Order of Life

The Order of Life describe the known physical properties and laws that govern living creatures, their construction, destruction, and revitalization.

Manifestation

All organisms are singular. Their form is structured around an embodiment of essence called the sovereign. The sovereign uses an aspect of itself to mold terrestrial elements into an avatar. The sovereign is the binding that governs the eventual structure. The essential component of that avatar is the parallel. The parallel is the means by which the sovereign sense planar detail. Though the representation varies, in most creatures, the parallel forms as a crystal surrounded by an oozelike material. It is said that the oozelike material will quickly harden if the individual is threatened, protecting the parallel.
As the avatar is constructed of terrestrial elements, each creature is thereby composed of component parts of elements. The most common elements being fire, water, air, and geo. The reorganization of this minerals from which these elements are obtained is a slow, gradual process. The minerals, which generally have no essence that binds their structure, are filled with essence bound to the parallel. The minerals begin to change, thus resulting in the body structure of the creature. When injured, the manifestation of the elements that were absorbed into the body become apparent as the essence becomes momentarily disordered. The previously bound elements escape. For some creatures, this may manifest as licks of fire, dibbling water, solid components breaking away, or even puffs of air. This generally will vary seemingly unpredictably between creatures within the same species, though some creatures are more predictable than others. When an injury occurs, the essence stored within the system will work to restore the system to its original state. This will be done in such a way that the least amount of essence is required. This process is observable as the body attempts to push invading components from the system or absorb them as able. The sovereign will continue to press out objects, but is notably limited in its ability. Thus, a barbed arrow will be difficult for the system to push out naturally, requiring assistance. The sovereign will continue to exert itself to achieve a reordered system, potentially to the demise of the system as a whole.
The individual as distinct from another interacts by the boundary established by the created avatar. In general, essence is the resistive power that prevents two entities from occupying the same space. While physical interactions between elements regularly occur, it is the essence of the individual that will continue to separate essence from one with the other. Though untethered individuals may, in fact, interact with terrestrial beings, it should be noted that there is no evidence to suggest that the essence has occupied the same space. Instead, it is believe that contests between the bound essence may occur. But this is speculation.
And if it is true, or not true, it has been observed that all creatures with a substantial essence appear to have a desire to expand in order. This generally occurs through consumption, or through the integration with living things. This behavior has been most appropriately observed in colonial creatures where the stature of creatures within a colony will differ greatly based on the essence consumed. This experiment has been repeated times to demonstrate various manifestations, which includes metamorphosis from a lower state to a higher state.
While the act of reproduction is largely misunderstood, two creatures bond together and create a deposition of essence. The essence is theorized to be derived from the parent parts. The new essential being then reorganizes material into an viable form. Variations of this process varies between the creatures, noting differences between creatures that create eggs, other divide themselves into two requiring no partners,while others carry the new life within them while reaching viability. For many creatures, at least two individuals are required to create new life. It has also been observed that the process for conception is dependent on the individuals. As essence is deposited, it must then be that the essence is separated from the sovereign in a unique process. It is believed, similar to the arcane incantation, that this is a deep seeded natural instinct to perform in moments of clarity. While not generally observation, reflections on the feeling internally have been recorded.
To regulate, creatures require a constant flow of appropriate essence. Natural decomposition of weak elements due to aging (internal turbulence) causes sporadic departures of essence as it struggles to maintain a terrestrial form. Due to the designed metabolism of a creature, some require a dense material, such as water, or less dense material, such as air, as a constant resource from which to replenish this decomposition. This has been observed to be a minimum requirement as complex creatures require a mixed intake. Most creatures have a certain extent to which food can be metabolized, requiring a deposition of unused material.
The order of the individual system will continue to maintain the avatar by using stored essence. In many cases, it has been found that essence is captured by the minerals used to form the avatar. Thus, the only way to expand the amount of essence that is stored within the body is to improve the quality of the stored essence. It has been noted that in rare cases, some creatures metamorphose to entirely new compositions. This has been specifically observed in Shunarites and Taladin who departured from the figure of Tala, though more extreme cases occur. One such case had been a human that one day sprouted wings! This inevitably calls into question the permanence of the essential form.
Excerpt on the Composition of the Body: Different materials can be usedin the composition of a creature. Even after being born, the composition of a creature may change, including the gradual deterioration of minerals. Unsuited minerlas may degrade faster, requiring replacement and is the simplest form of disease. If insufficient amounts of minerals and essence are gathered, the body will decay and attempt ot consume itself to live. This involves the sovereign restructuring itself to cut off regions of the weakened system. This results in a lower state of the essential form. The death cycle is teh perpetual reformation of minerals to a lesser state until the avatar cannot resist the natural current of essence and the body simply falls apart. The expelled essence becomes untethered and unrecoverable.
Notes on the Body of a Thing: Most creatures form a structure to adapt to the preferred material. Modifying a certain material to meet that need requires essence, though eventually, the aspect will be remade. The soft fleshy bits of a man could have originally been created from rocks, but formed into flesh by the essence within the individual. Once separated from the individual, the material naturall will tend to its original form as the residual essence fade. Thus, to presenve the essential form, the essence must be prevented from leaking out. "Rotten" materials is defined by the reganizing of the materials into the original form.
This brings into question animal product derivatives, such as wool or hide. These would also tend to revert to their natural components should the living creature be removed. To preserve these materials requires understanding the elemnetal nature and saturing the material with those elmeents. By saturating the material with those elements, the embedded essence will commute between elements within the material rather than seeping out. Thus, by properly preparing the material, the natural structure can be preserved. However, eventual degradation is expected.
In general, elements deterioriate at different rates. Air being the most turbulent and chaotic. Then fire, which seeks to bind the air. Fire seeks to spread, but struggles to keep form. Water will seek structure, but still remains liquid. Finally geo, which maintains a geometric pattern, solid and unwavering. The rock can take in the water and resist the chaos of the fire and the wind. During the deterioration process, it is find that geo dominates the bone-like structure of a creature and generally is quite slow to degrade, if the degradation occurs at all.
For the body, the parallel and sovereign work together to maintain form. When parts of the form is weakened, it is reincforced by essence. The spontaneous destruction of a part is unstable: essence cannot bind what is not present and the body cannot hold the essence within. In battlefields, wounded soldiers are said to have grabbed dirt from the ground to plug their wounds. When returning from battle, these wounds will be found to be scarred, unnatural skin where the parallel and sovereign desperately attempted to heal the body. As these materials are likely unsuited to the body, the hastened deterioration is expected. This is known as, "The Soldier's Kneel."

Type

Natural