Nephilim

“They’re like Jedi, only far more badass.”

—Jeffery James Hampstead, PhD
2nd Odysseus Ethnic Anthropology Team

A hybrid race of human and astral, and an enigmatic people that have isolated themselves in a fortress they call the Citadel.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Nephilim have always used a combination of a given name and a titular name in place of surnames. Their titular names seem tribal, but they are representative of a nephilim's particular talents, their personality, or how they tend to use their resonance. In a way, their entire renown is recalled by this name.
Examples include: Alexa Starlight, Jason Swordsong, Michaelum Firebrand, Eilam Torrent, Aeris Steelbond

Major Organizations

The Council of Elders

Even a society of monkish isolationists needs a government, and that’s where twelve of the wisest Sagens come in. The title of Elder is bestowed upon one that has not only proven mastery of divinity (resonance) and mind, but also of politics, diplomacy, and leadership. Elders are elected officials that form a council of twelve individual Sagens entrusted with executive authority and with the direction of Sagen society.
The Council of Elders is led by the Voice, which is a position that rotates annually from one Elder to the next. As a presiding official over the Council, the Voice has limited executive powers for emergencies concerning Sagus and the Arcanaan Empire. For matters that require voting, the Voice has two votes in the event of needing a tie-breaker.

The Knight Protectors

Following the successful deterrence of a Dominion invasion in 619 B.A., the Sagens were allowed to create a formal military that would fight on behalf of the Arcanaan Empire. This force became the Knight Protectors of the Sagen Order. Each member of the Order answers directly to the Council of Elders and are often tasked to work independently or in pairs.
There are two classes of Knight Protectors:

The Arbiter

• Arbiters are primarily suited for diplomatic missions and seek to resolve situations using peaceful methods. They are savvy negotiators and well-versed in imperial politics.

The Executor

• When negotiations break down or if the Council knows that force will be the only option to resolve a situation, executors are sent in. Most of the tall tales about immensely powerful, god-like nephilim revolve around these knights, and for good reason. Odysseus has classified all nephilim in general as being High Threat, but executors may even exceed that classification.

History

The former inhabitants of Sage first arrived in Arcanaan in the Year 2, Cius II (approximately 622 BA). They were migrants that had fled their frost-laden homeland due to a cataclysm so extreme that even their most gifted could not repair the damage that had been done. A "body of fire from the heavens" (logical conclusion: a meteorite) had struck where they had made their home and nearly wiped their existence from Adarus. Upon their arrival to Arcanaan, the "half-breeds" of Sage were met with hostility by a xenophobic culture that saw their ability to manipulate the laws of nature (using resonance) as blasphemous; an affront to the Creator and His astrals. Tired from their nomadic journey and heartbroken after losing their home, the Sagens had no desire to incite hostilities, opting instead to tolerate the harsh treatment of their people by the imperials.
Eventually, following their intervention in a Dominion invasion in 619 BA, they were allowed to establish a settlement on the far eastern border within the Tavarin dukedom (dangerously close to Dominion lands) against the Northern Numir mountains. The range itself was rife with passes that could easily allow enemy armies to slip through.
The empire hoped this would be the easiest way to rid themselves of the unwelcome travelers, expecting they would all eventually perish from Dominion raiding parties or retreat back to their homeland. However, to the Empire's surprise, the Sagens actually thrived. The resonance factor allowed them to build an entire city within days, and bring water forth from rocky, mountainous ground—leading them to cultivate newly enriched soil for farming and livestock. The Church was beside themselves and implored Imperator Cius II (Cius of Winter) to take action against the Sagens for flaunting their power, but the imperial court was torn in half about how to handle the nephilim and were left unable to offer their Imperator a firm resolution. The small plot of land occupied by the Sagen refugees eventually became known as Sagus.

Heaven's Fall

In harvest season of 622 BA, the 2nd year of Imperator Cius of Winter (Arcanaan), the 13th year of Imperator Rashana the Vengeful (Nasir), a meteorite entered Adarus's atmosphere and crashed in the northern region of Sage, above Abia's bitter-cold Winter Belt. This meteorite was large enough to destroy the small population centers in Sage and drastically terraformed the land beyond the East Ecios Mountains. Of the estimated total population of 120,000 Sagens (birth rates are exceedingly low among the Sagens—possibly a natural biological barrier as a hybrid race), almost 109,000 of them died that day. The survivors mass migrated southwest into the Arcanaan Empire as refugees of the last known cataclysmic event since The Fall.
According to the tellings of the surviving Sagens, the event, known as Heaven's Fall, was the long-delayed retribution of the Creator for the sin of the astrals having created them as their hybrid offspring. Even though the Creator was supposedly dethroned by the astrals as a result of their rebellion (killed, according to some accounts of the ancient lore), his justice was carried out through a single astral that has betrayed the others. Some Sagen elders say that, in fact, it was a result of more than one astral, suggesting the mighty celestial beings are now divided into two warring factions.
The large crater left behind by the Heavens Fall meteorite formed into a lake that was later dubbed the Sea of Wrath.

The Massace at Telo Trada

Only three years had passed since the arrival of the Sagens before the Empire found themselves reluctantly in their debt.
An enormous Dominion army of 15,000 legionnaires, the largest their long-time foe had ever managed to put together, had assaulted the eastern front, waging total war. Their aim was to capture the dukedom of Tavarin, by passing boldly between the Numir Mountain ranges. Caught ill-prepared for the assault, the Empire's forces were disorganized across the dukedoms and too far apart to receive a timely notice of an enemy invasion. Furthermore, Arcanaan's military strength relied on the cooperation of the Dukes and their Margraves. The Royal Army itself was too far from Tavarin to mobilize against the encroaching Dominion legions.
But all was not lost. Imperator Cius II turned to the Sagen Council of Elders, planning to beg for their assistance. To his astonishment, the normally-reserved and isolated nephilim happily offered their services without him having to plead. Their reasoning: "This is our home, too."
Only a small detachment of ten Sagens traveled to join the imperial forces gathering at Telo Trada (the capital of Tavarin). Their bitter allies doubted they would be enough to deal with the Dominion invasion; but, when they finally arrived, they realized their doubts were woefully misplaced. The nephilim stood in a line on the battlefield and faced the charging Dominion vanguard with a calm and confidence that drew the eyes of the imperial commanders. In unison, nine raised their palms in the air. The tenth snapped his fingers.
What came next was a sight that astonished both armies and would forever make them legend: a flaming inferno that decimated the Dominion vanguard, a storm of fire that melted swords and armor almost instantly and vaporized all that stood in its blast. A proceeding shockwave tore the very earth up from the ground, uprooted trees, cracked boulders, and would have destroyed the city itself... had the nine that kept their palms raised not have used their divine magic to erect a barrier that protected all behind it.
More poetic accounts of the soldiers that witnessed the carnage described the battlefield itself as having been turned to glass due to the intense heat. Evidence of such (shards of green-tinted glass) has been collected by Odysseus geologists and analyzed. Together with Physics, the Geology team has concluded the fragments of "glass" that remain scattered throughout the fields east of Telo Trada is actually trinitite, also known as atomsite: a plutonium-based residue with a glassy or quartz-like appearance first discovered and catalogued after the Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16th, 1945 CE. This evidence supports an unsettling hypothesis that the nephilim are capable of "nuking" an army with the snap of their fingers.
Even though they are still feared, with many imperials still holding onto their xenophobic rhetoric against them, the Sagens are the empire's strongest guardians. After the war, which had ended merely days later, when two more battles in the Sagens' favor destroyed what was left of Dominion morale, the Sagens were allowed to create an order of knights tasked with defending the Empire from its enemies, and to answer the imperator's call in a time of crisis. The Knight Protectors of the Sagen Order still, to this day, take that charge seriously and with great humility.

Common Myths and Legends

According to Sagen mythology, they are the descendants of astral and humans; hybrids born into the world after the Creator's sentinels descended to Adarus and choose for themselves the most beautiful of companions. In striking comparison, the myth of the Sagens' origins is similar, if not exactly the same, as the Abrahamic myth of the Nephilim:

The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

—Genesis 6:4

When the Creator saw what his astrals had done, he attempted to punish them by destroying their children with fire from the heavens. In rebellion, the astrals thwarted their father's plan by rising up against him and deposing him from his radiant throne.
By being hybrids of human and divine beings, their ability to call upon resonance makes some sense. Astrals assisted the Creator in molding the world after it was initially formed. They, too, have the ability to use resonance. Seeing as the astrals were the ones to take the gift away from the chimeras, theory would have it that astrals can also gift it.

Scientific Name

Pending

Origin/Ancestry

Astral and Isepox Human