Starborn

“The others sing this song of Radiance and Desolation. We, as a people, have acended from such unimaginative limitations.” – Queen of the Grave Shore

If I was ever something before, I existed only as a probably, a quantum potential. Spread across the Aether layer like a mist. What I am now was not yet real. And then I was born, and the universe was free to begin.

There were others there at my birth. There was a great ceremony among the stars. Naturally newborns are selfish creatures and so I assumed to be the center of this attention. The singing, I didn’t notice the glorious harmonies until the singers fell silent. And that is when she appeared.

She was above me, angelic and dark and beautiful. I assumed that my face was like hers, and it bestowed upon me courage and strength to smile in this strange new place.

“Secrets,” she whispered. Her voice was in me, in this place, in the stars. “Creation is built on secrets and the encryptions that keep those secrets safe.”

I murmured my first sound. It was meaningless but she understood it as a question.

“Beautiful,” she whispered. Her voice was in me, in this place, in the stars. “We are a beautiful creation.”

The starlight began to fade as the harmonies began up again.

“And we must keep ourselves very safe.”

Starborn are standoffish and resemble humans, with the notable exception of having pale blue, green, or gray skin. They also have luminescent eyes with glowing irises. It is said the starborn were created in the Aether, descended from demi-humans who tried to flee a great calamity very long ago. Something happened to them out on the edge of the Aether, and they were forever changed. Today many starborn live in the Grave Shore, aloof and mysterious, but others returned to Four Nations, where their descendants now adventure. Sometimes starborn of the Four Nations will venture out to the Grave Shore, hoping to learn the secrets of their people – but find no special welcome from the reclusive queen.

Starforged

“The question we should ask is: what threatened our ancestors so much that they constructed the starforged to defend themselves?” – Drassis, Keeper of the Song

“It doesn’t make a difference if the system thinks with flesh or flux circuits or dark matter streams in Void vacuum, as long as the logic is consistent. And their logic is the same.

If they are constructs, then so am I. If I am not a construct, then neither are they. Our minds are of one and the same, it is undeniable.

Here is a question to ponder, now. Why do they have minds of a human? Why does a machine of war have emotions? Or awareness? Or ethics? What benefit do they offer to a construct? 

Perhaps the minds of starforged are not designed, but inherited. Maybe it started as a form of immortality. “

Forged from the light of the stars, as their name proclaims, the starforged were made by an ancient race for a long forgotten conflict with the purpose of protecting their creators. Their Ancillas, small soul-bound counterparts, have begun awakening the constructs from millenia of slumber. After the Storm of Fire, their memories were wiped. No longer connected to their violent past, they have begun to reforge their own destiny as they see fit.