Coalfolk



The Coalfolk are clockwork people renowned for their skills as artifexes and explorers. They are split into two main factions: the individualistic Verrosten, and the hive-minded Gestalt.

History
One of the few immortal races on Canthia, though not the eldest, every Coalfolken alive was created immediately before the Schism. In the last days of the Canthian Paradise, knowing the end was near, a cabal of Dwarves attempted an insane experiment. Through unknown means, they transplanted their brains into steam-powered bodies which, they reasoned, could survive the outpouring of magical energies from the breaking of the world. While their new bodies were far more resilient to magical energies than flesh, the energy released was still enough to corrupt their memories of their former selves and send them into deep comas.

Arkheipt and Gestian
As the ages passed, they slept, buried in the ancient Dwarven tunnels risen under Vaelorn. In time, one awoke: Arkheipt the Rusted. How long he wandered the depths alone, he could not say. Eventually, he met another: Gestian Silverskull. Traveling the tunnels together, they learned how to put other Coalfolken in just enough danger to activate their failsafe wake mechanisms, but not enough to kill them. The grew to trust one another, and eventually, to love. Lacking genitalia, the Coalfolk are unable to have sex, so when a recently awoken scientist discovered "networking," a way to connect the minds of two coalfolken temporarily, Gestian begged Arkheipt to join him. He had misgivings about losing his individuality, and so declined. Gestian became obsessed with the idea, networking for as long as possible with as many as possible, and eventually disappeared into the deepest tunnels in search of tech that would allow him to increase both the length and number of connections.

For hundreds of years, he was unsuccessful. Eventually, the Coalfolk met humanity, and through them, discovered news of the greater world, of the Schism. More importantly, they saw their first flying machines: Erasto Ketal's Sapphire Sparrows. 700 years of fiddling with their own clockwork bodies had given the Coalfolk unparalleled mechanical ability, and they quickly mimicked the design and improved upon it. Gestian immediately set out the first of many missions to Dwarven ruins on the Surface. Each trip he brought back more artifacts, analyzed them, and found them useless for his purposes -- though not for others'.

with time he became more wealthy--and more unstable. Eventually, in (SHORTLY BEFORE THE TIME OF THE GAME), after discovering the legendary Dwarven city of Medzehk, made the necessary breakthrough and began converting others to her cause. Many were eager to join his "Gestalt" hive-mind, and their ranks swelled. By (TIME OF GAME), the Gestalt had absorbed nearly a half of the population of the Coalfolk.

Arkheipt, meanwhile, had watched his love spiral into madness -- but he understood it to be madness. When Gestian finally made his transformation, Arkheipt wept. He knew he had lost him for good. He could not in good conscience let others follow Gestian's path. He spoke to many others, instilling in them a measure of his own vehement individualism, and they became the Verrosten, the famed explorers and Artifexes of the Coalfolk.