Firstborn
The first beings to ever walk the world, they have become lost to time itself and are the ancestors of nearly every intelligent species in our world to date. Creators of the "Primordial Magic" as an attempt to duplicate the power of the gods. They created humanity from a drop of their blood and grew us to be naught more than slaves. Even the most ancient of their technology is quite simply unfathomable to us. Even now we hold stories of the "Golden-Eyed Tyrants" for good reason.
Anatomy
The Firstborn were the founding species that almost every other species in the world stems from, from Humanity to Faedran or even Giant-kin. Due to this, it's not difficult to understand that they appeared to very much be "humanoid" in appearance, considering they were effectively the founders of such a body shape. They appeared incredibly similar to humans, however, there were several differences that set them apart, and made the lines between them and the other species blur, such as a total lack of hair, pale skin, and primitive, simian-like facial structure. One of the greatest details that stands out to archeologists is that they held twelve fingers and toes to help support their size properly, showing similar bone structure to their Giant and Ogre descendants. Their eyes were almond-shaped, along with large ears that were tipped in points similar to the fey and elves with similarly sized noses designed to maximize their senses. Due to the few records acquired, it appears that they were deathly pale, comparable to snow or paper. It has been theorized that they were created specifically for the purpose of being the "Blank Slate" for future generations, and this is likely why they were given such a simple appearance by The Creator. The facial structure of The Firstborn from fossil records tended to be wide and strong, with large noses and ears, and very "Simian-like" in facial structure, though they held lips and mouths similar to humans. Their characteristics would easily be spotted as having "parts of dozens of other species mixed together" should they be seen by modern races. Such as giant-kin noses and jaws, elven eyes, human lips, and so forth. Universally, Firstborn held brilliant golden eyes that held a dim yellow glow.Abilities
The Firstborn were an incredibly powerful species due to their natural genetics, their powers came directly from the gifts that The Creator bestowed upon them. These abilities were spread in a wide variety and greatly enforced with power and potential in nearly all things to ensure that they would spread across the continent and evolve as time passed. But in return, purposely infused them with tremendous genetic weaknesses to force the hand of evolution as needed for the lands. They were granted powerful physical bodies, with great height and density paired with advanced neurological systems to greatly augment reaction time and reflexes. This paired with their (what the Creator viewed as) short lifespans was designed purely so that they would evolve rapidly and spread across the world. Though it was more accidental than anything, upon the creation of the Firstborn they were granted a fragment of the world's power as they were sung into creation. This granted all Firstborn the innate ability to perform True Magic instinctually, without even requiring lessons. As the race began to grow thanks to this combination of an advanced understanding of science, chemistry, alchemy, and most importantly Magic, The Firstborn were the most technologically advanced species in existence. They held access to technology that allowed them to create great vehicles, artificial life in the form of Homunculus, great siege weapons capable of wiping entire towns off the map with a single blast, intelligent golems known as Sentinels, barriers that could defend against such, and much more. Despite this variety of strengths, power and magic, however, there were weaknesses ingrained into them that no matter what spells or technology they used, what alchemy they infused into their bodies could not be removed. Instead, only their genetic descendants slowly evolved away from these weaknesses, in return for slowly trading their great power. The Firstborn were naturally sensitive to all extremes. Loud sounds, intense heat or cold, bright light, pitch-black darkness, they were built with inherent weaknesses to every environment. Forcing them to breed to slowly grant their children resistances and adaptations to the environments that they settled in."Firstblooded"
The Firstborn are generally viewed as extinct. However, their blood still continues to flow through the world's various species. Though rare, these individuals are known as the "Firstblooded", and have inherited many of the race's innate powers. They are weaker than proper Firstborn, but will universally hold brilliant golden eyes marching their genetic heritage. Even a fraction of Firstborn blood will cause this genetic trait.Social Behavior
The strongest aspect of The Firstborn's social behavior was based on two core concepts: Knowledge, and Exploration. These two defining traits are what pushed the species out across the first continent, and their forms were perfectly designed to encourage this behavior. Stubbornly spreading across enviorments that they had no resistance against by relying on their technology and magic. Driven by their pride, arrogance, curiosity and need for more land in order to fuel their incredibly metabolism that allowed for their great genetic gifts. As such, they spread over the continent at tremendous speeds well before the Great Rupture. Unlike their long-lived descendants that only were capable of breeding within a certain amount of time, The Firstborn entered puberty at incredibly high speeds, around the same point that humans did. Similarly, they were able to breed as often as humans, this is once more theorized to be so due to the hope that they would rapidly grow in population to enhance the speed of new species evolving from them. This is, notably, one of the few traits that humans retained from The Firstborn. When it comes to concepts such as "gender", and "beauty", The Firstborn were completely opposite of their modern descendants. The concept of "Beauty" was nothing as it is for modern species when it came to The Firstborn. Instead, most of the species were "Sapiosexual", due to their eternal hunger for knowledge, and understanding. Individuals that held those aspects were attractive to most. This, of course, changed as the era's shifted and the species began to evolve into different requirements and preferences expanding through the millennia. Comparatively, their concepts of genders were far more ancient and primitive. Being one of the original species created by the primordial entity, The Firstborn followed the concepts of natural laws, meaning it took one male, and one female to create life. Due to this, the concept of "Gender Identity" beyond these two roles didn't exist until the later species began to evolve, as such it was often that even if two of the same sex were mates, they often still bred with others of their species outside that circle to continue the growth of the species. As far as clothing was concerned, from what can be guessed from fossil records, tombs, and paintings left from their great civilizations, The Firstborn generally preferred to remain nude. As a species, they generally saw no issue with showing off their bodies. Should they require protection, or wish to flaunt something they had acquired such as enchanted cloth, jewelry, and so forth, however, they would have no issue wearing them for such reasons. However, there was no sense of shame or insecurity in The Firstborn when it came to their nudity otherwise. When it came to communication between the species, Interestingly enough, the language of The Firstborn was a unique hybrid of every language spoken today. Intriguingly however, fossils indicate the lack of any form of normal communication materials at all in the last few eras of their known existence. As such it is theorized that the oldest of The Firstborn near the end of their eras had no need for such primitive methods of conversation and had evolved to the point of using magic casually for telepathic and empathic communication instead.
by JFoliveras
EXTINCT
General Information
OriginThe Creator Type(s)
Unique, Humanoid, Sapient Species Lifespan
1,000 Years Average Height
10'8" (325 cm) Average Weight
580 lbs (263 kg) Notable Technology/Magic
Genetic Decendants
- Giant-kin
- Homonculus
- Faedran
- Atlanteans
- Daeva
- Daevata
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Very nicely written and good imagery :) I assume they aren't around anymore? If so, are you going to add some parts about how they went extinct, or modern superstitions/theories about them?
Creator of Araea, Megacorpolis, and many others.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed! There are a very sparse few that remain, but most have simply "evolved" into extinction. Their entire purpose was to quite literally evolve into the other species based on their environments, due to their lifespan a few of the old breeds are still around, but most are only half, or partially firstborn at this point in the world's timeline. That said, I do indeed intend to explain their major extinction events, the few remaining of the species (notably Inanna is of Firstborn descent), as well as many modern superstitions and theories of them. Especially from the High Wizards, Scholars, and so forth dotting the cities.
How loyal were they to that purpose? I imagine I'd much rather prefer to stay as a 10ft super-human wizard-person then become, well, human. Did some of them try to resist it?
Creator of Araea, Megacorpolis, and many others.
Well it's not as though evolution is something that one "resists" in such a way, and in fact several of the species are actually "genetic descendants" only because the Firstborn made them using their own DNA (Humans are an example of this, they were created as a slave race, a very, very long time ago from the Firstborn's own DNA stripped of most aspects.). But you misunderstand what I was referring too by the statement "evolved". My apologies, jokes are sometimes difficult to portray in text and I was poking fun at my own writing. Essentially, the species "evolved", too quickly. Quite literally their DNA was designed to mutate at such a high speed that the original concept of the "Firstborn", disappeared within the first few thousand years of their existence. They quite literally evolved so quickly that you can see the changes in anatomy over the course of their recorded history. Compare it to say, if we, as humans, looked back at sculptures and paintings from the Dark Ages, and people looked like simians. Then jump to the renesance era, and they looked like hairless simians with less prominent facial features, etc. The speed of their mutations were equatable, it was quite literally built into their DNA, to go extinct and populate the world with new species. "Firstborn" essentially haven't looked the way I have them described here since their original creation and their first few thousand years of existence. For all their technology and magic, The Creator is a harsh being that only cared for them to do what it had designed them to do. Humanities creation, and several other species creation based on DNA manipulation, etc, was the Firstborn's attempt at "resisting the inevitable", hoping that they could outpace their own base DNA, but in the end it failed and the race fell into borderline extinction.