In many ways, the [[chosen:|Chosen]] are what [[universe:mikurmiya:avishraa|Avishraa]] was built on - not least because Shyriath-the-character, for whom the setting was built, was one. [[https://www.schlaugh.com/~/veZIjAD|@pinkgothic]] has gone into the OOC history of the Chosen before, but I wanted to touch on this subject again, mostly because, in the current continuity, there are some things that have changed since their [[amberworld:|original conception]]. ---- Among the [[takma:|takmar]], then simply called Avishraans - there being no other sophonts of note from the world - there were natural magic-users. They would occasionally be born to non-magic-using parents, but a magic-user and a non-magic-user would almost certainly have some magic-user children, and two magic-users would have all magic-using children. Notice that I haven't used the word "Chosen" here. I'll be doing so from now on, for convenience's sake, but in the original continuity they didn't have a common name; "Chosen" was something I came up with later. They were of two kinds, the Davir Sria - the "Brotherhood of Order", and the Davir Kaea, the "Brotherhood of Chaos"; while they shared physical traits - deformity, black splotches on their bodies, small size compared to other Avishraans - the two were different genetic conditions, for lack of a better term, marked by differences in behavior. They were on good terms, but they lived apart, on the grounds that each was inclined to do things so differently from the other that they tended to drive each other nuts. Interbreeding between the two was, if not nonexistent, then at least extremely limited. The two groups lived apart from other Avishraans, who by and large were not fond of them, but the nuances of this were never explored; the main focus was on the relationship between the Chosen. Before the start of events in the setting, the Davir Sria were mostly applying themselves to exploring and learning about the universe, and had devised a number of methods of travel beyond the bounds of Avishraa, the most versatile of which was the [[concept:glyphic_teleportation|linking book]] which bears no resemblance whatsoever to elements of other [[https://dni.fandom.com/wiki/The_Art|intellectual properties]] shut up :D. The Davir Kaea, by contrast, were experimenters, and preferred to push the boundaries of what magic and science would allow. The two groups shared a certain amount of information during their respective journeys. Nonetheless, by Davir Kaea, by their very nature, were more likely to splinter into various subgroups with their own projects and beliefs, and one of these manifested as a cult called the Hzataalar Kaea. While many Chosen were unhappy with their physical condition, it was generally accepted that this was the way the gods had made them (which was, in fact, true) and nothing could or should be done about it. The Hzataalar, to put it bluntly, disagreed. Their founder held that the Davir Kaea and Davir Sria, in their dynamic balance, were stuck in their condition because of the balance, and that only, well, unbalancing one from the other would allow the victorious faction to be freed from its plight - by which was meant, of course, that the Davir Kaea should reign supreme to unleash Chaos upon the world, and the Davir Sria would need to be destroyed. Through a lengthy series of increasingly horrific experiments, the Hzataalar Kaea learned how to convert themselves and their children into bigger, healthier, and more prolific versions of their former selves. They also severely dented their own sanity through amplification of their own Chaotic nature; when their founder observed what was happening and tried to put the brakes on the process, he was quietly killed. In the meantime, they managed to act charming enough to attract a lot of other Davir Kaea into their ranks, to the point that, by the time the rest of them started realizing what kind of people they were dealing with, the Hzataalar Kaea had enough numbers to take on the rest through violent means. Those they weren't able to forcefully induct into their own ranks, they simply exterminated. Then, they turned their sights on the Davir Sria. As @pinkgothic mentioned, the Davir Sria were prone to forming mindlinks - psionic bridges - with their loved ones, and more or less the whole lot of them were tied together in one huge web. While most of them holed up in their Citadel, which allowed only Davir Sria to enter, many others were captured before entering, and there were also a non-negligible number of ordinary Avishraans tied to Davir Sria partners as well. So the Hzataalar Kaea gathered their captives together and cheerfully tortured them in an effort to cause anguish in those hiding in the Citadel, and slowly, over a period of years, drew almost all of them out. Then //they// were mostly exterminated as well. Now, it's very hard to //completely// hunt down every single individual of a group, especially when you can escape to another world through a book. Some Davir Sria and Davir Kaea still lived. Sane people might have let them go, judging that they were no longer any realistic threat, but since, as previously indicated, the Hzataalar Kaea were not all that sane, they pounced on any rumor they heard of survivors. Shyriath and his family were one such case in point. By that time, the Hzataalar had abandoned Udunneyaa, the Citadel belonging to the Davir Kaea, both since it was not suitably grandiose and since, with their modifications having significantly boosted their own birthrate, it was also getting way too crowded. They wrote a book to a world they called mek'Tarae and built themselves a sort of drow-esque, backstab-your-way-to-social-status society. It worked in a way, but teetered precariously on the brink of implosion almost from the minute it was founded. This implosion was set off during the ritual execution of Shyriath's family, where - the emotional anguish having triggered a manifestation of his psionic powers - he accidentally brain-fried a considerable percentage of the Hzataalar Kaea leadership. Shyriath escaped into the blue, and a huge power vacuum toppled the Hzataal ascendancy on mek'Tarae and caused a titanic civil war that resulted in the extermination of most of //them// as well. One of the survivors of that, Zadireth, eventually started tracking Shyriath down out of a desire for revenge. And that's how it all started. ---- The Chosen, obviously, still exist, and they still play a oversized part in the Avishraa worldbuilding project, but there are certainly some differences. First, they still come in [[chosen:#srians|Srian]] and [[chosen:#kaeans|Kaean]] flavors with differences in behavior, but overall these matter less now than they did before; the two kinds are generally able to live together and interbreed as two varieties of one condition, rather than as two separate conditions that are remarkably similar. That isn't to say that they don't cause each other grief sometimes, or that some of each prefer only to live around their own kind, but overall their self-identity is more "Chosen" than either "Srian" or "Kaean". This has a lot to do with the emphasis of the project. The original setting was driven by the conflicts between different groups of Chosen, with everyone else in the background; for the worldbuilding project, however, I wanted to explore the relationship between the Chosen and the other inhabitants of Avishraa. The Chosen have too much in common with each other, and too much to fear from the takmar, who greatly outnumber them, to fight over things like Srian/Kaean differences (though there will certainly be other things that will come up). Second, the physical symptoms. The (non-Hzataal) Chosen had dark blotches covering parts of their bodies, atrophied muscles in various parts of their bodies, and various other ailments; they aged very slowly and could live for remarkably long times if they didn't die of anything else, but a disturbing number never made it that far. My reasons for toning this down are hard for me to pinpoint, but I suppose I had a sense - and still do - that the way that, for instance, Shyriath's ailments manifested in him gave him a [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Wangst|tone]] that seemed fine when I was a high schooler but less and less so as I got older. It also, honestly, didn't make a whole lot of sense from the point of view of the worldbuilding project, which called for a nonzero number of Chosen to be constantly appearing amongst the general takma population. It's bad enough to be the target of mistrust, neglect, and even genocidal killings from childhood; if on top of that your own body was trying to kill you, the Chosen would have died out before they ever got to do anything neat. That's why, instead, they're visually indistiguishable from other than being small. This first becomes apparent at about one cycle of age (five or six Earth years), so as it is, Chosen children tend to be at a disadvantage in all-takma environments. (It also means that unusually small individuals tend to be branded as "witches" regardless of their actual magical ability.) The Chosen also (mostly) have a rather higher chance of developing cancer than their non-magical cousins. In the few settlements in which large numbers of Chosen live together, this isn't as much of an issue, as the lifegivers can cure cancers, as they can many other things, with relative ease; those Chosen not in a position to either be or see a lifegiver, however, have to rely on luck. Third, as @pinkgothic has mentioned, the [[organization:hzataalar|equivalent]] of the Hzataalar Kaea hasn't really come along - yet. The nucleus of the movement, however, has formed around [[person:dlyss|Dlyss]], an Oracle - a Chosen with the extremely rare [[chosen:magic:span|talent of manipulating time and space]]. With the help of the [[person:zadireth|modern incarnation of Zadireth]], her husband and chief facilitator, she is trying to spur the Chosen of the Citadel to take up her vision of inevitable war between the Chosen and the rest of takmakind. This will, eventually, include similar kinds of "self-perfecting" alterations to reduce the gap in physical capabilities.