Yahasain

Chromagaia's time moves forward with ours! Today's date is:
Octresday, Yahataidh 32, 1133 LE

"The Survivor, lime and hollow, the axolotl who writhes in her sleep. How his nightmares birth themselves anew, in ash and smoke and flame and rime. How their will lives on in its eternal slumber. Unaware and haunted, heart hanging from that bleeding chest-wound that may yet never heal. All ye who bear the mark, fear the night." -excerpt from Sólunum Samantekt

Yahasain [jaː.hə.seɪn] is one of the seventeen suns of Chromagaia. It is the body built by and containing Yahasain, former god of nightmares, mystery, fear of the unknown, and nighttime itself. Its crescent shape is unique among the suns, born from a wound inflicted in the final battle of the Genesis Hyperwar that slew almost all gods. Its presence is always connected with eerie topics and fear, and for good reason. Yahadh imagery often features death and undeath, as well as all manner of peoples' individual fears. The lythryd when winter starts in Keppel's northern hemisphere is named Yahataidh for the harbinger of this darkness, this terror.

While the suns differ in level of consciousness, Yahasain is on both extremes of the spectrum. Were it awake, it would be the most active sun, and yet it remains stuck in an eternal sleep. This sleep, incidentally, is what causes its system to behave the way it does, including the properties of its planets and the inhabitants therein. Having had millions of years to ruminate on its dreams, Yahasain's behavior has been stabilized and is predictable enough to potentially use.

System

Yahasain has several planets, sorted into 6 "rings" of sorts. Its six main rings are permutations of its own thematic philosophy, split into pairs of opposites. There seems to be an axis of joy and fear separating the inner and outer three, and each one is associated with one of its six ruling colors.

Lantern

A beautiful orange-amber planet covered in living flame, and one of the first pair of orbits. Lantern is representative of the original pure pleasure of the dream, the nocturnal reverie and light experienced long ago by the gods. It can only be withstood by those resistant to flame, but the sparkling orange stretching across its mountains is a sight to behold. It has lakes of molten metal and clouds of vaporized sand.

Lantern is orbited by five moons, Glimmer, Gleam, Glow, Glisten, and Glassrun. Glassrun has extant communities from Lantern, being the most tangible stable of them. Glassrun's scarce population is the architects of grand forges, said to take material from nothing and make it bend to the wills of the creator.

The Enkaiennim of Lantern are made of flame and plants, growing into themselves as they wander. They are amicable, offering their craft and creativity to the few travelers that make it there. Their lives are short and transient, like all Enkaiennim, with their identities being mostly tied to their works.

Wisp Cohort

The Wisp cohort, a series of five white planets sharing the same orbit, is made of pure white sand. It is representative of the pleasure of the third pair, an amplification of Lantern's orange to purify it into euphoria and finality. Wisp and its companions seem to be a relief, a passing of spirits into the ether, a final prayer for hope. The Wisp cohort has thin atmospheres, and their dunes are very slowly blown across their worlds. Temples lay in ruin and abandonment, built time and time again by the Enkaiennim that arise there.

Wisp's cohort takes up a mere 5 degrees of its orbit at any time. Its foremost and largest planet is Wisp proper, followed by Mournfel, Scalakh, Furaha, and finally Nadir. These are all considered part of "Wisp" the same way an island chain might be, and gateways between them were constructed long ago.

Wisp's Enkaiennim are made of an airy light, moving soundlessly through their environment as they wander. They are pious, offering sanctuary to whoever might need it as they cross paths. Their musings on life and death often go unrecorded, saved only for the ears of one person in the moment. To an outsider, they may seem enlightened, but it is simply their nature to try and guide others.

Mire

The wettest of these planets, Mire, with defined oceans and continents and coasts, is a green world of muck. It is representative of the second pair's pleasure, a mixture between Lantern's orange and the black of the Shadow Twins biased towards the pleasure. The slime, the ooze and fluid, change and humor in the disgusting and visceral. Mire is clouded in a thick haze that blocks the distinct shape of the sun, and its rains run more viscous than milk. Across its lands are swamps and wetlands, and even the driest points can be classed as humid.

Mire's concoction of fluids and chemicals makes it not only noxious, but toxic to any potential travellers. The acidity can melt most beings' skin, and breathing in the air at all is a death sentence. Its atmosphere is extremely thick as well, becoming viscous almost like water.

The Enkaiennim of Mire are gelatinous, and much of them are colonial organisms that form into gigantic conglomerations that seem more like waves than living things. They are broadly the least intelligent and aware of the six classes of Enkaiennim, barely able to act on anything past base instinct.

Phantom

Phantom is a deep violet world, forested with trees of stone. It is representative of the second pair's fears, a mixture between the black of the Shadow Twins and Lantern's orange light, biased towards darkness. The beasts, the shifting gazes and eyes in the dark, Phantom holds within itself. Its land is broken up into jagged continents shaped by the rare few titanic Enkaiennim that arise there every couple of millennia. It is a broadly liveable world with a comfortable temperature and atmosphere, though its sky seems dark as twilight even at noon.

Phantom's moon Watcher is very large, hosting a large eye-like rock formation on its planetward side. It reflects the scarce light that makes it to Phantom's surface during the night. It has a companion moon, Bestare, which is home to a decently sized populus of dragons. It clears the path ahead of Watcher, locked 120 degrees ahead of its orbit. Both moons orbit on an eccentric path, and Phantom's creatures know to fear the tides that come when Watcher gets too close.

Phantom's Enkaiennim are by far the most diverse. They take the form of all manner of beasts, forming a strangely active transient ecosystem that shifts with each individual player. One might find the world completely different a decade apart. They are broadly less intelligent than most other Enkaiennim, with only a handful able to actually speak and understand language.

Cruor

Cruor is a blighted red rock, orbited by three resentful moons. It is representative of the pain of the third pair, an amplification of the Shadow Twins' fearsome black to corrupt it further into violence and horror. Cruor's lands run rusted, oceans of blood forming a visceral weather cycle. It reeks of iron, and the storms brewed up by its crimson seas bring the screech of strained lightning with it. Precious gemstones lie beneath its surface, only released by its occasional igneous eruption.

Cruor's three moons, Ichora, Sanguina, and Viscerya, pull on it and each other, making the core heat and the land split open. Its mountains grow jagged from this activity, and the rich iron in its core makes for startlingly red auroras across much of the world. The moons themselves are frothing with lava, the oldest stones on their surfaces being barely a million years old. Violence seeps through all of Cruor's companions.

The Enkaiennim of Cruor are the most like other life, in the sense that they have identifiable flesh and blood. Their bodies are bladed and arranged like weapons. They are born with violence in their heart of hearts, and though they still have transient lifespans, some of Cruor's Enkaiennim are known to live for up to 5 years on pure hatred alone. They form opinions and grudges quickly, and are instinctually masterful of the killing arts suited to their body.

Shadow Twins

The Shadow Twins can be thought of like one planet, dark and mysterious as they are. They are representative of the original pure fear of Yahasain's nightmares, the darkness and unknowability and atmosphere of enclosed openness. No color of light penetrates the thick miasmatic clouds of the Twins, mist shared in a dense halo around them both. They are cold and dark worlds, isolated in perpetuity from all but each other, each only half the size of any of the other major planets.

Legend has it that the Shadow Twins were once a single planet so stricken by loneliness and grief that it tore itself in two, suffering unbearable pain to just have someone, anyone to finally speak with. The Twins' moons orbit in harmony around them, though they can scarcely be seen from the Twins' surfaces. One may find that the wind whistles like a funeral dirge on Alnacht, and like a fervent curse on Veilsage.

The Enkaiennim of the Shadow Twins are mostly amorphous, made of shifting shadowy mist. They mostly sit as observers, piercing the spirits of all they look upon with unwavering certainty. Should an Enkaien of the Shadow Twins be compelled to take action, they are capable of subduing all but the most mentally fortified people, inducing primal fear in them. They speak wordlessly, the meaning of whispers entering the minds of their audience before their form blurs and trembles.

Native Resources

Inhabitants

The inhabitants spawned by Yahasain's nightmares, sorted by theme onto each of its planets, are known as the Enkaiennim (sing. Enkaien). They have an incredibly broad range of forms, but most often appear amorphous with a scant few patterns of traits. Usually their form starts off shadowed before their color has accumulated enough energy to shine through. As creatures made from the unconscious woes and desperate hopes of a sun, they have cultures and languages almost incomprehensible to anyone else. Their value systems seem to stem from alignment with their designation.

Enkaiennim have an average lifespan of just 1-2 years. In that time, they take pleasure in wandering their vast worlds and accomplishing little beyond what is required of them. Their forms shift over this time, becoming unstable near the end of their lives. The death of an Enkaien is usually nothing impressive, just dissipation into the elements that made them up. However, an emotional Enkaien or one dedicated to a specific task may have a much more violent eruption similar to the release of Night Ink.

Sunstuff

Yahasain's sunstuff is Night Ink, an oily fluid that can manifest phenomena similar to the Enkainenim. It merges into the body until used, and can be called out and focused with incantations. A final callout of the color needed will cause the Night Ink to manifest itself. Combinations of these colors, an advanced technique difficult for most heliamancers, has been used to determine the "opposite" pairs of colors, with orange and black, green and violet, and white and red being the three combinations that are opposed. Night Ink is by far the most versatile sunstuff for use in magic, and one of the most potentially energetic as well.

"Orange" calls on the revelry and creativity of Yahasain's dreams, forged by Lanternlight into all manner of constructs and flame, or shaped into warding sigils. It is the base expression of joy.

"Black" calls on the unknown and darkness of Yahasain's nightmares, forged by Shadow into miasmas and cages, bindings and concealments. It is the base expression of fear.

"Green" calls on the visceral and sensory parts of Yahasain's dreams and nightmares, forged by Mireslime into all types of fluids and constructs, acids and concoctions. It is the base expression of humor and disgust.

"Violet" calls on the beasts that dwell within Yahasain's nightmares and dreams, forged by Phantom claws into slithering creatures and sensory extensions. It is the base expression of instinct and retaliation.

"White" calls on the spirits and prayers of Yahasain's dreams, forged by Wisplight into phantasms and spectral evocations of light. It is the base expression of peace and hope.

"Red" calls on the violence and gore of Yahasain's nightmares, forged by Cruor into formless bundles of lethal energy and transient focused releases of energy. It is the base expression of rage.

Culture

Like all the suns, Yahasain is ingrained into the cultures across the universe as an important celestial figure. Its crescent shape gives it the reputation of being wounded or weakened, though the personality ascribed to such a being is inconsistent. In old sun-worshipping cultures, Yahasain is commonly given dominance over dreams. Ironic, given its own entombment in one.

Sun Sign

The sun sign of Yahasain is granted to people born between Yahataidh 9 to 32. They are granted the Will of the Survivor according to the conventions of this sign, represented by an axolotl (usually with missing limbs or a hole in its chest). People with the will of the Survivor are said to be extremely adaptable and stubborn, able to throw away anything in order to keep living. They are stereotyped as shameless and selfish, often associated with gutter orphans and street beggars. People under Yahasain's sun sign are allegedly blessed with regenerative powers.