Ajan Lapset

The Ajan Lapset (literally the Children of Time) is the name given by the Fey to the relatively rare offspring of Fey and mortal human parents, and in turn to their descendants. Individuals who begin a line of descent with this hybrid genetic heritage are invariably themselves mortal, no matter whether it was their mother or their father who belonged to the Fey and so the Ajan Lapset are not considered to be true Fey themselves (in the manner of the Unelmien Lapset and the Veren Lapset), but instead just a slightly unusual strain of humanity. Long custom dictates that Ajan Lapset are raised in mortal homes and brought up as if they were pure blood humans.
Nevertheless, the Fey do respect the lineage of those who retain the genetic heritage markers they call "the stigmata of the Fey" or the "golden gene", no matter how many generations have passed since the conception of the ancestral Ajan Lapset on any one line of descent. They keep an interest in these Children of Time and always track their lives from a distance. It is common for many, perhaps even a majority, of the Ajen Lapset themselves to not even be aware that they have Fey ancestry.
Lineages of Ajen Lapset can lapse, if and when the genetic information inherited from the Fey becomes diluted over enough generations to make them indistinuishable from humanity, even to the acute sensitivities of the Fey. In these cases, when the "golden gene" is lost forever, subsequent generations are no longer thought of as Ajen Lapset. However, where there are occasional small pockets of Ajen Lapset, interbreeding may retain the Fey genetic heritage within a larger human pool for a surprising length of time.

Distribution

Ajan Lapset are found in many widely scattered worlds througout the Discontinuum but they are particularly prevelant on Magicians' End. During the Thousand Year Alliance the Fey and the mortals of that world interbred much more frequently than has been known at other places and times. The resulting population of Ajan Lapset perists even to this day.

Conditions

The Ajan Lapset can very rarely be struck down by an almost invariably fatal condition known as Accelerated Mortal Fade. This is thought to be related to the similarly fatal condition of true Fade which afflicts the immortal Fey themselves. Unlike true Fade, Accelerated Mortal Fade seems to occur, if at all, only in late adolescence or early adult life. It progresses much more rapidly than the Fade does for the Fey and results in death within a matter of weeks, yet some of the symptoms are similar.

Encompassed species

• Humanity