Erisene
"To meet an Erisene is to encounter someone who looks at you as if you are already half-dissected. They are polite, even warm, but the warmth is the fire of a crucible — not the hearth. You never know whether you are speaking to a neighbor, or to a scientist taking notes on your soul."Academician Avari Chou, Academy of Titan
Children of Quarantine
The Erisene are the native-born descendants of those who settled, fought, or were trapped on Eris during its centuries of chaos. Their culture reflects both their isolation and their entanglement with House Volkert’s great experiment. They are analytical, pragmatic, and efficient to the point of brutality — and yet, when gathered together, they display a strange fervor. Science, ritual, and nihilism have fused into something uncanny. To outsiders, they seem at once gothic, eccentric, and terrifyingly practical. To themselves, they are survivors of a world that should never have been livable, thriving amid necroids, ghouls, and worse.
Naming Traditions
Feminine names
Isabella, Marie, Sappho, Hypatia, Catherine, Ada, Ishtar, Lilith, Sophia, Eleanor.
Masculine names
Alexander, Caesar, Albert, Galileo, Gilgamesh, Thomas, Charles, Dante, Aurelius, Erasmus.
Unisex names
Lux, Somnus, Domino, Noctis, Amaranth, Echo, Solace, Vesper.
Family names
Erisene favor surnames with historical weight (Leibniz, Curie, Volta)
Other names
Many adopt a nom de guerre or poetic name that outsiders find uncanny (e.g., Brother Neverborn, Sister Someday).
Culture
Major language groups and dialects
While Erisene speak Solar Standard, their slums are infamous for Slop: a dialect heavy with profanity, stretched sibilants, guttural croaks, and linguistic echoes of ghoul-madness and RAI whispers. Though technically slang, outsiders cannot parse it without immersion.
Shared customary codes and values
Erisene unite around purpose. Teams, crews, and research cells matter more than friendship. Trust is reserved for those who can demonstrate competence and secrecy. They despise open treason, but admire clever espionage if it serves the mission. Confessions and secrets, once given, are inviolate.
Common Dress code
Erisene favor understated, antiquated styles: black or gray coats, lace and corsets, petticoats, high collars, and long gloves. Even their casual wear leans formal. Tattoos and piercings are rare but highly significant, carrying personal or ritual meaning.
Art & Architecture
Their world is filled with gothic revival: gargoyles, floral deko, Corinthian columns, and facades carved with grotesques. Boardrooms may host chalkboards covered in sigils and protective circles seamlessly interwoven with equations for fourth-dimensional physics. To an Erisene, science and magic are merely two dialects of the same language.
Foods & Cuisine
Nutritious, balanced, and sometimes derided as bland. Stews and soups are staples; salt is their favored seasoning. Meals are often communal and efficient, more about continuity of life than indulgence.
Birth & Baptismal Rites
Somber family ceremonies welcome the newborn with stories — some are confessions the child will never remember.
Coming of Age Rites
Youth are sorted into teams or sent out with inheritance and mission, a rite of separation.
Funerary and Memorial customs
Death is treated pragmatically. Corpses are fuel, feedstock, or waste. Memorials are cheerful, focused on life lived rather than mourning.
Common Taboos
Volkert are secrets-keepers. Whether it's a private conversation or a confession in confidence or highly classified documents, Volkert guard secrets given to them with equal ferocity.
Ideals
Beauty Ideals
Straight black hair, pale-to-tan skin, and gray-black sclerae are considered elegant. Neon tattoos, scars, or mutations are seen as marks of resilience. Contrast — pale flesh and glowing ink, dark garb with bright eyes — is highly prized.
Courtship Ideals
Courtships are often family affairs, with parents brokering meetings. Romance is rooted in shared excitement and mutual improvement. Daring stunts, clever schemes, or bold serenades are common first gestures.
Relationship Ideals
Flexibility rules. Partnerships may be polycules, long-term research teams, or serial monogamy. Bonds endure when purpose aligns.
Template: 12 pts
- Advantages (30 pts): High Pain Threshold (10), Curious (12) with built-in mitigation for risk-taking, Resistant to Poison & Contamination (+8; thollins, necroid byproducts) (10).
- Disadvantages (30 pts): Callous (5), Nihilism / Code of Honor (Pragmatic Survival) (10), Social Stigma (Quarantined World; -2 Reaction) (5), Enemy (Subspace Contamination, 9 or less) (10).
- Perks (3 pts): Occult Science (1), Illuminated Tattoos (1), Gothic Style (1).
- Quirks (2 pts): Secretive to Outsiders (1), Cheerful Funerals (1).
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