Fleshcarved

Small and sturdy Higher Beings, known for making permanent modifications to their bodies. There are two major factions of fleshcarved, the Runebearers and the Cogbloods. Runebearers focus more on metals with runic inscriptions embedded in their flesh, while Cogbloods are more technologically minded, creating machines merged with their bodies.

Appearance

Fleshcarved are generally fairly short, with even the tallest individuals not reaching more than 1.5m in height. They usually have broad shoulders and fairly strong muscles even from birth. Fleshcarved also have lots of body hair, in particular do most of them have big and long beards, often letting it grow for their entire lifes.

But the most significant identifying feature of Fleshcarved are the body modifications they perform on themselves. Their cultures already tend to be fairly advanced, producing many expert smiths and engineers. Apart from building much complex machinery and being expert craftsmen, they also spend a significant amount of time modifying their bodies.

This has led to two distinct factions within the Fleshcarved, the Runebearers and the Cogbloods. Runebearers focus more on smithing and arcane inscriptions and enchantments, while Cogbloods prefer more technological creations such as vehicles and other machines. Those convictions then also carry over into their own bodies. Runebearers often implant steel right into themselves, turning their skin into armor or even implanting weapons directly into their arms. Cogbloods, on the other hand, improve themselves with custom technologies such as mechanical eyes or mechanical arms and legs.

Ryxos' Curse

While Fleshcarved have always been somewhat into improving their bodies, crafting armor and other helpful tools, the influence of Ryxos slowly transformed this into an obsession. Fleshcarved have an intrinsic compulsion to perfect themselves, pushing their minds and bodies further than biology would allow.

They are never satisfied, no matter how many improvements they have made on themselves, leading to more and more modifications compulsively added on top of existing ones. For some this leads as far as replacing their entire bodies over time, being not much more than a brain in a mechanical or arcane shell built spefifically for them. These modifications also often incur heavy pain, not only when being implanted but even over time, the pain pushing them to try and improve their implants more and more, leading to even more pain.

Cultures

Broadly, Fleshcarved culture can be split into the two major cultures of the Runebearers and the Cogbloods. with Runebearers living mostly in or under mountains, digging deep caverns and mining various minerals and metals, while Cogbloods live in flying cities in the sky, perfecting both their environment as well as themselves.

In the early days of their history, all Fleshcarved lived in various underground caves and tunnels mostly carved by themselves, where the Runebearers still live to this day. Back in these days, the city of Grundarimm deep in the Infernal Crown was one of the largest Fleshcarved cities acting as a large cultural and technological center. Even back then, the Fleshcarved already had sophisticated methods of smithing, and already discovered Volkanium, the first metal that was used in enhancements of their flesh, in a method that came to be known as Infernal Welding. At the same time, many Fleshcarved were also working on different technologies, in particular flying machines, allowing them ton conquer not only the depths of the ground but also the skies.

During that time, the influence of Ryxos made itself known, pushing the Fleshcarved to focus more and more to "perfect" their bodies in various ways, pushing themselves further and further, often as far as them losing their minds and attacking others and causing chaos among them. Over time, many of their old cities, especially Grundarimm, started to fall apart dispersing their inhabitants around Moonspire.

At this time, Runebearers and Cogbloods diverged significantly, the Cogbloods moving into the skies, hoping to escape the horrors they have endured underground by moving far away from them, while Runebearers wanted to keep the remnants of their old cultures and started rebuilding and expanding old settlements. Neither of these groups could really escape what came to be known as the Fever of the Deep. To this day, there are still many Fleshcarved that take their bodies too far in the pursuit of perfection, but over time ways of mitigating the danger were found.

Cogbloods

When the Cogbloods took to the sky, they mostly stayed in fairly small communities, usually not more than one or two families. These sizes are mostly determined by the size of their ships. Many Cogbloods get raised inside their families ships, either staying there for most of their lifes, or getting their own ship once they grow up and go on to have their own families. But there are also a few larger communities, the two largest being Skyhaven and Stormhollow. These cities drift over the skies of Moonspire often without a fixed destination, only making sure they stay over the lands in case there is a need for an emergency landing. If these two cities meet each others in the skies, it is a cause for great celebration. They will attach to each other, initiating a long holiday, lasting for multiple weekd, before the cities once again detach from each other.

There are still a few of the Cogbloods that returned to the ground and live within other communities of higher beings, often in Aethera or Geargrave.

Runebearers

As opposed to the Cogbloods, the Runebearers decided to remain underground, keeping their old traditions alive and continuing to work on their smithing and enchanting works as before. Only Grundarimm was never repopulated, for some out of respect for their dead ancestors, for others because they believed there to be more danger. Instead, many new Runebearer cities were created, many in the image of Grundarimm, reaching deep underground into large rooms carved out of the stone.

Inside these sprawling halls, they then construct marvelous cities, with enourmous stone pillars and giant stone statues. The cities are then usually connected to a mining network, reaching far underground, where they mine out precious minerals and ores. They are then brought to giant blast furnaces built right into the mountains, creating the purest metals available. The metals are then crafted into the finest weapons, armor and jewelry, sought after by all of moonspire.

Religions

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the main gods Runebearers pray to is Volkaa, the god of iron, the forge and volcanoes. Within their halls they erect giant statues made from the rarest metal in his honor, decorated with the finest jewels. where priests perform ceremonies in his honor.

Cogbloods, on the other hand, are generally less religious, but many of them sill worship Calzareth, the god of invention. They believe he allowed them to unlock the secrets of science they then used to create all their inventions and societies.