Alin Empire

Overview
The Alin were a powerful mortal race that dwelt on distant worlds. Some were so powerful they ascended into the cosmic order and became patrons to some of the Carkade elite. These ascended allowed a chosen few into their ancient mysteries and by extension thrall. The Alin were said to be to shuffle reality like a deck of cards (transformation and summoning). The Carkade who they warred with, leading to the final downfall of each empire, were unsurpassed in necromantic power.
Often described as ‘bloodless’, the Alin were known for their apathy towards other races, especially those they conquered who became chattel indistinguishable from inanimate property at worst and slaves at best.
The Alin were a race that had a symbiotic relationship with mould that grew beneath the surface of their skin providing nutrients.  The Alin were paranoid and overwhelmingly xenophobic. Over the millennia the fertility rates of the Alin declined, which served to increase the paranoia of the Alin who saw threats everywhere. Turning to the ancient magic and science of the lost Elder day races the Alin spread across other worlds:

• using arcane knowledge of the Elder Thing to locate and travel to distant worlds
• used arcane knowledge of the Elder Things to meddle with life on other worlds to create new races
• attempted to interbreed with other races to save their own
• conducting spying missions
• subverting any realms or territories, they saw as a potential threat ultimately taking down from within or enthralling leadership to provide the Alin with any resources they required (including living and sentient creatures)
• constructed massive breeding reservoirs on the only 13 worlds where the mould would grow

They were fractious and in constant conflict with others of their kind, with different cliques vying for prestige, influence and access to immortality.
The Alin made deals with and were influenced by many major powers (e.g. the Horned God) and drifted further towards a nihilistic lust for blood and destruction.  Combined with the last major discontinuance, a genocidal civil war, war with a powerfully expansive Carkade (who were attached to one clique seeking immortality through undeath), rebellions and the destruction of all their otherworldly breeding reservoirs led to the last days of the far flung Alin empire being an ultra-violent affair that directly led to the annihilation of many lands, biological catastrophe of worlds and deaths of hundreds of millions of individuals.
Alin are traditionally linked to 13 worlds, all of which were suitable for their special breeding reservoirs.
The other 12 worlds suitable for Alin breeding reservoirs have been in a locked mortal plane, entirely sealed off from the rest of the multiverse since the end of the last major discontinuance event. Entirely sealed off by the Void, only occasionally have the Alin or their energy selves been able to break through either telepathically or even rarer still, in full physical form.  
For the last 4,500 years the Alin have existed in a state of total war with undead, white wasps and other cosmic horrors. Their society has gone backwards and is more martial, more structured and entirely xenophobic with other races entirely viewed as livestock, tools or vermin.
Those that have survived are cold, battle hardened xenophobes desperately seeking a way to escape the undeath and horrors that grow closer every moment.
To survive their many enemies the surviving non-undead Alin made a pact of servitude with the Great Old One Karsus Chella. Those that have survived are cold, battle hardened xenophobes desperately seeking a way to escape the undeath and horrors that grow closer every moment. With all their breeding reservoirs now corrupted and useless, the Alin intend to mount an exodus to the one remaining world that contains their breeding reservoirs – Holocene.  The Discontinuance Event has now given them this opportunity.
Importance of the Dolg Catar
During the fall of the Carkade and Alin Empires, it was the world spanning Dolg Catar who alongside allies such as the Loxodon sacrificed much to keep the Alin isolated from the rest of the multiverse.
Led by their greatest champion, the Star Warrior, the Dolg Catar fought a series of bloody wars to keep the Alin occupied after the Carkade entered the Time Void, which:

• Confined the Alin to 12 worlds only; and
• Kept the White Wasps from breaking out of the 12 worlds; prior to
• Sacrificing many magicians and Ascended to collapse the rifts between worlds; and
• Worked with the Loxodon to end the Disctoniuance Event ; so that
• The Alin would be confined to the locked plane of their 12 homeworlds

The Dolg Catar never recovered from this huge loss of heroes and people, with small groups finding themselves now isolated from each other in different lands on different worlds, without the knowledge or leadership of those who had sacrificed everything to spare the multiverse from Alin tyranny.
Importance of the Loxodon
During the final fall of the Alin, the Loxodon protected many races from the Alin as they escaped from the 12 worlds.
Other races contemporaneous with the Alin:

• Moranth
• Dremanaceum Ferres Pax
• Sparfolk
• Sorne
• Jensani
• Xylytyx

Average Height

1.8 to 2.4m

Attitude to other beings

• Alin view and treat other species like ants.
• Alin desire to stay alive, the safest option for Alin now is to destroy others before they themselves are destroyed.
• The Alin will take want they want and leave.

In Game

• Courtyard tiles from Houtl-het's temple were inscribed with the constellation leading to the Alin home world.
• This constellation and others which were inscribed in tiles or carved as reliefs were not part of the modern sky.
• A single image above the entrance into the main shrine of a 'Patron' - a dew drop shaped face with two slits for eyes surrounded by feathered and radiant aura that streams outwards with a chest piece made of dozens of interlocking blocks resembling a wall. The chest piece gave way to stars - the bottom half of the image was ruined. There was a trace of colour around the edges of the face (white), top corners (black) and in the aura (yellow).
• In the lowest level of the temple there was a great looming passageway representing fallen foes of the Carkade. Towards the end of the corridor figures of patrons begin to appear.
• Among many skulls piled into a pit were elongated skulls with 'day of the dead' patterns painted on the inside of the skulls. Many others had the images painted on the outside, most were unadorned.