Cheliceran (ke-LISS-eran)

A portrayal of Ardent Topaz, messiah figure of the Chelicerans.

The Chelicerans are a race of large humanoid-scorpion centaurs originally created as elite soldiers for the feared First Age Lichlord, Vierix Chelicerax. They are one of only a few Created species on Waking Materia (species whose biology was manipulated by arcane means).

It is rumoured in surviving New Rozsan texts that Vierix Pramanix, with his immense expertise in parabiology, was their "true" father, but if he was then he was an uninvolved one, for it was the Red King they followed. Supreme commander of six standing armies and the elite paramilitary strike force Ex Nihilo, Chelicerax commanded the fourth most personnel of any individual on First Age Waking Materia.

It was not to last. Eventually, the Red King's hunger and intemperance outweighed his skills in statecraft, and his hegemony was eventually laid low by a series of betrayals and unwinnable guerilla quagmires, later in the First Age. Having become more of a liability than an asset, Chelicerax was pesonally dispatched by the Rozsan God-Emperor, Nef.

Only a few hundred chelicerans who survived the subsequent routs and culls by their creator's enemies would carve out spartan proto-cultures at the edges of First Age Civilization, shunned and feared by some Waking species, forgotten by most.

Description

See also: Chelicerans Image Gallery (External)

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Chelicerans have the torso of typical (albeit always muscular) Meranthic humanoid of their time, with far more genetic retention than Materia's other sapient species, and as such constitute a sort of "living fossil" of Material sapients. Even more notable is that below this torso are the claws, abdomen, legs, tail and stinger of a horse-sized scorpion.

Their tails contain an aggressive and horrifying toxin that comes in three phases:

1. The victim is initially driven into a hunger so voracious that, by the second day, they'll enthusiastically murder friend or foe for the meat
2. The toxin is deadly, usually within a week but with 100% efficiency
3. The victims are raised as ghouls 24 hours thereafter, as if by a ritual, who are often retrieved and bound by New Rozsan Deathlords (or allowed to run amok if in enemy territory)

History

Prior to their downfall, the chelicerans' names were feared, and were active in many great wars over the early centuries of the Second Empire of Man; most notorious was their involvement in the First Dragon Wars and the Hecath Wars. Some legions would occasionally fight for other Colonial Gods like Adepticus and Euphraxia, but most often for Chelicerax. Feared for their strength, they were the subject of vicious culls after Chelicerax's death, leaving only a few hundred survivors.

Ardent Topaz

The chelicerans are long-lived, but were never granted the ability to reproduce on their own, and as such their already small population waned over the following decades. That is until a visionary cheliceran warlord by the name of Ardent Topaz rose to power, consolidated power over his people's scattered and isolationist tribes, and began a campaign that would end their stagnation. Through a series of unprecedentedly surgical strikes, his armies raided the armouries and storerooms of several noble lodges, retrieving artifacts of a nature now forgotten. It was these artifacts that Ardent Topaz offered—perhaps to a minor demigod or a great wizard—in exchange for a ritual that grants the ability to reproduce.

Third Age

They now lead heavily religious lives, with clergy strictly controlling the birth ritual. They worship Chelicerax as a creator god with Ardent Topaz as his messiah. They've even been known to treat with other cultures on rare occasions, though the relationships almost always soured before long as they are a cautious and distrustful people. The major remaining populations are on Tiam's Cradle, the Ten Thousand Islands Coreward of The Lorent and the far western barrens of Khayyam. They were once populous beneath the Maze of Oloraan, but were famously wiped out in a titanic war with the estrié and demons of the Yawning Spiral.