Elyrians

A reclusive sentient species content to stay in their corner of the universe, Elyrians are a rare sight to see outside of their solar system and traveling the universe at large.

The Elyrians are a bipedal race not unlike Humans in general physique. The most noticeable difference would be that Elyrians have large fur-covered ears ranging from long upright ears to a flopped version. They also sport tails that average more than half their body length with varied fur lengths and colors depending on subspecies. The range of skin tones for Elyrians go from a greyish white, pinker hues bleeding into richer browns, to dusty purples, and deeper purple. Hair colors range across the spectrum with grey, white, green, yellow, red, and blue in varied hues. Eye color runs the gambit of colors, or a blending of two as well.

Heights on average for Elyrians are 4'5’- 5'6", with the males prone to be shorter. Physically Elyrians are slim built creatures with extra bulk in their legs/lower back due to muscle and tail placement.

Elyrians are a race of creatures similar to Humans in many features, but the ears and tail of the Elyrian set them apart. Elyrians are warm blooded , bipedal mammals who evolved from creatures similar to Earth’s own Supraprimates, leaning towards a visual combination between the visuals of a Lagomorpha and Euarchonta called a Candalo.

Elyrians are omnivores that became the apex predator of their planet not due to an aggressive hunting nature, but based on their community driven ways along with their ingenuity. Conversely, they evolved from carnivores that slowly moved to omnivore behavior when migrating out of their original habitat. The Candalo were rather lazy predators, prone to lure prey with bioluminescent rather than actually hunting anything down in the darkness. This cave-dwelling creature has led to the Elyrians to evolve with wider set eyes that still retail a slight bioluminescent glow to this day.

Elyrians have amazing hearing and a unique take on it, as in they can hear the very molecules vibrating within objects.

In reality, this means white noise is a constant for an Elyrian. Their brains naturally filter all of these minute sounds around them as more hums, static, or even melodies depending on the complexity of the object. Each individually constructed creature or object has it’s own signature wavelength, or song as the Illirians like to romantically call it. This does help an Elyrian pinpoint objects or people they recognize in an area around them without having a line of sight

Things born of nature have a more soothing song to an Elyrian, while created objects can be jarring when not shaped by an Elyrian. The more pieced together or ungainly created an object in, the higher dissonance in it’s song to an Elyrian. Those objects formed naturally sooth due to the construction being wholly organic.

Due to this, all objects an Elyrian builds or shapes are intentionally constructed to have melodies related to the object. Beds have soothing songs, while something like a sculpture or painting will be oriented to the mood trying to be evoked.

It’s said that 90% of the reason Elyrians as a whole are so anti other sentient species is the fact that the first ships that visited might as well have been blaring to what amounted to children banging pots and pants together while screaming.

Elyrian’s keen hearing means they can pinpoint and track anything they’re hunting relatively easily. This dates back to the creature they evolved from as it’s main hunting method was methodically picking out and stalking prey within dark caves. The catch is they’ve actively got to focus on this to do so.

To an Illiarian, the worst possible thing is to lack hearing. Those with no voices still can communicate visually and those with no sight still may hear the world around them and the vibrations of objects still allow them to even ‘see’, but to be deaf?

To be deaf means to never hear life itself. To have no hearing to an Illirian is to be disconnected to a major part of their society and the world as a whole.

Certainly children born deaf don’t know what they’re missing and lead happy, productive lives, but those who lose hearing in an unnatural way? Many are unable to deal with the sudden silence of the world around them. Depression is a major issue with those who lose their hearing and more often than not many will commit suicide. The lack of sound and the connection that sound brings can drive many Illirians insane and death seems a favorable alternatives.

The metabolism of Elyrians is extremely high. On average, an Elyrian will eat about six meals per day with snacks in between. Their sleep cycle actually is in 3 hour increments on average where they’ll wake up for a quick bite or heavier meal before going back to sleep. (9 hours being the average sleep for an Elyrian)

An Elyrian can only live without food for about a week and a half, depending on muscle and weight.

Given that food is such a high priority for survival, restaurants, stores, and such often have a stipend from the government to give food to those in need. Extra meals are freely given to those who can’t afford them or simply need the help. Meal plans are a staple of the education system for children as well, with breakfast, lunch, and snacks being provided for all children in school.

The sharing of food is a global norm for Illiarian, to the point of refusing to share food is a massive insult.

As a whole, Elyrians are an optimistic and inquisitive people who strive for the betterment of their own. This altruistic nature cuts short of anything beyond the borders of their home world, as beyond that everything more often than not has a jarring song.

Communal living is the norm for Illiarians with communities growing from one extended family and their relations. Because of this, homes for Illiarian are often sprawling and interconnected with other buildings to keep the families linked. This leads to some rather inventive or messing city planning, but Illirians make due. Cramped quarters means further closeness and privacy is overrated to an Illirian.

When Illiarians come of an age to venture from their families for education purposes, more often than not they’ll end up heading to Colleges with childhood friends or institutes where other relatives already are pursuing education. That need for a connection drives them to only embark to new places only if a familiar face happens to be there. In these environments, students are prone to make their own community units that often either last into Adulthood in new locations or end up integrating into their family communities.

This does lead to communities being too much of one family. Due to this, it’s tradition to send young adults off to explore the world. Many seek higher education, internships, or often take a few years to explore all of Illiria before finding a place to settle down themselves.

Illiarians who live off planet, disconnected to great swaths of life and surrounded by the silent void of space often get similar symptom of depression and related mental illnesses, with suicide being chief among them. It’s one reason why Illirian space travel as a whole has only been contained to their own solar system, or why the Kaemes outpost is so concentrated with life in one area, instead of spacing the settlements out across the entire moon.

It can be said that primitive Elyrians literally crawled out of caves before roaming far and wide across Elyria. Many tribes of ancient Elyrians fanned out across the three continents and islands. Culture sprung up and city building began when Elyrians discovered their innate ability to manipulate the worlds around them. This helped spawn coexisting with nature and the life around them where Elyrians settled.

As with any sentient species, wars broke out among conflicting nations but the community-driven nature of the Elyrians began a quicker embrace of globalization than most, which keeps conflicts small.

This also aided in an exchange of technology between nations that soon led to rapid growth to the point Elyrians gained intergalactic space travel capabilities. Their first goal was to set up an international space station followed by colonizing their moon, Kaemes. The Kaemes colony is currently limited to one city as its full support has been cut off due to recent events. Prior to its cut off, the Kaemes colony became more of a resort and vacation spot for Elyrians, even sporting a theme park, and many Elyrian-made beaches that are now in disrepair.

It wasn’t until recently that Elyrians made contact with other sentient species while exploring their own solar system. There was a backlash related to this that had the all Elyrian nations shutting their doors to non-Elyrians living planet side. This has led to all launch pad operations being shut down, except for one single island now considered neutral territory between nations.

The only safe space for non-Elyrians in their system would be on their moon, Kaemes. There, other species are free to live and trade with the Elyrians who have renounced citizenship of Elyria itself on the city now known as Elsewhere. The International Elyrian Space Station still operates at full potential as more of a watch dog to prevent any non-Elyrian entities landing on the planet’s surface.

The culture of the Elyrians is one focused on family, community, and sharing among themselves. They have a great respect for their planet and safeguarding it from the outside universe as a whole.

• Elyrish Prime
• Temkesh
• Altese
• Cadelish

Music is an integral part of Elyrian society. All major life events such as births, weddings, and death have songs composed for each. The more traditional Elyrian songs are vocalizations that are intended to convey the emotion of the event through the sung vocalization over words. Modern leading works will contain lyrics, often comissioned by songsmiths. Those in Elyrian culture with a decent enough writing ability may gain some claim to fame through becoming a Songsmith.

Elyrians comparatively have heightened smell and sight as compared to Humans, with an advantage in low or no light. They have an advantage in balance with their tails and are prone to be agile, adept at scaling and climbing objects.

Their sense of hearing is so great that they can detect the actual vibrations of molecules that simply becomes white noise their brain filters out. This ability to sense the vibrations within objects pairs with the ranged of sound Elyrians can make with their vocal chords to manipulate organic matter. This can be as encouraging sudden plant growth, or with enough training an Elyrian can move certain organic matter en mass.

This ability to coax plants to grow at accelerated rate has allowed the Elyrians to keep food in abundance for themselves and the domesticated animals they keep. This has been reflected in their culture with less conflicts over resources and land grabs.

Stamina for long distance running or any lengthy physical activity isn’t something an Elyrian has, as they are more creatures prone to bursts as far as excessive physical labor goes. Marathons aren’t something that ever hit it off in the Elyrian culture.

• Elyrians view going deaf as the worst possible thing.
• They have no defined terms for sexualities.
• An Elyrian that’s either hyper focused or zoned out is relatively easy to sneak up on.
• Gendered pronouns aren't used for children, only adolescents once they choose their own.
• Due to their acute hearing, Elyrians can tell when they lie. As a culture they've linguistically evolved to skirt around the truth when needed.