Brijilds - The Fire Family

The Brijilds have the ability to shoot fire from their freckles, extremely heat resistant bodies - especially their skin, extremely limited regenerative abilities - for example injuries normally requiring a month to heal need less than a week for a Brijild, cannot tan, reduced fertility, can benefit from magic cannibalism (will receive its own article) and are hated in Lamara.

Currently, all Brijilds are considered government slaves at birth and are being required to pay penance over many generations for the sins of their ancestors, those sins being those committed before and during the civil war that led to their enslavement by the Lamaran royalty.

Basic Information

Anatomy

They have magic genes that allow for the creation of Brijild fuel and a heat resistant substance in their cells. The Brijild fuel is transported to their skin and to their freckles, taking traces of the heat resistant substance with it to cause the heat resistance of their skin to be even stronger. When a Brijild triggers their ability in a particular freckle, this Brijild fuel is released and the magic and chemical bonds holding it together break apart to create extremely hot carbon dioxide and water vapour, which also comes out at ridiculous pressures once this happens due to this heat and so also causes serious recoil for the Brijild using their abilities.

Genetics and Reproduction

You will be a Brijild if your mother is a Brijild. Whether or not your father is a Brijild doesn't matter to this. Refer to the Genetics and Reproduction section of Krysa - Crystal Magic Family to understand why this is as the Brijilds have the same mitochondrial fuckery as the Krysa.

Both male and female Brijilds have much lower fertility than normal humans. The first Brijild, Annala, who had 14 recorded children, was an exception as she became a Brijild as a child rather than already being one at conception.

Growth Rate & Stages

Many of them experience a huge increase in the quantity of freckles they have during puberty, including some developing freckles in puberty. They're also more inclined to infrequent and extreme growth spurts. Both of these exist plenty often among normal humans though so really they're just people with fire powers.

Ecology and Habitats

They're able to survive in both extremely hot and extremely cold conditions for long periods of time due to the nature of their heat resistance. The heat resistant material in their cells absorbs heat and releases it slowly over time afterwards to keep an equilibrium slightly above body temperature. This isn't including their actual fire abilities, which further elongate their ability to survive in the cold.

Their fire abilities often have a strong recoil, much like that firemen experience when using high-power water hoses, which can add to a Brijild mobility if they're good at controlling their fire abilities and agile even without their fire abilities. This can be a huge advantage for mobility in forests, for scaling walls, surviving large falls by using the recoil of their fire to slow their descent, and in general has a tonne of applications.

Dietary Needs and Habits

They need a lot of sugar and carbohydrates as that's what's turned into Brijild fuel by their bodies. Their regenerative abilities are reliant on a large intake of protein. The heat resistant material in their bodies requires both zinc and iron and so a deficiency in either can cause them to not be as resistant to heat as they should be - a very bad thing when one literally has fire powers.

They are a clan that can benefit from magic cannibalism, in which a serum is injected (it can also be ingested but this is less effective per amount used) into some poor normal person, that person is tortured with the intent of causing as much pain as possible, they're killed and then they're eaten by the Brijild, Krysa or whichever sick fuck is doing this. That individual will experience an increase in the magic production of their bodies for several months or years afterwards, with frequent users of this being able to gain permanent increases in their ability as a result.

Additional Information

Uses, Products & Exploitation

Brijild fuel can be extracted and used for various things, most obviously as fuel and explosives or injected into freckled Brijilds to increase their short-term ability.

"Brijild Boom Juice" is a substance made from materials extracted from various sources but its main feature is that when a Brijild drinks it it will seep throughout their body and then cause all their Brijild fuel to go off at once, exploding them. A Brijild who's allowed a lot of fuel to build up under their skin, most likely to be a non-freckled one, can become a living bomb if they drink this. This has been done before, including without consent from the Brijilds being used as bombs.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

None aside from clever uses of their abilities, such as using fire to light their way in the dark or... that's all I can think of really.

Civilization and Culture

Beauty Ideals

Whether or not their skin is attractive is a divisive subject. They're unable to tan and as a result generally very pale or, if they're born with some pigment due to genetics, paler than normal people with similar genetics to them. Outside of this paleness, which itself could easily be just as present in anyone who doesn't go outside enough, they pretty much always look the same as normal people.

History

The Brijile House were a fairly normal noble family within the early Lamaran Empire, before the entirety of the peninsula was conquered.

They ruled over an area about half the size of modern Wales and, over the course of 137 years of experimentation in which well over 10,000 people, the vast majority of them small children, were kidnapped or bought for use as test subjects, they created the following magic clans:

Brijicks:

Heat resistant but no fire powers. Their heat resistant substance released heat at a higher equilibrium temperature, causing them to constantly be at a high temperature that was harmless for them but painful for anyone they touched. Died out because their last female member only had a single son with her husband, whose... member was left unusable after conceiving that first son and she refused to use that as a basis to divorce him and marry someone else despite extreme pressure from the rest of the Brijile House... true love?

They were created 87 years into the experiments, first member Jinga Brijile. The same procedure was done on both her and her identical twin but the twin died, and there were previous Brijile children that this was attempted on, being all Jinga's older siblings who also died, so experimenting on kidnapped and bought people before going ahead with procedures on Brijiles was swapped out for doing the procedure on the kidnapped/bought people as well with the intent of marrying them into the Brijile family.

Brijins:

Fire powers but not enough heat resistance. They had stronger regenerative abilities than Brijilds and so could heal the damage their own fire abilities did to them, but it's still definitely a lesser option compared to Brijilds. Died out because Annala killed almost all of them as revenge for the killing of her husband and sister in law and so that any survivors - who she prevented the existence of, couldn't come back for revenge against her or her children.

Their first member was Kemala, who herself didn't do anything of note beyond giving birth to the first 7 Brijin children and being suspected of having the youngest 2 of those children with a man other than her husband. She was a great grandmother and already dead when almost every one of her descendants that wasn't one of Annala's children was killed by Annala.

Brijilds:

Fire powers and heat resistance. Haven't died out.

Their first member was Annala, who was adopted by the Brijin Kemba and meant to marry Kemba's oldest son. Annala experienced an anxiety attack when she and Kemba's oldest were meant to consummate their marriage at 16 and 17 years of age respectively and destroyed the entire room they were in with her fire, killing her husband/fiancee. She was then married to the youngest of Kemba's 3 children (Kemba's oldest was a girl and known to ruthlessly bully Annala), who she had 14 children with and was known to be close with since childhood.

Her husband and sister in law were killed during a divide within the Brijile House over who got what land within their territory. An attempt was also made on the life of her eldest child. She was normally uninterested in titles and land but became extremely interested in satisfying a sudden overwhelming blood-lust in response to her husband and sister in law being killed, and wiped out the entirety of the Brijins while leading an internal rebellion.

She placed herself at the head of the Brijile House, which now consisted of just her and her children, and changed it to the Brijild House.

Their territory grew after this, especially thanks to them saving Lamara from the Halmier Plague by burning down all the villages - and people - in and near the affected area before it could spread.

Her great great grandchild, also named Annala, would lead a rebellion against the Krysa royalty after it had successfully conquered Lamara and renamed itself from the Krysa Empire to the Lamaran Empire. The ensuing civil war, which was far from the first time the Brijilds had pissed off the Monarchs as they'd gotten involved in many previous civil wars, lasted 14 years and ended with Lamara's population being 30% lower than it was at the start.

A system similar to the one currently in place regarding Brijilds was brought into place and they were used in the wars to retake lost territory (some vassals and regions declared independence and got to sit through the civil war without much happening to them because the Royalists and those rebelling against them were busy), reassert royal authority and so on.

This system was reformed to the even harsher one currently in place, indirectly caused by the appearance of Andrew Simmons and the technological advances that he brought to Lamara.

Origin/Ancestry

Annala was the first Brijild

Conservation Status

At birth, every Brijild child is checked for freckles. If there are genes which would cause freckles to appear at birth or during puberty in a normal human, they always cause a larger amount to appear. Genes which would cause a normal person to develop freckles in puberty normally just cause Brijilds to be born with freckles and then get more freckles when puberty hits. There are exceptions to this.

If they have freckles:

They're castrated and separated from their parents within days of being born. They're raised within the military and used as a super-soldier and slave, slave applying when they're put to using their fire abilities for non-combat purposes. The creation of Brijilds with freckles is generally avoided if there isn't a shortage of freckled Brijilds. This also comes with extreme brainwashing and indoctrination made easier by separation from family, visitation with said family often being used as an incentive for both the family and their freckled member to remain compliant and loyal.

The only military organisation that allows Brijilds to hold leading ranks is the Institute of Understanding's Military Wing, although it is still illegal for one to be in charge of the whole Military Wing or the Institute itself.

They are subject to multiple humiliating and painful rituals supposedly intended to speed up the cleansing of sin from their clan. They're also not protected from being used in experiments.

If they don't have freckles:

Then there's nothing to shoot fire from for them. Boys without freckles are sacrificed soon after being born. They're kept in what essentially amount to prisons, forced into arranged marriages to cause or prevent freckled children - as well as powerful freckled children as genetics also affect how powerful their abilities are - with commoners who are also kept in these prisons and expected to make more Brijilds.

Brijilds without freckles still produce the fuel that fuels their fire under their skin. This is extracted from these Brijilds and used in various ways, including careful injection into the skin of freckled Brijilds before and during battles to boost their abilities.

Teachers of the children in these prisons are never themselves Brijilds and required to assist in indoctrinating the non-freckled Brijild children into loyalty to Lamara so that they program that into their own children as well.

They're subject to multiple humiliating and painful rituals supposedly intended to speed up the cleansing of sin from their clan. They're also not protected from being used in experiments.

If they develop freckles later in life, such as during puberty:

They're separated from the other Brijilds, castrated and from there it's the same as those born with freckles.

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

Back in the days before their enslavement, they were almost all ginger as Brijild women deliberately married / were arranged to marry ginger men to have more children born with freckles who could make use of Brijild abilities.