Alkurine

The Alkurine are a race of sentient amorphous flamelike beings from a rogue planet. Their introduction to the intergalactic community of Communoverse has been recent, thanks to the chance collision of a Gol Sehk warship with their planet.

Physical Attributes
Alkurines' will-o-wisp-like flame bodies are between 0.5 to 1.5 meters in diameter, and do not take any shape in particular. They can summon tendrils of flame about 1.5 to 2 meters in length. These tendrils are flexible, being made of flame. Alkurines hover 1 meter off of the ground, and are capable of short range flight at 20 meters altitude.

In addition to their flame bodies, Alkurine are dipped into a ritual vat of ceramic infused clay with a percentage of metallic particles during their coming of age ceremony. This creates a hardened shell that floats 0.3 meters away from the edge of the flame. Young Alkurines will have their shells segmented into four pieces. As an Alkurine grows older, its shell will fracture and break into smaller pieces. A good way to judge an Alkurine's age is to count the number of segments in its shell. An Alkurine's caste is stamped into its shell by carving out the symbol in the shell, then filling it with an osmium/platinum alloy only manufacturable by nuclear blast furnaces or by the Hermit.

Alkurine can make use of modules, which are small reactors built especially for enhancing an Alkurine's natural pyromancy. They appear as small 20cm spheres connected to the main body by a tendril of flame. The average fully adult Alkurine will have two.

Alkurine come in the human-visible spectrum of colors, from a deep red to a bright blue. Violet flames are a rare genetic mutation, and are associated with extreme aptitude in power usage, at the cost of mental instability. They are socially ostracized. White flames are even rarer, and only two will exist at a time (the Emperor and the Hermit.) By far, the rarest is the Arc Spirit type, with a fully spark blue body of ball lightning. Only one Arc Spirit can exist at a time, and often a wide time gap exists between occurrences.

Special Abilities
All Alkurine have innate pyromantic power, referred to as 9um (Calm hollow D3 tone, similar to a monk's Ohm.) More specifically, Alkurine can heat up an area, generate flame, melt objects, and control open flame. Red Alkurines are immensely precise in their 9um, at the cost of power. On the opposite end, Blue Alkurines are capable of generating and converting a vast amount of energy, yet without much control save for direction and general area. Violet and white Alkurines are both precise and powerful, with The Emperor and the Hermit capable of generating heat at the temperature of a fusion bomb. The Arc Spirit cannot convert heat, instead using its super-red precision to utilize the charge already present in its body to make direct electrical contact, similar to a super-powered lightning strike.
 * Red: 100W, precision of 100 nm
 * Orange: 1 kW, precision of 1 cm
 * Yellow: 10 kW, precision of 10 cm
 * Green: 100 kW, precision of 50 cm
 * Turquoise: 10 mW, precision of 1 m
 * Blue: 1 gW, precision of 5 m
 * Violet: 10 tW, precision of 10 cm
 * White: 100 pW, precision of 1 cm
 * Arc: 100 pW, precision of 1 angstrom

Language
Alkurine written language is a glyphic language, with each character composed of three parts arranged in triangular format. This is a translation guide into the human alphabet.

The top part is the note, ranging from C2 (1) to C5 (24.)

The left-bottom part is the tonality, described as such: The measure is found at the bottom right section. Alkurines speak through vibrating the air around their flame body. This is achieved through high-speed heating of pockets of cool air generated by the Alkurine's shell. Reds have quieter, yet more enunciated and pronounced tones, while Blues are loud and slur their speech. Violets and Whites have loud and resonant speech, and the Arc Spirit is born mute.
 * a (sine wave type, flat)
 * e (nasal electric piano sound)
 * i (blip noise, like a synth whistle)
 * o (hollow)
 * u (thrumming hum noise)
 * z (buzzing)
 * g (chime)
 * w (slide, takes two numbers)
 * i (standard tone)
 * t (staccato)
 * m (longer, contemplative)
 * a (accentuated and short)
 * z (liason to the next glyph)

Military
The Alkurine Symphony is the Alkurine military force, used by the Emperor for various tasks, from palace defence to police enforcement to their recent space fleet. Military service is compulsory.
 * Orchestra - the main military task force.
 * Aria - the palace guard.
 * Strings - the police force.
 * Overture - the space fleet.

Society
Alkurine have a feudal social structure, with a bilineal hierarchy. Commoners will often work under feudal lords and nobility as serfs, yet their standard of living is quite decent. Common-born Alkurine participate in a hierarchy that proceeds as follows: Similarly, royalty follows a hierarchy as well. Note that until the rank of Flare Lord, no royalty can give legally binding orders to anyone above Commoner level. The current Emperor is named 8ui-2at-5im. It is about 127 years old at current writing.
 * Outcast
 * Serf
 * Commoner
 * Merchant
 * Honored Citizen
 * Artisan
 * Hero
 * THE Hero
 * Vagrant Royal (50)
 * Lineage Member (???)
 * Initiate (100)
 * Flare Lord (54)
 * Spark Crown (20)
 * Great Flame Pillar (8)
 * Heir (3)
 * Hermit (1)
 * Emperor (1)

Average Life
An unaugmented Alkurine, with no shell, no modules, and no children, will live about 260 years. High quality shells can extend life by over a century, whereas low quality shells will reduce life thanks to unstable clays. Modules extend life by ten years each. Children drain a total of 100 years from the pool of contributors. At 10, the Alkurine commoner comes of age.

At 10, an Alkurine in dipped into the ceremonial clay, and obtains its first shell.

At 20, the Alkurine enters the Alkurine Symphony and earns its first module. At 21, it has a choice of which part to enter.

At 40, the Alkurine can exit the Symphony and go to its family, to serve a lord, or to continue military service. It also earns its second module.

At 100, the Alkurine may come to the capital and begin training to become a Hero, or continue on its normal life.

At 200, if it has not died in battle or of old age, the Alkurine may settle down on a pension, automatically becoming an Honored Citizen if it had been a lower rank.

Religion
About 72% of Alkurines worship the Vast Chime, which is the force they believe gives them life and power. They believe that the Arc Spirit is the incarnation of an echo of the original Vast Chime. The Emperor embodies the strength of the Chime and the Hermit embodies the wisdom.

24% of Alkurines believe in the Chroma, a 'pantheon' of fifty thousand spirits which all hold equal standing with each other. None may be named, and when depicted, they are shown as prismatic obelisks. They respect the Emperor and the Hermit, but do not believe they have any divine power. The Arc Spirit, to them, is nothing but a rare mutation.

4% hold no faith.

Homeworld
The Alkurine homeworld is called 8zz-66M. Humans would pronounce it Iaht, leading to its translation. among races that do not speak Alkurine. It is approximately 0.8 Earth masses. The planet is a rogue planet currently in the Triangulum galaxy, heading towards the Milky Way. It is metal-rich and massive, with 1.6 Earth Gs. It has a molten core of iron and magnesium, creating a set of formidable Van Allen belts which shield the planet. The atmosphere is 45% oxygen, 40% nitrogen, and 15% other gases. It has 9 continental plates.

Iaht is 98% dry land and 2% water. Thanks to the low percentage of water, a vast majority of Iaht is dry stone and canyon and mesa topography. Additionally, the erratic magnetic activity directly affects the mantle, causing heavy seismic activity around the continental fault lines.

As the Alkurine have been around for an extremely long time (circa 5000 years before Laputans achieved space travel,) their planet is extremely developed. Not a single square metre of the planet is undeveloped, with temples and sculptures covering the terrain. Whenever anything is destroyed, there will always be an Artisan to rebuild it better and stronger.

Since Alkurines are made of literal fire, there are no trees on Iaht, per se. Instead, oxygen is formed through phytobacterial pockets present from common underground vents within porous rock.

The current population of Iaht is about 4,000,000,000. The current distribution of colors is in a rough dual-peaked bell curve (peaks at orange and turquoise.)

Notable Individuals
The Emperor is, as a human emperor, the supreme ruler of Iaht and the Alkurine masses. It is seen as a great military force on its own and is even sometimes revered as a god.

The Hermit is the Emperor's "opposite" and lives in a small hut on the geographical opposite side of Iaht from the Emperor's sprawling palace. It is consulted by everyone as a sort of "wise man," and is considered a brother to the Emperor, despite its modest life.

The Hero is relied upon to right wrongs, fight for the commoner, exact justice, and essentially live up to the Wuxia "commoner hero" archetype. The Arc Sprit is expected to be The Hero. Arc Spirits are born to common Alkurines, after all, and the Emperor does not interfere with its upbringing until it is of age. Yet, the role of The Hero is not just for Arc Spirits. Some Violets, Turquoises, and even especially intelligent and creative Yellows have taken up the mantle of The Hero at one point or another.

Heroes, as opposed to The Heroes, are simply military leaders or powerful soldiers who are expected to fight for the common good. They are specially trained in the Palace, and answer only to the Emperor, the Hermit, and The Hero.