Lothoesse

While most individuals have not seen the physical form of the Lothoesse, they have not been able to avoid examination completely by species not their own.

A humanoid species similar in size to the average human, the Lothoesse lack a great deal of pigmentation across most of their body. The remnants of natural adaptation to their frozen home, they are supposed to blend in with the snow around them naturally.

According to most reports, they have hair across much of their body, as is standard for mammals, though the amount and consistency of it varies by report. As with their skin, what hair they do have, wherever it may be, is also a stark white, giving them a rather spectral appearance. The only break in that stark white coloring is their eyes, which are said to be solidly colored in bright-but-pale shades. Some accounts discuss their eyes glowing in low light.

Through extrapolating from the species class and the facilities that they build on their colonies, it can be assumed that the Lothoesse give birth to live young in a manner similar to Humans, though the exact nature of Lothoesse pregnancy and birth remains a mystery, like many other aspects of their biology and sociology.

Much of Lothoesse history is a mystery that cannot be pierced by outsiders without a member of the species to act as a guide in some capacity. Most members of the species are disinclined to speak about their history to outsiders, and their colonies are generally closed to them as well.

That being said, they don't shy away from coexisting with other species and thus there are quite a few people who have earned their trust and learned bits and pieces, which can then be stitched together to form a cohesive history, lacking details though it might be.

As discussed earlier, the species spent much of its earliest years as nomadic tribes that ventured across the frigid surface of their homeworld, following what counted as summer for them. A lifestyle that many Lothoesse still follow to this day, even on worlds other than their own.

Upon their home world of Eyota there are vast quantities of Unremembered ruins full to bursting with artifacts, though these structures and places were considered forbidden by many nascent Lothoesse societies, and they did not care to explore them or research them. That was until they had no other choice.

In the midst of the species' metal ages, the planet faced an ecological shift across most of its surface that resulted in the planet falling deeper into the grip of winter. Their nomadic lifestyle was ill-suited for such weather, many tribes found themselves driven into the Unremembered ruins in an attempt to avoid the coming ice age.

It is here where many stories conflict and seem rife with "personal retellings" that were simply passed down through word of mouth for generations, but it's said that the species experienced... something, be it positive or negative, while in those tunnels. Some stories speak of angels, or even the gods themselves, descending underground to speak to them and filling their dark world with light. Others believe that demons stole away their sight the moment they entered the forbidden ruins. Whatever the case, when the ice age ended, and the Lothoesse once again returned to the surface, they were changed.

The exact time that they spent below the ground is a subject of debate, but when they gazed out upon the incredibly deep snow, they found that they were not looking at all, but instead simply perceived reality through the lens of the Nösphere. That is to say that they do not actually see through their eyes, though the ocular organs in their skulls theoretically remain perfectly functional, they do not provide image data to the brain. Instead, the Lothoesse can simply see into the shallows of the Nösphere, and the impressions that all things leave upon it. Women, children. Rocks and plants. They are no less able to see than any one of us, despite the fact that a thick veil is part of their traditional clothing for both sexes.

Companioning this new mode of vision, it seems that the Lothoesse were also imparted with some kind of purpose, though exactly what is also debated. An argument the whole of the species had at once.

The War of Truth, known to the Lothoesse as the "Ündeii", was spawned from the disagreement amongst them, and it exploded like the most violent of religious wars despite not being rooted in the species religion to begin with. That fact would change over time, as the war started to take on a "higher purpose" as the end goal started to crystalize. Many warlords would attempt to take advantage of the wars to weld themselves a powerbase, but those that attempted to establish a truth would win out over them, then would go to war against each other.