Sapient Species of First Age Materia
Author's Notes:
- This article summarizes the humanoid biota of ancient Waking Materia, prior to the catastrophic and world-changing effects of the Deluge. For a list of contemporary, Third Age sapients on Materia, see Sapient Species of Third Age Materia. Species who existed in the First Age but survived the Deluge will also be found there.
- For a wider view of sentient biology in the known universe, see Sapient Biology of the Greater Eridún Crux Region.
- Species mentioned herein are the most dominant in First Age planar politics, however after a surge in interplanar trade centred around Materia, it was theoretically possible to find any humanoid species of the Greater Eridún Crux Region there, so Storytellers are encouraged to include as many additional races and cultures as they see fit.
Species diversity on Waking Materia—both sapient and wild—was drastically higher in the First Age, prior to the plane-wide devastation of the Deluge. In fact after the Dye Wars caused a small interplanar surge in trade, it would have been theoretically possible to see almost any humanoid species of the Greater Eridún Crux Region (GECR) there. In addition to extinctions from the flooding and tsunamis, Materia lost some groups to extraplanar emigration, others to being genetically subsumed.
Modern scholarship on these species is extremely spotty, limited to what books, scrolls, tablets, stelae and artwork survived the utter destruction, and what little can be pieced together by magic that probes ancestral memory. As such there is a lot of guesswork as to whether some groups were full species, subspecies or even just heterogenous cultural groups.
Articles herein use the term "species" to mean groups that are largely genetically isolated from each other, though most known humanoids are still related enough to interbreed without medical complication. (Social and cultural complications are, of course, a different matter.)
Materia's known First Age sapients are as follows.Aspected
Aspected are not a true biological species but a general term for humanoids who have been touched (or chosen?) at birth by elements that weave the fabric of the Material realms or the Duskscape. For more information, see the main article on Aspected humanoids.Lorganite Humanoids
Humanoids that colonized Materia within the Lorganite Kelpeater Empire. In addition to the races listed below, there were also Meranthic human-elf peoples that, based on scattered descriptions, seemed to be more or less similar to the Meranthic humanoids of the Third Age.The Ula'thau'la ("Kelpeaters")
See also: Full Article: Ula'thau'la. Lichlord Inum'indiron'aravaut's people, a hardened and militaristic race from the craggy, northern Gyre Islands of Lorgain. Shorter and stouter than most humanoids, with generally dark hair and skin a coppery sheen due to a diet heavy in blood-red Thaulan Kelp. As such they were often called Kelpeaters by other societies. What's most exceptional is texts reveal they had a second, vestigial pair of arms below the usual ones. These secondary limbs seemed to be largely useless, though it seems they were used to make percussive sounds in the Thaulan language.
Exceptional sailors and nautical warriors, their brief but explosive empire conquered nearly a third of Lorgain before finally being driven back and subdued. It was the ensuing humiliation and oppression that caused the Kelpeater God-Emperor to leave the plane, taking a huge diaspora of his people with him, to eventually settle on the outer plane of Materia. They represented the majority of the Lorganite diaspora, with Lichlord Ina'ut their unquestioned god-emperor.The Ghent
See also: Full Article: Ghent. A tall, lanky and hardy mountain people, the Ghent were neighbours and ancient enemies of the Ula'thau'la. Their skin was granite grey with darker grey "freckles", they possessed light grey to white hair at all ages and had slightly longer arm length relative to total body height. They also posessed ram-like horns, though many in the diaspora were "Shorn": exiles from Ghent lands who had their horns ritually removed.The Aikyo
See also: Full Article: Aikyo. The Aikyo are a curious and sociable people, sometimes called "Bird People" or "Birdpersons" because of their slanted, elongated heads and long, beak-like noses. (Despite the name, they did not bear feathers, wings or any other birdlike quality, and were likely a close relative of other Meranthic human-elf species.)Heartlanders
Not a true species of humanoid but a cosmopolitan mélange of many heritages, from Lorganite Elves to Kelpeaters to Halflings to Aikyo, even offworld species due to Lorgain's well-developed Planar Gate infrastructure. Not all cities in the Heartlands despised the Kelpeater Empire and some adventurous mercenaries/entrepeneurs formed a small but less oppressed minority.Rozsan Humanoids
The New Rozsan Empire (and later the more peaceful megalopolis of Nireau) under the leadership of the twin Lichlords Nir and Nef almost never mentions race or genealogy in surviving texts. Based on some lingering artwork, native Rozsans had fairly standard Meranthic human-elven physiology, with the dark-skin-white-hair combination suggesting drow genetics were common. They are also sometimes portrayed with exceptionally light skin and hair, leading some scholars to believe the first enari may have been Rozsan, though this must be reconciled with the utter dissimilarity between the ghost elves' stark Third Age lifestyles and the urbaneness of New Rozsa and Nireau.
There are reports of foreign (e.g. Lorganite) humanoids defecting and joining Rozsan society, however they were by all accounts extremely rare: the standard Rozsan practice for foreign emigrés or prisoners was to execute and reanimate them into undead servitude.Other Extraplanar Humanoids
Other races, not directly descended from Lorgain or Rozsa, also colonized Materia during the First Age, mainly during the Dye Wars which triggered an explosion of interplanar trade and piracy around the water world. This includes most standard races (basal humans, eladrin, drow, altnoréth, arakh, halflings, aselu, true goblins, catfolk, etc.), however there are a few species of note who gained particular favour with the Kelpeaters.The Qufit
See also: Full Article: Qufit. Originally a tree-going species, the Qufit are small humanoids with long, dextrous fingers, lemur-like bodies and bat-like faces, most closely resembling the aye-ayes of Earth, with large eyes and ears suggesting an originally nocturnal disposition. Originally from the plane of Arboria (one of the major Cruxplanes around Eridún), they are primarily reclusive, but a gregarious subspecies began a cultural partnership with the majority wood elves, and it soon became apparent they were exceptionally clever when a hobby caught their focus, with an aptitude for engineering and alchemy. It is a branch of this subspecies that would find its way to Materia, centuries later.The Onidoshi
See also: Full Article: Onidoshi. The Onidoshi were tall, muscular and lanky, with digitigrade legs and faces that were somewhere between lizardlike and leonine. An unusual sapient, humanoid species, originally from an unknown plane, they lived in cooperation with the The Kelpeater Empire alongside the Qufit, often as tradesmen, designers, builders, guards and mercenaries. Physically imposing but quiet and thoughtful, they called themselves Logírn, which simply meant "The People". No records of this people exist past the Deluge.Pukwudgies
See also: Full Article: Pukwudgies. About the same height and stoutness as dwarves, though not as muscular, Pukwudgies are an odd, coastal-amphibious people with a fondness for lagoons, marshes, lowland prairies and tundra. Their backs are covered in sharp spines, which they can splay or collapse at will, and contain minor, generally non-life-threatening toxins, though in rare cases some are born with more potent paralytic effects.Indigenous Materians
This classification is based on historical texts that either outright confirm the species' indigeneity or indirectly imply their presence on Materia during the arrival of the First Empires.The Ong & Baraka
See also: Full Article: The Ong and Baraka. Both the Ong and Baraka are assumed to be indigenous to Waking Materia: no accounts speak of these treebound humanoids ever cooperating with the First Empires and their closest multiplanar cousins—the Vanara—are never mentioned among the Kelpeater Diaspora prior to its arrival on Materia.The Hecath
See also: Full Article: The Hecath.. The Hecath were the major nonhumanoid sentients of Antediluvian Materia. They were actually a gestalt of two unrelated species, symbiotically linked: intelligent, fungal Saprolings and a pony-sized, insectoid species that looks somewhere between a moth, a dragonfly and a pangolin, typically called Dragonmoths.
Queens very much had independent personalities and while most distrusted humanoids too much for friendship, some famous individuals seemed to have more gregarious natures, and would engage in exchanges of information with curious humanoids, most famously the Lichlord, xenoanthropologist and Herald of Nir, Vierix Clymenikari.The Watchers
See also: Full Article: The Watchers. So few records of these people existed even in the First Age—let alone what remains after the Deluge—that they were considered to be a false rumour even then, and are virtually unknown now. They bore a striking similarity to the ape-like Ong and Baraka, with muscular, lanky builds and covered in pitch-black fur, however the major differences were they also possessed huge, feathered, raven-black wings and a bizarre, golden eye colour. Indeed, most sightings of the Watchers in Antediluvian times were of them flying high in the stratosphere on clear days, visible at that distance only due to their enormous wing spans and dark colouration.
A Dragonmoth or Asteria Symbiont. The Hecath Pilot
is visible only as a few strands on the head.
Comments