Homunculi

Homunculi is the term for magically altered organisms, often mixes of multiple species. Being magically altered, homunculi often demonstrate higher strength, agility, durability, and lifespan than their natural counterparts, often living for millennia upwards. Homunculi are unable to reproduce excluding some exceptions such as Harpies, Khalorim, and Ogres.

### Classes

Homunculi are classified into three classes mainly based on a major period throughout Kaimere's History

Class I: host species has components of one or more other species. Cells are still host species, just takes the structure of another (example below: H. altus with sloth and chimp aspects in fur and bone structure). No magical properties outside of creation when homeobox genes are instructed to follow another blueprint. Examples include the below worker drone.

Class II: same as Class I but more refined. Divergent aspects are usually a lot more subtle (gills rather than a whole fish head, only diverging where it is needed). Sometimes these divergent traits are exaggerated, however, but this is done with intention (i.e. merfolk having fish bodies but retain appealing features). Generally able to reproduce sexually or via parthenogenesis, depending on the strain. Often have a swarm of magic applied to preserve the host in its mature state, which slows aging and repairs injury. Examples include harpies, giants, and merfolk.

Class III: A body costume-made for a hive rather than a hive to preserve a body. The hive can replicate this body if it is destroyed, usually doing so from one of its thralls. Thralls are its mind-bound minions and usually have aspects of their creator. Often Class III homunculi have significant shapeshifting abilities and great control over their body. Examples include Bokushai, Grimhlaya.

### History

Homunculi are not natural beings, but creations, their creators being the First Children, an ancient civilization infamous for their mastery of magic which was used in a number of ways, including the creation of Homunculi.

For thousands of years the First Children refined and eventually mastered their craft, creating beings that could fight their wars, do their labor, or just to inspire spectacle, with abilities far surpassing the abilities of their natural counterparts, such as the ability to photosynthesize, go into torpor for centuries at a time, reproduce asexually, and many more. Homunculi, despite looking like mixtures of different species, are actually just one species, with genetics heavily modified to resemble other species, as it seems that true hybrids were simply out of the abilities of the First Children.

Through means as of now unknown, the First Children disappeared, leaving their creations to roam Kaimere free of the shackles of the mind they were subjugated to for millennia, of these Homunculi, one took the role of a leader in the abandoned cities of Qajar, Voskardlok, and it was with his reign that the Age of Demons began.

  "When the old gods vanished, our eyes opened. A new god, the many-headed Voskardlok, took the fields and halls of the old gods and made them his own. He promised all would be safe under the watch of his many eyes, so long as they abided his laws. Some chose to remain, trading freedom for safety, but many of us left to make our own way. Our brothers the ogres and trolls scatters to all corners of the world, while our sisters the mermaids claimed the meadows and reefs. Our ancestors, the Seven Daughters of the Sky, flew across the shallow sea and made a home on these very mesas. Four of our sisters then took to the sky, one flying in each of the singing winds hoping to find a perfect home. The three remaining sisters began to lay eggs. These were the Great Mothers Maru. The Great Mothers have since had many children: all of us here! We have made the mesas overlooking the prairie a home, though it is a dangerous place.  Someday, our sisters will return with news of the world, and hopefully they will have found a safer place for our true home."

-Yalena, a Free Harpy, recounting a founding myth of her people.

Voskardlok's empire fell with his death at the hands of Witches conquering the peninsula, leaving **Homunculi** where they are today, surviving in the wilds of the Known World and beyond.