Race - Deep Kindred

Deep Kindred

“To understand them is not to disarm them. It is to kneel beside a mountain and hear it speak.”

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When the world of Sangreal was still pliant as soft clay, the Archon of truth beheld that all things above were made with glory: beasts of fire who leapt from mountain peaks, wingéd creatures who laced the skies with wind-song, and giants of bark and iron who danced upon the plains. Yet below, the earth was hollow and waiting, a promise unfulfilled. And so he went downward, not as a master nor as a conqueror, but as a gardener descending into shadow to tend a seed.
In the caverns beneath, where light had never passed and the stones slept without dreams, he stooped and whispered into the bones of the world. With hands of light wrapped in patience, he shaped the Deep-Kindred—the burrowing wyrm.

The Flesh of Stone, the Blood of Trust
The Deep-Kindred are bipedal, humanoid wyrms  the males standing between 11 and 13 feet tall and the females standing between  9 and 10 feet tall, broad-shouldered and thick-boned. Their silhouettes are unmistakable—part colossus, part monk, part forgotten god. To see one standing still is to mistake them for a statue; to see one move is to forget breathing.
Their skeleton is made of calcite-laced bone, veined with quartz filaments that conduct not only nerve signals but minute vibrations from the world around them. Musculature is dense and slow-burning, optimized for endurance rather than speed. Their strength is titanic—not in burst, but in persistence. A wyrm can dig through bedrock with bare hands and lift collapsed stone pillars from the ruins of old cathedrals. Their joints are reinforced with stone-hard cartilage and flexible silicate discs that shift slightly with emotional state—fear tightens them, calm relaxes them. Their skin is layered dermal armor, a composite of living tissue and embedded minerals. 

Over the course of their life, their skin absorbs traces of the stone they live among—basalt, obsidian, limestone—becoming a map of their journey. In wyrms who remain aligned with Trust, their skin is a polished grey-blue, flecked with runes of bio-luminescence (a soft white or blue glow) which pulse gently during conversation or contemplation. Wither-Wyrms, having fallen into wrath and judgment, show blackened, jagged skin—cracked like volcanic stone, glowing faintly from the fire of the Heartstone within. Injury does not bleed easily. The skin seals itself through mineral coagulation, and scars remain forever, forming rune-like fissures that tell stories without words.

Eyes:
Deep-set and crystalline, layered like a geode. Each eye is capable of sensing thermal shifts, tremors, and moral incongruities (a kind of “truth-sight”).
They do not blink. They simply gaze, long and still.

Hearing:
Rather than ears, they possess internal resonance chambers in their collar and upper chest. These detect subterranean shifts, heartbeats, and changes in voice that mortals cannot perceive.

Smell:
Carried by vapor spiracles in the neck and jaw—these can detect mineral content, emotional pheromones, and even ancient decay.

Speech:
Wyrms speak not from the mouth but from a chest resonance chamber, where voice is formed like a slow bell tolling in stone. Their words reverberate through caves, metal, and dreams.

Brain:
Their neural tissue is intertwined with crystalline memory-strands. They do not forget. Memory is not stored—it is grown.



❖ The Heartstone  At the center of every Deep-Kindred's chest, partially visible beneath translucent chest-plates, is the Heartstone: a bio-crystalline organ that regulates emotion, memory, and moral clarity.
It glows with resonance—blue for peace, white for solemnity, red-gold for wrath.
It responds not just to the wyrm’s own emotions but to those around them.
The white Heartstone only happens when the one of the prophesy is born.
The red Heartstone symbolizes someone with a sadistic mind with poor morals and a evil mind.  


Wyrmlings are born about 3–4 feet tall, already able to walk within days, but mentally infantile. They reach maturity by age 60, and are trained by both parents in memory-discipline, stone-speech, and moral philosophy.

❖ Lifespan and Aging
Average lifespan: 900–1,200 years.
Old age is marked not by frailty, but by deepening resonance—their voices gain depth, their thoughts slow, their judgment sharpens.
Ancient wyrms develop rune-cracks across their skin and glowing rings around their Heartstone—signs of a life heavy with memory.
Some elder wyrms choose stone-sleep: a voluntary hibernation in caverns of silence, awaiting an age when trust might rise again.


✦ The Deep Mythos of the Kindred Below
"All that is hidden is not dark. All that burrows is not blind."
—Inscription from the Gate of Silor-Vaan

❖ The Song Beneath the Stone
In the beginning of the shaping of the world Sangreal, before the stars were counted and the mountains were named, there walked a lesser divinity called the Archon of Trust. He was not made by the demiurge who shaped the world’s bones, but born instead from a single act of sacred belief—a trusting hand offered in darkness, before even language, before even light.
The Archon was not strong in flame or storm. He ruled no sky, bore no spear. But he could not be lied to, and those who stood in his presence found themselves speaking plainly, or fleeing. From his breath came the Resonance, a living vibration that moved through rock and soul alike, sounding falsehood as a bell sounds a crack.
It was in the forgotten caverns of Sangreal’s belly that the Archon took clay and memory, iron and intention, and made the first of the Deep-Kindred—not as beasts, nor soldiers, but keepers. Their purpose was not conquest, but remembrance. Each was a living vow.

❖ The Covenant of Memory
The Deep-Kindred were gifted with the Heartstone, a luminous shard of the Archon's own soul, grown within their chests. It did not merely give life; it gave direction. In it was written the Law of Trust:

Speak only what you mean.
Remember all that is given to you.
Do not break the silence of stone lightly.

For many ages they served beneath the world, keeping the Resonance pure, crafting vaults of memory beneath the mountains, where the oaths of kings, the confessions of the wicked, and the final songs of dying races were stored in crystal.
They were known then as the Silorim, the Faithful Below.

❖ The Shape Beneath the Vow
As wrath grew, a hidden truth surfaced: the Deep-Kindred bore within their souls an ancient, deeper form—the Deep-Form, vast and burrowing, made for flightless survival, not reason. In ages past, before they had language, this was their shape. It was not sin—but it was danger without counsel.
Now, in pain, many returned to that shape. Some did so in battle. Others in grief. And some simply could no longer bear to be misunderstood.
The world above remembers these transformations not as sacred grief, but as monstrous terrors. The Deep-Kindred do not correct them. They simply withdraw deeper into the stone, where false stories cannot reach.

❖ Prophecy of the Stoneborn Heir
Some wyrms—especially the eldest—believe in a coming age when one of the Kindred, born from the womb of a Wither-Wyrm and a Faithful, will walk both worlds. This child, called the Stoneborn Heir, will bear a Heartstone neither blue nor red, but white, and their voice will cause even the Archon of Wrath to pause.
Until then, the Deep-Kindred do not forgive. But they do remember.

❖ Their Creed
Before each battle, at each birth, and after each betrayal, the Deep-Kindred speak these words:
“We are the silence that keeps the oath.
We are the hands that do not strike first.
We are the wrath that does not lie.
We are the stone that remembers.”

Note: One playing this race must make a special character request.

Thank you for the lore submission! I have a few suggestions before I can accept it as part of the lore.

1. 16 - 17 foot tall is extremely tall for the scale of the world of Sangreal. I would suggest an upper limit of 11-12 feet for the larger of the two in sexual dimorphism. Perhaps 9-10 feet for the smaller of the pair. Overall, anything larger than that becomes incredibly unbalanced in the realm of 1v1 roleplay combat.

2. Do wyrms of poor morals have their heartstones turn red? Can the white heartstone be acquired through moral choices or is it only achievable by being born through the 'prophecy' spoken of in the mythos section? 

3. Place a note at the bottom of the document stating that any players using this race must apply for the character using a Special Character Application beforehand. 

Let me know once you have made these edits. Thanks!