Ossmere

Ossmere are a long-lived, unhurried people who hold death and memory sacred.

Country of Origin: The Hush

Physical Traits:

• Ossmere are non-humanoid and resemble octopi, with an elongated head fused directly to a soft, mantle-like torso; they have no rigid internal skeleton.
  • Standing height (measured mantle-to-limb-tip when upright) ranges 5'0"–6'5", though Ossmere are just as often found in a lower, more spread posture that reads as considerably shorter.
• Ossmere have six to eight long, tapering limbs radiating from the base of the mantle. Two to four upper limbs end in fine, sucker-lined tips capable of delicate manipulation — writing, fine craftwork, sign-language-adjacent gesture — while the remaining lower limbs are thicker and used for locomotion, a slow, deliberate multi-limbed glide rather than a walk or a crawl.
• Skin is soft, matte, and faintly damp to the touch, in ash-grey, bone-white, or faded slate tones; it does not tan, flush, or shift color with temperature or emotion, though its texture can subtly ripple from smooth to slightly pebbled under strong feeling.
• Eyes lack visible sclera — solid, dark, and still, giving Ossmere a famously unreadable gaze — and sit low on the head above a small, near-hidden mouth folded into the underside of the mantle.
• Fine, hair-like filaments grow from the crown of the head and drift faintly even in still air; they thicken slightly during grief and thin during long stretches of contentment.
• With age, an Ossmere's filaments and skin pale further, and their limbs stiffen and shorten; near death they appear almost translucent — a slow decline called Thinning.

Abilities and Traits:

• Natural Abilities:
  • Extended lifespan - Ossmere can live up to 400 years, making them one of the longest-lived of the known races.
  • Stillsense - Ossmere can passively sense recent death or unusually concentrated grief in an area.
  • Bonding - Ossmere typically bond with Wraithmoths.
    • There is no cost to join an Ossmere that is already bonded with a Wraithmoth; if bonding after joining, they will be charged the standard bonding cost (250c).
  • Shapeshifting - Most Ossmere can transition fully into a humanoid form and a single animal form. Their humanoid form carries over the same solid, sclera-less eyes and ash-grey/bone-white/slate skin tones as their natural body, but with a conventional skeleton, arms, legs, and spine in place of the mantle and radiating limbs. Their animal form retains one feature such as bioluminescent markings, ink-based camouflage, extra limbs, or an unnervingly unblinking gaze. Extinct and mythical forms can be unlocked through payment (standard Valka costs).
• Strengths:
  • Can sense recent death or concentrated grief in an area using Stillsense.
  • May serve as neutral mediators and witnesses trusted by multiple factions.
  • Can transition into humanoid or animal forms for different situations.
  • May leverage extended lifespan to accumulate centuries of experience.
• Weaknesses:
  • Sustained intentional violence against another sentient is genuinely difficult; the adrenaline response that fuels aggression in other races instead triggers nausea and disorientation.
  • Weak to Grief-Lock, a condition caused by exposure to mass death sites that overwhelms the Ossmere's physical and energy-based senses; it may even force them to revert to their true form.
  • Unhurried pace creates friction in fast-moving situations.
  • Physical decline (Thinning) in final years stiffens limbs and pales skin further.

Society and Lifestyle:

• Organize society around the Long Ledger, a communal, ever-growing record of every ancestor's name, deeds, and final words, maintained collectively and recited at gatherings.
• Treat grief as a shared civic duty rather than a private matter; declining to participate in community mourning without real cause is a major social lapse.
• Have no standing military, given their pacifism; instead are widely sought after as mediators and neutral witnesses to treaties and disputes.
• Speak of death plainly and often; a common greeting translates roughly to "may your name be worth remembering."
• Favor exhaustive, patient negotiation over confrontation in resolving conflict.
• Believe the dead linger briefly in a state called the Hush before moving on, eased by Wraithmoths; there is no formal deity.

Relationship with Other Races:

• Alliances: None formal. As neutral mediators, Ossmere deliberately avoid close alliances that might compromise the trust they rely on to do their work.
• Conflicts: Lucenthi — the two peoples hold nearly opposite philosophies of mortality; Lucenthi treat death as something to meet loudly and joyfully, while Ossmere hold it sacred, unhurried, and communally solemn. Neither finds the other's approach comfortable to be around for long.
• Neutral: Caelduran, Quoravyn, Ferronax, Volari, Auren, Delvyn, Ignean, Rockfolk, Mirajin, Zenoxi

Concept Images

Concept art pending.

Wraithmoths

Wraithmoths are silent, softly glowing companions native to The Hush, distinct from the Astrofel found elsewhere; they share an innate bonding affinity with Ossmere and are believed to ease the recently dead partway into rest.

• Wraithmoths are moth-like creatures roughly the size of a large owl, with broad, translucent wings that carry a faint, steady glow — usually pale silver-blue, ash-white, or dim violet.
  • Their glow dims further in the presence of genuine grief (echoing rather than clashing with it) and brightens faintly in moments of peace or resolution, making them a subtle emotional barometer much like an Ossmere's own filaments.
  • Their bodies are covered in fine, soft down rather than true scales; the down is cool to the touch, never warm, even when the Wraithmoth is active.
  • Their eyes are large, dark, and multi-faceted, unsettling in the same understated way as their bonded partners' own eyes.
• Wraithmoths fly in slow, deliberate patterns rather than the erratic fluttering typical of moths; their flight is nearly silent, and they're capable of hovering motionless for long stretches.
• Wraithmoths do not vocalize in any conventional sense; they communicate through subtle shifts in wing-glow brightness and pattern, a "language" that takes patient partners months or years to read reliably.
• Bonding is initiated by sitting vigil for a full night at a graveside; a Wraithmoth that lands on the mourner and stays until dawn has chosen them.
  • Wraithmoths bond for life; if a bond is severed or one partner dies, the surviving Wraithmoth typically returns to whatever graveside it first bonded at and rarely bonds again, though exceptions exist after long solitary periods.
• Wild, unbonded Wraithmoths are drawn to sites of recent death or deep grief and are gentle by nature; they pose no threat and tend to simply observe from a distance until (or unless) approached.
• Mating and Family: Wraithmoths do not pair-bond in the conventional sense; reproduction is tied to place rather than partnership. A single Wraithmoth returning repeatedly to the same significant gravesite over many seasons will eventually lay a small clutch of soft, papery eggs there, with no second parent involved in any consistent way documented.
  • Clutches are small, typically 2–4 eggs, and take several months to develop, drawing ambient stillness from the site rather than requiring active incubation.
  • Hatchlings emerge with no glow at all and spend their first weeks flightless, developing their characteristic luminescence gradually as they mature — Ossmere folk tradition holds that a hatchling's first true glow means it has "found its first name to remember," though this is belief rather than confirmed mechanism.
  • Because reproduction isn't tied to a mated pair, young Wraithmoths are not raised by parents in any active sense; they orient toward the gravesite itself, and the first mourner they encounter as they mature is often who they eventually bond to.

Concept Images

Concept art pending.