Part IV

Peoples & Creatures

Humans

Created by Resh in his own image, after the people he lost when his kingdom fell (WBR). The dominant people of Gaiadra.

The Resh Prologue names the first human as Isen, raised from Gaiadra’s soil after decades of refining the design (intelligence, memory, emotion, curiosity, compassion — proportioned with care so that “ambition without wisdom” wouldn’t destroy them). Resh deliberately created humans without resonance. Three founding human branches were seeded into three environments: the winged Shry’kar in Altera’s peaks and islands, the plains-farming Gaiadrans, and the underground Luminarans of Luminara’s deserts. (The Giants come later — see IV.5.)

Dragons

Origin: Dragons were created by Resh — they are not naturally occurring. The first dragon was Orrisyn (see VI.5), made to solve several problems at once (Obsidian Tower breaking the atmosphere; the Tower’s histories needing protection; Resh needing to travel Terrindral; Resh wanting a companion).
Resonance: All dragons have natural resonance with Streacresh, built into them by Resh at creation.
Dragonsong: see III.7 — only some dragons have it; it requires interaction with an Ascendant.
Lifespan & size: Dragons do not die natural deaths. They grow indefinitely until their bulk outstrips available food. The older the dragon, the larger.
Dragon King: the title is legitimized by a dragon’s relationship to the Ascendant, not by size or age alone; with no Ascendant there can be no legitimate king. The line (see #10): Orrisyn (legitimate under Resh) → interregnum (no Ascendant) → Tavoryx (an illegitimate interim claim that divides the Cliff Dragons) → Akrin (condemned → acquitted → elected by dragonkind on its old-guard/new-guard divide, then formalized by Estaria the Ascendant, uniting dragonkind; deposed only when Estaria later abandons his Resh wa’ Toivori duties — v9.25).
Tower duty: Dragons without dragonsong still guard the Obsidian Tower physically. Singing and guarding are separate roles.
Manuscript convention: Orrisyn’s dialogue is rendered in bold — reserved for Orrisyn alone, not dragons in general. (Streacresh’s dialogue is rendered in italics. These two formats are reserved and exclusive — see the Authorial Voice Reference.)

The Shrykar / Shry’kar

A winged, avian people of Altera (Synopsis). The dominant island-nation power (Shry’kar of Kar) is described in detail in the Altera Notes (see II.4). In Book One, the Shrykar arrive after the Vulmarian dirge and declare that killing Estaria is the only way to silence it. Later, the final Qualtendra forges an alliance with the Shrykar to end the Vulmarian Wars. (Spelling/identity flagged in #4.)

The Resh Prologue (spelling Shry’kar) shows their origin as one of the three founding human branches — winged, settling Altera’s high peaks and cliff-faces — and establishes their territorial, warlike nature early: they expand aggressively onto the Alteran mainland, burning the coastal villages of un-winged human settlers, while Resh refuses on principle to intervene in their free choices. This seeds the institutional cruelty the Synopsis later attributes to the Shrykar.

Ascendant / Book Two (spelling Shry’kar throughout) makes them the dominant power of Altera and develops their culture and military in depth:

Wingspan = social status. Wing-morphology determines role (compact/precision, broad/endurance, diving, power); the wingless or small-winged are slurred as “softbody” / “Groundling.” Wing-touch is the bonded-pair gesture.
Military: an elite aerial corps, the Stryyke Wing, based at the Aerie (a basalt cliff-stronghold). Commander Kess later forms the Ember Guard specifically to hunt the dragon Akrin. Harboring a dragon is treason on Altera.
Anti-dragon culture: the Shry’kar believe dragons burned their rookeries at Skyhold ~300 years ago and hunt them. Qualtendra calls this propaganda — “there’s never even been a dragon on the mainland” — born of jealousy of the Concordian navy’s dragons. They drove the Stol’gard off Altera in the ancient land-bridge war.

The Vulmarians

Creatures of living magma who tend crystal farms inside Volcanus (Synopsis). The Authorial Voice Reference establishes them as gentle crystal-farmers — the crystals are mineral-delivery vehicles they grow and send downriver so that soil across Terrindral stays alive (magma carries mineral density only so far). Taking a crystal is harmless — it’s produce. The catastrophe of Book One is not the harvest; it is Estaria, broken by the volcano, misreading a peaceful Vulmarian as a threat and killing it. The Vulmarian dirge rises in its wake — mourning and curse in one, demanding blood before it can end — and triggers the Vulmarian Wars that span the later books. (See V.2 and VII.)

Origin (Resh Prologue): the Vulmarians were deliberately created by Resh, Streacresh, and Orrisyn together as a counterbalance to humanity’s drain on the Throne — basalt-skinned, bioluminescent, multi-limbed creatures who process volcanic rock to release minerals into the soil and act as “living pressure valves,” preventing catastrophic eruptions. They were designed to be insular and non-expansionist. The dirge first arose when miners destabilized Volcanus’s pressure points: the Vulmarians’ resonance evolved a binding song that compels its singers to pursue the threat to the death — even Vulmarians who try to abandon the chase are struck down by it. They came to treat the dirge as a sacred last resort. (This origin firmly supports the “gentle stewards” reading: the catastrophe is always the provocation*, never the Vulmarians.)*

Ascendant / Book Two confirms the Vulmarians directly: basalt skin with glowing cracks, dwelling beneath Volcanus, tending the crystal gardens and guiding minerals along the lava flows so eruptions stay “regenerative rather than catastrophic” — “they literally shape the lifeblood of Terrindral.” They are explicitly named the true “Treasure of Volcanus” the monastery exists to protect (overturning the Keepers’ belief that the crystal is the treasure). This upgrades the Emberlight/Treasure material in V.2 from “tentative” toward confirmed. The dirge mechanic is sharpened in the Beat Sheet: it has always collected its blood underground, so no surface-dweller has ever survived to learn the Vulmarians can be violent — which is why Estaria’s escape (not his kill) is the true catastrophe.

Giants

Listed among the inhabitants of Altera (Synopsis).

Origin (Resh Prologue): the giants were once ordinary Gaiadran settlers who sailed to Altera and landed beneath its towering coastal cliffs — where an unprecedented, prolonged exposure to Obsidian Fall (see II.6) transformed them, leaving them as tall as the cliffs themselves. Resh, holding to his rule of non-interference, let them find their own way (his concern was the strain their multiplied appetites would put on Altera’s ecology).

The giants are the Stol’gard (Ascendant / Book Two). Book Two names the giant race the Stol’gard and gives a matching origin: a people mutated to giant size and aggression by Obsidian Mist from the growing Obsidian Tower. See IV.7 for detail. (Minor divergence to reconcile: the Prologue calls them Gaiadran settlers who sailed to Altera, while Book Two has Streacresh describe them as originally human and made/living on the Altera side — both agree they were human and were transformed by the Obsidian Mist/Fall.)

Sentinel

An ancient guardian within the Gaiadran forest (Synopsis). When Estaria enters, Sentinel is locked in battle with a manifestation of Estaria’s own grief made physical; Estaria drives it back and earns Sentinel’s trust. Sentinel then leads him to the obelisks — five obsidian obelisks, of which four are the numbered tests (arranged in a square: 1 = Leona, 2 = Orin, 3 = Klindon/mother, 4 = Angel). The fifth obelisk is not a test — it shows Estaria every potential resolution of the five tests: possible life after possible life, ending after ending, culminating in the one where he turns away and lets Terrindral burn. (Founder ruling, v9.25 — supersedes the “shows the other resonants” reading; archived.) The fifth test is complacency — not an obelisk and not resolved in Book One: it is an ongoing test that does not resolve until the final book (v9.27 — corrected from “Book Five”; “Book Seven” in the current working numbering, total count still open per #11), which Streacresh finally names at the last confrontation. (Founder ruling, v9.24: there are five obelisks — four tests plus one non-test — and the fifth test (complacency) is ongoing to the final book (v9.27). This supersedes the earlier audit note of “four obelisks + the grove, not five.”) (see VII). “An ancient forest guardian who owes Estaria nothing and demands honesty in exchange for passage.”

Manuscript (Echoes): the Sentinel is a massive bark-skinned, amber-eyed guardian woven of branch and root, bound to the Streacresh Forest by its very essence — it cannot leave without withering. It guides and protects Estaria through the five tests, hunts food for him, and carries him when he collapses; Estaria nicknames it “Woody.” The “manifestation of grief” it battles is the shadow-creature — Angel’s pet ferret, transmuted into a void-like predator — undone in Chapter 37 (between the 2nd and 3rd obelisk-trials) when Estaria empties his grief-laden dagger and the blade splits in two. At the end the Sentinel returns to guard the grove rather than follow Estaria out. (In the manuscript it is briefly given its own POV.)

The Stol’gard (Giants)

(From Ascendant / Book Two. These are the “Giants” of IV.5.)

What they are: a race of giants (~20–30 ft tall), stone-eyed, armored, the original inhabitants of Altera. Extremely territorial and warlike; they speak a tongue that “rumbled like distant thunder,” and carry a notorious stench (attributed in-story to later inbreeding).
Origin: per Streacresh, they were originally human, then mutated to giant size and an unplanned “aggressive streak” by the Obsidian Mist (the growth-accelerating fallout from the Obsidian Tower; = Obsidian Fall, II.6). This matches the Prologue’s giant-origin (see IV.5 for the minor divergence on where they began).
History: they built the land bridge (massive carved stone, reliefs of their battles and coronations) and warred with the winged Shry’kar over Altera — the land-bridge war (depicted in Stol’gard murals: giants vs. Shry’kar “angels” and dragons). The Shry’kar ultimately took Altera; the Stol’gard now hold a great cliff fortress at the bridge and patrol it. Some Stol’gard were magically frozen (curse-suspended) for millennia — Estaria frees one in Book Two, at the cost of a half-mountain Echo Rot scar.
Named lore: a Stol’gard carving titled “Grolnak’s Last Stand” (dated “third century”) appears in their cliff art.

[Spelling — RESOLVED] Stol’gard is official (apostrophe); stolgard is an accepted shorthand.

Current Stol’gard society & numbers — RESOLVED (Founder, v9.18). Once the primary race of Altera, the Stol’gard were driven off the continent by the Shry’kar wars and pushed across the land bridge; they now hold the Gaiadra side (the Wardgate region), wedged between the land bridge and the protective buffers around the Streacresh Forest. They number fewer than 1,000. They roughly hold their population, but reproduce a touch too slowly to outpace the losses of the ongoing Shry’kar war — so their numbers grind very slowly downward under that attrition.

NC Codex species note: the Stol’gard are 20–30 ft tall humans, the original inhabitants of Altera, with a culture built around intricate stonework (the carvings/murals on their few remaining strongholds). Driven off the mainland by the Shry’kar and now fighting to reclaim it; physically imposing but outmatched by Shry’kar numbers and aerial maneuverability.

Peoples of Luminara & Fenhaven

The Lirakesh (“Kesh”) — (roles corrected per Founder ruling, #5/#23, v8.13) the original people of Luminara and its dominant culture: the underground dwellers and artisans (the glassworkers of Iridescia, the engineers of Thermolith). They are the Prologue’s generic “Luminarans.”
The Liraquellen (“Quellens”) — (roles corrected per Founder ruling, #5/#23, v8.13) a later people who moved topside to harvest resources for shipment down to the underground; they live in small communities clustered around the underground entrances (e.g., the abandoned Windy Plains above Thermolith). (Supersedes the earlier NC-derived description, which had the Liraquellen underground and the Lirakesh on the surface — reversed; prior version retained as record per Article II §8.)
The Pirates (“Easterners”) — the people of Fenhaven, often escaping something from their past; they fight with guerrilla naval tactics and are not necessarily seen as villains. Captain Vaelor (one-eyed, ship The Sea Serpent) is one such captain who helps Estaria escape Altera. (Concord’s navy once drove the Fenhaven pirates east.)

NC Codex species notes for the established peoples: the Vulmarians are humanoid with a basalt-like exoskeleton, glowing cracks, multifaceted eyes, and digitigrade legs; lithovoric (rock-eating, occasionally scavenging meat), geothermal-dependent, isolationist, and not natural fighters. The Shry’kar are winged humans created by Resh, originated on the island Kar off Altera’s east coast, then invaded the mainland and drove off the Stol’gard.