Welcome to the Codex! Every Friday, we will focus on one topic from one of the upcoming books, or one of the books that have been published. The Codex will review what is commonly known about that topic in the world, even if just at a scholarly level. There will still be mysteries, but if you are interested in learning more about something you read in the book or in another blog post, the Codex is the way to go.
The Twin Worlds are home to a plethora of intelligent species, and in most cases, their origins are lost to the mists of time. How did the athawa, the kronala, the du'a naerist or the nurain come to be, for instance? Lack of historical knowledge (after the careful purge on the part of the Ledhrorn) means that the reason behind the multitude of sentient species in the Twin Worlds has long since been forgotten.
The Celestial Children, however, are not an ancient species. Indeed, they aren't even a single one. The term (sometimes replaced by the more dismissive "God-Spawned Races") refers to a subset of sentient species with unique origins, appearances, and capabilities. While the number of species that should go under this moniker is unknown (and different scholars sometimes contradict each other on this), there are common agreements about their history and nature.
Specifically, Celestial Children are believed to be the byproduct of some unknown cosmological law of the Twin Worlds which is associated with the ascendancy of gods. Scholars believe there have always been Celestial Children in the world, ever since the first god ascended to their lofty station, but given the lack of history on previous religions, it's impossible to define whether any still-existing species may or may have been a Celestial Child. But new Celestial Children can spawn whenever a new deity arises. Scholars don't agree on exactly how, but some time after the ascension of a new deity, some of its most faithful worshippers may find that their children are not like the parents, but resemble - in appearance and abilities - the deity the parents worship.
Scholars disagree on whether the appearance of Celestial Children is automatic, or if it must follow a deity's conscious decision to "open the floodgates", as it were. The latter could explain why not every ascended deity has a (known) Celestial Child out there. Celestial Children are clearly not as powerful as their ancestral sire, but they typically do have some abilities that set them apart, in addition to their often unique physiology. Celestial Children are fertile, and if enough are born and have children, they may signal the beginning of a new species. However, if they instead procreate with members of their parent races, there is no guarantee that their own offspring will be Celestial in nature.
There are other, darker theories on why Celestial Children appear, including some who believe they are actually sired by the deity itself to establish a presence and a preeminence in the world, and others who claim the Celestial Children are replacements - that if the deity should die before they are fully established, they can simply take over the body of a Celestial Child to continue on. None of these theories have ever been shown to be correct, however.
A small number of races in Teidar are known to be Celestial Children, and these include the elinarians (such as Gaenor from North Star), the erae, and the ledremn. These are the Celestial Children of Elindur, Laeryll and Faelyss, and the Lady of Souls, respectively. The faënnor are suspected to be the Celestial Children of Faelar, but given that they existed in large numbers even during the War of Saints, it is dubious whether this is truly the case. And if other recently ascended gods have spawned Children, this is unknown.
Just because Celestial Children are fertile and can produce offspring of their own kind is no guarantee of the survival of the species, however. The ledremn appeared shortly after the Lady awakened, but seven centuries later, there are very few left in the world and it seems clear that they will go functionally extinct in a century or two more. The elinarians seem to be headed that way as well (although it is harder to evaluate the status of their species, since they are so similar to the faënnor in appearance that they can be easily mistaken for one). The only known Celestial Child who is on its way to becoming more ubiquitous are the erae, and they are a special case at that.
Based on this observation, it is likely most, or all Celestial Children of previous deities - such as those of the Trienorn and the Ledhrorn - may have gone extinct as well. If some survive, they likely bred themselves into a true species, and have long since forgotten their supernatural origins...
Thank you for joining us on this overview of the Celestial Children. We will discuss specific Celestial Children in more detail in later posts. But in the next Codex entry, we will finally pull the veil a bit on the Lady of Souls which has been mentioned multiple times, and her role in the Twin Worlds. Until then, thank you for reading!
Comments