Rhyioji

Rhyioji are a race of humanoids who wield great powers and the unusual ability of summoning S'herlor. They are immersed in Madou of the occult. Their appearance is that of humanoids with odd features, sometimes imitating the natural world and sometimes completely bizarre, which are unique to each individual and the result of a long growth process. They are found mostly in the deep south Higashi, though they are scattered throughout the three southern continents with most of their culture and civilization being based in Higashi, where they have created their own nation, Rasyvias.

Origin
Rhyioji ancestors were wise men, immersed in meditation, who developed greater powers and eventually became a separate species from their human progenitors through a long process of conversion from creatures of the earth to creatures of magic. However, unlike the elves, who became immersed in the beautiful magics of nature and the world, the Rhyioji were enveloped by the arcane powers of the occult and mystical "other". They eventually became so overpowered by this that, instead of remaining with the process of life and death by means of nature, they were governed by the flow of magic from beyond the known and seen. These people, the ones who achieved nirvana within their chosen path, gave birth to a line of descendants who would evolve into a race separate entirely from the human stock from which they were born.

Appearance
The Rhyioji's overall basic racial build appears to be mostly similar, if not identical, to that of humans. Several of the more pronounced differences are their polished features, as if molten glass had been struck by a powerful wind and formed a face, their glossy, flowing skin, and elongated limbs. They have a grace that eludes humans, but, unlike that of elves, theirs is not of natural beauty, but the mystical grace of the unknown.

The main differences between humans and Rhyioji, however, and the greatest trait the Rhyioji possess, are not race-wide, but differ from person to person. This is the fact that, while Rhyioji are all humanoid, they possess strange and odd features that develop throughout their childhood and adolescence. These features are different in every Rhyioji, but usually resemble a feature found elsewhere in the living world, such as fur, a tail, fins, and so forth. There are many cases, however, of other appearances, ones more unnatural, especially among those Rhyioji who manage to affect their growth by will. These can be anything from strange appendages to an umbrella of skin around their hands. Apart from these two main types of "mutations", however, there are some rare, and even more rarely confirmed, reports of Rhyioji who possess features outright occult, such as burning witch lights above their eyes. These are rumored to be the appearance of the direct descendants of those forefathers of the Rhyioji who reached the furthest stage of nirvana in their order.

Development
Rhyioji are an abnormal race in that they have very few defining features, with their variation in appearance going farther than perhaps any other species. This is due to the fact that, upon birth, their body is constantly ceding its energy to the occult magics, and vice versa. The result of this is that the are never truly set in a form until they reach maturity, and have a complex process of reaching that stage. When an Rhyioji child is born, they are at first merely enveloped in odd Madou, and resemble a human baby in most features. Within minutes to hours of their emergence from the womb, however, they begin to slowly change form. This begins in cycles, of slow morphing to an appearance, then remaining grounded in that form for a while until changing slowly again. This then settles into constant changing as the body tests out all its functions, cycling instead through periods of major and minor change. This continues until the child is slightly older, being reported anywhere from a few days to over a month, at which point it begins to accelerate, swiftly changing form without any polishing of the details. This reaches its climax around a week after the acceleration begins.

After this, the Rhyioji has reached its infantile stage. The changing of form slows down somewhat, but has no set pace, and is at its most erratic during this time. It becomes completely constant at this stage, and, since the body has finished going through the processes of testing and activating its facilities, but the sentience of the Rhyioji has not yet developed to a point where it is conscious of its actions, the changes are out of control and entirely random. As the Rhyioji becomes more cognitive, these transformations become more situationally appropriate, and are commonly tied to their emotions. When the child has reached around six to nine years, these changing abilities come under their control to an extent, but are more heavily bound to their emotions and feelings than before. At the threshold of adolescence, there comes a time when these changes come less frequently, with the Rhyioji settling into forms for longer periods of time, and are entirely tied to the Rhyioji's personality and subconsciousness, rather than their active thought and will. After this, they settle into a basic appearance, with small changes coming and going, and the details of their form changing somewhat, until they reached about the age of twenty-two, when they lose the ability to change form entirely, but gain the full connection with the unknown that allows them to utilize S'herlor.

An important thing to note is that, while most Rhyioji progress to the final stage of development, only a select few gain the connection to the S'herlor, and a good number of Rhyioji halt progression at some point still within the development. After they halt, they still grow and develop as a human would, but their Rhyioji features remain as they were at the point of halting, and do not develop any further. While the S'herlor connection is quite rare within the Rhyioji, normal magic, as humans might have, is even more rarefied, appearing in one person for every four who display the already rare connection to the S'herlor.

S’herlor
Once Rhyioji fully mature and complete their occult immersion, they are able to learn a mystical power known as that of S’herlor, the only type of Madou they can learn, and unique to their race. By controlling their impulses completely, they are able to synchronize with a target, and then focus on it and enliven the connection with Madou, so that they themselves have merged their identity, or perhaps replaced it, with that of the target. With this connection in place, they can materialize and control for their own purposes the core essence of that target, known as a S’herlor.