Species Fact Sheet

History

The Alaiskya are a proud race, preferring to keep to themselves and out of any wars or conflicts that other races have incited. They are a female dominated society, with their males typically being hidden away in their Sacred Grounds where only a rare few outsiders may meet them.

The Ancients
Long before the Shattering rent the race into two opposing sides, there was a time of prosperity and, if not peace, at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. The Ancients lived in vast floating 'cities', each home to hundreds of thousands of the People, and each powered and warmed by the Will of the Gods through the use of large and intricate Runic Magic. Spire perches reached towards the stars, winding ever upwards, hollow here and there to create homes and places of meeting. Moss and plants clung to the perches and spires, turning the cities into strange forests of life, and it wasn't uncommon to see birds flitting from plant to plant, or insects buzzing from flower to flower.

The Ancients themselves were as different as their cities - slender and wingless, they had long ago mastered the sky and had no need for wings to carry them. Their bodies were covered in vivid, intricate patterns, each unique to a certain city, and the mixing of lineages was frowned upon, as those with the markings of a mutt were considered sullied, cast out from the favor of the Gods. Thrown down to the World Below as soon as they were found, mutts were left to live as best they could without family, Runic Magic, or even flight.

All events, from solstice to equinox to eclipses, from the eruption of volcanoes to the shaking of the earth they no longer lived on, were the focus of ceremonies and rituals in praise of the pantheon of Gods that they followed. Over a third of the population of each city was dedicated to the priesthood, and everyone knew the "Little Words", a manuscript of Runic Magic that called upon the Gods for the 'lesser blessings' - protection, fertility, good health, and so on.

The winter solstice, though, was the highest of High Ritual. It was at this time that the Runic Magic that kept their cities afloat was remade, to carry them through the sky for another year. The week before the solstice, all work ceased. Everyone, from layperson to the Hierarchs, spent the time in quiet contemplation of the Gods. Among those of the priesthood, it was also a time of reaffirming their dedication to the Gods and to their Holy Partner. The Great Words of Runic Magic requires a balance between male and female, where neither voice nor presence nor will is overpowered, but rather in harmony - this, then, was the final requirement for admittance into the priesthood, finding a Holy Partner with whom to sing the Great Words.

If even one Holy Pair was out of sync, the entire Magic could be brought down. Thus, by holy writ, the week approaching the winter solstice was given to reaffirmation and, if necessary, reconciliation. Initiates who found their Holy Partner during this week were considered blessed and so it was that the week was both a time of silence and the furious, desperate noise of hundreds of initiates searching for their Partner.

The solstice ceremony itself began the first second of the new day and lasted until the day was completely over, spanning the full twenty six hours of their day. Everyone turned out for it, perched on every available spot on the spires to watch the singing and spinning of the Magic that kept them aloft.

The actual crafting of the magic took place in the sky overhead, tracing a sigil that covered the entire city. Pairs slid out of the ritual as they grew tired, other Pairs taking their place, only to return as they regained their strength. Never were there fewer than five hundred pairs in the sky at once, all singing in harmony as they flew the patterns of the sigil, carving it into the sky with their bodies.

After the day of ritual, a great feast was prepared by the laymen for the priests, in thanks for another year begun. Children of age were also feasted, and those who desired it presented themselves before the Hierarchs to be accepted into the priesthood. Thus would begin a new cycle of life in the floating cities.

Intermission: The Shattering
The civilization of the Ancients lasted for over three millennia, changing little in all that time. For three thousand years the Blessing of Dimakoru was flown every winter solstice, keeping the cities aloft and prosperous for another year. For three thousand years, mutts were cast out to the World Below and left to their own fates. But instead of dying out, as Those Above thought they would, the mutts slowly clumped together in groups and clans of their own.

These mutts, denied teaching in the complicated Runic Magic, turned instead to the small spark of internal magic that resided inside them and began to nurture it, specifically breeding themselves together in order to make it stronger. Along the way they became badly inbred, as there were usually only one or two newcomers every year. Mutations began to arise, fertility dropped, and the future of the Fallen, as they spitefully named themselves, came into question.

And then came Naroka. A brilliant and charismatic young lady, she had been born with functioning wings and a burning hatred of Those Above. By all accounts she was a fanatic, intent on destroying the Gods and Those Above, and these days she's looked upon as both a blessing and a curse. Her drive brought together the small, scattered clans into a relatively unified whole. Her passion drove back the depression that had settled over the people and gave them renewed hope. But at the same time, her crusade brought down the cities, shattered the most prosperous time in history, and destroyed the Gods that all, even many of the Fallen, worshipped.

She renamed her people the Alaiskya, Celestial Warriors, as a snub to Those Above, and built the first of the Sanctuaries that would eventually become the Clan Grounds of today. It was built in a vast cave system deep underground and was a far cry from the elaborate, lush micro-worlds that the Alaiskya live in today, but seemed the height of luxury at the time.

The Alaiskya of this time were too focused on survival and, later, Naroka's crusade to care about ritual or ceremony. Winter was a time of hardship and death, when the weak died and the strong grew weak. Naroka's Sanctuary began to change this, giving her people a chance to grow stronger even through the deepest of winters. Removed from the worst of the privation, the Alaiskya finally had the strength to begin the long, involved process of rebellion.

Though Naroka never lived to see it - in fact, it wasn't until centuries later that the Alaiskya were finally at a point where they could consider success - she was instrumental in beginning the downfall of the Ancients. It was she who identified the true root of Runic Magic - the great spires of the cities. The Gods, she proclaimed, were a lie. They did not 'reside' inside the spires, they were the spires, which was why every city's gods were slightly different, though they went by the same names.

Centuries after Naroka returned to the land, the Alaiskya rose from their hidden Sanctuaries on the winter solstice and shattered the power of the Blessing of Dimakoru.

The once great cities fell to earth, the spires shattered, and the Gods departed from the world forever.

Ainem: "The People"
The Ainem, clinging to their belief in the Gods despite the Shattering, are what remain of the once great Ancients. Of the millions of individuals that lived at the height of the Ancient's civilization, only a few hundred thousand survived the fall and the destruction of the magic that they had relied upon for millennia. Of those, even more died at the paws of the Alaiskya, who were intent on wiping the last remains of Those Above off the planet.

The destruction of the cities and the spires meant much more than just the destruction of an era and its Gods, for as the cities fell, so too did the people. The sky no longer belonged to the Ainem.

Those that survived eventually gathered into three distinct Houses - Dansho, Ligirb, and Mujimon - and went about rebuilding their civilization, still harried by the Alaiskya and rife with internal conflicts as those from different cities argued and fought. Three millennia of purity had created the beginnings of species divergence, with each city holding to its own mating rituals and customs, as well as the ingrained belief that crossing these different groups led to sullied individuals who were out of favor with the Gods.

Religious fervor took hold in Dansho. The shattered spires of the nearest City were carefully examined and painstakingly recreated in the center of a vast plain. The ways of the ancients were preserved, the priesthood rose to power once more, and those of Dansho became known as the Ainem of Belief.

Fear raced through the maze of shelters that became Ligirb. A purge was initiated, driving out all those not of the ruling city, that they may remain pure in the eyes of the Gods. An Ainem by the name of Kakenan rose to power in the midst of the turmoil, filled with righteous fury against the Alaiskya and the belief that the Gods had spoken to him and commanded that he purge the unholy ones. Driven by Kakenan's will, those of Ligirb became known as the Ainem of War.

Mujimon took the longest to settle. Harried from one place to another by the Alaiskya, the Ainem who became the Mujimon were the quickest to discard past prejudices against one another in favor of survival of the whole. Not content to hold to a religion that preached such destructive mindsets, the Mujimon discarded the vast majority of the old religion in favor of their own version. Instead of looking back as the Dansho did and trying to resurrect the Gods, or focusing on fury and retribution like the Ligirb, the Mujimon turned forward and began to research new forms of Runic Magic, advancing the art for the first time in two millennia. With their successes, they became known as the Ainem of Knowledge.

Each House sees the winter solstice through different eyes.

For the Dansho, it is time for the Blessing of Dimakoru, with all the pomp and ceremony that accompanies it. It matters not that Dimakoru no longer answers their prayers, that their city of spires doesn't float across the sky and their people haven't been able to fly since the cities fell. It only matters that the ritual is kept in hope that someday the Gods will return.

The Ligirb paint the season in blood and violence. Still caught in their holy war against the Alaiskya, the winter solstice is a time of ritual indoctrination of promising youths into the vast Army that Ligirb fields. Between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice, chosen warriors are sent out to capture as many Alaiskya as possible. The Alaiskya are then wing-clipped and chained, given barely enough food to survive, and wrapped about with Runic Magic to prevent them from breaking free with magic. They are brought out during the winter solstice games and pitted against promising youths in a battle to the death. Thus bathed in their first kill, the children are feasted and welcomed into the fold.

Those of Mujimon celebrate with a quieter practice. The winter solstice is a time of remembrance and renewal, with quiet family get-togethers and neighborhood gatherings. It isn't uncommon for a Mujimon Ainem to drift from gathering to gathering all during the day, then spend the last few hours of night together with their family in the security of their home. It is on this day that the Blessing of Warmth, one of the new pieces of Runic Magic, is performed - not by priests and accompanied by much pomp and ceremony, but by the people as they sit in their dens surrounded by family.

Thus do the Ainem greet the solstice.

Alaiskya: "Celestial Warriors"
For the Alaiskya, in their Sanctuaries at the hearts of great mountains, the winter solstice is heralded by great resounding parties, vast celebrations of a victory won so long ago that only legends and a hatred of the Ainem remain. The Sacred Ground at the heart of every Sanctuary is flooded with swirls of wild magic, generated by the fervor that the celebrations arouse in the hearts of the people.

Alaiskya with the power to shape stone craft small replicas of the ancient floating cities during the week preceding the solstice, and those with the power of the wind set them to float on the breezes that drift through the Sacred Ground. And on the day itself, everyone, from elder to hatchling, lends their power to the ritual destruction of these floating cities.

The fragments are then gathered - officially to be completely obliterated - and the most daring of the young Scouts, Hunters, and Warriors gather as many fragments as they can carry and sneak out into the darkness. These young females go to whichever Ainem city they desire and, though whatever means they like, use the fragments to rain bits of destruction upon the Ainem. Some are always brought down during this unofficial ritual, caught or killed by the Runic Magic that the Ainem use.

The day after the solstice is a time of mourning and remembrance, the parties silenced in favor of remembering the fallen. It is a solemn, emotion-laden time during which those skilled in Void Magic summon forth the spirits of the dead for their relatives to speak with. That evening is given over to the Feast of the Dead, which is hardly a feast in the traditional sense. Eschewing the plump, healthy game that inhabits the Sacred Ground, those who have nothing else to do, male or female, go out into the winter world above the ground and hunt for game. The meal that night is composed of a combination of winter-killed creatures, scrawny game, and stringy predators, reminiscent of what their ancestors had to eat before Naroka created the first Sanctuary.

Thus do the Alaiskya greet the solstice.

Physical Appearance

Appearance:

The Alaiskya are a sleek race, with soft hide covering their bodies. The ridge that runs along their spine is velvet-soft, and can be raised and lowered slightly depending upon their mood, similar to the way a cat uses their ears to express mood. Their wings are feathered and their paws have pads like a feline, though on the Alaiskya, the dew claw on their front paws is a true thumb. The Alaiskya are capable of manipulating objects by sitting upon their haunches (or flying) and bringing their front paws into play. If they must, they will walk very short distances on their hind legs while carrying something in their forelegs, though they would prefer to either fly or carry it in their mouth.

Coloration:

Coloration is related to what magical specialties the Alaiskya will find the easiest to pick up later in life. Dominant magical affinity will be indicated by main body coloration, secondary magical affinity will show up in crest coloration, and tertiary magical affinity may or may not show up as markings of any sort. There will always be rebels who choose to study different magics than what their coloration would suggest, but these rebels will always find, in times of high stress, that the magic they would have been strongest in will lash out against their will. In very, very rare cases, body color has nothing to do with magical specialties, but this is a recessive trait that often leads to dud eggs or early death.

Following is a chart of colorations often noticed with magical affinities. These colorations are "flat" and ignore shades and small variants. The word "and" separating two color descriptors means that the coloration seen is often (not always) a mottling of the two colors, though this doesn't count as markings. The use of "and/or" means that the color could be the first, the second, or a mottling of the two.

Patterns are a trait appearing only if one or both of the parents shows patterns. The following list is a list of current known patterns:

Abilities

Telepathy

Translation (specialized Teleportation)

Specialized Magic (1-3 specializations)

Breath Weapons (based on magic specialization)

Social

Society:

The Alaiskya are a woman-dominated society where males are often coddled and kept in seclusion away from the world, often in the sacred grounds that form the heart of each clan enclave. There, males perform the duties of historians, teachers, songsters, priests, and animal and plant husbandry within the sacred grounds. Because of the work of dedicated males, the sacred grounds have stable populations of many game animals, and while only males eat from these herds in the normal course of things, if the clan enters a war and hunting becomes difficult, the entire clan can be fed for months to years from the herds contained within.

Females, on the other hand, take all remaining jobs - from leader, to warrior, to the small day to day tasks of keeping a clan running. While their society doesn't exactly exclude males from these roles, the fact of the matter is that there are too few males to risk many of them in dangerous situations.

The reason for this social stratification is because there are only about three males per every ten Alaiskya, a distressingly small ratio that has, in the past, been the end of individual clans, and nearly destroyed the race at several points in their history. The problem stems from a combination of potentially lethal genes that females get two copies of, while males get only one. The genes become lethal when more than two are homozygous recessive, or, conversely, when all are homozygous dominant.

In a traditional clan, if an outsider is invited into the sacred grounds, where many of the males spend their time, the outsider is being given a high honor. To be allowed to speak with a male is to be granted an even higher honor, and to be able to spend time with a male alone is the highest possible honor.

Due to the disparity between genders, Alaiskyan mating flights are "backwards" - the male will rise, and the females will chase him. On occasion, one male will be caught by several females before the flight is over, and if this is the case, the hatchlings will all share the same clutch suffix, though they'll have different last names.

Speech:

The Alaiskya's chosen communication method with people not of their race is telepathy, and they can even learn to "throw" their mental voice in such a manner that it sounds as if they are speaking aloud, if they regularly speak with races who cannot hear telepathy. Amongst themselves, unless flying or in the midst of battle, the Alaiskya prefer to use their own spoken language, which they rather jealously guard from outsiders learning. Though, since the language requires the use of two sets of vocal chords to properly pronounce, very few races outside of the Alaiskya can speak it.

Many of the Alaiskya are incapable of forming human speech of any language, despite their mobile tongues, though many draconic languages are within their grasp if they try. The reason for this is their double set of vocal chords. To speak their own language, these sets must vibrate at different frequencies, giving over- and undertones to their language that their flexible lips and mobile tongues can shape. The problem is that very few Alaiskya think of their vocal chords as "primary" and "secondary" as both are required equally, and must vibrate differently. So, when faced with a "single set race" such as humans, the Alaiskya are at a loss as to how to modulate their voices to removes the tones that otherwise garble their words in human languages. It is also a matter of mouth shape, teeth (which are much like a feline's), tongue, and palate, which add their own difficulty to pronunciations.

Thus, it is rare that an Alaiskya would attempt to speak the language of another race, though it's not uncommon for them to learn other languages in order to understand people around them with less difficulty.

Food:

The Alaiskya require two to three "small" meals per week, usually something approximating the size of a yearling calf. They prefer to hunt their own food in small packs, and will eat everything available to them from a kill, from hide down to bones. The only time they will accept having food delivered to them is if they are sitting on eggs, sick, injured, or otherwise occupied with something that keeps them from hunting.

The males hunt within the sacred grounds inside the clan, where the clan herds reside, while females hunt in the wild, occasionally bringing back young herd animals to add to the clan herds.

Breeding, Clutching, and Bonding

Mates and Mating:

Alaiskya in their normal society don't take permanent mates, they have too few males to even consider that idea. The closest that they come is that some males have females that they prefer to mate with. A few, when faced with the world outside, might find a mate if an offworld dragon really catches their eye. Alaiskya born into such strange societies might be more predisposed towards taking a permanent mate if the society where they were raised encouraged such.

As noted before, females are unaccustomed to being the risers because of how few males exist in their society. They're more accustomed to being the chasers, vying for the right to mate with the male. As such, the community that they find themselves in now, with females typically being the ones to rise and the males vying for the female's attention, is rather confusing and "backwards" to their standard society. Some have adapted well to this while others haven't, refusing to have a thing to do with these strange societies and dragon races.

Alaiskya are compatible with most other draconic races, but their genetic predisposition towards more females than males in a clutch will often carry true for at least two generations.

Clutches:

An Alaiskya female will tend to lay between one and ten eggs per mating upon the sands of a communal nesting ground where many females at a time can relax and rest easy. Alaiskya are rarely "broody mothers," tending more on the light hearted and relaxed side of the spectrum, letting any number of others around their eggs as long as no one begins to threaten any of them. As such, the communal nesting ground will often be scattered with anywhere from two to twenty Alaiskya clutching at a time, with various visitors coming and going at different times. They're a social group, and no female likes to clutch alone.

As such, an Alaiskya female will be moody and inclined to depression if she's sequestered from others during clutching. While she can handle having just her bond and her mate around, she prefers others to be around as well, especially other dragonesses.

Hatching and Hatchlings:

Hatchings are incredibly social events, during which the entire clan gathers and throws a celebration for the new lives coming into the world. Into this festive, welcoming atmosphere come the hatchlings - ungainly, featherless babies a far cry from the graceful splendor of the adults. Everyone in the clan takes turns feeding and mothering the babies, taking special care of the males because of how few there usually are.

While the Alaiskya traditionally don't require a bond, they have the ability to create a connection between themselves and another on a soul-deep level if they really want to. This, in all truth, is one of the only ways to convince an Alaiskya to leave their clan - which is both family and friends to them - to live as an outsider in a place with few of their own kind. Very few Alaiskya clans permit strangers or non-Alaiskya into the hatching for exactly this reason, as the easiest moment for an Alaiskya to form such a bond is soon after hatching, especially if they're fed by only one person instead of by many. Such bonding is especially worrisome to the Clan if all the males choose to leave with a bond.

The hatchlings grow swiftly, requiring both food and oiling of their sensitive hide many times a day in order to keep them in the best of health. In a few short months they've nearly tripled their size and begin to approach their adult size, as well as beginning to fledge and grow feathers for the first time. Doing so is an itchy event, and they're always looking for scratches and attention from others during this time to keep their mind off of how much their wings itch. And while they can preen themselves, it's always "better" to have someone else do it for them, of course.

It is during this time that they also begin to acknowledge which magic skills they have proficiency in and begin to practice with those in order to learn exactly how powerful they can become. Adults also begin teaching them how to focus their breath weapon into a specialized stream of magic.

Naming Styles

Naming System:

The ancient naming system that the Alaiskya hold to is still used to this day. Children have a suffix attached to their name that denotes which clutch they hatched from, determined by how many clutches the father has sired in his lifetime. Clutches sired at the same time (so, multiple females, one male, with the females clutching at the same time) share the same clutch suffix, though not the same last name.

First clutch: 'ta
Second: 'rua
Third: 'toi
Fourth: 'hani
Fifth: 'ima
Sixth: 'tau
Seventh: 'hitu
Eighth: 'eyii
Ninth: 'nayii
Tenth: 'desii

From there it tends to cycle back -- Eleventh would be 'desiita, 12th would be 'desiirua, and so on. 15th drops the third "i" so it's just 'desiima, that pattern stays through the rest of the set (25, 35, 45, etc).

20th: 'vetii
30th: 'terii
40th: 'cetii
50th: 'cenii

The children then have a last name which is a combination of the first four letters of their father's name with the last four of their mother's name added on.

For example: Kiostaur was sired by Chrophasan and his mother was Xalahart, so his last name is Chrohart. Also, the clutch he hatched from was the second clutch Chrophasan sired, so Kiostaur's full name is Kiostaur'rua Chrohart. Any children he sires will have Kios- as the first four letters of their last name.