Our memory is a phantom limb. It aches with the ghost of a stolen sky.

Core Concept

The Still-Blooded are a species defined by inherited trauma and a stolen future. Once a vibrant, dimorphic people whose very bodies changed with the seasons, they were genetically “pacified” into a sterile, unified phenotype by their Amaranthine conquerors. Their existence is now a quiet elegy, a people caught between the peaceful agrarian Faith of their ancestors and the undeniable Fact of what has been taken from them.

Physiology & Biology (The Vessel)

The body of a Still-Blooded is a living monument to a forgotten cycle.

• The Lost Dimorphism: Originally, their biology was tied to the seasons of their homeworld, shifting between a robust, communal “Sun-Season” form and a slighter, more solitary “Shade-Season” form. This natural metamorphosis was central to their culture and spirituality.

• The Amaranthine “Cure”: The Amaranthine, in their obsession with permanence, viewed this fluidity as a genetic “sickness.” They performed a species-wide act of metaphysical engineering, a gene-altering Ritual that locked the Still-Blooded into a single, permanent, and sterile form. Their forms are now elegant but muted, their movements economical, their voices often low and soft. The vibrant biological displays once used in courtship are gone, leaving behind only vestigial traces that manifest as a deep, instinctual ache.

• The sterile gift: Their continuation as a species now depends entirely on the cloning vats and artificial wombs granted and controlled by their Amaranthine masters. They are a people whose future is a carefully managed gift from their conquerors.

Psychology & Society (The Psyche)

The Still-Blooded mind is a garden where memory and grief grow intertwined.

• Core Faith: “Mournful Remembrance.” They cling to the remnants of their ancestral agrarian beliefs: reverence for the land, the sanctity of growth cycles. But this Faith is now tinged with a profound and unshakable sorrow. They believe their very blood has been “stilled,” their connection to the living cycle of the cosmos severed. Their rituals are no longer celebrations of life, but quiet ceremonies of remembrance for what was lost.

• Core Fiction: “The Murder of the Stars.” The historical fact of their subjugation has been transfigured into a poetic, cosmic tragedy. They do not speak of Amaranthine fleets, but of a time when the “stars turned cold and still,” freezing the world in a single, unchanging season. This Fiction allows them to process a trauma too vast for mundane language and elevates their status from mere subjects to the witnesses of a divine catastrophe.

Gameplay Hooks & Tensions

• The Ache of the Phantom Season: A Still-Blooded Incarnation begins with a unique, innate psychological Need: [Cyclical Harmony]. Living in a static, unchanging state causes a slow, accumulating debuff of [Spiritual Attrition], a deep melancholy that can only be soothed by engaging in rituals of remembrance or seeking out places of natural, untamed change.

• The Quiet Rebellion: A central conflict is the choice between quiet compliance and the dangerous hope of restoration. Quests might revolve around seeking out hidden enclaves where the “old ways” are still practiced, or searching for a rumored “genetic key” that could undo the Amaranthine’s pacification, an act that would be seen by their masters as the ultimate declaration of war.

Eidos Generated

• [inherited_trauma]
• [grief]
• [sterility]
• [remembrance]
• [the_stolen_future]