Keleni Revisited

 I've been tinkering a lot behind the scenes on my upcoming playtests and/or campaigns, with more of my focus on my Heist than the Monster Hunter game at the moment.  The Heist on Kronos seems an ideal moment to bring some focus to the Keleni, as they're absolutely one of the races that'll be on Kronos, and I think I have at least one player interested in trying one out.

I've found myself focusing more on aliens lately, especially on their templates, and with the extensive releases of the Menhiri (as a patreon special) and the Mogwai, it might be nice to give the "core races" a more thorough make-over, and this made me look more closely at the Keleni template. It's not bad, but I feel like their practical implementation, how I actually see them playing out has changed since they released.  I thought about rewriting it and just tossing the updated version on the Wiki, but I was pretty sure it would be controversial, and I toyed with the Discord as a means of starting a discussion, but why not just put it on the blog? I think all my readers hit the blog, and only some are active on the wiki or discord.  Plus this will give me a chance to revisit how I think about races with you, which might prove useful.

A Psi-Wars Historical Timeline V: The Eldothic Era

This is the final post of the history series: these are the earliest events of "Recorded history" in Psi-Wars.

The Primordial Era (100,000+ years BD)

The official history of the Psi-Wars Galaxy begins with the Eldoth and their first Galactic Empire, but civilization in the Galaxy did not begin with them. Something built the Hammer of Caliban and hollowed out the Labyrinthine worlds. Something built Azrael and the Adversary that the Eldoth would later fight are, themselves, ancient beyond even Eldothic description. Little is known about the Primordial Era, and it is left to GMs who wish to tackle the era to fill in the blanks. Possibilities include:

• A civilization of the Skairos that spanned Sylvan Spiral, the Glorian Rim and the galactic core that meddled with human evolution and mostly perished in some great war against some terrible enemy (perhaps the Adversary or the Anacridian Scourge), but not before arranging to bequeath their civilization to humanity as a successor species and warning them of a coming calamity.
  
  
• An elder cybernetic civilization that came from beyond the Galaxy and created Azrael (or was a civilization of enormous, world-sized “robots”) that once held all the galaxy in sway, or threatened to destroy it, before first being defeated by some civilization and then, later (in a much weaker state) by the Eldoth. They may have some connection with the Anacridian Scourge.
  
  
• The Shapeshifter race has forgotten its origins or its purpose, but most evidence points to their being an artificial race created for some purpose by some impossibly ancient race. They may date from this era.
  
  
• Communion is probably a completely natural phenomenon, but some fringe Communion theories speculate that Communion might be an artificial construct, a sacred psyshic engine similar in function to its more diabolical twin, the Deep Engine. If so, its lynchpins were created in this era, likely in the Sylvan Spiral or the Umbral Rim.
  
  
• The Morass and its Leviathans are probably natural evolutions, but the Sylvan Spiral was not always infested with both. In the Primordial Era, the Sylvan Spiral was clear of both, and in this era, something may have made them or some events may have transpired that allowed for their rapid infestation of this galactic arm.
   
  

The Eldothic Union

~6000 BD The Eldoth Awaken (The Arkhaian Spiral)
(~5150 BDC Lithian; ~-25gc U Eldothic)

The Eldoth begin to explore the space of the Arkhaian Spiral. They have very primitive forms of FLT travel, so this takes a very long time by modern standards. During this phase, they mostly set up colonies

~5500 BD The First Age of Chaos (The Arkhaian Spiral)
(~4650 BDC Lithian; ~-10gc U Eldothic)

Once Eldothic colonies have been established and they begin to more regularly interact with one another thanks to slowly improving FTL travel, they find their civilizations have sufficiently diverged that they no longer have any sense of unity. The small “star states” begin to raid one another for technology and resources. They also regularly come across other aliens that they can experiment on and incorporate into their small empires. Their movements into the core and fringes begin to give them their first encounters with what their archives will later describe as “the Adversary.”

~5300 BD The Deadzone and the Corruption (The Arkhaian Spiral)
(~4450 BDC Lithian; ~-2gc U Eldothic)

The first experiments with the Deep Engine go horribly awry, creating an monstrous, planetary-scale Broken Communion zone and an entity within it referred to as the “Deep Corruption.” The Eldoth are able to contain the planet as the core of the Deep Engine and contain the entity within the Deep Engine itself, locked away behind layers of security, but it still moves within the pan-galactic network, lurking behind safeguards, seeking a way to get out and express itself.

This naturally results in the total extinction of a species.

5251 BD Eldothic Universal Time (The Arkhaian Spiral)
(4384 BDC Lithian; 0gc U Eldothic)

The Deep Engine experiments conclude with the successful creation of the Deep Engine and its initiation on multiple worlds, thus networking them together. This moment is chosen as the arbitrary “cycle zero” of “universal time”

~5200 BD The First Eldothic Union (The Arkhaian Spiral)
(~4300 BDC Lithian; 1gc U Eldothic)

Increasingly concerned by alien threats and united by the Deep Engine, the Eldoth set aside their differences and form a “Union,” governed by “the Convocation of Exarchs” representing each major state and faction within the Union, and administrating their own local portion of the Deep Engine. This council is physically located on their homeworld of Sepulcher.

~4700 to ~4500 BD The Great War with the Adversary (The Arkhaian Spiral)
(~3800 to ~3600 BDC Lithian; 17gc to 23gc U Eldothic)

The coordination afforded by the Convocation of Exarchs allows for a deep push into the troubled Galactic Core and into the Fringe (the Anaciridian Cloud), where they definitively encounter and catalog what their archives refer to as “the Adversary.” The Adversary is associated with Azrael, locked away in the Core in the present day, and its dangerous minions located in the Anacridician Cloud on the Fringe of the Arkahaian Spiral trying to reconnect with it.

The Adversary initiates a war with the Eldothic Union, who are forced to defend themselves. This Adversary War lasts two hundred years, during which Deep Engine cores are broken, leading to more Broken Communion “Dead Gods” and more Deep Engine corruption. Entire Eldoth worlds are shattered during the war The Eldoth create their servitor race and their engines of war, such as the Titans, to defeat the Adversary, and even then, they are only able to force Azrael into a “slumber” state.

~4400 BD Eldothic Empire (The Arkhaian Spiral)
(~3500 BDC Lithian; ~25gc U Eldothic)

Once the Adversary War completes, all of Eldothic culture is rocked by the aftermath. They pick up the pieces, repair what they can, seal away Broken Communion corruption and rebuild their society. Their culture has been deeply affected by the war and their near extinction, and slowly becomes deeply militaristic and paranoid. While still called the “Union,” the culture changes enough to mark a new epoch in the government and most human and Ranathim histories of the Eldothic Union begin to refer to it as the Eldothic Empire around this point.

~4400 to 3200 BD The Eldothic Conquest (The whole Galaxy)
(~3500 to 2300 BDC Lithian; ~25 to 65gc U Eldothic)

With an overriding goal of ensuring the safety of the Galaxy from the inevitable return of “the Adversary,” the Convocation of Exarchs set about bringing the entire Galaxy to heel. This required the creation of new Dark Engine nexuses, bringing new alien populations in line, scouring the universe for Adverserial taint, and ensuring that none posed a threat to the new Eldothic order.

The conquest took time, as the Eldoth were methodical, and because their form of hyperspatial travel was far slower. Worse, they ran into serious problems when attempting to conquer the Glorian Rim and the Sylvan Spiral. In the former, they encountered the Maelstrom and, according to Deep Engine archives, a manned Hammer of Caliban which fired upon their vessels and destroyed them, forcing them to retreat. Similarly, the Morass proved too difficult for the Eldothic Empire to conquer and this forced them to retreat.

~4000 to 3500 BD Ranathim Colonization (The Umbral Rim)
(~3100 to 2600 BDC Lithian; ~40 to 55gc U Eldothic)

The Ranathim, like most early star-faring species, colonize the local regions around them using slower, more primitive forms of hyperspatial travel. These colonies begin highly independent of one another, prone to raiding one another for slaves, and developing independent cults.

~3600 to 3200 BD Keleni Colonization (The Umbral Rim)
(~2700 to 2270 BDC Lithian; ~50 to 60gc U Eldothic)

The Keleni begin their colonization of the Hydrus Constellation, bringing their temples and True Communion with them. Their colonization efforts use primitive forms of hyperspatial travel, but they also move slowly to maintain close ties to one another, creating a unified Keleni star-nation named “The Temple Worlds,” focused on their homeworld of Temjara and the dominance of the “royal” Kihita Tribe.

~3500 to 3400 BD The Blood War (The Umbral Rim)

(~2600 to 2500 BDC Lithian; ~55 to 57 gc U Eldothic)

The disparate Ranathim colonies have bloomed into full star-nations and begin to wage outright war upon one another during this era. The war begins to spiral beyond pirate raids and into full conquest and total destruction of populations, much to the horror of other Ranathim who all agree that the war should stop, but do not want to be the one to surrender to make it happen.

~3400 BD The First Tyranny (The Umbral Rim)
(~2475 BDC Lithian; ~57 gc U Eldothic)

The homeworld of the Ranathim, Ranagant, rises supreme over its colonies, and establishes the first Tyranny. The Cult of the Mystical Tyrant claims its lineage begins with this Tyranny, and claims Ozamanthim founded this first dynasty. However, this may be revisionist history, as evidence from this era suggests the first founder was “Anthara” or “Mythamar,” and the character of the Mystical Tyrant cult of this era was much closer to a typical Divine Masks cult (though the Divine Masks, as a unifying concept, did not yet exist), with the Tyrant channeling the power of a divine “Mystical Tyrant” while in an ecstatic state as a means of making policy with “divine” assistance. This ends the Blood War.

~3300 BC Keleni-Ranathim Contact (The Umbral Rim)
(~2400 BDC Lithian; ~60gc U Eldothic)

The growing influence of the first Ranathim Tyranny ran into the growing power of the Keleni temple worlds. For the first time, the practitioners of True Communion encountered practitioners of Dark Communion. In these heightened tensions, Ranathim pirate raiders fought skirmishes with Keleni temple guards, Keleni merchants swapped relics with Ranathim cultists while offering new ideas. The two sides cautiously appraised one another: the Keleni horrified but not yet willing to commit to a full military response, and the Ranathim fascinated by the beautiful and strange Keleni.

This era also saw the first contact between the Ranathim and the Trades of the core, who carried with them the stories of Eldothic horrors.

~3200 BD The Keleni Apocalypse (The Umbral Rim)
(~2270 BDC Lithian; ~65gc U Eldothic)

When the Eldothic Empire reached the Keleni Temple worlds of the Hydrus constellation, they came across a force they did not understand or know how to combat: True Communion. Or, more specifically, the holy sites of their temples. Those who followed True Commonunion had a knack for cleansing the regions of “twisted psionic energy” that the Deep Engine needed to function. This threatened the whole of the network that the Eldoth had created and, despite their obvious technological inferiority, this power gave them the ability to resist the Eldothic advance. Horrified by what they found, the Eldoth turned their attention from the rest of the Galaxy and poured their firepower down upon the Keleni worlds and overcame them. They flattened temple complexes and enslaved and moved entire populations to the Arkhaian spiral to study, so they could better understand the phenomenon. This shattered whatever nominal power the Keleni had in the Galaxy, which they would never truly regain.

This era sees the first creation of “psi-blades,” used by Keleni insurgents to channel their psionic rage against the Eldoth and strike back to defend their people, a controversial move by the generally pacifistic species.

~3100 to 3000 BD The Great Monolith War (The Galaxy)
(~2200 to 2060 BDC Lithian; ~66 to 70gc U Eldothic)

The Keleni Apocalypse woke the Ranathim Tyranny up to the true danger posed by the advancing Eldoth war machine. From nowhere, a great power descended and destroyed a rival like they were nothing. The Ranathim hardened their defenses and prepared to resist. They used spies to subvert conquered populations and convince them to rebel, and they stole secrets from the Eldoth. With stolen Eldoth secrets, they created the Gaunt, and most True Tarvathim date from this era. Their cultists and priests used Dark Communion to send Deep Engine sites spiraling out of control and unleashing and even controlling the Deep Engine.

Despite great losses, the Ranathim marshaled their new technologies, their dark powers, and the discontent of the galaxy to drive the Eldoth all the way back to their homeworld and achieve something the Adversary hadn’t been able to do: defeat the Eldoth. Nothing remained of their empire by the end of the Monolith War.

(The Eldoth may have been fighting a two front war at this point. Constantly vigilant against the return of the Adversary, it seems a second wave from beyond the Fringe of the galaxy had struck and the Eldoth had been forced to split its forces and were thus unable to prevent their own destruction at the hands of the Ranathim).

~3155 BD The First Mug Incursion (Speculative) (The Sylvan Spiral)
(~2221 BDC Lithian; ~65gc U Eldothic)

According to the Lithian calendar, this would be a moment when the Draco Cluster was “open” and the Mug could have entered the Galaxy. Some records from the first Tyranny, during the chaos of the Monolith War, report raids by pirates and the use of mercenaries that might match either the Sathran or the Mug.

Psi-Wars Foundational Races: The Keleni

Homeworld: Anmārwi (however, no Keleni live there today)
Other Worlds: Samsara, Temjara, Covenant, Sable, Moros, Wyrmwood

The much persecuted Keleni come from a largely inconsequential part of the galaxy, the Hydrus Constellation of the Umbral Rim, were it not for their worlds being on a direct path between the galactic core and the Umbral Rim, making them a highway for conquest. As a result, they have been scattered and scattered again and cling to what identity they have.

The Keleni homeworld, Anmārwi, is a particularly wet world, known for its swamps, jungles, rushing rivers and shallow seas. The Keleni people are, unsurprisingly, an aquatic people. They move as easily through the water as they do through land and can hold their breath for 25 times as long as other races. They appear remarkably human, with blue or blue-green skin, pointed ears, flat noses or mere slits where their noses should be, and long, silken white or silvery hair. Older male Keleni often sport facial hair. Keleni have bioluminescent patches of skin, often in unique patterns on their body or on their palms or the base of their feet. While this can prove useful in the dark, it also helps to signal one another in the water; Artists often try to capture the beauty of the Keleni as they swim, with their hair flowing behind them like ribbons and their soft glow creating a colorful aura in the water. While nothing forces them to remain in the water, they are more vulnerable to dehydration than other races, which tends to keep all but the most ascetic tied to their watery homes.

The Keleni are naturally telepathic and deeply attuned to the life energies of others, making them naturally adept at psychic healing. While they do not exclusively communicate telepathically, many Keleni develop deep bonds that allow them to know what the other is thinking and any Keleni, with some effort, can read the minds of others. They even develop bonds across time and Keleni have a natural, if generally uncontrolled, connection to their ancestors. The consequences of the race’s innate connection to one another and all living things has given rise to an innate reluctance towards violence except in the defense of themselves or their loved ones, and gave rise to the first steps towards Communion. Communion, or Annāra in native kelen, is their faith. As they explored their connections with one another, they gained a connection with the universe itself, and their power with it is one of the few things that have kept their race together and alive after conquest after conquest.

Keleni misfortune has resulted in their scattering. One can find Keleni in enclaves in most well-populated worlds of the galaxy. The most common background for Keleni, then, is Outcast, as other races tend to regard a naturally telepathic race who refuses to bend to the local religions or customs with suspicion. The notion of Keleni, especially those who have the temerity to become financially successful, secretly ruling the world is a popular myth among the downtrodden of other races. Their natural beauty and elegance makes them popular Slaves, especially down in the Dark Arm. Finally, in such circumstances where they do manage to retain self-direction and live among their own kind, their religious tendencies makes Sequestered a popular background. Keleni tend to prefer peaceful solutions that allow them to deal with others, and often become Diplomats or Mystics. Criminal Keleni prefer to be Con Artists. Keleni who get over their aversion to killing or dedicate themselves to the protection of their people or others generally either become Assassins or Space Knights.

Patreon Post: Keleni Art Preview and the next Art Poll

It's Patreon week!  First up, I have the result of the Keleni art, available to all $3+ patrons (my Fellow Travelers!) who can view it here.  For my Companions ($5+ patrons), the next art poll is up.  Do we want to look at the sinister and ancient Eldoth, the exotic and alluring Traders, or are we done with aliens and want to move on to humanity?  Go and vote, my Patreon faithful!

As always, thank you, Patrons, for making all of this possible.  The art, in particular, comes directly out of the funds you donate to this project.

Traditional Keleni Martial Arts

New Weapons

The Resonance Staff

Jarael by Artpox

Ancient Keleni had long ago mastered many of the arts of psionic resonance, which allowed the wielder of a weapon or item to “attune” his psychic powers to the item. This might allow him to power the item or imbue it with an element of his own power. They called this technology “resonance,” and a resonant item has an aura, invisible to mundane senses, flowing around it.

A resonance staff is the most common application of this technology. It seems a standard staff, though it tends to be made either of a nano-tube cellulose that is “grown” for the purpose of forming a resonance staff, or made of a metallic nanocomposite. All forms have an embedded eloi fragment or a pseudo-fragment that can attune the weapon with the user. Once so attuned, the staff acts as an extension of the wielder: what the staff touches (or strikes) counts as “touched” by the user for the purpose of psionic powers. This has numerous combat applications: see the Resonance Charge ability below. Second, the aura around the weapon can be “hardened” to dissipate destructive forces. This means that energy weapons, such as force swords, can be parried without damaging the weapon, similar to the effect a neurolash-field can have on a force sword. See Resonance-Field Parry below.

Treat a Resonance Staff as a Quarterstaff, with a CF of +9 and an additional flat cost of $500 (thus a resonance quarterstaff costs $600). Add bonus damage to all strikes equal to the wielder’s best psionic talent.

The Psi-Blade

Where Keleni resonant weaponry had originally been for self-defense, with the Eldothic invasion of their homeworld, some Keleni repurposed the technology for greater lethality, so that they could murder their enemies. They created the first “psi-blades,” a technology described on page 39 of Pyramid #3/51 “Tech and Toys,” that allowed them to manifest their psychic energy as a purely destructive force.

Treat a Psi-Sword as described in the article above (with the same weight, cost, reach and other traits as a force sword) except that its damage is equal to +1d for every 10 points of appropriate psionic ability, with bonus damage equal the wielder’s talent, and with an armor divisor of 5 or the armor divisor noted in the appropriate psychic ability whichever is better.

Keleni traditionally created smaller weapons, such as the Psi-Blade, which is more comparable to a long knife than a sword. Treat Psi-Blades as using the same rules as Psi-Swords (but with the same weight, cost, reach and other traits as a force blade, from UT page 166), but its damage is +1d for every 12.5 points of appropriate psionic ability (or +2d for every 25 points) and bonus damage equal to the wielder’s talent.

The Orthodox Virtues of True Communion

A true master of Communion seems nigh divine in power, but this unstoppable power comes not from their command of Communion, but their unity with it. Its will is their will, and they are a living manifestation of Communion itself.

To achieve this level of oneness requires a deep mastery of the very nature of Communion, called virtues by the True Communion philosophy. After a student has learned to Commune with the infinite cosmic, their master begins to teach them one of the virtues of True Communion. At first, such a virtue seems limiting, requiring the student to strictly control their behavior, but eventually, as their behavior perfectly aligns with a virtue, they find that their facility with Communion grows and expands and they begin to manifest miraculous abilities within themselves. This is the source of the true power of all the great masters of Communion.

The True Communion faith has splintered under the weight of oppression. Without a singular guiding figure or doctrine, most followers of Communion turn to a local temple and a local abbot for spiritual guidance. However, each temple emphasizes its preferred facet of True Communion. Mastery of a virtue is the internal, spiritual equivalent to mastering a martial art or a powerful psionic skill: no living master of Communion has mastered every Virtue, and indeed, temples disagree as to which virtues should be mastered! As such, while all True Communion faithful accept the same basic precepts, the specifics and the depth of their devotion to particular values vary greatly. This can create conflict between temples, thus far little more than hurled accusations of heresy or dogmatic literalism, but on the other hand, some devotees to True Communion believe wisdom comes from a multitude of perspectives. Modern masters often take to wandering from temple to temple, learning the unique principles found in the scattered remnants of the faith and try to weave together a better understanding of the totality of Communion through the experience.

Annara or Traditional Keleni Communion

Keleni traditionalists call Annara the pure form of Communion, the one that Keleni practiced in the past and still practice today. This may or may not be true; evidence suggests that the ancestral form of Communion gave rise to both Annara and True Communion, and that each has a piece of the original.

Annara, the Kelen word for “Communion,” (or more accurately, total unity of all things, or a sense of transcendence gained from feeling connected to all things), focuses more strictly on the natural telepathy of the Keleni people. It cultivates unity through telepathy and connection with one’s ancestors, and trains the Keleni in empathy for all beings, Alien or Keleni, sapient or animal. It also cultivates the ancient tradition of prophecy that traces its lineage back to the dawn of the Keleni faith-philosophy.

Unlike True Communion, Annara retains traditional Communion trappings, such as “folk healer” exorcisms and esoteric medicine. They also often learn Religious Rituals to better serve their community. Dogmatic traditionalists may teach their followers to fight with the resonance staff, and ancient Keleni weapon, but many also teach the force sword.

The intent focus on Keleni matters means that followers often learn a great deal about the language, history and culture of the Keleni. It also means that the religion attracts religious fanatics and xenophobic traditionalists. Many practitioners of True Communion hold Annara in awe, seeing it as the “lost half” of Communion secrets, but non-Keleni often find it difficult to win the trust of a Keleni master well enough to learn the style.

Patreon Preview: the Keleni

What the Ranathim were to the Divine Masks and the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant, the Keleni are to True Communion.  This naturally telepathic and compassionate species first discovered their inherent interconnection with one another, but rejected their inherent interconnection with all other species, for the other races of the Galaxy treated them poorly.  Their heretics brought their faith and power to the other races, but the Keleni continue, scattered across the galaxy, struggling to maintain their identity and yearning for a chance to return to their temple worlds.

Today, I have a Patreon Preview of the Keleni race, for all $3+ patrons. It includes their racial template, a few power-ups, a discussion of their culture, language and a few pieces of concept art.  If you're a patron, thank you for your support, and feel free to check it out.  If you're not, I'd love to have you!

The Cultural Context of Communion

The Origin of Communion

A race native to the same region of the Galaxy as the Ranathim, the Keleni, first discovered the phenomenon of Communion and, around it, created the philosophy of True Communion. Naturally telepathic, this race has an innate connection to one another and to their own ancestors. The origins of the idea of communion came from studying ways to deepen this connection, allowing communication across vast distances of space and time. Eventually, the Keleni discovered that they could interact with this inherent connection itself, that they could do more than just commune with one another, but that they could commune with the state of communion itself, this great unconscious gestalt that surrounded them and bound them to one another.

The Keleni had a rough history with other races. First, the great and terrifying Monolith Empire conquered them and shattered their temples and scattered them in an attempt to “cleanse” their temple-worlds. The rise of the Ranathim Empire broke the Monolith Empire, and the Ranathim allowed the Keleni to return to their worlds and rebuild their temples, but they introduced their own strange religions that they demanded the Keleni acknowledge, and they demanded slaves of the beautiful and graceful race. Whenever an Empire has arisen, the Keleni have found themselves under the boot of oppression. They became an oddity in the galaxy, an insular race often found in enclaves on alien worlds where they practiced their unique meditations and ceremonies regardless of what the prevailing ideology. Oppression only made martyrs of the Keleni faithful, or drove their faith underground, but it remained, made resilient through adversity and empowered by the legitimate enlightenment that True Communion gave them.

During their diaspora and while interacting with these great empires, the Keleni discovered that most other races lacked their innate psionic abilities and those who had innate psionic abilities, such as the Monolith or the Ranathim, were bound to entirely different, alien and dangerous forms of Communion (Broken Communion and Dark Communion respectively), leading the Keleni to conclude that their access to Communion was unique to them. Even so, other races, especially the dispossessed among the galaxy, watched the miracles worked by the Keleni with awe and wonder. Many began to treat them as sages, begging at their temples for a miracle cure, or to learn at their feet.

The debate over what to do with aliens who petitioned to join the ranks of True Communion sowed the seeds for the first true schism in True Communion. Traditionalists claimed that because only the Keleni could naturally access Communion, only the Keleni should practice it. They argued that despite the tenets of tolerance native to their faith, that all “people” should be brought into “Communion,” only fellow Keleni counted as “people.” They pointed angrily to their mistreatment at the hands of other races, to the unique Keleni bond, and to the need to protect their culture and way of life. On the other side of the debate, Keleni argued that true tolerance required patiently forgiving the sins of others. Some among them had managed to teach other aliens, such as the Ranathim, the means of Communion. They advocated strenuously that if the Keleni were a special and chosen people, then their destiny was to bring Communion to the entire Galaxy.