Arcunite

### **Arcunites**

Arcunite’s, sometimes Arcunaut’s, are a gaseous race exclusive to Northern Ludwag. Originating to the great blast from the Arcus that annihilated many societies and lives underneath the Pyrosi Republic,  Arcunite’s are vestige souls that failed to be reaped, or those that escaped the reservoir come eventual time. Infused with unworldly energy that the cannon unleashed, giving their vitor a semi-tangible shape, an Arcunite wanders Ludwag as anomalies from a bygone era.

## **Anatomy**

Arcunite’s are gaseous beings who shape themselves into humanoids, from their multiple psychological boundaries, believing themselves to be human. Survivors normally appear as their former physical appearance, resulting in Arcunite’s projecting themselves like elves, gillians, tachtans, etc; all races that were present at the time the Acrus was fired. Although, Arcunite’s have been observed to forgo facial features entirely for heads to become nebulous and indiscernible swirls of energy.

When sustaining injuries/trauma, Arcunite’s employ their vitor to heal themselves. Overuse of this will induce them to the mental sensation of vitor deprivation like a mancer would, and result in them receding into their heart.

Arcunite’s are based around their ‘Heart’, with this being their central core of gravity within their bodies that shapes them. This heart keeps an Arcunite alive, and they will only be killed once the heart is destroyed.

Arcunite’s are able to be slashed and dismembered as they are a tangible being, they feel this pain and will begin to ‘Bleed’ from their wounds, with a subliminary form of Vitor-based gas escaping their bodies. They will continue to bleed until they either summon the necessary vitor to ‘Re-attach’ their limbs or regrow it, consuming a great amount of their strength but sealing the wound.

* An Arcunite would not be in the mental condition to continue fighting after doing this. If failing to do this, they will bleed out until they lose all of their mass, receding into their hearts.

Once an Arcunite has receded into their heart, they will slowly begin to reform over a few hours, forming into a new ‘body’ but retaining their memory and personality.

## **Psychology**

An Arcunite, on a subliminal, unconscious level, faces numerous mental blocks to cope with their almost intangible form. The entirety of survivors on a subconscious level - beyond their volition - perceive themselves to be humans in the flesh. These mental blocks can be bested with the help of an arch psychomancer, however, this could bring more grief than comfort to an Arcunite.

* Because of this, an Arcunite can hear, smell and see as much as they can experience pain, emotion and other negative sensations.

* Arcunite’s cannot transmute their body similar to an animal, large holes, etc. An Arcunite perceives themselves as human and cannot become what they never were. If an Arcunite does regain its self-awareness through an archmage psychomancer, they are still unable to transmute their body into a different shape, as their memory forces their core to mirror the body of their living self.

While their avatar’s vitor are not dependent on conventional means to sustain it, Arcunites still experience a physiological pull and tug that influences how much pulsates through their bodies. Sleeping, mimicking eating, and rest are all factors that sustain them; not doing these actions will result in an Arcunite receding into their heart.

While the individuality of an Arcunite’s is a dominant part of their race, with no collective culture to define and shape them, Arcunite’s are attributed to be forlorn and unbelonging in the world. Their people lack community and acceptance, making recluses from them and shy from reentering civilization.

Their souls, upon reemerging as an Arcunite’s, retain no comprehensive memory of their prior lives. Only vivid and poignant recollections that most shape their livelihoods - names, loved ones, accomplishments or failures - are what Arcunite’s are left with. However, a consistent trend in which Arcunites entirely repress what they do remember, establishing newfound identities instead, is a common trope.

Arcunite’s see/hear through the projection of their soul, not relying on conventional means like normal races to communicate with others.

Arcunite’s can utilize mancy.

## **History**

After the Meridians enacted their plan to exterminate oppressive Pyrosi rulers, immeasurable souls - even those innocent - would be leached from their bodies and engulfed within the Arcus' pool of existence. Even the propagators would become ensnared with their actions, subsumed within the same instrument they had built.

Whether from great distance, a palpable desperation not to be taken, or by methods that escaped them now from the dreadful hour, a number of souls narrowly eluded this fate - becoming torn from their bodies instead. The inevitable fate of entering the afterlife did not proceed this. The phantasmic energy that reverberated from the cannon was imbued within their souls, augmenting the incorporeal vitor that consisted of them to become pseudo-tangible.

To tether these avatars and to not be dispersed in the wind, the souls unconsciously - instinctively - amassed what they could. Foliage and rubble, refuse of their body, forming an ill-looking and garish slime substance that hardened into a compressed ball. The 'Arcunites' were manifested by this, and with this orb as their lodestone to remain alive, became aimless beings that wandered purposeless.

A finite people with no conventional way to reproduce, Arcunite’s would pass through time as nebulous entities with no clear allegiance, focus or collective interest. They would sporadically appear within histories annals, more similar to vagabonds, before eventually reaching contemporary time in Northern Ludwag.

## **Culture**

Arcunite’s - almost to no avail - attempt to emulate prior cultures, heritages and other mementos that were their former existence. This oftentimes results in the survivors gravitating to nations and locations that most resembled their own before the Age of Chaos; drowish elves to Aridam, Tescali to Latteras, etc. Regardless, these attempts at sustaining a sense of identity are majorly discarded to focus on their individuality, in a world foreign to them and denizens alien to them.

Rather, Arcunite’s are partitioned into three distinct and varying castes:

* **Marshhearts** are Arcunite’s who originally eluded becoming siphoned within the reservoir. Their core’s were consolidated from majorly natural and organic sources when first conceived, taking on an opaque slime compounded as a ball. Marshhearts emit warm colors as their palate, with the characteristic to be more amiable and sociable than their counterparts.

* **Nebulahearts** are Arcunite’s who were entombed within the Arcus’ reservoir. With erosion of the structures integrity come time, Nebulahearts escaped to wander Northern Ludwag once more. Their core’s are broiling, seething pockets of compressed gas encased in jagged and rough crystal, due to the lack thereof material to form it from. Nebulahearts emit a cool color palette, known to be unapproachable isolationists, and more prone to behaving eccentric - if not entirely deranged - due to an almost lost sensation conscious in the vortex of souls.

* **Novahearts** are Arcunite’s once stupendous persons in their prior lives, primarily advanced mancers, who’s status elevated themselves in their current form. Tall and towering, Novahearts carry themselves with formidable presence without the derelict melancholy of most Arcunites. They are an exceeding rarity, however most notable with the luminous rainbow that their shapes do take.
	+ Novahearts cannot normally be RP’d and not accessible to players