Here's a new race I'm developing for my fantasy steampunk novel...

The Saken originate from the savage Arctic eastern pole of CaNaa, warrior slaves to the demonic Helmed King. In physical appearance they are tall and stalky, with skin that ranges from white to icy-blue. They are genderless, hairless, and covered in scales from the neck down. They feel no pain and are only susceptible to decapitation or a direct stab through the heart.

The Saken are a telepathic race, moving, thinking, and seeing as one. Because of this, they have no need of commanding officers or leaders of any kind. The reason for this is that Saken are grown from spores produced by an organic, "living" ice glacier, and are in effect just different members of the same being.
Secretly, the one wish of the Saken is to die--for the mother glacier to destruct and stop reproduction. However, they are bound to the will of the Helmed King and cannot go against it.

That's about it, for right now. I'm still trying to work the kinks out of this race, so if you guys have any ideas or suggestions, let me know.

You lost me after "Arctic eastern pole." A planet that revolves on it's side like Uranus would always have one point towards the sun and one pointing away, not to mention the fact that the poles are unstable and switch back and forth creating climatic climate change making life impossible. I think I'm missing something here...

But other than that the Saken is a cool organism! So is she an animal or a fungi? (referring to mother glacier and her underlings)

The Saken are very interesting, particularly in the way they are all part of the same being. Why do they/does it want to die?

Ha, you're right--the original idea was to have a planet that rotated on its side, which would make one side continually dark and freezing, and the other a scorched desert. That's what I want, but I don't want the side-effects that would come with it--fluctuating climate and wacky gravity. So I'm going to have to be smart and figure out a way to work around that.

Hmmm, I'm thinking the Saken is probably more of a sentient fungi. Still need to work on the whole body composition thing.



Oh yeah, forgot that part. XD
Basically, the Saken isn't wholly evil--it's been harnessed by the Helmed King, and it's almost completely under his power. For thousands of years the Saken has been forced to be his mercenaries, slaughtering innocent people and being killed and reborn countless times. It's tired. It doesn't want to go on any more, but it can't do anything about it.
Does that make sense? I think what really happened is that a person's soul is being used to bring sentience to this glacier, which would explain the sense of humanity it has--I just need to figure out whose soul--and how and why.
Like I said, it's sketchy. I'm just ideastorming right now.

I also wanted to say... Hurray! Someone else is doing steampunk!!!

Yes, the motivation of the Saken makes sense.

The soul part sounds complicated. When you figure it out, be sure to post it.

Steampunk rocks. B) What's your story about?



Will do!

Ooh. I'm also trying to figure out the use of Eastern and Western poles in my world. If you make a post on that I'll pop in and offer any brainstorming help you'd like.

Steampunk fantasy! You got me.

These are very interesting and creative. A couple of questions... Do these creatures need to eat or rest? Do they have limits besides the few places they can be wounded? Is it possible for a Saken to ever be produced that defective in some way? How much personal feeling do they have? When a Saken is produced, do they start out small or full-sized?

Awesome! I might just do that.



Just what I needed. Let me think about that...

No eating or resting. Since their energy comes from the mother glacier, they don't need to replenish their supply.

Limits... Good question. Their main weakness is probably the fact that, being basically constructed of "living ice", they can't survive heat. The problem with that is... I need them to be able to cross over onto the other side of this world, which means they would have to withstand intense heat. So I'm thinking the Helmed King has some way, sorcerous or otherwise, of allowing the Saken to remain unmelted in the desert... Pardon my rambling--I'm just kinda ideastorming here.

Mm, a defective Saken. I like. I'll work on that idea...

They have more personal feeling than is commonly believed, but the Helmed King is able to suppress it with his telepathic abilities. Hence their secret hatred of their own existence.

When a Saken is produced, it goes through a very short growing stage in which it is known as a "Sporling". It is utterly helpless in this phase, but quickly grows out of it and into a full-grown Saken warrior.

Thanks for the ideas, there! I'll get busy on developing those...