Wosono

**Wosono** is a temperate planet somewhere in the Galaxy. It was the birthplace of the Epadwaranai and Arnadjanai races.

It was once a thriving planet now dotted with ruins covered by cold, red grass.

## Ancient history

At around the time of the Eighth Galactic Empire, a team of Vigefionian scientists planted several golden seeds that grew to become the Golden Men, the first of five successive races of experiments:

### Golden Men

The Golden Men were gold-skinned humanoids gifted with intelligence and civility, and they survive only by absorbing sunlight and drinking water.

The Golden Men eschew clothing, tools (except to make music), and combat, preferring only to compose music, bathe in waters, and think complex thoughts.

All Golden Men are male. They reproduced by vomiting seeds on every 40 nights, which grew into more Golden Men. In spite of this, some Golden Men have genitalia they used to urinate, or that were used in some cases to inseminate other humanoids.

The Golden Men live for up to 400 local years, after which they sleep permanently and pass away. Within days of their deaths, their bodies crumble to a sparkling dust.

### Silver Men

The Silver Men were peach-skinned humanoids with golden-to-brown hair and stronger bodies. They are more aggressive, and they (and subsequent races) lived by eating food from plants and hunted animals.

The Silver Men were capable of making tools from sticks and stones, ranging from crude weaponry to axes and knives.

Like the Golden Men, they were naked. They and every subsequent race existed and reproduced as males and females: their creators made them like this either as it was considered "normal" or to make these humanoids look more disgusting when they mate. Their young are incubated within three local months, and are capable of crawling on their own immediately after birth. Younger Silvers grew to adulthood in four years, and if they manage not to get killed in war, their total lifespan was forty years.

The Overseers (a team of Vigefionian scientists tasked to report on these races) visited a village of Silver Men, and barely managed to escape being ripped to pieces. For this incident, the Vigefionians sent teams of hunters to kill a portion of Silver Men for sport.

### Bronze Men

The Bronze Men were pink-skinned humanoids with red hair and meatier bodies. They are even more aggressive, and their speech consisted of consonant clusters and roars.

The Bronze Men were capable of making clothing, forging tools out of metals, and creating their own writing. They built crude forts of dirt and mud.

Bronzes grew to adulthood in two years, and if they manage not to get killed in battle, the oldest of their kind lived for up to thirty years. One lonely male Bronze lived for sixty years before collapsing into dust.

The Bronze Men almost took over the whole of Wosono, even attacking and murdering the Vigefionian colonies hidden in the mountains ("the cities of the gods") in a planet-wide revolt. For this trespass, the Vigefionian authorities manipulated the Bronze Men into killing and eating each other.

### Iron Men

The Iron Men were peach and tan-skinned humanoids with golden hair. They were more intelligent, focusing more on more complex forms of art. They built beautiful cities, palaces, and temples. The Irons' language was more like music when they were happy.

Irons grew to adulthood in ten years, and the most they were able to live was a hundred and fifty years. Although they were given the ability to have glowing skin, their blood was also flammable.

The Iron Men sought not only to spread their art throughout their entire planet, but also to reproduce and breed with the other races of Wosono. For their respect for their Vigefionian overlords, the Iron Men were tasked to rule over all of Wosono until their masters' return. Thousands of years later, Wosono thrived as a prosperous colony teeming with slaves, and in their quest to be more like the Vigefionians the Iron Men became more disrespectful, rebellious, and power-hungry. Their rulers also bred a lower class of Iron Men whose blood was harvested as fuel.

For their war against the Vigefionian rulers, the Iron Men were subjected to a plague that caused their bodies to explode, and their blood to "cleanse" the lands in a great fire. For centuries, this allowed the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Men to multiply and sweep across the continents, feeding on the rapidly-growing plants and ever-splitting beasts that thrived among the ashlands.

### Steel Men

The Steel Men were the fifth and final iteration of the five races of Wosono. They are more fecund, but more heartless, lacking in emotions and individuality. The Steel Men had greyish skin and white hair.

Steel Men usually mate in groups, so their offspring will emerge in batches. After mating, a single female Steel could produce and nurse up to a dozen young, which may grow to adulthood in eight local days. The Steel Men's lifespan was up to twenty to thirty years, after which they go berserk and die.

The Steel Men did not cry out in battle, nor did they have any form of celebrations or mourning. They also lacked any art except a writing system of glyphs formed from black triangles and trapezoids. Their language was tonal like their Iron predecessors, but they sounded more monotonous and lifeless.

The Steel Men's goal was the total subjugation of all life on Wosono. Their purpose was to erase all sentient life on the planet except for Vigefionians, after which a select number of them would have became a sixth race that will eliminate and replace the Steel Men as the next rulers and inhabitants of Wosono. But with the departure of the Vigefionians, they and the Iron Men were displaced and enslaved by the Epadwaranai.

### The Epadwaranai

The Epadwaranai were the result of Iron Men breeding with Silver and Golden Men, with the occasional Valgetan wives and house-husbands. The first of their people were the clones of "Matokawa" and "Kastaka" who interbred with the existing races of Wosono, resulting in their unusual instincts such as uttering their tormentors' names and being afraid of ice cream and lunar eclipses. They became into the dominant race, before splitting up into six civilisations. These civilisations were notorious for growing and harvesting thousands of slaves to produce fuel and for their savage entertainment. When these civilisations fought a global war, one kingdom of Epadwaranai secretly departed from their homeworld: these exiles became the ancestors of the Heronoi, Pelarinoi, Harolanoi, Herotaxoi, and other similar peoples.

The Epadwaranai were the successors of the Steel Men, and they were permitted to enslave or kill them and the other races to take over the planet as the Vigefionians' viceroys. They were gifted with more intelligence, a keen appreciation of beauty, and luminescent bodies and hair; but they had flammable blood and rabid tempers.

One derivative race from the Epadwaranai were the Upyri, a pale race of unintelligent, cave-dwelling cannibals that drink the blood of their victims. The few Upyri that were unfortunate enough to be captured in hunts were kept as pets and slaves.

Another derivative race was the Second Golds, a beautiful race of blondes and blue eyes with a love of art and an extensive knowledge of combat. They were an attempt to combine the best of Wosono and Valgeta to create a new race and empire to dominate the Galaxy. Their weaknesses include obsession with beauty, arrogance, and stronger sexual desires upon reaching adulthood; these desires made them unlikely to be capable of leading any army, let alone fight an enemy army in a battlefield.

### The Arnadjanai

The nine founding tribes of the Arnadjanai race were a mixture of Silver, Bronze, and Iron outlaws who tamed herds of salpar, six-legged horses that their creators left behind as their toys. They also brought Steel Men as their slaves, whose fertility and rapid growth made them the ancestors of the lesser clans and footsoldiers of the Arnadjanai. The Arnadjanai lived in an easterly continent after they were defeated by the six lords of the Epadwaranai, before they departed for other star systems in the Galaxy in search for more space and resources. There, they either hunted the plenteous herds and packs of beasts that roamed its grasslands and forests; or cultivated vast fields of wine, grains, and fruits.

The Arnadjanai were gifted with greater strength, toughness, better eyesight, faster learning, and fecundity; but they were troubled by strong lusts upon reaching adulthood, that sex and violence became strong elements that drove their ancient culture. They do not abort their offspring, because they use illegitimate children as expendable warriors by neglecting them into being ferals.

Due to natural selection, their sexual urges stop whenever they were too many children, so several chosen members temporarily stop their ruts to raise these children to adulthood while the adults breed and fight less often. Once the youths become adults, they repeat the cycle again.

#### The red moon

In such cases, the Vigefionians modified the Arnadjanai of Wosono in two methods. Every two months, Wosono's moon turns a red glow, prompting its races to commit various deeds:

* Goldens hide in caves. Whenever the first light of the reddened moon hits their skin, the Goldens vomit more seeds than usual and surround the saplings to protect them until sunrise.
* Silvers launch raids to kill other tribes, or they breed in couples or in groups.
* Bronzes sacrifice a lot of animals or light fires. In some cases, they even burn animals and captured slaves alive.
* Irons sacrifice their slaves by burning them to the moon.
* Steels hide in caves and breed, while any Steels that do not get inside before the moon turns red go berserk to attack any intruder.
* Epadwaranai hide in caves and bunkers, and pray for the gods to be merciful to them. Some Epadwaranai who recklessly go outside without armour built from certain minerals go insane from the moon's light, and launch attacks on inferior tribes. Some Epadwaranai form and field vast, armoured armies that face off against each other or the "star-children" (Vigefionian hunting parties).
* Arnadjanai panic, hide, and breed within their tents and huts: children produced during a red moon grow up to be ferals, instant soldiers that exist either as expendable warriors or breeding stock for more instant warriors. Certain herbs were also consumed by female Arnadjanai to encourage the production of more feral warriors.

It was also a time when Vigefionians go on hunts to slaughter the clones or wage war against the Epadwaranai.

## Later history

### The Epadwaranai

See also: Bujoxe

The Epadwaranai (later known as "Heronoi") were the result of intermarriage between the earlier races, Valgetans, and clones. In their early years, their Vigefionian creators tortured them, as mockeries of the latter's nobility. At times, Vigefionians went on hunting parties to kill and eat the Epadwaranai.

Centuries after their creation, the planet was opened to tourism from outside the Vigefionian Empire. Among the visitors were Norse tourists and traders, who told tales of their heroes and gods. Attracted by some of the gods' features, the southern kingdoms of the Epadwaranai built temples, especially towards Baldr, Forseti, and Freyr. Weeks later, heavy rains caused a bumper harvest, causing the southern kingdoms of convert to the worship of Freyr.

Dozens of rebellions broke out against the Vigefionians. Two of them were dedicated to Freyr, who became a popular symbol of Epadwaranai independence. The second rebellion was waged during a lunar eclipse, when the frustrated Epadwaranai fought back against hunters.

### Opening of the Skies

See also: Opening of the Skies

During the Eleventh Galactic Empire, some Arnadjanai also launched raids into Vigefionian-ruled colonies, seeking vengeance against the "bleeding gods" for denying them from becoming powerful. These raids continued until they slaughtered the Vigefionians who ruled the planet from their holiday villas to their offworld space stations, where they slew and ate any Vigefionians that they found.

Encouraged by the success of the Arnadjanai, the Epadwaranai kingdoms waged war against the Vigefionian outposts and prevailed. That was known as the Third Freyr Revolution. The Vigefionians suspected of murdering Epadwaranai were tied up to stakes and burned alive.

One raid against a Vigefionian fortress-planet exposed Wosono to several human empires, who colonised and enslaved its savage humanoids.

## Geography

Wosono is a temperate planet of five main continents. Two of them, Ipadwara and Djarasha, have most of its inhabitants. The Epadwaranai live at Ipadwara, and the Arnadjanai live at Djarasha.

Ipadwara has an acidic soil.

Ganamathorika - the great city of the northwest

P'arexunda - a fortified city

Jamajetere - city of the southwest

Lake Nao - a dank lake filled with the corpses of drowned victims

Land of the Dead

Land of Gold - a continent to the east of the Arnadjanai continent

Cities of Gold - the Vigefionian cities to the east of the Arnadjanai

## Trivia

* The ancient Wosonoi were influenced by Hesiod's and Ovid's Ages of Man, and depictions of cavepeople.
	+ The Epadwaranai were inspired by Mycenaean Greeks and elves, although they do *not* have pointy ears.
	+ The Arnadjanai were inspired by Nordic aliens, barbarians in fantasy literature, orcs, and Scythians.
* Initially, the Wosonoi were created to exist as males or females, and mostly as heterosexuals. Their blond and blue-eyed appearance, the reckless anger of the Epadwaranai, and the urge in many Arnadjanai for violence and sex were perhaps a mockery of the Vigefionian standard of beauty and its decadent culture: by using self-destructive clones to carry out the Vigefionians' discontent against their own society.
	+ The appearance of homosexuality among the Epadwaranai was mostly a genetic tweak, especially after the Opening of the Skies when no more Vigefionians altered their genes. Many Epadwaranai welcomed this as a chance to show their love to their closest friends.
* According to legend, the Vigefionians used to capture people from the Lysandrean Empire as slaves to create the Wosonoi, resulting in the cloned race having blonde hair and blue eyes. It also unknowingly continued the Lysandreans' spiritual connection to the Holy Aesir, drawing the attention of the gods. The gods then used the Wosonoi to sabotage the Vigefionian Empire to avenge the Lysandreans' downfall.
	+ This also explains why Baldr and Forseti became popular deities among the Epadwaranai.