Companion Brand

The companion brands that created and continue the branded families are the greatest technology on Eilea having shaped culture and commerce throughout the recorded history of the world. The brands themselves are simple, looking like an over-sized wax seal. The mechanics, the functionality, the process of their creation and activation, even any knowledge about the branders as a race has been lost. The branded families know how to use the brands and they know their families have roots in Orlansia, but that is the extent of knowledge about the brands. Any other stories around the brands are theory and conjecture.
The brands are composed of a cast metal plate with a raised design on the face and threaded shaft on the reverse. The plate is roughly 2" x 2" but variations of area and shape were common. The metal is an unknown copper cobalt molybdenum alloy. The locking nut is a threaded rare-earth magnet cap nut. Handles for the brands vary and it is not known if the handles contribute to the functionality of the brands. 
The designs on the brands are distinct for each family, thus each is identified by the animal companion attached to the family, but it is unknown if components of the design identify the animal, if the design as a whole is the key, or if in fact the designs have any function in specifying the animal companion at all. Brand activation is achieved by heating the brand and stamping the forearm. Whether the act of stamping activates latent DNA based capabilities or if there is some technology in the brand that activates the associated companion is unknown. The fact that altered designs (based on Khitim Stele and Anchor Star patterns) cause drastic mental mutations in test subjects indicates that the functionality is intrinsic to the brands.
Nothing is known about the branders. There is nothing in writing, art or the verbal history of the branded families or cultures surrounding the Orlansian steppes that describe the branders in anyway. Some scholars take this lack of statement to mean the branders were physically unremarkable. Fringe theorists of "ancient alien" bent point to the Khitim Stele and the Anchor Star symbols as proof that those artifacts are linked with the branders and question whether they were human at all.