Skyborn

Skyborn
Ashkhas Minara (in Zahram)
Motto: "Between the Machines of Knowledge and Ages of Wonder."
Nation State	Al-Alus
Ruler	Technocratic Council by Examination
Other Present	Regalian Empire
Languages	Zahram, Common
Religion	Unionism
First Recorded	10,000 BC
Demonym(s)	Skyborn

The Skyborn are a diverse group of people with ancestry from all the major corners of the world, who once ruled much of the seas and lands between the Elven and Sheng Empires in the far west and east respectively. They built vast flying cities with their technology in clockwork and steamtech, but eventually came into conflict with the Dragons and suffered internal strife. Following the calamity of the Great Storm, their Empire fell and their people were scattered in the winds. Now a fractured people, many of the Skyborn seek to return to the past or look toward a better future. The Skyborn are well known worldwide as the pre-eminent technologically advanced people, with a specialty in machinery and robotics, known as automata to them, while secretly holding out hope for the return of their Skyborn Empire.

Design

Due to their reputation for being the world's foremost technicians and engineers, many Skyborn who come to Regalia open up mechanical shops and services.

This half-Eronidas Reclaimer Skyborn's Sky-weave tattoos glow. Sky-weave does not always have to be beige or golden, it can be any color.

Skyborn often have very rich color patterns and designs, owing to their high-precision mechanical looms and weaving equipment. Blue and gold/beige are common color combinations found in traditional Skyborn clothing.

Sheer masks are common for both men and women among the Skyborn. While commonly a cultural custom in the modern era, in the past it was purely a practical habit as breathing on sensitive machinery was considered unprofessional.

Reclaimer Skyborn are sometimes sneered at by the other Skyborn on account of being more rugged/brawny than them, but also because they are frequently grimy and covered in mechanical oils.

It is by sheer willpower of the Founder Skyborn that the eternal war between Al-Alus and the Dragonkin continues.

The Skyborn are not exactly homogenous in the same way an Ailor, Dwarf, or Lanlath Elf might be. Due to their Skyborn Empire having existed for tens of thousands of years, their population became very diverse from large population migrations in and out of their Empire. Skyborn generally appear like Ailor (standard Humans), with the sole notable exception of all of them having beige eyes and darker pigmented skins being more common due to their proximity to the equator. Secondly, Skyborn are set apart from those with other Heritage due to their Sky-weave. Sky-weave is a pattern of skin pigmentation, coloration, or tattooing, that appears on the bodies of the Skyborn (usually on the hands, though it can originate from anywhere), which grows and spreads throughout their life in mandala-like shapes. These shapes record events in their life that can be read as these shapes much inspire the Skyborn script. Finally, Skyborn are roughly divided into five subgroups which may dictate their appearance. These groups define a Skyborn's ancestry and may also inform some of their culture.

Founder Skyborn are the most common ancestry of Skyborn that descend from the original inhabitants of Ard-al-Nur, the continent from which the Skyborn created their Empire. Founder Skyborn are visually and culturally inspired by real-world Umayyad Iberia (Al-Andalus), and Middle Eastern people. Founder Skyborn filled the roles of the majority of the engineering classes and citizenry. Following the Empire's fall, the majority of them gravitated to the successor states in the south, continuing to try and reclaim part of their lost Empire's territory from the Dragonkin.

Scripter Skyborn have ancestry among the Elves who migrated into the Skyborn Empire millennia ago, and slowly mixed into the population. Scripter Skyborn are not Elves, but they do remind others of their ancestry by their Elf-like ears and extended lifespan. Scripter Skyborn often fulfilled bureaucratic and scribe work in the Skyborn Empire. Following the Empire's fall, many of them scattered across the world, founding Skyborn Academies in far flung nations while preserving as much literary work from the Empire as possible, and searching for more long lost treasures.

Reclaimer Skyborn have ancestry among the Velheim Ailor who migrated into the Skyborn Empire's northern territories millennia ago. Reclaimer Skyborn unlike the other Skyborn who rely on steam-tech and clockwork, use diesel-tech instead, extracting oil from the Hadravyan provinces in north Ard-al-Nur, and using it to fuel their technology. Reclaimer Skyborn were often seen as outsiders in the Skyborn Empire and latecomers compared to the other ancestries, but since the fall of the Empire, their technology has made leaps of progress and rivaled the common clockwork.

Charger Skyborn come from far away, the Zhong Kingdoms to be exact. When the Sheng Empire expanded westward into the lands that would later become the Zhong Kingdoms, they pushed out the local population whose name has been lost to time. These people migrated to Ard-al-Nur where they slowly integrated into Skyborn society. The Charger Skyborn are visually and culturally inspired by real-world turkic peoples, especially those form Central and South Asia. Charger Skyborn often filled military roles in the Skyborn Empire due to their old homeland's martial customs.

Heritage Traits

In Character Design, Proficiency allows for the buying of Packs, which give Combat Abilities. Heritage Traits add free Packs and Mechanics to a Character, fit around cultural themes. Mechanics are flair and roleplay opportunities Characters have outside of Combat, while Packs are Combat Power. Free Magic Packs can always be defined as any Alignment. Mixed Heritage Characters (characters of two different culture parents) choose one set of Free Packs, and can mix and match Mechanics from both parents up to a maximum of 5 Mechanics. Skyborn Ancestry Mechanic counts as a single Mechanic.

Free Packs

• Skyborn gain a Pack from the Tech Point Buy or Chem Point Buy Categories for free.
• Skyborn gain the Pack Familiar Disrupt Pack for free.

Mechanics

• Skyborn do not need to choose a Tech Branch for any engineering or technology tinkering they do. They can build/edit/repair any Branch. Even if a unique Technology Branch has specific requirements they do not meet (such as Religion, or Affliction), then they are not able to build or make it, but can repair or edit it. They can install security systems in their Rentals, requiring OOC notification of Break-ins.
• Skyborn have a unique sequential memory that allows almost perfect recall. With mechanical equipment, they can extract their own memories including all sensory experiences, and copy them onto so-called Memkeys. Memkeys in turn can be used by other Skyborn to "watch" such an experience and feel as If it was them who experienced it, or use a virtual-reality-like device to allow non-Skyborn to experience them.
• Skyborn have a high analytical ability to perceive and understand the machinery that is witnessed or operated during Events. This may allow them to learn more about the devices that are seen or used, or discover hidden features or functions that other people cannot perceive. Make sure to contact an Event Dm for any potential uses in Private Message during the Event or beforehand to learn more.
• Skyborn have a sixth sense for manipulating technology, even without directly touching it and just laying their eyes on it. Skyborn can "hack" or hijack any technology made by anyone in viewing distance and cause it to operate or change its functions. Think for example forcing a mechanical tea pot to boil over, or a music-machine to play off-key. This may not apply to Event Machines.

Ancestry Mechanic

Each of the four unique Skyborn Ancestries provides a Mechanic, depending on what Ancestry is chosen. While it is possible to have mixed Ancestry (by for example using Elf-Ears reminiscing of Scripters, and the appearance traits of the Charger Skyborn), for gameplay reasons a Character must always have only a single Ancestry declared, and thus can only receive one of these Ancestry Mechanics.

• Founder Ancestry Mechanic: Founder Ancestry Skyborn are both equal parts touched, and repulsed by Beyond. If a Founder Skyborn is Ordial Aligned, they gain +1 Attack Stat (break Cap up to 11) against anything that is not Ordial Aligned. If a Founder Skyborn is not Ordial Aligned, they gain +1 Defence Stat (break Cap up to 9) while defending against Attack Emotes from Ordial Aligned enemies only.
• Scripter Ancestry Mechanic: Scripter Ancestry Skyborn are immune to any type of memory alterations due to their high attunement with their sequential memory. While it is possible to remove memories from their mind, memories cannot be implanted, edited, or replaced. This means that if a memory is removed, a Scripter Skyborn will always know that a memory is missing, and where it disappeared.
• Reclaimer Ancestry Mechanic: Reclaimer Ancestry Skyborn have extended analytical abilities when it comes to understanding component ingredients, and material identification. They can identify any metal or material that they can touch and are able to smell what ingredients or compounds are present in any alchemical mixture. This extends itself even to smelling poison in their drinks.
• Charger Ancestry Mechanic: Charger Ancestry Skyborn live and die in the mechanical saddle. Charger Skyborn gain +1 Defense Stat (breaking Cap up to 9) so long as they are Mounted in Combat. This bonus however only applies outside of the city's built-up residential areas such as the Wilderness, Gloomrot, the Badlands, City Parks, and the Noble District where the streets are wide enough for Cavalry.

Religions

• Unionism: The vast majority of the Skyborn are Unionist. After the Great Storm, the child-God Al-Asir emerged in Ard-al-Nur with his two automata Dar and Al-Hakkim. Guided by the Automata, Al-Asir performed numerous miracles for the suffering Skyborn who were inconsolable after the staggering loss of life and Empire. Al-Asir repaired many of the broken machines, and even as an infant-God stabilized the state of Al-Alus thus ensuring that the Skyborn retained their homeland. As he grew, Al-Asir was incorporated into the Unionist Faith by divine intervention from the Everwatcher, thus ensuring the majority of Skyborn Society also joined and accepted the other Regalian Gods. The Skyborn still consider themselves foreigners in Regalia, however, even though Ailor and Skyborn have a common ancestor millennia back. Their focus is always strongly on Al-Asir, and less so on the Regalian Gods.
• Draconism: There are extremely few Skyborn Draconists, because the concept of worshiping Dragons after what happened to the Skyborn Empire and the Sky cities is nigh unthinkable. There are small cults referred to as the Faithscorn however, that worship the Dragons and claim that Al-Asir and Masrani the Bronze Dragon are one and the same, an interpretation widely rejected by Skyborn society but accepted by Dragonkin society. These cults are seen as traitors among the Skyborn, and thus live in the Dragonkin Empire instead.
• Estelley: Estelley as a Religion is nearly nonexistent among the Skyborn. Even for the Elves who migrated millennia ago, they accepted the Belief in the Machine many aeons back, and thus converted to Unionism when Al-Asir arrived.
• Fornoss: Fornoss as a Religion is acknowledged by some of the northern Reclaimer Skyborn, something they held onto despite the millennia of living in the Skyborn Empire. This is both because of the very stubborn attitude held by those initial Velheim immigrants, but also because of the relative isolation of the Reclaimer Skyborn from common Founder Skyborn dominated societies. (For more on this, see the section on Fuel Sources).
• Evolism: Evolism as a Religion is effectively nonexistent in Skyborn society, as many of its tenets and magical themes run counter to Skyborn cultural norms. There is no strong tech component to Evolism dogma, and thus Skyborn have very little way to create an initial familiarization.
• Baskarr: Baskarr is (mostly) an ethno-Religion for the Asha, and Asha effectively do not exist on Ard-al-Nur. As a result, most Skyborn have never heard of Baskarr, let alone considering converting to it, though it is not unthinkable that Skyborn who live close to the Asha might have.
• Machinist Cult: Machinist Cults still faithful to the Belief in the Machine still exist. Rather than hold onto the old faith belief however, these Cults have outright turned to Death-God worship to directly obey and sacrifice to the Death-God the Machinist itself. These Cults are referred to as Rishiq and live deep in the Ard-al-Nur deserts to hide both from the Skyborn and the Dragonkin. They are considered violent and dangerous scavengers who have learned to adapt to a harsh life, scrapping leftovers from old Skyborn ruins and using Ordial Magic to fuel their machines. (For more on the Rishiq, see the section on them below).

History

Pre-Empire History

Skyborn history starts some time over 10,000 years prior to the modern era, just a few centuries shy of the founding of the Allorn Empire. This historical retelling begins on Ard-al-Nur, the home continent of the Skyborn which was largely a massive desert save for the south and northern regions which had forests and grasslands, and the scant oases and mountain valleys in between. Prior to the forming of the Skyborn Empire, the people who called themselves the Qiyad had formed hundreds of splintered tribes covering the land, these Qiyad being the ancestors of the Founder Skyborn. These tribes battled each other for control over the harsh territories for centuries, until one tribe rapidly subjugated the others under the leadership of a religious leader. This man whose original name has been lost to time, eventually came to be known as the Traveler to the people, or Al-Muqallid to the Founder Skyborn. Elven outposts on the boundaries were burned and their populations were expelled or forcibly annexed into the population, with such speed that the Allorn Empire declared Ard-al-Nur forbidden to enter.

With relative isolation, the Traveler proselythized a new religion called Belief in the Machine and developed the first unified scripture called Zahram. While Belief in the machine as a Religion had tenets much like other Religions, in the modern era it is well understood that the Traveler was acting on the directions of the Death-God known as the Machinist, who pretended to be a benevolent god to the early Skyborn. Zahram had a unique braille-like writing style, meaning the surviving texts are resilient to the passage of time (due to being recorded on metal), and very resilient to editing. Under the guidance of the Machinist in disguise, the Skyborn advanced their technology. They became intolerant and aggressive to outsiders, encouraged by the Machinist's words, and spread out over the seas to cause death in his name, thus unknowingly feeding the Death God with souls. The Traveler eventually came close to biological death, causing him to replace his body parts with machines, thus becoming the Skyborn Empire's first Automata, and ruling for millennia as the Machine King.

The Skyborn Empire

The Skyborn Empire developed with ever-improving technological prowess over the millennia, but its culture suffered under the insidious intentions of the Machinist. While the people lived in relative luxury due to their high levels of automation, their culture was a cruel one that would encourage death-dealing and the worship of death cultism as praiseworthy. Anytime the Skyborn Empire made contact with a new people, they became a prime target to be sacrificed to the Machinist, in a misguided belief that their technological backwardness offended their God. Unbeknownst to the Skyborn population, the Traveler had come to regret his bargain with the proverbial devil. His people had become bloodthirsty and murderous, and he felt that their Empire was soul-less. In secret, the Traveler started working against the Machinist by planting the seeds of doubt and plotting to overthrow his erstwhile master by taking to the skies. It was around 7000 BC that the Skyborn constructed their first Sky-cities, levitating population centers complete with workshops and factories held aloft with technology.

In a final act of defiance against the Machinist, the Traveler orchestrated his own assassination, causing the priesthood to descend on him, and disassemble his 3000 year old machine-body, fracturing his soul. Had he died normally, his soul would have been claimed by the Machinist and his plot would have been discovered. With the priests murdering him and shattering his memories into 10,000 pieces however, they were able to carry his instructions far and wide and prevent the Machinist from learning of their betrayal. These priests laid the foundations of the Traveler's betrayal that would not come to fruition for another 2,000 years. They did so by installing the memory pieces extracted from the Traveler's mechanical body into crucial machinery across the Empire. They installed pieces of his memory into the central control systems of the sky cities, into the irrigation facilities, into the military outposts, and into the city ventilation plants. Over the next 2,000 years, his memories would infect the programming and functions of all these machines, and copies would be made, over and over, until every machine in the Empire had a piece of his memory embedded in it, entirely unknowing to the general population

The Skyborn Betrayal

Then around 5,000 BC, the trap was sprung. The "Kill God" order was given through all machines across the Empire, which proceeded to attack the Temples dedicated to the Machinist. Internal coding hacked and expelled Machinist-loyal circuitry or mechanical elements, and Mortisphages that were bound to the Machinist were put to death Empire-wide. The instantaneous burn-out of nearly all Ordial-infected machinery across the Empire paralyzed the Machinist in the Beyond, as well as its Shades and minions. In an even more daring act of defiance, powerful machines somehow punched a hole through the Veil that separates the dimensions and broke open a way into the Beyond, where Skyborn automata proceeded to loot and pilfer the Machinist's vaults before the Death-God could react. This looting caused a momentary brain death in the Machinist, as this Death-God consciousness was tied to its artifacts and blueprints. Satisfied that they had defeated their former master, the machines shut the gateway to the Beyond and began the slow work of converting the people away from believing in their former Religion.

The Skyborn Empire largely derives its name from the period that followed, where society recovered from the cultural perversion inflicted by the Machinist, and largely normalized into a welfaring technology and advancement-focused culture. During the Golden Age of the Skyborn Empire, many migrants arrived and mixed into the local population, eventually forming the other Ancestries. The Sky Cities grew from small hundreds-inhabitants-sized flying outposts to massive metropolises that could cast massive areas into shadows as they moved through the clouds. Flight through machinery became common, and at a certain point, more than half of the Skyborn population lived permanently or semi-permanently among the clouds, with new children being born who would never set foot on solid ground. The Skyborn however made one critical mistake, in that they continued to use the blueprints and machines that were looted from the Machinist's repository. While their technology advanced, with each age, the Machinist's consciousness gained strength, until it was restored, and it started plotting revenge on its former minions.

The Dragon War

The Machinist's revenge was elegantly simple and could not at all be detected by the Skyborn, until it was too late. The Machinist made no overt and open declaration, but subtly flooded its old machines with Ordial Essence and Magic, effectively undetectable by the Skyborn who had no real presence of Magic in their society (having previously purged Ordial Magic during the Betrayal). With this huge spike of Ordial Magic, the Skyborn drew the attention of the Dragons who were still very much embroiled in the Immortal War against the Void and Exist Arken. Fearing another front opening that they were unfamiliar with, and enigmatic and uncaring as they were, the Dragons started attacking the Skyborn without warning. While previously their Sky cities filled the bright skies above Ard-al-Nur, these now became increasingly unsafe as Dragons attacked city after city, sometimes so aggressively that the levitation machinery failed causing whole cities to plummet from the skies and crash into the earth killing tens of thousands.

The Dragons did the dirty work of the Machinist, being blinded by their dogma and fear of the stagnation of the Immortal War, grounding all but the most well-defended Sky cities and even forcing some to drift to faraway continents where contact was eventually lost. The Skyborn being none the wiser, struck back defensively by building massive armies of machines fueled by looted technology from the Machinist, thus ironically making the problem even worse. How certain weapons worked they did not know, but they terrified the Dragons, and that was seemingly enough to use them. The Skyborn seemed to be able to overcome the Bronze Dragons and push them back all the way to Jarf al-Tanin, where they laid siege to the Bronze Junction, one of the most important Draconism sites in Ard-al-Nur. A massive machine army of huge robots attacked the Dragons, and in the final hour, the Machinist would have its final revenge. Not only was it manipulating the Skyborn, but also the Dragons. In their final hour of desperation, the Machinist managed to play on the anxiety of the Dragons and hijack their Magic and Machines in turn, to trigger the Great Storm. A massive sandstorm the likes of which had never been seen erupted all over the continent, wiping out nearly 80% of the Skyborn population, and crashing the last remaining Sky cities into the ground as their engines choked up. The Dragons also were killed in this act, leaving all but the fringes of the Skyborn Empire a lifeless sand pit.

The Aftermath

In the aftermath of the Great Storm, the Dragons in Ard-al-Nur created a final act of re-seeding life, by creating the Dragonkin who would walk out of the Great Storm to re-inhabit the land. Where the Sky cities had fallen into the ground, they built up their Pearl Cities, and so the Skyborn Empire, was replaced by the Dragonkin Empire. To this day, while the true manipulation of the Machinist is generally understood, the Skyborn people still have not forgiven the dogmatic murder of their people by the Dragons, and continue to wage a war against the Dragonkin to reclaim their lost territory while their Empire has largely been diminished to a few disparate and fragmented successor states. Many Skyborn have migrated to other countries or founded Academies in faraway lands to keep their ancient knowledge alive. The Skyborn are far from a defeated people, but none of the Sky cities have returned to the clouds, even if thousands work towards this goal every day.