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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DreadPirateMurphy" data-source="post: 4769928" data-attributes="member: 20715">The CreatedAt one point in the moderately distant past, the largest continent of Ka was mostly split between two rival empires.  Both came up with the idea of creating super soldiers to help defend against/defeat their rival.  They took two vastly different approaches, however.The first empire was more oriented toward techno-magic.  They created legions of living golems, known as warforged.  When the empire finally fell to pieces, the forges used to create the warforged were destroyed and the knowledge needed to recreate them was lost.  For years, it looked as if the remaining warforged would eventually be destroyed by time, unable to reproduce.  Eventually, an enterprising user of magic created a ritual that would allow two warforged to transfer part of their personalities into a new construct body.  In effect, the warforged give “birth” to a new “adult.”  Skills and experience do not transfer, however, so there is a period of education roughly analogous to human childhood, albeit shorter.  One interesting characteristic of this process is that more than two warforged can participate in the ritual.  There is a mercenary company called the Brothers of Iron.  It consists of five warforged, each created from a previous group of five warforged participating in the ritual.  The five new warforged think much alike, and they make a fearsome combat team in any battle.The second empire was more oriented toward the natural world.  They used magic to augment human soldiers, allowing them to manifest the characteristics of animals.  These shifters could breed just like normal humans, and their lines continued after the fall of their empire.  Interestingly, the child of a shifter will also be a shifter, but there is no consistency in terms of the type of shifter.  Shifters seem to have an innate ability to understand their gift through introspection, without parental guidance.  Another interesting legacy of this period of time is that there are persistent rumors that some of the changes done to human soldiers went well beyond what some would consider ethical.  It is unknown what a more radical human-animal crossbreed would be like in terms of temperament and abilities, but speculation by sages suggest a monstrous bent.</blockquote>

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