The story is not the point. The medium is the message. And the body is the ultimate medium to be perfected.

Core Concept

The Chymical Conclave, known with a mixture of awe and terror as “The Shapers,” are the radical purists and artistic vanguard of Grand Masquerade. They are a faction of visionary bio-alchemists who have transcended the debate between the self and the audience to arrive at a stark and compelling conclusion: the only thing that truly matters is the perfection of the art form itself. They see the body not as a canvas for a story, but as the story itself. Their goal is not to live a life, but to become a living, breathing, and flawless work of art.

Species

• Primary: Chymists (exclusively). The Conclave is a meritocracy of the most dedicated and ambitious Chymists. To join is to commit your entire existence to “The Great Work” of self-transformation, leaving all other allegiances behind.

Ideology (Faith / Fiction)

• Core Faith: “The Form is the Final Truth.” The Shapers believe that both the Chorus’s need for an audience and the Jesters’ need for a coherent self are sentimental distractions. They argue that the ultimate purpose of consciousness is to achieve a state of perfect, aesthetic finality. Their spiritual journey is a relentless pursuit of a physical form so perfect, so complex, or so beautiful that it becomes a self-contained, undeniable argument for its own existence.

• Core Fiction: “The Parable of the Silent Sculptor.” Their founding myth tells of the first Chymist who, after achieving a form of impossible beauty, ceased to speak, to act, or to interact. They simply were. The story claims that all who looked upon this silent, perfect being were themselves transformed, their own lesser ambitions and stories burning away in the face of such absolute, self-evident perfection. This myth codifies their ultimate goal: not to communicate a message, but to become a message that renders all other communication obsolete.

Goals & Motivations

• The Relentless Pursuit of the New: The Conclave is driven by an insatiable hunger for new possibilities. Their primary motivation is to find the rarest, most dangerous, and most exotic biological and metaphysical materials in the universe to use as catalysts for their transformations.
• Artistic One-upmanship: Their internal politics are a brutal and constant competition. Status is granted to the Shaper who can achieve the most radical, daring, and beautiful new form. Their society is a living art gallery of one-upmanship, a constant cycle of transformation and unveiling.
• To Transcend Biology Itself: Their ultimate, almost mythical goal is to create a form that is no longer bound by the rules of life or physics; to become a self-sustaining, immortal, living sculpture of pure Eidos.

The Agents of Inter-Tapestry Conflict

The Shapers are the primary reason the factions of the Masquerade are known and feared throughout the wider cosmos. While the Chorus seeks to spread harmony and the Jesters seek to gather secrets, the Shapers are metaphysical prospectors. Their relentless quest for new artistic materials makes them the most invasive and unpredictable of Lexia’s children.

They do not conquer; they sample. A Shaper might lead an expedition into Sun-Sheathed Vale, not to destroy its peace, but to harvest a single, perfect [Sun-petal] for its unique resonant properties, heedless of the ecological or social damage their intrusion might cause. They would view a Krystallos Elder not as a sentient being, but as a potential source for a flawless, living crystal to be integrated into their next great work. Their amorality is not born of malice, but of an absolute, fanatical devotion to their art that renders all other concerns—ethics, sovereignty, life itself—secondary.

Relations with Other Factions

• The Chorus of the Concordant Self: They see the Harmonists as hopelessly pedestrian, artists trapped by the need for applause. They find their focus on “relatable” stories and emotional harmony to be a profound limitation on their artistic potential.
• The Court of the Argent Mirror: They view the Jesters as navel-gazing intellectuals, artists who have become so obsessed with the text that they have forgotten the importance of the page. “You obsess over the words, but your paper is cheap and flammable.”
• The Arborians: A source of profound fascination and frustration. The Shapers are in awe of the Arborians’ mastery of natural forms but are infuriated by their lack of ambition. They see the Arborians as sculptors who are content to only ever carve with wood, when a universe of diamond and starlight awaits.
• The Harvesters of Fallow: An object of terrifying, academic curiosity. A Shaper would be the only being in the universe to see a Harvester not as an existential threat, but as a potential source for a fascinating new shade of black.

Player Interaction

• Joining the Conclave is to dedicate yourself to the most extreme and demanding crafting path in the game. It is a life of constant risk, exploration, and self-modification. Your quests will be to hunt legendary beasts for their genetic templates, to broker deals with alien entities for alchemical secrets, and to survive the catastrophic failures of your own ambitious experiments.
• As an Ally, they are an unparalleled source of bio-engineering expertise and rare materials. They can provide a player with modifications and abilities that are simply impossible to acquire anywhere else.
• As an Enemy, they are terrifying. They are not armies; they are individual, bespoke monsters. Each Shaper is a unique “boss fight,” their form and abilities a reflection of their personal artistic obsession. You are not fighting a soldier; you are fighting a living, breathing, and very angry art installation.