Salann Species


Salann has five intelligent species living on it, two of which are Parahumans. The Zn and the Ambriz are native while the Akephalians and Anachrom are Parahumans that arrived with arcships. This happen so long ago that none remember it though. Regular humans arrived the same way but much more recently. Since both Akephalians and Anachroms speak English, the Zn and Ambriz learned it over time as the universal language. In recent times, there are conflicts between the species though. The Anachrom have at some point enslaved the Zn. They've recently freed themselves and now the Anachrom are fearing retaliation and want to desotry the Zn to prevent this. Meanwhile, they have started enslaving Akephalians instead. Further south, there was a violent conflict between the Ambriz and the recently arrived humans. Humans have started attacking the Ambriz with no provocation and have since taken over most of their land, the survivors retreating to a corner of the Salannian Desert in the northeast. Humanity then struggled to sustain themselves, having learned nothing about the local agriculture and have descended into killing each other over scraps.


Ambriz


The Ambriz are humanoids with grey skin that live off sunlight. They primarily live in the Salannian Desert, which takes up most of the known landmass, but have since lost most of their territory to humans. They aren't able to digest solid food and absorb sunlight through their skin for energy. Alternatively, they can gain sustenance from energy drinks. Still, they don't absorb enough energy to power their bodies all day, so they tend to lie still for many hours a day, conserving their energy to when they need it. To absorb sunlight, they don't wear much clothes, only enough to meet other species' standards of decency. Since fashion isn't a factor because of that, Ambriz instead wear their self-expression through tattoos. The Ambriz have no body dimorphism and are all the same in general body structure. Offspring are grown outside the body and all Ambriz are equipped with the same organ to plant that seed. They all have breasts and can produce a nourishing nectar from it to feed newborns, or starving Ambriz in emergencies.

Ambriz are known for their advanced knowledge of plants. They have created lots of medicine and even engineered symbiotic plants that can replace organs. Ambriz have adopted the ideas of gender from the Anachrom and Akephalians, which has influenced their culture a lot. It is common for them to modify their bodies to appeal to human gender ideals, like the removal of breast tissue for a masculine appearance.


Zn


The Zn are humanoids with colorful bioluminescent skin and hair. They live in the Emeraldean forest, where barely any sunlight reaches. Their eyesight is extremely specialized and they are pretty much blind outside the dark. They recognize each other based on the patterns on their skin instead of by face. Usually, the patterns on the arms is looked at first. As such, they didn't evolve to distinguish faces and they are effectively faceblind for other species, not that they could see them a lot.

They've been enslaved and forced out into the light for a while by the Anachrom. They managed to free themselves after genetically modifying their magical affinity. The resulting generation was born with powerful magic without having to train for it for years. They were able to break free, but while messing with their genes, the Zn accidentally removed their ability to grow hands. Since they can easily learn levitation magic now though, that wasn't too bad. The years in slavery still left other scars though. Their language changed significantly in that time. In an effort to speak in private with each other without the Anachrom listening in, they artificially made their language very obtuse and difficult to learn. For example, they completely removed all vowels from their language. Instead, the reader would just have to intuit them, which only really works when you've grown up with the language since birth (Ex.: Zn is pronounced 'Zee-in').


Anachrom


The Anachrom are a Parahuman species created to resemble old timey black and white cartoons. They are made out of a thick slime and possess no solid skeleton or organs. The slime is ink black but takes on a white layer on the outside. The eyes and hair remain black. The slime can simulate the function of various organs when needed and the body can easily repair itself. The body generates additional slime to replace lost body parts with from food. This additional slime can also be collected and removed from the body and it will eventually gain its own consciousness, which is how Anachrom procreate.

The Anachrom have had a history of enslaving other species and waging war against those that freed themselves. For a while, they had a thriving war apparatus going but recently their society is threatening to collapse under its weight. All the food goes to soldiers and the civilians are starving in the streets, which also results in a steep decline in birth rate.


Akephalians


Akephalians are a Parahuman species created to resemble objectheads. This has failed however and instead their bodies just adopt the function, shape or colors of an object. They start out as floating clusters of nanomachines that will absorb and analyze the first inorganic object they touch and form a humanoid body with that information. The Akephalian will be born at the stage of an eight year old with lots of basic information already programmed into their brains. Once they die, the nanomachines will be expelled from their body to repeat the cycle. While the actual goal of this species was missed, it is still the most complex and technologically advanced species created by Aries.

It is tradition when finding an Akephalian seed to give it an object that one loves but is willing to part with. It is considered good luck. Since no species on Salann has that far advanced an understanding of technology, everyone is ignorant of the mechanical nature of Akephalians and they are commonly regarded to have come out of a strange kind of magic. The Akephalians themselves were also deliberately left without that information. Aries feared it would hinder their development. While Akephalians are completely organic aside from the nanomachines that reside in their brain, they generally don't have souls and as such can only use control magic.