"We live in this endless forest. On one side, the darkness, the shadows, the abyss. Treasures lost lie within, but to tread and search, risks more than simply your own life. On the other side, the perpetual flames on the horizon, the cleansing blaze, the wall of fire. New growth of our world, it allows us to remove our sins, by the grace of the sunfather, however, it does not heal the wounds left behind."

The entire setting is set up in roughly nine concentric rings of forest. The middle of the forest is similar to 'The Dark', a place of oppressive corrupting shadows. Merely being in this place can causes you to gain temporary corruption over time, yet, the objects who remain in this place becomes magical over time, creating the most valuable artifacts. The next ring is akin to 'The Wild', the next 'The Open'. This is the three rings of the core.

The 'habitable zone' are three rings of 'slightly dark', 'normal', 'slightly bright'. These rings are where a vast majority of the standard people live.

The final three rings are 'The Closed', 'The Tame', and 'The Bright'. The first is where a majority of religious orders make bases for themselves. The second is where the forest has thinned, it is warmer here, but more or less meadows with occasional trees. The final is an area of golden flame, a borderline wall.

This world expands, each ring expanding by about a meter a year. No real reason beyond 'creeping darkness' sort of vibes. Due to this, this world is technically flat, so the sun oscillates between the east and west. If it rises in the east, it will set in the west, and then rise from the west the next morning.

Blights are the corrupted forms of plantlife in the central three rings, becoming more common the closer to the center it is.

Drakes are creatures who have adapted to each individual ring, becoming more dangerous the more 'extreme' ring they inhabit.

Warforged facilities are centralized in The Dark.

Elementals, based on how elves work normally in the setting, would be season based?

The Administrators (the insects) would be designed to some degree, multiple castes given the monster trait versatility.

Elves have growth stages related to level?

Humans be doing human things.

The Arcane have access to all arcane disciplines, including from monster traits, but they don't start with them.

Spirit world?

Benevolent and Malevolent spirits?

Lizardmen can get a selection of a few monster traits.

'Goblins' I'm a bit unsure of...perhaps make a sort of 'template' that gets stronger the deeper they go into the forest? Perhaps a simple 'they are xyz'?

Dragons! Get size traits as a portion of their 'get more difficult' scaling.

It ain't much, but uh...it ain't much.

[novisius]

The main reason I'm doing this is because I had this initial idea forever ago, and I mentally keep coming back to it over a few years.

The systems I chose where because I have some familiarity with those systems and I had an initial idea for how I could get them to fill specific facets of the mold. The settings I'm making will naturally be fairly small and constrained, partially by design and partially bc I want it to be. For those who want to know what the tentative mold is;

Systems (Angles)

D&D 5.5

Pathfinder 2e

Godbound

The Dragon Prince Roleplaying Game

Lancer

Symbaroum

Plotweaver

Avatar Legends

Cypher

Monsters (that which grants xp for killing)

Dragons (Found in the alternate realities of the Dragonmirrors)

Drakes

Linnorms/Lindworms

Blights (sometimes causes undead)

Elementals

Subterranean Insectile Race (Maintenance of the reality of the angle, what this entails and their behavior naturally changes between the angles)

Some form of hostile construct related to the warforged

Goblins (Probably going to be called something else) (Basically a bioengineered race designed for war, however, the exact nature is wildly different to one another. Always hermaphroditic)

'Anyone with a level'

Player Races

Dragon-like or lizardman race

Humans

Elves (Connected to Elementals, Never found like this within the mirrors)

Arcane Humanoid Race (dreams of, sometimes sees or hears, the other angles, this race has the same appearance in every angle (like a mannequin), never found within the mirrors)

Warforged

Locales

Positive and Negative energy locations

Ethereal/Astral/In-between locations

Elemental Ruins (factories of the constructs that still barely churn out warforged or ancient battlefields where magics still lingers)

Angels and Demons have been demoted to 'benevolent' and 'malevolent' spirits as appropriate

So, what little I have of lore is the following;

"The gods are dead. All that is left of the Primordials are but vestiges that infest That Which Remains. The World That Was was shattered in the great war between them. All that you see, the scarred worlds, the ruins, all of us who remain. So many of them focused on survival, making it through the turbulent times, that they have forgotten that there was a 'before'."

A great war between the divine, elemental lords, dragons, and mortals shattered The World That Was, it killed the gods, fractured the elements, and resulted in the dragons being trapped into alternate realities for their arcane energies.

The mortals 'won', but at the cost of their reality being splintered into numerous different adjacent realities, the rebuilding afterwards resulted in them, generally speaking, forgetting the cataclysmic war, instead being remembered as a sort of 'primordial chaos' origin myth.

Now, dragons are stored in a thing called a 'dragonmirror', these artifacts are what enables 'character progression' from a meta perspective. Should someone want a first level, they would need to go through one and slay a dragon of some variety, to gain higher levels (depending on the relative pattern I choose for each setting) they must slay stronger and stronger dragons. Within the mirrors are 'simulated realities', the sizes getting progressively larger, the simulations progressively more complex, and each reality tailored to the variety of dragon who is the target. They are killed in endless repetitions to fuel the growth and power of those who submit themselves to these trials.

I haven't thought super super hard on this as I just recently dedicated myself to actually working on this project. 'Goblins' are probably the random thing I thought of on the most.

Guess just posting this to toss it out, questions would be neat to get me to think on things, opinions would be neat I suppose.

[novisius]

Three Factions I kinda wanna write about

With the new Rise from Ruins expansion for AoW4, I suddenly have three very different, yet permanently improving, factions across three different games.

And, right now and with Stellaris Invicta being in mind, along with wanting to get back into the habit of tossing things into this tumblr, I want to write about these three factions that have some weird 'togetherness' going on.

Stellaris - Consumate Consumer Consumerate

"We don't trade in healthcare, we trade in potential."

A mono-sector evolutionary predator megacorp that is 'megacorp genocidal' in that they want to be the only megacorp, but otherwise are amicable with everyone else in the galaxy. The are the forefront of genetics and medical technologies, in several rare instances (a rare few games that I am merging together for the purposes of their 'lore') they even have minor cybernetics and psionics going on.

They are an unusual empire, bodies of more energy than flesh, clothes made of lithoids, buildings cultivated from plantoids, technology and weapons of living metal, ships bred from organics. They are 'unusual' aesthetically to put it lightly.

They are friendly when outside of their borders, but inside of their borders, unless you are an ambassador or tourist, you are food for the Grand Evolution. A cognitive disconnect from sapience within and without.

Endless Space 2 - Umbral Union

"Join us together for eternity."

Horatio mechanics on Umbral Choir skins.

A hivemind that forms cloud-like beings. They lack sapience, true sapience. Sort of Frieren Demony in that they sort of learned technology and speech without truly understanding it. This cloud of micro-organisms originated on a world where numerous sapients arose in parallel. The Union, then, was like an aerated slime mold, capable of adapting to the environment and living as a cloud. Eventually, they learned how to break down organic matter to use the adaptations presented within that organic matter. The sapients stood no chance during the days of the 'Black Plague', where they were broken down into something that became more efficient at surviving, finding the others, and breaking them down.

Each game starts with them at the last sapient race on their homeworld, the combined intellect of the other five species granting the Union space travel.

They market it as a sort of 'religious ceremony' eternalizing the genome of the victim species in a similar vein to the digital endless and how they were eternalized.

Age of Wonders 4 - Hunger of the End

"The Godir and Mortals alike must be removed, they are the chaos tearing asunder the universe.'

Scavenger Nomads that are Perfected Artisans and Prophesied Destroyers, they travel from realm to realm, consuming all that there is, the souls, the land, the magic, and leave behind deserts, an empty husk of a realm.

Their race is Ancients; Desert Adaptation, Empowered by Magic, and...the one that lets them heal faster on world map turns, forgot what it was called.

Their ruler, a once mortal champion ascended to the status of a Godir, was exposed to the fractures in the realms, a small one to be fair, but it warped him irreparably, shunting him through spacetime and granting him a hunger. This Hunger led him to change a small group of people into the Ancients, near corpse-like humans who's very skin react with the magic in the air, and though the possess a similar hunger, their's is far less prominent. This cult grow in size and established themselves a throne city in the realm, where they began their journey of destruction and desolation.

[novisius]

Ruthlessness

Finally coming back to this, the Dark Odyssey continues! (what is wrong with me) This one starts at the end of 'keep your friends close' since poseidon shows up and I've had a vivid vision there for forever and a day.

Odysseus has been knocked to the railing by a violent wave. He looks down to the water. He sees himself in the reflection of the water, and he sees someone next to him who is looking out onto the horizon, then he glances down, smiles, and then shouts out. Standing next to him is my version of Poseidon. His fingers end in small hooves, his pointed ears are more fin-like than Zues's feathery appearance, his hair is long, black, and looks as if it is perpetually wet, his beard is similar. Whenever he is in a reflection of water, his hair floats around and follows him more like he is in the water. His scelara are black like Zues, but his eyes are blue and his pupils are more like a cuddlefish's (being a really drunk w). His robes are a dark blue, the lining being white, and stylized decals of light blue-green waves decorate the edges. He is similarly aged to Zeus and built not very differently.

Odysseus of Ithaca! Poseidon is nearly throwing himself over the rail in seeming joy, he's finally found Odysseus after all, who wouldn't be happy finding who you were looking for? Do you know who I am? Poseidon's smile dies on his face as he asks the question. I want to make it clear, he isn't mad for a majority of this, more annoyed if I had to give it a word.

[Beginning music] Throughout the song, the sky darkens, eventually it starts to rain (before the crew's all killed). Poseidon leaps over the reflected rail, and though he falls 'towards' the water, he doesn't actually reach it for quite a while (until the music ends), instead, his reflection seems to just get bigger.

Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon, Poseidon During these two lines, the named man comes out of the water, his hair covering his face, his robes merged with the ocean as he rises. His hand perhaps being the size of the ship. As Odysseus says the last Poseidon, we cut to see him and the crew, they are more in awe than terrified (as they have yet to know that Poseidon is upset at them, perhaps he came to help them home?).

In all my years of living At this point, he moves the wet hair out of his face, giving him more of a slicked back look. It isn't very often that I get pissed off The crew staggers as Poseidon lifts up their ship to bring it eye level. I try to chill with the waves Poseidon lounges on the surface of the ocean. But damn, you crossed the line Either the crew is shitting themselves in fear or Poseidon looks at them with more anger than he has to yet. I've been so gracious No strong opinions And yet, you hurt this son of mine No strong opinions That's right, the cyclops you made blind, is mine Poseidon covers one of his eyes with a hand, the other morphs into an eye reminiscent of a mantis shrimp (round, three segments, a pupil looking at the 'camera' in each segment) (the eye I would give to a cyclops in this au) No Odysseus realizes the weight of what he's done as he holds onto the rail for dear life.

I'm left without a choice and without a doubt Poseidon tosses the boat to the ocean, submerging for a moment before bobbing back up. Guess the pack of wolves is swimming with the shark now If time allows, shark fins begin to appear around the fleet. I've gotta make you bleed, I need to see you drown But before you go, I need to make you learn how Poseidon has begun to pace, he's accidentally letting himself get upset more than he intends to.

Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves (Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves) Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves Ourselves Because of his pacing, waves batter the fleet Odysseus is beginning to try and think of a solution at this point. After a wave hits the deck of his ship, Poseidon appears on the deck, roughly as tall as Odysseus (fun-sized). As a note, by this time, it has begun to rain and you can see the breaths of anyone other than Poseidon we get a good shot of. From this point forward, when we see the ocean, there are growing ice floes, particularly around a single ship in the fleet.

You are the worst kind of good 'cause you're not even great Poseidon tosses Odysseus to the deck from the rail. A Greek who reeks of false righteousness, that's what I hate Odysseus looks at Poseidon in fear. 'Cause you fight to save lives, but won't kill and don't get the job done I mean, you totally could have avoided all this had you just killed my son We see Poseidon at some point, he has calmed some, he actually has the demeanor of someone trying to simply teach a lesson to a child. But no He sneers, to himself more than Odysseus.

You are far too nice, mercy has a price It's the final crack, we're bound to break the ice now You reveal your name, then you let him live Unlike you, I've got no mercy left to give 'cause Poseidon approaches Odysseus, who at this point, is being helped up by the crew. No particularly strong opinions beyond that and Poseidon is making himself more upset as he keeps pointing out flaws and mistakes (remember, the sea is cruel and heartless).

Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves (Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves) Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves Ourselves Set up a bit more for the future destruction of the fleet. A few bubbles around a ship, a tentacle creeping up another's hull, ice accumulating around another, one rocking a bit more.

And now it is finally time to say goodbye, today you die Poseidon looks Odysseus in the eye, no malice, just fact Unless, of course, you apologize For my son's pain and all his cries He is being merciful, this was his niece's champion, last he heard, so he is offering a very reasonable out. He's more impassive than he has been this entire time.

Poseidon, we meant no harm We only hurt him to disarm him We took no pleasure in his pain We only wanted to escape Odysseus sings as he tentatively takes steps to Poseidon, his face is hopeful. At some point, we see Poseidon's eye twitch, an apology was what he asked for, not justification. (It was as if Poseidon himself extended his hand in friendship, and they spat in his mouth - battleblocks theater type vibes)

The line between naïveté and hopefulness is almost invisible Poseidon grabs the bridge of his nose, clearly frustrated that this idiot kid can't get this through their thick skull, or like his mom didn't teach him basics of reality. So close your heart, the world is dark and Poseidon places his hand on Odysseus' shoulder, almost like he is giving friendly advice. Ruthlessness is mercy Die A perfectly circular wave moves around one of the ships towards the ship, a moment after he says die, the first ship destroyed, is destroyed by a massive water spike.

Ruthlessness is mercy upon our- (Captain, Captain) Ruthlessness is mercy upon our- (Captain, Captain) Ruthlessness is mercy upon our- (Captain, Captain) Ruthlessness is - Each captain, we see a new ship and how it suffers, in no particular order; One assaulted by a kraken, one crushed between two blocks of ice, another sinks due to aeration, another speared by a spike of rock from the bottom of the ocean, another overturned by waves, one is struck by blue lightning and set ablaze, one is caught in a whirlpool, and a final one is caught in a hurricane. One is seen for for each 'captain'. Sharks hunt any survivors of these ships.

What have you done? Odysseus falls to his knees as he looks at the carnage. When does a ripple become a tidal wave? The crew running to the rails, fear on every face we can see. 43 left under your command Poseidon's hand remains on his shoulder, but he is behind Odysseus. When does man become a monster? We see the wreckage of the dark and bloodied water.

I am your darkest moment Poseidon's hand moves to Odysseus' hair. The monster that always draws near Painfully grabbing it, he begins to lift Odysseus to be eye level. Any last words? He asks, clearly pissed off.

I end it here, bc I want to. The dark Odyssey gets little happiness.

Post by @novisius

💬 1  🔁 0  ❤️ 4 · Thunder Bringer · Starting in the middle I guess, I have also been actively listening to it and thinking on the animatic, s

[novisius]

[Wandering around the station, you see many alien forms, both genesis and husks alike, you even spot a patrol of Eclipse Guard walking through the crowd, though you don't get enough of a glimpse of their badges to tell if they are from the empire or if they are merely mercenaries. You even pass a statue of this system's genesis, one of the many varieties of Illi that the Vareen have made, the Vareen are the leadership species of the goo empire you are in right now, the 'tube worms' don't vary much in form, but they do vary in function certainly. You've seen one that cocoons itself in a crust of dried goo from a desert world, one that resembles something like an eel that swam in massive tanks from an ocean world, and this one. Looks like they probably stay within their individual tubes of goo, it is a habitat afterall, supposedly they have a complicated storage lattice for them on board. They say that habitat Illi are born, grow up, and die within their single tube their entire lives. The one you talked to, the quartermaster...dock worker?...the one who coordinated the unloading of your ship, was hooked up to a spider-like mobility machine attached to their tube. You couldn't imagine living your entire life in a tube of another species secretions, waiting to be chosen an metamorphosed into a Vareen of all things. They're nice people, but they are so...gross. A skeleton and organs suspended in animated goo? No thanks. Though they would be more than willing to oblige such a request...

As you keep walking, you begin thinking about the diversity of life in the galaxy, and how a majority of it really only came from four planets...ah, here you are, you found the 'Sol Lounge'. Humans, or atleast the Sol Lexicon, are common enough that most stations have places for them to gather and discuss with one another. Sol Lounges tend to be part bar, part social space, part rest area. They typically adhere to similar architectural styles, open spaces, bright lights to distract the humans, food they can physically process, and other such amenities. This lounge is not only on a habitat, but a trade hub of the local sector. This 'lounge' is three stories tall, three separate floors. The first one is somehow dark, yet well lit. Bar, casino, couches, and the like are down here. The second floor is more obviously family friendly, restaurants it appears, perhaps some other stores up there. The third floor is probably the area for rest, hotels and the like. Though it is hard to tell from here. Looking around, you see that everyone here is recognizably human in some manner...well, almost, there are a handful of Illi, Eclipse Guard, Vareen, even a Torbal...prostitute? Their entire society being built around the industry, so it makes it difficult to tell. Humans now a days are identified by the original designation their homeworld was before the cataclysm. You, for example, could be identified as a Theta, you're even lucky, you were only missing a few internal organs, an arm, and most of your face when you were born! But that's off topic to the scene before you. The digital Chi talking visibly and audibly in the air above everyone to one another, sometimes you can see one of their holograms on the ground with the rest of you, like that one talking with a rather heavily augmented military grade Theta and musclebound Lambda. Actually, speaking of the Lambdas, there are a concerning number of them here, one's even having an arm wrestling contest with a Pi, Kappa, and Eta. You're still not quite sure if you trust that the Etas are actually human descendants, they are lithoids afterall, but...then again, supposedly you are related to an aquatic and plantoid technically, so what does it really matter? Shrouds, the Psi have even shed their physical bodies and become energy beings. You certainly notice the Eclipse Guard at the periphery of the room staring at a small group of three Psis. You see a herd of Omnikrons isolating themselves from everyone else, they don't really get along well with the rest of you 'individualists'. You see a diminutive Alpha having a spirited discussion with a Xi at a holoscreen, looks like gambling of some variety. You see some humans of some variety at the bar talking to one another, one of them even has a pet bird analog...actually, that's probably a husk controlling a bird analog, since it is sipping from some colorful drink in front of it.]

What do you do?

Go to the second floor

Go to the third floor

Approach the other Theta

Approach the arm wrestling Lambda

Approach the Eclipse Guard

Approach the Psis

Approach the Omnikrons

Approach the Alpha and Xi

Approach the bar

Listen for rumors

Look around alone

Voting ended onSep 20, 2025

Previous

[novisius]

And so, the resolution passed. The twenty lost colonies and Sol itself were found. The colonies were elevated to the galactic stage, one by one, the ones who were lost, a shocking few, were mourned.

This elevation was humanity's second great mistake. The non-sol derived members of the community were quickly dwarfed in number by the human off-shoots, and the humans rarely saw eye to eye with one another. The four who had diverged simply in methodology were already at each other's throats for various reasons, but the ones that fundamentally had changed, were not the same species anymore, they couldn't stand the others.

"Was that really your dad? I mean, like, literally your dad?"

Yes, now shut up, I'm just getting to the good part.

"How? Wasn't he an AI or something? Plus, he doesn't even look like you. I mean, if I blurred him out he might be similar structure to you."

The same way anyone else is born. I know you know how that works, I've seen your holonet history.

"YO-that is private information, how? why?"

[The feed changes back to the cockpit of a small shuttle, a young man in a uniform shrugs his shoulders as he pretends to walk around the environment. Despite how real he looks, he's just superimposed onto your vision. A quirk of having cybernetic implants and a purely digital crew member.]

Well, you know the rest. The big five had those whole ideology wars. The Zone became interstellar dead space. The Combine had the territorial conflicts with most of the colonies. Yada yada yada.

[His voice was being streamed directly into your head, you think. He may be manipulating your audio processing implant, but it doesn't really feel like sound. Would it even feel like that if only one ear heard his voice anyways?]

You're clear for docking. Remember, we're in Combine contested Goo space. Don't let any husks unload your cargo.

"Yeah yeah, only Vareen or their genesis."

[He nods, seemingly satisfied.]

I'm going to see if there are any Bukvurms on the station, probably say hi to my family. I'll be back in atleast an hour, so don't get into trouble.

"Aye aye captain."

[With that, you feel your connection to the ship take a large amount of data and then...he's gone. The only 'person' keeping you sane for the past five months. Gone just like that.]

----------

[After a, quite frankly, too long time unloading the cargo, plenty of which was ensuring that the genesis wasn't a husk, and being checked in on by Miguel periodically, you now have free time! Two days of it roughly, the new cargo is being procured by your virtual partner primarily...so...what do you do?]

You have free time?

Visit a Bukvurm?

See if you can find any other Children of Sol on the station?

See if you can connect with any of the genesis races?

Explore the station?

Voting ended onSep 4, 2025

Previous

[novisius]

We all remember.

We all know that our worlds of birth are not the homes of our people. Throughout our separation, we yearned for home. Those who condemned us, those who were forsaken, those who were beaten down, even those who were little more than beasts, we all yearned for our home.

When we looked to the stars, we found it not as empty as we expected, but it was quiet. We were alone, like we were on our own homeworld.

We thought it a shame, so we sent ark after ark into the void. Centuries later, the first landed and grew, nascent civilizations on maiden worlds. Our legacy cemented in the galaxy. But one world poked and prodded reality, they tore open a scar that consumed the heart of their system. This weakened the veil, shattered reality, birthed gods, and caused the cataclysm of our people.

We've recovered well, but now, we are separated. Cousins, rather than siblings. Even still, we had spent our entire history thinking we were alone, isolated. Some of us still are, and I guarantee, they are wondering if they are alone yet again.

That is why, I beseech this galactic council. Let us uplift them, elevate them to the stage which we find ourselves now.

[The holographic image of a middle aged human man paces as he speaks to the council.]

Humanity is not the responsibility of some of you, but the rest of you, the rest of us, they are our responsibility. We have a duty to see that all of us are brought back into the stars. Now, more than ever.

Can the children of Sol be uplifted to FTL civilization status?

For

Against

Abstain

Voting ended onAug 21, 2025

[novisius]

Valueable Products for Sale

"All of my products are spren cruelty free and eco-friendly!"

"Most products require minor surgery for installation."

"Non-human anatomy is outside of my expertise, purchase at your own risk."

"After installation, no refunds."

Come on down to Nast's Emporium. Roshar born, Scadrian raised, Silverlight residence! I'll sell to either side so long as you leave me alone to do my business!

Larkin's Breath

Needing to store metals? Fighting a pesky highly invested opponent? This object is just for you! The maw of the object can absorb investiture similar to a larkin, or it can aximize metal! It stores the investiture within a gemstone it forms in the spiritual realm for you, as well as where it stores the metals you breath in, connected to you through a complicated manipulation of connection, they are technically in you, near the center of your uvula, if you have one and it is formatted properly. You can exhale the metals should you desire, excellent clouds they can form, good for getaways.

Upon purchase, you can select any one of the sixteen metals.

Should you purchase other products, I can connect the gemstone to your other implants. This will permanently affix the product to you.

You can also purchase a one time sunheart generator rather than a gemstone one.

This product comes in numerous forms; half masks, full masks, ballgags, anything of a similar object you can imagine!

Warning: Iron Larkin's Breaths can leech from your own blood if not used with caution.

Disclaimer: Though it can not aximize aluminum, it can still transport it to the spiritual realm.

Preservation's Grasp

Need metals in a pinch? Want allomancy in the first place? Just in luck! Minor dermal surgery replacing the palms of your hands and the pads of your feet. You too can access allomancy of a metal of your choice and utilize the surge of transformation to make those metals! All it takes is your ambient investiture taken from your breathing, sleep, and nutrition, and/or sunlight to power itself.

You can purchase this product with multiple metals, deals for alloys, quadrants, core or shell, and even the mistborn package.

Disclaimer: Standard charging rates are not sufficient to properly utilize transformation. Standard Allomancy can alternatively be used to charge, and will charge the product enough to convert materials into the same amount of metal burned.

Shadowblood

Want to be an aetherbound? Well, you can be bound to midnight essence, with a little shadework as well. This procedure will replace your heart and all of your blood. Into basically midnight aether, but not quite. Feed it with your water, build up some time to use it later. We even have a wire mesh we can put onto your new glassy heart that will alter the behavior of the essence.

Upon purchase, you may choose one or more metals to place around your heart.

Upon purchase, you receive a bottle of water.

Disclaimer: You will need to increase your water intake by atleast 10% to avoid dehydration. You will no longer possess excess water.

Warning: To manifest the essence, you will need to expose your blood to the air and will to to take shape. This product does not grant any special ability to heal or stave off infection.

Warning: Going over stored time can be lethal.

Warning: This product is highly experimental and may act unpredictably.

Prismatic Casket

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a stormform? Well, I have a product for you! This product replaces your sternum with a gemstone rod. It grants you greater strength, endurance, durability, and the ability to generate electricity and go 'zap zap' to your enemies! You can even get a metal cage to alter how your newfound powers manifest! You don't even have to charge it! Though the 'zap zap' will recharge faster if you do.

Upon purchase, you can choose one or more metals to place around the gemstone.

Warning: You should modify your diet to maintain the gemstone and it's cage.

Warning: This will likely change your physical appearance and/or cognitive functions. Red stripes and aggressive tenancies are on you to manage.

Ossis Sheathe

Want a tougher skeleton? Want Feruchemy? Want innate metalminds? Well, these metal studs will transform your skeleton into the chosen metal! Feeds on about 1 BEU a month to transform and format about a cubic inch of your skeleton out radially (it takes this by absorbing the feruchemical qualities stored in them). As heavy as your bones should be, can heal like normal, as strong as the metal, as conductive as bone. Well, it takes the better of the traits, bone or metal. Multiple studs of the same metal will accelerate this and multiple studs of different metals will eventually get you a composite skeleton, all of the best traits in them, capable of storing your feruchemical qualities. After you have a fully metallic skeleton, it will over-invest it, granting it a more crystalline structure. Though, far slower. After that's complete, it will then change your nails, then you can compound to your heart's content! After that, the studs will harmlessly become absorbed by your skeleton.

Warning: Too many studs will be potentially detrimental given the amount of BEUs it will consume.

Warning: Until the skeleton is fully crystalline, you can Allomantically burn the metallic portions, which can obviously cause issues.

Ruin's Spine

Want the benefits of hemalurgy? Want the strengths of metal in your veins and nerves? Odd wants, but I've got you. This product will replace your spine, though it will look like some machine has been placed onto your spine. It will transform and format your nerves and artery walls into the chosen metals, retaining the flexibility and elasticity of the tissues. Conductivity will be dependent on the metal, taking the less conductive properties of the metal or flesh. This will eventually reach every bindpoint, keep the metal in contact with blood, and if you willfully charge it with investiture, you can have hemalurgic spikes!

Upon purchase, one or more metals must be chosen.

Warning: Hemalurgic degradation is still possible with this product.

Elevation Forge

Bring me any of the base sixteen, and with this device, I will turn it into a shardmetal alloy of any shard of your choice by bombarding it with enough investiture to kill a person in moments, for a few days.

Price based on volume.

Conductor's Vision

Want a spren of your own but don't want to become a radiant? This product will replace your irises with finely woven paired awakened metalminds, and your lenses with a fine gemstone filament of your choice. The metalmind has been meticulously trained to generally prefer to manifest in your vision as a spren would, ghostly people dancing around the perceived environment. They can be trained out of this rather easily as well. Both the iris and lense are naturally connected with you enough to be maintained by your body, and the metalmind is also naturally connected to several of your sensory processing centers to fully get the spren experience. You may get allomantically pure metals of the type of your metalmind you can see highlighted in your vision, you can easily request that to occur or to not occur.

Upon purchase, one or more metals must be chosen.

Upon purchase, a gemstone must be chosen.

[novisius]

Genetic Jurassic Abominations

I recently discovered a youtube channel called Goji Center and a video about some sort of challenge they issued to make a genetic abomination. All I've been able to glean from these in the linked video are large predators. But, I kind of just want to make an abomination for the love of the game.

The primary derectives I have for this abomination is for it to be tough and for it to be intelligent. A subobjective I gained for some reason was to give it quite a suite of sensory abilities.

I would like to eventually go through multiple iterations given feedback, though ADHD has already gotten in the way of several things I wanted to do on this site.

The genetic donors I kind of want to try and make work with this first iteration is Utahraptor, Arapaima, Volcano Snail, Short Tailed Shrew, Vampire Bat, Mantis Shrimp, Axolotl, Wolf, Crow, and Bonobo.

Having watched a few videos, I think I want the base genetic template to be Goji Center's Utahraptor.

The armor of the Arapaima basically does what I want it to do, adding in the scales of the Volcano Snail may add in added durability in return for speed and probably some cognitive ability due to the renowned intellectual abilities of gastropods. Vampire Bat sequences could aide in the movement of iron to these scales. Ideally, the crow genes could be utilized to convert their 'lips' into a protective beak-like structure, ideally reinforced with iron like their teeth thanks to the short tailed shrew. The shrew could also, apparently, aide in venom resistance as I understand it. The last defensive augmentation I want to give this thing is the 'uncapped regeneration' of Axolotls, that is to say, I simply want them to be capable of regrowing practically any part of their bodies given enough time (not fast enough for combat).

For sensory abilities, I like the idea of the thermal senses of the Vampire Bat which also comes with an 'okay' echolocation. But, in spite of the hall of shame, I want to utilize mantis shrimp genes, specifically their eyesight. Well, specifically the additional colors they can see. Along with a tapetum lucidum and keener smell of wolves. Further reinforcing several senses and possibly even adding in magnetoreception from corvids, specifically crows. Finally, their olfactory abilities can be further reinforced by the shrew. Now, interestingly, if the mantis shrimp can 'touch' like a lobster can, then we could add in the ability to have a sense of touch despite the heavy armor I've placed onto this relatively small predator. As, make no mistake, I fully believe this thing will be smaller than a Utahraptor, possibly even approaching the size of a Velociraptor.

Now, the brain. Assuming that a mantis shrimp is similar to a lobster, we can decentralize some of the processing abilities of this thing utilizing nerve bundles throughout the body, possibly utilizing them to mitigate sensory overload issues. Now, the main point of choosing the Wolf, the Utahraptor, the Crow, and the Bonobo is simply for the intelligence, interspecies coordination/cooperation, and the problem solving/memory abilities of these animals. I want them to work together, to be communal, to even teach their young and to strategize and learn. That's one reason why I chose four separate animals who would reinforce those traits.

I don't know if there are too many genes and thus create a cognitive soup or if these are incompatible. Input on this iteration would be appreciated.

[novisius]

Fun World Idea?

Portals open up, each color corresponds to a specific world.

They are either 'cuttings' or 'echoes'.

Cuttings are small pockets of alternate realities that could end the world if they tried hard enough. These usually come with something 'new' that can be used by the people of the planet. Resources, magic, etc.

Echoes are alternate realities where human life ended for one reason or another. They could be ended because of what Humans have done, they could be ended because a cutting got out of hand and just sort of wreaked the planet. Thus implying that some of these worlds were exactly like this one at one point.

It is strongly implied that the echoes are different time periods of earth and that one of the echoes may be the reason for this in the first place.

So far I have four cutting ideas, highlighted by the monsters they primarily sport; Goblins, Ants, Trolls, and Giants.

Giants are dangerous because they act as an empire, even having a decipherable language and some degree of communication being possible. They have exotic metals in their carapaces (they are crab people that look as if they are perpetually wearing armor like a knight) as they eat metals and incorporate it into their carapaces. They, like molting animals in theory, can grow infinitely large over their lifetime as they molt, hence the moniker 'giant'.

Trolls are hard to kill and far more physically imposing than humans despite the same relative size and build. They can regenerate nearly any wound and honestly how to deal with them is either cremation or continual puree. Some insane person asked the question 'what happens if I injected troll blood into my blood?' and the result is 'you heal faster', 'you heal more', 'your lifespan increases', and even 'you become slightly stronger'. Though anyone can do this, there are a few stipulations. You can only do 1 liter every so often, if you have 1 liter injected into you, you would have to wait a year, then after the second liter, you'd have to wait two more years, etc. Continual injections reinforce the effects pretty significantly, however, not waiting the appropriate timeframe has an increasing chance to cause generalized cancer (single or multiple types). Also, injecting the blood of a single troll (rather than a dozen or more) will potentially result in slowly transforming into that troll.

Goblins, these classical 1st level enemies are one of the largest threats in this setting. Enhancing an uncommon trait that goblins sometimes have of 'environmental adaptation'. This adaptation is a 'threat adaptation', they can adapt to threats they comprehend over the course of hours. That is to say, if they see one of their companions getting killed by an arrow, over a relatively long period of time, they will become resistant to if not immune to arrows. Now this in and of itself isn't an issue, the issue is that they can share their adaptations via proximity. So if one goblin gets away, then it is possible than an entire warren of them will be ever more difficult to deal with. They are otherwise smaller than humans and slightly weaker than the average human.

Ants are classically either negligible threat (being ants) or highly dangerous (coordination, size, faceless legions). They are now in the second camp. These 'ants' evolve over generations and have adapted to utilize the same systems of Humans. I am also giving them some bee things because I feel like it. They even have additional castes for such things;

Minor; Carriers, farmers, ranchers, diggers, etc. Workers.

Majors; Workers which are slightly larger and meant for combat purposes rather than for general tasks, but they can fulfill general tasks as well. An upgraded form of Minor.

Nobles; Winged and larger than Majors, they are reproductively viable. They are more intelligent, to a level comparable to Humans. They often become sub-queens or drones for a proper nest. They have significantly longer lifespans than the lower castes. Males will protect the female Nobles, Sub-Queens, and Queens they seek to court and often try to gain traits to be deemed 'important' enough to be allowed to remain a noble rather than being demoted to a Drone. Males are born as nobles unlike the females, but a vast majority of them are demoted as drones. Male nobles will not die after reproducing.

Replete; Specialized storage units for food, a specialized form of minor. They store the 'fungal jelly' from their farms, the 'honey dew' from their ranches, the 'meat honey' from prey, the 'honey' from plants, and the 'royal jelly' from 'every other source' or from 'mixing the flavors'. A few of them are also specialized to basically filter the food into 'basically just sugar water'.

Weavers; Specialized form of minor, they are capable of laying webs, for structures as well as traps. These webs can be shot towards enemies as a sort of net and some can make 'razor webs' (though it's mostly due to a size discrepancy of the web and how 'hard' it is)

Soldier; These are a specialized form of Major. A caste explicitly for physical combat, thicker armor, larger bodies, acid sprays, venomous stingers, and powerful jaws, they even drink troll blood and form soulcores.

Magus; These are a specialized form of Major. A caste explicitly for casting and dealing with magic. They are slightly larger than majors, but far more intelligent, equivalent to a Noble. They have mana and can cast spells with others of their nest. Due to the nature of how mana accumulates, they have lifespans comparable to Nobles or even Queens.

Phalanx; These are a specialized form of Major. A caste explicitly for defensive functions. Front liners who aren't meant to kill things, simply not die and prevent sieges.

Drones; These are a specialized form of Noble, exclusively male, wingless, and oddly human-like in shape, size, and mannerism. They serve as attendants to Queens, Sub-Queens, and in particularly successful nests, Nobles. They are still reproductively viable, but are seldom given the chance. Drones will die after reproducing.

Queen; A specialized form of Noble, exclusively female. They are far larger and more intelligent. Queens are almost equivalent to goddesses and sub-queens demi-goddesses.

Things we've gained;

Magic/Mana; via Cubits. Mana is something we've apparently had the entire time, but absorbing a crystal known as a Cubit 'downloads eldritch math' into the absorber's mind enableing them to utilize the mana they have for various effects.

Soulcores; Also utilizing mana, but rather than letting it be a growing sponge, compressing it into a small crystal ball. Soulcores 'lock in' strength, speed, cognition, etc. as the soul is crystalized. But, they can add layers to it magnifying those traits. This also causes aging to be messed with in weird ways, halting aging for a long period while slowing it after that period. Everybody has a limit to the number of layers they can have, some can only condense their soulcore while others can get three additional layers.

'Exotic metals'; The carapaces of giants comprise many metals. Some having the same properties as those in reality, like copper for example, but possessing altered qualities, such as higher conductivity, corrosion resistance, oxidization resistance, hardness, ductility, flexibility, lower weight, etc. There are also metals with other more exotic abilities, such as conducting heat extremely well while actively repelling electricity, generating disproportionate heat when struck, actively growing, glowing, moving based on 'willpower', being lighter than air, absorbing heat, light, and electricity, being nearly indestructible, being 'calorically and nutritionally dense', perspiring clean drinking water, etc.

Troll blood; Injecting the substance can cause humans to be harder to kill. It decreases healing times, it enables healing wounds humans can't normally heal (such as limbs), it slows down aging slightly, and it increases strength slightly.

Some sort of alternative power source; I think it would be neat.

???

That's all I got rn for ideas.

[novisius]

Random Cosmere Shenanigans

I like monsterifying magic systems as a preface.

So, Surges, Metallic Arts, and Aether.

A strange conversion of what once was human into an approximation of fainlife. Characterized by six limbs, bone and a general 'differentness' (such as grass-like hair rather than hair-like hair).

Gonna save a lot of text for the internal backstory, suffice to say that these are abominations that were made from people.

They all share similar traits, natural and subconcious affinities for the surge of transformation, they have gemhearts for which to store investiture, they have 'natural clothing' which is comprised of what appears to be human flesh (what I mean is like capes, ponchos, skirts, etc. 'clothing' made from a single piece of cloth and ragged and torn.), they have six limbs, they have a bone or ivory like carapace, their joints are exposed muscle that doesn't bleed like they should, their faces lack true facial features but imply their prior humanity, they possess mouths at the top of their torsos to consume nutrients as required, and they are highly toxic to be consumed by non-fainlife. They could generally be described as tall and gaunt, they move very purposefully, elegantly, or controlled. The following is attempts at approximations of visual aides (I do not know where they are all from).

Now, that is all for the common appearances between the three varieties. They then have various different physical characteristics and magical traits, three families of similarities you could say.

A basic common function is that their gemhearts have a sunheart core which is used to store and denature light they generate. Which the different varieties generates by doing different things, but amounts to basically not dying and being alive. They can use this stored investiture for their magic systems they have access to or to preform basic yet highly inefficient functions based on how they can get light in the first place. This generation is accumulated slowly over the course of one of these thing's lives, taking decades easily before they can use additional generation methods.

Surge

The surges are capable of using a full breadth of a surge they are aware of. Even gaining access to other magics for composite uses, such as gaining connection to the surge of transformation to make physical illusions for the illumination ones. I should mention, these things only have access to a single surge, the additional power access is only enough for the composite use to work, not to actually actively utilize the power.

These additional power accesses are not based on intention, but based on...observation/comprehension. The idea that 'this is a novel usage of the surge' and takes quite some time to manifest, months to years and is the byproduct of a highly modified brain that has been given control over connection for this purpose.

This variation have seven gemstone-like eyes on their heads. Typically asymmetric, they always have a slight glow to them, but they are far brighter when generating light via a method associated with that particular gemstone. Damaging a gemstone can temporarily prevent the generation and usage of investiture the associated way;

Voidlight; Generated by sleeping. Can use investiture to inefficiently stave off sleep.

Stormlight; Generated by breathing. Can use investiture to inefficiently stave off suffocation.

Lifelight; Generated by eating/drinking. Can use investiture to inefficiently gain calories, nutrition, and/or hydration.

Towerlight; Generated by staying within a particular area for extended periods of time. Can use investiture to inefficiently establish connection to an area.

Warlight; Generated by being in a conflict which is perceived as real/dangerous. Can use investiture to inefficiently heal and strengthen themselves.

???light; I don't know what Cultivation/Odium light is yet.

???light; I don't know what Cultivation/Honor/Odium light is yet.

(very good example of 'was human' face)

One thing I'm adding purely for the aesthetic, is that their eyes seem to trail echoes of light as they move. For no other reason than I can.

The coloration of the gemstones reflects what surge they have access to. False surges such as Adhesion takes on the coloration of the shard it comes from (so blue-white in this instance). Those surges are very uniform in the coloration of their 'eyes'. While the 'nine true surges' are some color variation of the radiant order clockwise of the surge. Variations can occur even within an individual, one eye being strangely clear or cloudy, darker or lighter, streaks of black-purple, blue-white, or green sometimes.

These are definitely taller than a human, but they do have a human-like silhouette. But these creatures are certainly different. Looking at them, you can see, at the bottom of their torso, is a typically folded in pair of arms. Smaller, weaker, with three digits on the end of hands.

Speaking of their limbs, their feet have two toes. I don't know why, just what I see.

Another strongly noticeable feature they possess, is the undersides of their flesh. Not their carapace or musculature, but their skin flaps. It is a hole through light pollution, through matter (such as people or the planet itself), a window to the constellations. Though this window can only be seen while in shadow, typically the underside of the flesh.

Their appearances in the cognitive realm is different than it is in the physical one, appearing similar to Highspren. However, the brightest stars and the only ones that move relative to the creature, represents the sunheart and their eyes. The sunheart star's brightness/size can be used to estimate how much investiture they have stored.

To reproduce, this variant can willingly die. Doing so will cause their eyes to act like seeds that eventually grow a solar powered sunheart core, that will in turn eventually grow into a full fledged body. This process, assuming they have earth average access to solar light, takes 16 months. Almost all of which is spent growing the sunheart and storing investiture, the bodily growth occurs within the span of ~2 days. The sunheart will cannibalize itself to continue growing the body should the body become damaged enough to require replacement, such as the loss of a limb.

Of course, broken eyes or seeds that are damaged before a body is grown will not be able to grow a new individual.

A vast majority of the time, these will grow into individuals of the same type of surge their progenitor was, but there is a small chance that a neighboring or opposite surge will be grown instead.

Metallic Arts

These creatures are capable of the full breadth of the metallic arts for a single metal. This also includes shardmetal alloys after subconscious manipulation of connection, conscious expenditure of investiture, and you guessed it, multiple months of subtle changes.

This subconscious manipulation occurs when in the presence of a large or consistent amount of investiture colored by the associated shard. Despite the nature of hybrid shards, they can be broken down into their basal components for this purpose.

The gemheart possesses a metal lattice, the lattice does several things for these creatures. Primarily coloring the investiture when used for tapping and storing feruchemical qualities, as well as coloring the investiture when wanting to burn it allomantically from the sunheart. They also, for the creatures function as a weak flame fabrial. For example, one of these creatures who utilizes pewter would make nearby flames stronger by a handful of degrees at best, being strongest on the objects they touch.

They do have specialized kidney like organs that filters out, synthesizes/breaks down their waste for their particular metal, and stores it. Though the true metal reserve, it is more efficient to convert that metal into shardmetal alloys than to use it as a mundane metal reserve. Though, some use this reserve for the purposes of compounding.

These creatures can uses the surge of transformation more consciously than most would assume. Able to convert non-living matter at a rate of roughly 1 square inch an hour, they can generate their mundane metal. If they utilize significant amounts of investiture, they can instead make a shardmetal alloy at the same rate. Though they can also use cohesion, but subconsciously. This surge keeps metal stored within their nearly fused two sets of arms liquid.

(the claw arm, being larger, hint of a space for the reservoir)

Through specialized muscles, this metal can be fired out at incredible speeds where it immediately solidifies into needles, spikes, and/or blades. These are how these creatures access Hemalurgy. Having to retrieve their spikes, they then implant them into themselves.

Should they deem it beneficial enough, they can burn the spikes for their benefits. I personally assume it grafts the spike's contents onto the burner's spirit web, which warps the personality. Their highly modified brains are tasked with fixing those issues eventually. We are talking, maybe, one graft's worth of damage while retaining the benefits being repaired every four to sixteen years.

Their faces are odd, for some reason, I mentally see a combination of the odd skeletal lower half of the right image

And a block of glowing near molten metal for an eye that goes from their forehead to right around where a human nose would be.

Otherwise, the edges of their flesh looks singed or burned, often harmlessly smoking or glowing as if it was still being burned.

Their cognitive aspects has their carapace covered in a web of metal, representative of their investiture reserves in their sunheart.

Now, final part for these is light. What they can generate and how they can use it.

'Preservationlight'; Generated when using allomancy with metal. They can use investiture with increased efficiency for allomnacy.

'Ruinlight'; Generated when they kill something. They can use investiture to reinforce a spike in them, but the more it deviates from what it was initially, the more it takes to add to.

'Harmonylight'; A little is generated each night. They can use investiture to inefficiently fix their nutrition.

They reproduce also by dying. But not in a 'letting themselves die' manner. They explode into a fungal-like growth as their body decays, feeding on their sunheart's reserves. They will grow fruit-like pods where new members of this creature are gestated. This process takes a long time, but it can produce a significant number of new members. Always a square of two however. Typically they will be of the same metal, though rare they may be of a different metal of the same quadrent, and even rarer they will be of either the same push/pull or internal/external.

Aether

I don't exactly know what I want to do with these guys. I think I want to do a sort of 'prepaid thread of aether' but I'm not sure beyond that.

Getting that out of my head. Anyone have any thoughts, critiques, expansions, or deviations?