Crepusca
Basic Information
Anatomy
Biological Cycle
Home life is communal. Families tend to share a "tower" of their own for multiple generations to live in. Each tower can house a hundred or so people, usually it's all one family.
Each pouch of eggs contains 15-25 young, with it taking one and a half cycles for them to hatch. Couples could potentially have upwards of 200 children by the time they age beyond their prime.
Behaviour
They're artistically inclined, simply because of the ties to their spiritual beliefs. Creation can be found everywhere, woven into their daily reality.
Additional Information
Social Structure
Geographic Origin and Distribution
Civilization and Culture
Culture and Cultural Heritage
Government
Consensus Democracy (like bees), represented by a matriarchal "Archivist":
Current matriarch is Archivist Theonora, who has maintained the memories for the mothfolk for 57 cycles.
The Archivist's role is to track memories and spends much of her time in meditation, sorting and passing information along in the hive mind. She's unable to assist individuals with locating memories of previous lives—it would take too long and finding those memories is meant to be a task of self reflection, not the job of another—but she is able to dispense wisdom of previous generations and their experiences to aid in consensus and progress.
The Archivist is chosen through the people's consensus, but that doesn't guarantee that the candidate will fill that role in the end. They're put through grueling mental and emotional trials to prove that they are capable of maintaining the memories. If they fail, the consensus selects another.
Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals
The dominant religion is based on reincarnation, and is practiced primarily by the mothfolk. The origin of this religion stems from the hive mind the mothfolk share. Memories and knowledge can be shared between them easily, therefore, finding fragments of memories from previous lives is possible though it takes time. There have been no reports of someone who could prove that they remembered their entire life.
Their souls can only return once they find their "soul marks" in the living world, temporarily reminding them of their previous life, but they're forgotten at birth—and very few remember their time in the Crossroads before their return. Soul marks are left as traces of their passion and efforts to create, and it's only through memory that they can choose to continue to cycle through lives rather than move on.
Creation is key to making these soul marks, and is centered around the arts, although some leave soul marks in their work in other forms of creation or discovery. For example, researchers have been known to leave soul marks on their studies and published works. It's the act of creation, discovery, and their wonder of the world around them that allows them to leave these traces behind for their souls to find in death.
There's a vault within the island that stores one creation of each citizen to protect each person's soul mark. When a person recalls their previous life or lives, they have the option to replace their creation in the vault. After a person dies, the Guides who work in the vault place the deceased's creation or discovery in a separate room for one year to make it easier for the soul to find the soul mark and make their choice at the Crossroads to stay or go. This chamber is believed to house an area where the veil between life and death is thin, where souls can more easily peer into the physical realm without crossing over. It's unknown how long a soul lingers at the Crossroads, but Guides try to give them time to find their mark and decide without overcrowding the chamber. Records are obsessively meticulous to keep this system moving smoothly for the sake of their people's choices at the Crossroads.
Because the mothfolk have a hive mind-like connection with one another through the current Archivist, finding traces of their memories in their new life isn't impossible, but it can take a lifetime of sorting through these "records." And again, these memories are fragments of a whole, and don't come with the memory and experience of their entire lifetimes.
For an example of characters who practice creating art for their souls, Cecil makes puppets and tells stories with them, his wife Julia is a famous dancer that has retired and become an instructor, and their son Didorn is a painter that sometimes illustrates his father's tales or images of his mother in motion. Didorn's work helps both his soul and his parents' by leaving marks for all of them, even if his parents don't participate directly in their creation. It's rare that this is done with the intention of benefiting another's soul outside of necessity, simply because it's not as reliable for the soul's memory.
For those that die in infancy and were unable to create something before death, there is a department in the government tasked with creating something in the child's place—if they don't have family to do it for them—by leaving a mark in or on the work with traces of the deceased's blood. It could be mixed into paint, smeared across it, or left as a fingerprint if the child was developed enough to have one, for example. They believe that it needs to be done immediately after pronouncement of death to ensure the child is able to return to the world before their soul moves on, if their soul chooses to stay.
Usually though, this art is a stuffed toy or a knitted blanket that the infant is buried with. Mixing their blood into the dyes might be the main method of leaving the child's mark behind.
The department mentioned above is also tasked with doing the same if, say, an entire family dies from disease or some other cause of death that puts their souls at risk of being unable to return to the living world.
This method of leaving a soul mark isn't as reliable as a person making them themselves, but they believe people deserve to make that decision themselves.
The only unforgivable crime that is punished with death is the destruction of a deceased's creations. It's seen as an attempt to remove the soul's right to choose to return for another life, forcing them to move on without their consent. There's a heavy emphasis on a person's right to choose in their society, both in life and after.
The Afters:
If a soul chooses to move on after reaching the Crossroads, their soul could go to one of two After realms/states or a third, horrible fate.
The first, seen as the most pleasant and desired option, is a creative paradise, where they spend their time until the end of creation creating new life for the land of the living to continue on or aiding the living with creation. It could be anything from encouraging plant growth to feed or amaze the living to acting as a muse for an artist. Souls can choose whatever task they like, and can change from one role to another when they like. However, a balance must be kept to help the continuation of life. They don't have a god or gods to make them do this—few express the need to worship gods, although they do acknowledge their existence—they simply choose to take joy in creation.
The second is an in-between, where the soul will be reincarnated as something natural to give them a chance to be used in creation. It's reserved for those who died with guilt on their hearts or couldn't find their soul marks to guide them back. For the latter, this is a choice the soul can make to tie them to the physical realm so they can be reborn. It's not seen as torture, and most are not aware that they were back in the physical realm until after they aided a mortal in creation. It's more of a long sleep until their soul is released again.
The third is not a place but a state of inexistence. This is reserved for those commiting the malicious and unforgivable crime of destroying the deceased's creation. There is no chance at redemption; the soul is seen as too foul and corrupted to be allowed to be reborn or move on to one of the two After realms. The soul is judged by Creation itself and destroyed. They're a disease, a potential plague on Life that cannot be allowed. The soul is unmade, the ashes of what once was burned away and forgotten by Time.
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