Difference between revisions of "Dunash"
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Instead, Dunash reproduce by melding themselves to a tree, field or other body of plant life. They will quite literally begin to merge their cells with the living object they are embedding into, effectively becoming one with that structure as a strange aberration. Going into hibernation, they will emerge months later attached to a cask of flesh, one they must carefully break open. Most do so with a thin knife, cutting down the center. What emerges is... strangely, a child of their old race. They will grow as a mortal, and be converted by a [[Blacksworn]] at the age of twenty-five. Considering Dunash do not age, any child who is converted will remain a child forever. Thus, they wait until they are sufficiently mature. | Instead, Dunash reproduce by melding themselves to a tree, field or other body of plant life. They will quite literally begin to merge their cells with the living object they are embedding into, effectively becoming one with that structure as a strange aberration. Going into hibernation, they will emerge months later attached to a cask of flesh, one they must carefully break open. Most do so with a thin knife, cutting down the center. What emerges is... strangely, a child of their old race. They will grow as a mortal, and be converted by a [[Blacksworn]] at the age of twenty-five. Considering Dunash do not age, any child who is converted will remain a child forever. Thus, they wait until they are sufficiently mature. | ||
| − | + | This process of reproduction works by threading and converting the reproductive cells of the Dunash through the surrounding life as an incubator. Through the hormones that remain within their body, they produce both a sperm and an egg cell, effectively creating a genetic clone of themselves, though the child born will be more akin to their sibling in genetics than an identical twin. | |
| + | |||
| + | A Dunash cannot easily die. As stated earlier, only total immolation or decapitation - or some other form of obliteration - appear to work in permanently dispatching them. Wound after wound will fail to overcome them. They may lose their ability to use their core muscles if you bludgeon them in, but they can still move. Their organs are barely essential if at all, and many do without them. As such, any Dunash must be killed in a vicious and unmistakable manner. | ||
=Language= | =Language= | ||
Revision as of 17:01, 15 October 2021
Contents
Fast Facts
Height: Varies widely, and is entirely based on origin race.
Weight: Varies widely, and is entirely based on origin race.
Lifespan: Eternal
Notable Features: Pearl-Colored Irises, Grey Skin Undertones, Unrecoverable Wounds, Jittery Movements
Player Restrictions: None
Racial Ability: True Undeath: Unlike all other races on Atharen, the Dunash are truly immunized from the consequences of death and aging. They may have their organs cut through, their arms and legs dismembered, and may live for a thousand years; in all cases, they continue to survive. The two reliable ways to kill a Dunash are to decapitate them, or to set them on fire. Few other things can truly kill them, and many have learned to repair their bodies with Necromancy.
Population: 53,000,000, 99% on Icheron; rare in continental Atharen.
History
The Dunash were created with a promise: that they would one be the only men and women left, one day set to rule all of the surface world. The culmination of hundreds of years of purposefully whittling away at subject after subject, crafting, shaping and reshaping them to suit her desires. They were designed to transition mortal from immortal, living and dead to a perpetual state in-between. The Umber Lady, Y'shendra, crafted them with love and hope. Merely one of many races she would create, but finally, her last.
The first of them created went on to be made their King, a pawn by the name of Luther Wayte. Mortals should rule themselves, after all, even if it is only an illusion. Forged piece-by-piece in Bel from the carcass of a mortal man, Y'shendra crafted him to perfection; she stuck her talons into him and learned that no wound could truly subdue him, that he would crawl on his abdomen if not his legs, that he would grab with his teeth if not his hands. He was dismembered, piece by piece, and reconstructed until his construction yielded certainty. Death could not claim him by age or most wounds; he was as impervious as any living thing could ever be. A perfect creation to spite the Living Gods, who would not be able to harness his soul or those who came after him, reaving him of their essence for their selfish needs.
More Dunash were made, and sent out through the Barrengate of Zahn, which Y'shendra had managed to conquer from Valteran. Ten, then twenty, then thousands, they flooded through. In years they washed over the valleys locked within Icheron's desert spires, settling villages, building towns. Like with the Hyr'Norai, they were taught all they needed to know to survive. From beyond the Barrengate, Y'shendra guided them, because she needed to. The first ones were not allowed to have their memories; they would only recall decades of gruesome experimentation, the Imprisoned Goddess toying with their forms, testing their limitations; dismantling and remaking them like bundles of wet clay. For this reason, they were like children, for a time.
Decades went on. More Dunash were incorporated; these ones through war, the undead villages filling Icheron's interior waging war on the settlements of the living. Each man, woman or child they killed, they took back to their home to be reanimated by one of Y'shendra's Knights. Instilled with the power to convert both living and dead to Dunash, they offered peaceful conversions, but met denial with swift retribution. Like a plague, the undead horde washed over the eastern coast of Icheron, culling and converting millions to their order, only infants spared to be changed a later time. An entire Kingdom was filled before long with undead, and without the need to eat nor much ability to suffer fatigue, the horde continued to rapidly expand.
Though few know the exact month or day the Dunash were plunged into Icheron, scholars of the few surviving nations estimate that they overcame the Kingdom of Samara in the Year 4594, estimated at less than a decade after their emergence. Within six more years, by the turn of the century, they had conquered more than a third of all Icheron. The Dunash forged their own Empire: Astravan, with the capital of Y'lir-Kuznetsk.
Ten years, twenty years flew by; present day came. By the end of 4619, the entire continent had gone dark to the outside world. Few nations survive, meager holdouts, desperately resisting the ceaseless hordes of the undead. The brief history of the Dunash is one of conquest, assimilation, and change.
Physiology/Biology
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Psychology
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Culture
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Clothing, Grooming and Art
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Religion and Worship
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Reproduction, Aging, and Death
Y'shendra is and has always been the Adac with providence over life. It is no surprise, then, that her favored species is one not only capable of defying death, but creating new life in strange, unconventional ways. To begin with, the Dunash do not sexually reproduce. While they are capable of reproductive behavior, fertilized zygotes within the womb of a Dunash woman will quickly be treated as a foreign aberration, culled via a forced miscarriage. Dunash men appear to be able to initially inseminate women of other species, but after a period of several months, the fetus will wither and rot, leading to an unusual miscarriage that tends to happen over days, decayed pieces of something emerging at the bottom of the woman's chamber-pot.
Instead, Dunash reproduce by melding themselves to a tree, field or other body of plant life. They will quite literally begin to merge their cells with the living object they are embedding into, effectively becoming one with that structure as a strange aberration. Going into hibernation, they will emerge months later attached to a cask of flesh, one they must carefully break open. Most do so with a thin knife, cutting down the center. What emerges is... strangely, a child of their old race. They will grow as a mortal, and be converted by a Blacksworn at the age of twenty-five. Considering Dunash do not age, any child who is converted will remain a child forever. Thus, they wait until they are sufficiently mature.
This process of reproduction works by threading and converting the reproductive cells of the Dunash through the surrounding life as an incubator. Through the hormones that remain within their body, they produce both a sperm and an egg cell, effectively creating a genetic clone of themselves, though the child born will be more akin to their sibling in genetics than an identical twin.
A Dunash cannot easily die. As stated earlier, only total immolation or decapitation - or some other form of obliteration - appear to work in permanently dispatching them. Wound after wound will fail to overcome them. They may lose their ability to use their core muscles if you bludgeon them in, but they can still move. Their organs are barely essential if at all, and many do without them. As such, any Dunash must be killed in a vicious and unmistakable manner.
Language
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