Glowan

By Magdaneela, who created and developed this species over a period between 2011-2014.

Glowans are this colorful, usually dual-toned HS fanspecies of elf-like aliens. They inhabit this lush earth-like planet known as Avinara, though originally they're from elsewhere. Their antennae, tailbulbs, and eyes glow, possibly due to their blood, which also glows faintly. However, societally, their number of pupils are a much bigger deal.

Disclaimer: Most of this may have been copy-pasted and adapted from the original infodoc.

## Physiology & Anatomy

Not quite based off anything in particular, Glowans are a race of humanoid alien people with glowing antennae and tails. They grow slightly taller than humans, and have a slightly longer lifespan, although not by a significant amount. A Glowan reaching 120 years is not unheard of, though. They also don't really stop growing until their mid-20s, in human years.

They also have two main colors**,** which can be literally anything:

* The primary, which is their blood color, the glow color. Affects eye sclerae, their insides, as well as the glowy bits.
* The secondary, which is the color of their fur and hair. It is also strongly linked to the color of their iris.
* Sometimes, a Glowan may have two secondary colors - this is very uncommon, but it happens. This may manifest in someone having a different iris color, or natural hair streaks, or both. Two primary colors, however, is impossible.

Their skin is most predominantly paper white, tinted by the color of their blood.

The hair texture can be anything seen in humans. Typically, it's more thick, and tends to shape itself more easily without any extra maintenance.

Notably, they also have a lot more pupils than what is usually seen in most creatures. These pupils are generally round, though the sizes of them is proportional to however many of them there are. The eyes are symmetrical more often than not, though asymmetry is definitely a thing that occurs.

The antennae come in all sorts of shapes, and can sprout from anywhere on their head, except for the face. However, the shape of these antennae is also heavily linked to gender**;** this is often the first thing a Glowan will look for when figuring out what someone is. Generally, straight antennae equal female, curved antennae equal male. But obviously reality is not this simple, and nonbinary Glowans with naturally indefinable antennae exist. It's also possible to alter the shape of one's antennae with some effort.

### Reproduction

A mainly asexual and aromantic race, Glowans reproduce by bonking their antenna-tips together. Fully clothed, no familiarity required. Yes, they would do this with strangers. They would do this with friends. In some odd cases, there could be couples that mate for life too, but the fact of the matter is, most Glowans don't really know what romantic feelings are. The few who do, often wind up very confused, because nobody ever talks about it. Asexuality is the default here, and they mostly mate to make sure the next generation actually happens. Most of them don't even raise their own children.

Obviously a simple antenna bonk doesn't always work, and often this depends on how compatible the antennae are. Typically, straight and curvy antennae is what produces an egg together, but sometimes, the antennae are intersex, with the surface texture expected of the other sex. Basically; gay reproduction is totally possible under certain circumstances.

The orb at the end of their tail can become an egg. It gets fertilized after the parents bonk antennae. It rolls off after a short period of eggnancy, which is when the orb develops into an egg and gains all the nutrients it needs, getting heavier by the day. When it's ready to develop further on its own, it detaches from the tail, which is not really painful at all. You could compare it to losing a baby tooth that was already really loose and absolutely ready to fall out.

Then the parent usually brings their egg to the local nesthouse, where the egg gets taken care of, hatched into a tiny child, and raised by professionals who know what they're doing. This practice has roots in the old times when children would be raised by the entire community. Nuclear families were never really a thing.

### Growing up

Glowans start out tiny. Quite tiny. They do hatch from eggs, after all. The only color visible on them is their blood color, which is why it's called the primary; this is what is seen on them first.

Their hair color starts out white and comes in gradually. Their irises start out black, and their pupils haven't gone through the splitting process yet; this doesn't happen until they're about the equivalent of a 8-12 year old. Once they do, it doesn't take long until they graduate from the nesthouse, where they've been taught all the most essential stuff that they need to know in order to survive on their own.

Depending on their amount of pupils, they are put in place according to the pupilocation system.

## Society & Culture

### Pupilocation system

Their caste system, the pupilocation system, is based on the amount of circles in their symbol, which in turn is based on their amount of pupils. This is sometimes referred to as their "amount".

It really just decides where they’re supposed to live, but lower amounts of pupils (higher on the ladder) does come with its perks and benefits, such as better access to certain things, but that’s really it. Most Glowans wouldn't really treat someone any differently just because they're a different/higher/lower amount. Well, except if they’re outcasts, probably. Or the particularly high ranking royals and oners. Still, it's definitely a caste system.

Once their pupils show up, they get a symbol, a middle name, and a new place to live on their own.

#### 0 - Royalty

   Incredibly rare, has only happened four times in recorded history. They appear to have no pupils, and upon discovery, they’re automatically qualified to be the next monarch of the entire race.

They live on the planet’s inhabitable moon, along with primarily fourer servants. The royal Glowan has access to literally everything their race has to offer. That includes the Crown Jewels, enchanted gems from Lumos, their original planet. Those are magical - they extend the life of whoever wears them. They’re allowed to use them until the next one comes along and turns 18 human years, or 30 passes. The general public does not know this; they just think the Royal Zero is genuinely immortal.

#### 1 - City rulers

Ones, oners, govoners or onelings. The latter only applies to the younger ones who are still in training. They're sort of rare as well, but definitely not as rare as the zeros - single-pupilled Glowans show up about once a generation in every city, on average.

These ones have just as many pupils as humans and most other creatures you know of; but to Glowans, they’re the oneling, the next govoner of their home town or city, and they get to live in the most luxurious building, with the govoner, who is supposed to show them the ropes... unless another oneling already lives there, in which case they’ll have to move to another city which doesn’t have an heir yet.

Due to being so linked to pupilocation, there is no such thing as elected presidents. The monarch rules over the entire planet, and due to being settled, the whole planet is a country - there are only cities and towns. That’s what the govoners are taking care of.

#### 2 - Upper middle class

Twos, or twoers. They're regular people, but get treated well. They usually get placed somewhere nice, such as nearby a beautiful lake or something. They tend to live in a really nice house, not necessarily a huge mansion, but definitely nice.

They may also end up in the town they grew up in, in some of the better houses that are built for twos only. Basically, they get a lot of extra privileges. Extra allowance, extra benefits, et cetera. May appear snooty.

#### 3 - Middle class

The most common amount. They’re known as threes, and will live in apartments and smaller houses around town. Not much more to say about them. They're middle class. Average people.

#### 4 - Farmers

Fours, fourers. This is the blue-collar working class. Or at least, that’s their main designated purpose.

They get to live on one of the numerous Avinaran farms that house up to twelve Glowans each, and these are the ones who provide the food and materials to the rest of their planet. When it’s food, it’s preferably to the towns nearby, but across the world works too, as object teleporters are a thing. The leader would be the oldest glowan of the farm.

The farms used to never get placed in a place where it regularly snows or gets chilly during winter, as that would apparently ruin their crops and bring famine to the rest of the world. (The founding queen was not exactly educated about this kind of thing. Some Glowans have later founded farms outside of the “safe zone”, as the race figured out that snow really isn’t that dangerous, the queen was just oblivious.)

Each farm focuses on farming one main thing in particular. There are apple farms, eep farms, fiberoptic plant farms, etc. In addition to that, all of them produce food. Glowans are mainly herbivores.

When they grow old enough (30 passes), they’re allowed to move on to do other jobs if they wish. Anywhere. Mostly cities. A lot of them just choose to stay at the farm, though.

#### 5 - Villagers

This is the highest amount a normal citizen is allowed to have.

Fivers get moved into tiny villages, which are usually located in deserts, jungles, mountains, or their equivalent of Antarctica. As in, pretty much anywhere that is not the best place to inhabit, your pick. My fivers are from an arctic village, but it’s very possible to have yours somewhere else.

Their homes are kind of small, and so are the villages in general. Few villages exceed 20 inhabitants. Most only have about 10.

Which village they get sent to is random, to ensure an even distribution across the world. They do get to pack their stuff before they get sent off, two sets of clothes per climate. It’s not like they know where they’re going, anyway. The “leftover clothes”, if any, would usually get used for other practical purposes, such as shelter or whatever.

And as the villages would obviously have no govoners, it’s often the oldest one who has to take all the responsibilities, which includes sending the eggs that people end up spawning on their tails to the closest town nesthouse. They use an egg teleporter for that. And that’s how fives get distributed around the world. Fourer farms also have an egg teleporter like this.

When a young fiver gets sent to an empty place by “mistake”, they’ll be the one to found an entirely new village, and if they manage to survive alone on things they find/own for at least half a pass, the new village will get registered, so more Glowans may get sent there.

And if they wish, they may also get a big donation dump near the village, where Glowans from other parts of the world would send them items that they probably need. Exactly what they’d get depends on the location, and most Glowans seem happy to provide the Fivers with the stuff they need. If food is especially scarce, and the village pioneer had been mostly starving during the test period, they get some food synthesizers sent to them as well.

Young fives get tracking chips planted on them just for that purpose; just in case they happen to end up in a deserted area. Also for keeping track of where they are, of course - especially if they wander too far from the village and get hurt. The same would go for fours.

#### 6+ Outcasts

These are the ones that society decided to leave behind. They don't fit into the system, so they get nothing at all. No home, no symbol, no middle name. Nothing. Often their antenna ends also get chopped off, castrating them. They're basically doomed to try surviving on the streets, unless they somehow manage to find a way out, which rarely happens.

Glowans may be pacifist, but they can also be cruel as hell.

There are usually approximately ten outcasts in a city at once, give or take, depending on city size. They tend to cluster together like little family groups as they find each other. Found families, if you will.

### Symbols

The number of circles depends on the owners’s place in the pupilocation system, which in turn is based on their amount of pupils. The circles are in the primary color, the lines (or squiggles, whatever) are in their secondary color. They were often designed by the wearer as a childhood activity, and approved by the nesthouse workers.

These symbols are, obviously, their form of identification. If they don't have one, they will get gatekept from a lot of services.

It is possible for adult glowans to change their symbol, but it's a lot like a human changing their name legally; it's very tedious. So most of them won't, unless they really dislike their old symbol for any reason. They will still have to keep the same number of circles.

### Naming Conventions

5-X-5 letters

Where X equals their amount. Ex. Siini O Norux (1), Tayda Ree Sismi (3)

They get their middle name when their total amount of pupils finally shows up. The first and last name is random and has nothing to do with their biological parents at all, unless their biological parents were registered as parents. In that case, the parents’ last names get mooshed together into five letters for the child's last name. They usually don’t bother with it, though, which makes Glowan lineages hard as hell to track. Just to avoid accidental inbreeding, some of the kids with the more normal amounts get sent to neighboring cities.

Twins share their middle names (and maybe last name too? Not a requirement though), while mere (identified) siblings share their last name.

Twins usually end up living under the same roof too, unless they’re:

* Fraternal (not identical) and don’t share their amount.
* Oneling twins of any sort (which is really, really rare by the way), in which case neither of them get to live in their hometown, because otherwise it might be unfair. Either that, or they’re gonna govern their hometown together. The former is more likely, though. Unless they’re practically inseparable.

Mutants usually get no middle name whatsoever. Because, remember how they are “disgusting” and get thrown out for it? There is no time to give them a third name. They might still make up a middle name for themselves, but it won't be official. Some mutants have nicknames given to them by the townspeople, which they might adopt as a middle name, such as “Greasy” or “Pockets” or “Rattlecan”. These nicknames are usually words (or combinations of them), may or may not follow the middle name=amount rule, and it’s usually something that the townspeople notice about them.

## History

Once upon a time, there was a planet named Lumos.

On that planet, a group of what turned out to be the ancestors of the Glowan race emigrated through a cave to a valley. That cave later got caved in, and they ended up living and evolving there quite peacefully, isolated from the rest of the world. The hills surrounding the Glowan valley were rather steep, and there were no entrances left, so it was pretty hard to get in and out of it. The population wasn’t too big, either.

On the other side of the valley, another darker race has managed to spread across the world. They were known as the Zareins, and they had the same ancestry as the Glowan race.

However, they had evolved to become really quite different from them. They were far more violent and aggressive than Glowans, not to mention carnivorous.

In time, this other race discovered the Glowans, simultaneously as the Glowans discovered them. Through a major cultural clash and misunderstanding, Zareins started to threaten the Glowans’ valley and killing them. Not to mention that the Glowans’ resources had kinda begun to decay after all this time, so that was another reason for them to get out of this place.

And whose idea was it to leave?

Avn’ra Arali’s.

She was already a pretty well respected citizen, though she had her methods and... obsessions.

In time, she managed to convince everyone (or at least the vast majority of Glowans) to get off this planet. To leave Lumos.

Thankfully, they had already discovered another planet at some point, which also happened to support life. Previously they had marked out a good number of planets outside their solar system, each with its analyses that predicted what they would find when they got there. This planet that they had found was conveniently close, relatively speaking. A whole bunch of lightpasses away, perhaps, but not too bad. Space travel was pretty much mastered by then, as well. At least in theory.

So why stay here with these brutish flaming demons, when they could just leave and get a planet all to themselves?

Some were left behind by choice, and who knows what their society is like now, 2560 passes (1536 years) after the others left the planet - if they still even exist?

Also, important note; it was during this voyage to the new planet that Avn’ra really rose to power.

She was obsessed with sorting and putting people into labeled boxes. She decided, that when they arrived on the planet, they should all be placed more evenly across the world. Everyone should be placed according to their pupils.

To prepare for this change, she assigned rooms of different types to everyone on the great big spaceship, based on their amount of pupils. Symbols were also introduced at this stage, for the sake of identification. Gotta make sure there were no alien imposters on the ship somehow, right?

Thus, their pupilocation system was born.

She manipulated everyone into thinking this was a brilliant idea, and she was rather ruthless to those few who resisted. Why did they come aboard with her in the first place, then? To follow a trend? Pshhh.

As for her, she made herself royalty.

In case you hadn’t noticed, she was an oddball who appeared to have no pupils at all. She found that to be quite convenient, and used that opportunity to place herself above everybody else. Because why not? She’s the one who got them there anyway. She was already their leader.

As they got to their new planet, which was named Avinara after their new Empress, she commanded people to build the first few towns, which later grew into some pretty huge cities. She sorted people into them, based on their pupils.

She also took some of her best friends of various amounts with her and built a castle for the royalty on the habitable moon of Avinara, named Soran after someone she once knew. (There’s also another moon there that’s barren and desolate. That one, she named Delaun.)

There are several secluded castles on the planet’s surface as well, but besides the grand one used for ceremonies, it’s a privilege to know where they are located. Glowans are not an adventurous people, so it’s not like anyone will find them by accident anytime soon either.

Later, people decided to found their own towns, but the queen/king is the one to give the final word on which caste lives where; should it be for threes, or exclusively twos? It’s usually based on the location.

The villages vary in age, and get founded by whoever who gets sent there first. Getting sent to an unpopulated place is random and kind of rare, and the authorities will know of it so that it gets added to the places the teleporters can send people to.

Back to general history!

Avn’ra Arali, now with the middle name of Arainesalentarisveloreniialtesara because she said so (that’s not even the full middle name, it’s just the pronounceable version of it. Her full middle name is Arainesalentarisveloreniialtesarahanielananameekiseriniilonkelikuterenualeneztan. Good luck if you want to pronounce that without running out of breath), ruled for hundreds of passes until something happened.

A certain unexpected someone whom she knew appeared, and her egg was fertilized.

So she ended up being the mother of someone who later turned out to have her ridiculous amount of pupils as well, and that kid came to be known as Talin “Iceheart” Ivonn.

Much like most Glowans in general, Avn’ra let somebody else at her palace take care of him. Eventually he was discovered, however, and much to Avn’ra’s dismay, he excused his presence in the palace by saying that he was being groomed for the throne.

He has always been bit of a jerk, by the way. While most Glowans are actually quite peaceful, Talin would easily compare to a human with his aggressive nature. Rumors say that he is of Zarein lineage, though nobody really knows how that’s possible. Nobody but Avn’ra and the father, D’Sora, anyway. (The reason involves magic and stupidly complicated stuff, and I won’t get into that now.)

She would not let Talin take over the throne. So what did he do?

He killed her instead.

Not without traumatizing himself for life, though.

He spent a large part of his reign on a bloody crusade against the Raccorex race, a native, semi-sentient Avinaran species barely in their tribal stages. They were violent and capable of shapeshifting, and had finally decided they did not like the Glowans’ presence. Raccorexes had begun to raid and massacre entire towns. That’s why Talin made it his goal to exterminate them, and to accomplish that, he recruited an army and made it sound like they were doing this for the greater good. As terrible as he really was, he was an amazing public speaker and motivator.

Iceheart’s War, as it became known as later in history, is easily the bloodiest period of Glowan history. It was also their only war, and collectively they vowed to never make anything like that happen again.

As soon as Welia got identified as the new zero-pupiled successor, Talin disappeared without a trace. Whether he died or lived on somehow, nobody really knows.

## Trivia

* There already is a sitting empress and an heiress, as well as two other historical royals. OC Zeroes should inhabit an alternate timeline.
* First concepted in 2011, these were possibly some of the first fanspecies in which the individuals had two colors rather than one.
* Over 300 fan-glowans have been made. Mostly in the earlier days, around 2013-2014. They're an open species.
* They have an official fanventure, Towertrapped, which at some point got featured on the main page of MSPFA. It hasn't gotten very far, though the author has written about an act ahead and still wishes to at least get all of that posted, however long that will take.

## Etymology & Inspiration

> Honestly, these were inspired by a fanspecies thread on the old MSPA forums. I saw that this was a thing people were doing, and I really wanted to give it a go myself. There was no specific theme going on here, I just wanted to create some aliens with features that I liked.
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> The word "glowan" was derived from *glow* and *man*. Simple enough. (Obviously, it's "man" in the old-timey sense, as in another word for human, person - not in the male gender sense)
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> Then they ended up being my special interest for several years, causing me to worldbuild even more about them. Seriously, they basically lived rent free in my mind for a while. At multiple occassions I'd just catch myself thinking, *"how would glowans do this"* and wrote it down.
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> - mags
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## Additional Credits

* Talin "Iceheart" Ivonn belongs to Crimson-Catalyst.
	+ Zareins are a species related to Glowans but are distinctly not a Homestuck Fanspecies. They also belong to Crimson-Catalyst.
	+ Really, he has contributed quite a bit to glowan worldbuilding. Thank you Crimson.