The Sky-Mourners

“Our people were peaceful. We did not conceive of war until the night we looked up and witnessed our stars murdering each other.”

Core Concept

A species defined by inherited trauma and a stolen future. Once a vibrant, dimorphic people, they were genetically “pacified” into a sterile, unified phenotype by an imperial power. Their existence is a quiet elegy, a struggle between the peaceful agrarian Faith of their ancestors and the undeniable Fact of what has been taken from them.

Physiology & Biology

Originally a graceful, herbivorous, and sexually dimorphic species, the Still-Blooded are now uniform. A powerful, gene-altering Ritual performed by their conquerors, the perfection-obsessed Amaranthine, erased their biological dimorphism and rendered them incapable of natural reproduction. Their forms are 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. Their continuation as a species now depends entirely on the sterile cloning vats and artificial wombs controlled by their masters.

Psychology & Society (Faith / Fiction)

Core Faith: A fractured faith of “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: Their central, defining myth is the “Murder of the Stars.” The historical fact of their subjugation during the Amaranthine’s unification wars—a series of orbital bombardments and overwhelming fleet actions—has been transfigured into a poetic, cosmic tragedy. They do not speak of warships, but of constellations turning on one another, of stars weeping fire, and of a night when the heavens themselves taught them the meaning of war. This Fiction allows them to process a trauma too vast for mundane language and elevates their status from mere slaves to the witnesses of a divine catastrophe.

Gameplay Hooks & Tensions

Roleplaying experience steeped in melancholy and quiet defiance: Playing as a Still-Blooded Incarnation is to begin with an innate sense of loss and a deep well of ancestral [grief].

A central conflict between their inherent peacefulness and the simmering rage born of their subjugation: Will a player choose a path of non-violent resistance, clinging to the old ways, or will they embrace the lesson of the “murdered stars” and seek violent retribution?

Their Subjective Interface: for a Still-Blooded it might be muted and desaturated, but could flash with vibrant, warm color when they engage with a Memory of their pre-conquest past, or perform a Ritual of remembrance.

Quests searching for a rumored “cure”: for their genetic condition, seeking out hidden enclaves where the “old ways” are still practiced, or a grand, desperate attempt to reclaim their biological and narrative sovereignty from the Amaranthine.

Eidos Generated

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

Design Notes

Overall Vibe Rating: 8/10

• This is one of my original ideas given a fuller form, I really like this one

• -1 : “Genetic” angle now feels a bit out of place but can be refined and may feel more “in place” over time. We do want a grounded world within Tapestries, so its theoretically a good addition, but there isn’t a lot of similar content yet.

• -1 : Its like insanely sad :P I mean I want intense emotional themes in here but this one is just crushing. Definitely a fit for The Grim Tapestry but for it to work broadly I need to see a light angle into it. As in, how one could view this situation from a positive perspective. Philosophical balance.

• TODO: explore this with a story & find the hope in it