¶ The Ceanni
The Ceanni are a major species of Dreamborn that inhabit the Second Shell of Empyrea, known for having established a lawful nation called Ciastris in a portion of the Second Shell dominated by vast, idyllic grassy fields known to its dwellers as the Country. The Ceanni are known as riders, having become experts in handling and taming the dreamborn beasts of the Second Shell. Biologically, the Ceanni are actually composed of two symbiotic species: the organic Ceali and a secondary species of phase matter organisms, the Ceaxi.
¶ Ceanni Morphology
Ceanni are bipedal and tall, with their average height being around 7'. Their skin is hard and much of it is covered in a thin, translucent chitin. Their waists are thin and bony and their chests are triangular in shape, pointing up into a neck and their heads. Their hips are wide and bony and their elbows have a sharp piece of chitin pointing towards their head. Common chitin colors include green, purple, grey, and blue.
Their heads are angled and oblong with chitin mouthpieces attached to their jaws angling upwards across their face into three points; their teeth are sharp, suitable for cutting into meat. They have two sets of two eyes: two larger main eyes set in their eyesockets and a smaller supporting eye underneath. Ceanni eyes have a translucent membrane over them that moistens the eye and protects them from dust and wind, allowing them to move on fast mounts without issue. The top of their heads are protected by a chitin piece angled back into a specific shape such as a point or swirl.
Occasionally, a glowing trace can be seen pulsing through the translucent, soft chitin covering parts of their skin; this is the Ceaxi, the symbiote phase matter organisms inside Ceali bodies. The Ceaxi are typically only seen when the Ceanni are wounded or have a part of them severed, in which a dark-colored gas will appear to seep from the wound and wounds connecting two severed parts, facing the severed parts.
¶ Ceanni Biology
Ceanni are unique symbiote organisms, consisting of an organic Ceali and a phase matter Ceaxi. The Ceali have certain insect-like traits, primary the inclusion of a unique chitin throughout parts of their body. This chitin seems to contain a unique metaprotein called Etharin that, when charged, will partially interact with phase matter, helping to contain the Ceaxi inside of the Ceali body.
The Ceali have no blood on their own, and do not possess heart or lungs. They have a stomach and their liver is unique, containing metaproteins that can bind and neutralize phased toxins or other chemicals. The Ceali lack blood and certain vital organs that would be found on other organisms because the Ceaxi provide much of these functions.
¶ Ceaxi
Ceaxi are a species that share a common ancestors with qarins and amoesmae. Genetically they are more similar to amoesmae (massive phase matter amoebas) while sharing certain symbiotic traits that qarins have, being sustained by energy provided by the Ceali. Ceaxi act as blood for the complete Ceanni organism, a good portion of its phased mass consisting of a phasing meta-metalloprotein called hemoetherin that binds to oxygen that the Ceaxi takes in via diffusion and then binds to, phasing the oxygen and carrying it throughout the Ceali. Ceaxi transport oxygen, nutrients, calories, and can even act as an intermediary nervous system between severed parts of the Ceali body. Ceaxi also have a unique ability to reconnect with parts of itself: if the phase matter connecting a Ceali's severed limb to the rest of its body is severed (such as by a plasma blade that can cut phase matter), the Ceaxi is able to merge back with itself if close enough.
The most prominent ability of the Ceanni are their ability to control any parts of their body that are severed from each other (and survive it). When a part of a Ceanni's body is cut off, the Ceaxi will still be connected to it, passing oxygen, nutrients, and necessary calories to the severed part. The Ceaxi also acts as an intermediary nervous system, passing motor signals in between the severed parts. The existence of the Ceaxi makes Ceanni fairly durable; it is impossible to exsanguinate them and they cannot be suffocated. They can still control severed limbs, and their limbs can even be reattached without complex surgery (literally needle and thread are able to reattach their limbs). Ceanni are injured by damage to their head or the Ceaxi itself, but it is also possible for them to die from organ damage to their liver or other organs.
¶ Control of Severed Parts
Ceanni can control severed parts within 30 ft of them, the Ceaxi capable of stretching itself fairly far like a string. The further a part is from the main body, the easier it is to sever the Ceaxi, and the longer it takes for nerve signals to pass between the parts. If a part leaves a 30 ft radius, the Ceaxi snaps into two different Ceaxi and the part is lost. If the parts are returned within four hours, the Ceaxi are able to merge back together; the exception is the head, in which brain death will occur after 30 minutes.
¶ Cuil Tolerance
Ceanni are partial interlopers; they are able to survive in realspace conditions for around a day before they begin to suffer issues from their Ceaxi, who has trouble carrying oxygen and nutrients and metabolizing in realspace, in addition to performing other tasks such as neutralizing toxins and other waste. After a week of sickness, Ceanni will typically die. Theoretically, it may be possible to allow Ceanni to live longer times or even thrive in realspace through the use of medical technologies, though this has yet to be attempted.
¶ Ciastris
Ciastris is a nation of Dreamborn dominated by the Ceanni and inhabited by some other species of Dreamborn and individual Dreamborn. Ciastris spans across grassy fields and meadows on the bottom of the Second Shell of Empyrea, a region known as the 'Country'. The Country is lit by the Solar Chasms far above it, a leyline that stretches through the Second Layer through stretching beams of intense light that rise through the ground. Though the Solar Chasms are controlled by the Radias Sodality, resistance from Ciastris and the distance from the Second Shell from the First have prevented them from expanding into the Country, leading it entirely occupied by Dreamborn.
The capital of Ciastris is Riders' Heart, a city built around one of the columns of spiralling light stretching into the Solar Chasms. Rough soulstone is used to channel the flux-light of the Solar Chasms throughout Riders' Heart in order to power machinery and to grow bountiful crops that are reliant on exposure to the flux-light, using them to feed their animals. The Ciastrians are experts in animal handling and husbandry, eating slaughtered animals and riding beasts bred for speed and war.
Ceanni warriors are expert riders and cavaliers, using weapons such as spears, lances, or crude thaumic lasers made from soulstone batteries containing the flux-light of the Solar Chasms. Armor is typically heat-resistant in order to protect their Ceaxi, which they believe to be guardian spirits.
Ciastris is a country ruled by law and order, where law is interpreted rigidly by a group of elders and enforced strictly by lawbearers. Much of the Ceanni species encountered are outcasts of Ciastrian society: Exiles.
¶ Ceanni Exiles
There are numerous crimes which are considered 'high' in Ceanni society: murder, acts of corruption, treason against Ciastris, and more. For the worst acts, Ceanni are cut apart and scattered across the Country; for all else, they are exiled. Ceanni exiles are branded as such through the ritual severing of their head from their bodies before they are entirely expelled from Ciastris.
Individual exiles and bands of exiles can be found throughout not only parts of Empyrea, but even in greater parts of the Covenant. Bands of Ceanni exiles are one of the few sources of piracy in hyperspace, much to the ire of the Golden Dawn Covenant. Sometimes, these headless Ceanni exiles even dip into hyperlanes to plunder from realspacers, bringing this otherworldly loot back to their exiled brethren and selling it off for some stone.
Player Option: Ceanni Exile
Recently, a band of Ceanni exiles has been covertly stealing Covenant medical technology and using it to send lone exiles out into realspace to scout, steal, and plunder from realspacers in order to bring back valuable realspacer goods back to hyperspace to auction off to collectors. You are one such exile, sent out with a set of medical prescriptions that allow you to survive (albeit with physical sickness) in realspace. Your goal? Steal objects of interest and bring them back to your band of pirates.