xshorians initially obtain their magical capabilities at what they consider adolescence, and this is followed by a major growth spurt of their symbiont, resulting in all adult xshorians having a noticeably longer neck than their human counterparts. within xshorian society, having a longer than average neck and/or non-keratinous cranial ornamentation (xshorians fairly often modify the keratin growth on their heads into structures such as horns, bristles, quills, or scutes) is a mark of prestige, power, and wisdom.

tl;dr xshorians expand their brains into their necks with the help of little alien amoeboids living inside their bodies and they think its hot

silk ants have always been highly economically important to the peoples of the xshorian continent - their high volume & speed of silk production, considerably outstripping all other sources, have made them central to the textile industries of various peoples throughout the region's history. the silk of different species and different areas within a nest often has distinct properties, and they have long been domesticated for both mass production and artisanal, prestige varieties, a trend which has continued in the xshorian era. most xshorian garments are largely made of ant-silk, often resulting in a lightweight & flowing feel combined with substantial durability.

How was your national animal chosen? Is there any symbolism behind it, or is it culturally important in some other way?

xshor doesnt really have a universally agreed-upon "national animal" strictly speaking, only ones with varying degrees of cultural importance. a particular case to note, though, is the humble silk ant - these are among the animals with which xshorians are most familiar, being raised by them in massive quantities and numerous selectively engineered varieties for the purpose of harvesting their silk with which almost all xshorian textile products are made. they are among the most common macroscopic animals on the continent, and the most conspicuous among eusocial insects in the wild owing to their often massive & terrain-defining woven nests.

aside from their direct importance in society there are also various aspects of their behaviour & life history to which xshorians attach cultural importance & relate to themselves. their communal & industrious nature, coupled with the webwood forests whose ecology & structure are fundamentally built around their activity, have them likened to a "parallel civilisation" to xshor on the continent, with their own ways of life & shaping of their surroundings being mirrored in the wild by these insects. this is complemented by a general xshorian affinity towards insects, largely owing to a particular feature of their own life history - as children, they lack telepathy or any other magic, and their entry to adulthood is defined by the acquisition thereof, a process referred to as "eclosion" and often compared to the growing of wings as the defining feature of insects' imago stage.

I don't know if this is a good question or not, but do Xshorians keep pets or anything similar? If so, what kinds of creatures do they have affection for?
Main reason is because I know you enjoy insects a lot and I'm wondering if part of that is ingrained in your writing.

xshorians heavily favour invertebrates as pets, and to a lesser extent fish, amphibians, and ectothermic reptiles. basically anything for which caring for them mainly consists of keeping them in an enclosure and occasionally dropping them some food. other, more active animals with greater energy & space requires such as dinosaurs or mammals are very seldom kept personally. the actual reason for this largely comes down to lifestyle, as xshorians overwhelmingly live in hyperdense arcology-style buildings, and many of them additionally live underground and have limited access to sunlight or open space in their day-to-day life. in addition to these practical considerations, xshorians also just highly value the particular sort of appeal held by these types of pets, moreso than the emphasis on companionship, training, & more personal affection held by a pet culture more focused around mammals - theirs places more emphasis on essentially cultivating an enclosed little "world" and standing by to watch it do its thing. it is worth additionally mentioning that this concept of "pets" isnt actually limited to animals, and may include things like bacteria, fungi, plants, etc, and also lends itself to a significant "cottage industry" of sorts involving selective breeding & other genetic or physiological alteration.

anyway the first plague war is ultimately what gave rise to the union in the first place. the hegemonic power over the world prior to it was the hvëarner federation, which dominated international politics with impunity and closely shaped those of nations under its thumb, but as xshor originated within its territory it was by far the hardest hit from their emergence and by the end of the war it was entirely wiped off the map. this left an immense power vacuum in global geopolitics, which surviving hvëarner military detachments often tried to fill in various regions, creating a vast network of military dictatorships beset by instability and revitalised insurgency. the global "communist" movement (also potentially more on them later - the principal difference between them and irl communism is that they emerged directly out of anti-colonial struggle which is therefore much more expressly central to their worldview & program), which it had extensively suppressed for decades, experienced a particularly notable resurgence especially on the southernmost continent of shajās, and disparate communist insurgent & military groups across various states eventually coalesced into a multinational revolutionary force aiming, and ultimately succeeding, to establish a single pan-shajāzi communist state. this is what the union was in its early days, but this phase only lasted for a few decades of postwar reconstruction & political restabilisation until it was all thrown into jeopardy again.

the second plague war saw its fundamental transformation from the burgeoning centre of the communist movement to the last haven of the entire human species, as an experimental xshorian psychic-biological weapon unleashed suddenly onto major human population centres and rapidly spreading as a colossal wave of unstoppable destructive biomass threw all of humanity outside of shajās, which uniquely wasnt hit by the attack and was safely geographically isolated, into disarray. governments directed all their remaining resources to coordinating mass evacuations, and ultimately reached an agreement with the union to resettle as much of their populations there as could physically be transported across the oceans. why the union alone wasnt hit remains something of a mystery among human historians, with possible explanations including its being at the greatest geographical distance from xshor of any human state and its absence of participation or support in the mass bombing of nest-primary, xshor's only city at the time. (it now has three. xshor's overall distribution structure is extremely heavily concentrated in massive & incredibly dense megacities, with a widely distributed network of outposts scattered across the rest of the continent which don't act as general population centres. this has of course historically made it highly vulnerable to saturation bombing, which has to some extent been mitigated by extensive subterranean construction; the two new cities built after the war were nonetheless established directly in response to the immense devastation incurred)

while the remaining human states were virtually emptied of people and reduced to what is now known as the "ruin belt", a stretch of landmasses running between xshor in the planet's northeast and shajās in the southwest widely considered still to be an uninhabitable death zone due to the bioweapon's lingering presence, the union faced its own share of troubles with the enormous responsibility it now had to face. its population had expanded several fold in virtually an instant, at a time when it was still caught up in its own internal struggles, and the measures its government ultimately decided they had to implement in order to accommodate this change - including strict society-wide rationing of a wide variety of essential goods and services, mass drafting into vital fields of work such as agriculture and construction, and establishment of sprawling refugee camps on the outskirts of most major cities - led to major decreases in quality of life for the original population, contributing to rising tensions between the disparate groups in society. over time these refugee camps were built up into slum-like suburbs while the state steadily implemented measures to improve the socioeconomic status of the refugee-descended majority population, but to this day they remain largely trapped in poverty with relatively few of them able to cross over into the safer & more prosperous "core" regions, while said core populations remain politically privileged over their refugee counterparts and have to varying degrees over the years leveraged this position to deprioritise the needs of the periphery. after ~60 years since the cataclysmic fall of global humanity and subsequent transformation of the union, this divide remains a defining aspect of unionite society which, while steadily dwindling, has no end in sight for the near future.

the cultural implications of this are somewhat significant, as they are the only vertebrates on their planet whose blood and viscera are black rather than red, visually separating them from humans and vertebrate wildlife and, by their perception, lumping those two groups together. red blood to xshorians carries connotations of primal wilderness and the ancient savagery of the natural world, while their own black blood and wound-sludge serve to highlight their alien nature and place their self-perception as distinct from this order. simply put, red blood is "animal blood", black blood is "xshorian blood", and humans fall into the category of more basal "red-blooded things".

of special notoriety among the hyodonts is one subfamily, the putrecephalinae or "putrid heads" [1], a clade of typically large and highly territorial omnivores native to the wetlands in the far south which share a particularly brutal form of intraspecific combat, especially between males during the breeding season. their large tusks, sharp lower beaks, and powerful bites frequently leave their opponents with severe facial lacerations, which in their particular habitat invariably become rapidly and heavily infested with flies. while this often appears pathological, the relation between these flies and their dinosaurian hosts is in fact a case of mutualistic coevolution - subdermal facial glands activated during these seasons release scents into the open wounds which attract the flies to settle into them, allowing the larvae to colonise the tissue, consuming dead flesh and other contaminants. each species of putrecephaline has its own associated species of flesh fly, and individuals which for whatever reason are unable to attract sufficient flies into their facial wounds are far more susceptible in such times to disease and necrosis.

[1] - these names are formulated according to real-world greco-latin scientific nomenclature, which does not exist in xshor's setting. theyre here purely for ooc personal convenience, and i may come up with a lore-accurate scientific naming scheme in the future for actual canonical use

while birds and pterosaurs occasionally migrate over to ghost-lights in the warmer months, the native terrestrial vertebrates of the peninsula belong to a clade known as fractostomes, a group of antiarch placoderms descended from ancestral forms resembling bothriolepis or pterichthyodes which transitioned from shallow-water benthic environments to living on land. this group has a long and diverse evolutionary history going back even further than the tetrapods that make up the rest of the world's land vertebrates, though many of those lineages have long since died out as the subcontinent fell more and more into the harsh polar climate it has today. their name means "broken mouths", in reference to the up to four independently mobile jaws that make up their feeding apparatus; some lineages turn either one or both pairs of these into grasping arms, and all have at most one pair of legs.

what's relevant to the subject of bioluminescence is that numerous species within this group are able to sequester the requisite chemical components from their diets as kleptoproteins, whether these are sourced from fungi, insects, marine fish & invertebrates, or other bioluminescent fractostomes of lower trophic levels which obtained theirs from the previous sources, and subsequently express them through their anatomy. this arrangement serves numerous functions, including predator defence through disorientation, prey capture through luring or dazzling, intraspecific communication, and species recognition. not all fractostomes are bioluminiscent, and many have impaired vision and rely primarily on sound to navigate during winter - in environments where such animals are major predators, light becomes a highly advantageous communication medium for species that can make use of it. mating displays, however, are by a substantial margin the most vibrant and elaborate instances of bioluminescent expression. these vary between species, ranging from collectively synchronised "light shows" as with fireflies, to individual animals making as impressive of a display as they can to prospective mates, to would-be mated pairs synchronising their light flashes to one another in tests of coordination and responsiveness.

"contained" within the phylax is the soul, which for phylaxic beings can generally just be thought of as the shadow they cast into the aphylaxion. it arises as an emergent feature of the capacity for volition - the moment a clump of matter is able to "want", to have desires and pursue their fulfillment, a corresponding clump of immaterial soul-stuff forms out of it within the aphylaxion. it is, however, largely sealed off from this realm, being essentially the equivalent of inanimate matter, kept inert by a barrier that binds it to its originating phylax. were it to contact its surroundings in this default state, it would simply dissolve into them, obliterating the consciousness it emerged from.

while nonmagical beings are animate in the phylaxion but inanimate in the aphylaxion, magical beings are those that are animate in the latter, and are either also animate in the former or purely aphylaxic with no material body; the latter type are unable to directly interact with the physical world, only being able to do so using the soul of a material being as an intermediary. animation of the soul is achieved through a process termed phylaxolysis - the breaking of the aforementioned barrier in order to allow the soul it contains to spread out into the aphylaxion and gain the ability to act. as mentioned before, phylaxolysis can be lethal if done improperly, and a requisite initial step to ensure survival is invigoration of the soul such that it carries enough potency and force of will to hold its form and impose itself upon its surroundings, rather than the inverse. the best known way to achieve this is through a combination of extreme psychological stimulation and "nöophagy", whereby one seeking to phylaxolyse consumes a soul of similar potency to their own, typically by ingesting the brain matter of a still-living member of their own species. when both the nöophage and the feeder are in a state of intense emotional excitement and altered consciousness while the former consumes the latter, the two souls briefly merge into one, effectively "supercharging" the nöophage's soul and allowing it to freely break out of its constraints without succumbing to the pressure of aphylaxic exposure.

the way magic actually works, with all this in mind, is that it consists of interactions between souls using the aphylaxion as a medium. the most basic form of this is telepathy, whereby active souls transmit ideas to each other through aphylaxic connections; this is the predominant mode of communication in xshor, both among xshorians as well as between them and most of their technological constructs. telepathy in which one party has an awakened soul and the other doesnt is possible, but is highly limited in scope, requires considerable skill and finesse on the part of the former, and risks gradually wearing down the soul of the latter into obliteration should it continue without ever phylaxolysing. more broadly, magic can be used to manipulate anything with a soul, ranging from living tissue to aphylaxion-endemic spirit-entities.

I'm generally quite curious about the 'magocracy' you've previously mentioned as having ruled over the land, described in more detail as being a 'cabal of the most psionically gifted'. Am i to take it that these cabals were rather loose in cohesion and more opportunistic rather than genuinely conspiratorially decisive in their rule? Furthermore, to ask a rather broad question, what is the exact nature of this 'magic' employed by said magocrats? Is it an inborn trait, perhaps genetic, or an implanted art?

the use of magic in xshor is a universal trait among the adult populace, and while strictly speaking its implanted onto them out of societal obligation there is arguably an element of innateness to it as well. magic in xshor's setting isnt necessarily a uniquely xshorian feature, but it happens to be almost exclusively xshorian at present, being greatly facilitated in activation & discovery by their particular biological nature. as such, it was with them pretty much from the outset of their emergence, and has fundamentally shaped their society ever since - its development into a "might makes right" style of leadership of those more able over their lifetimes to cultivate a greater proficiency in this art was essentially the earliest form of political & leadership structure that they had, and stuck with them albeit in shifting forms throughout their history, largely because such individuals are inherently able to manipulate the thoughts and aspirations of those less adept than them. the eternal is both a disruption to this trend, owing to its reengineering of this dynamic within its domain, and an extreme example of it, being the single most psychically powerful entity in xshor by an enormous margin.

the organisation of this erstwhile ruling class was thus largely an outgrowth of early, "primitive" dynamics between xshorians of different levels of psychic fluency, in the days of the first plague war when xshorians had yet to form a complex society. owing to various combinations of factors, certain "newly formed" xshorians were significantly more adept at their particular gift than others, and naturally fell into the role of "pack leaders" & coordinators by guiding the thoughts of their kin - this role was never relinquished, and instead gave rise to an aristocracy of sorts that grew increasingly entrenched over the course of xshor's sociological & technological developments. these were, as you mentioned, not particularly unified in purpose, other than ensuring their continued survival both against human hostilities towards xshor and against wide-scale upheaval of this system. other than this, the hierarchical & organisational structure of any given group or faction varied considerably, but typically took the form of cabals holding control over a given hive & surrounding region, hives being the core urban units within xshorian nest megacities consisting of an ever-growing arcology-like complex containing residences and various necessities of life. this system was considerably more centralised in the later cities of nest-twin-haven and nest-morning-star than in nest-primary, which was the only such nest prior to the second plague war, as the founding cabals of the former two were more able to monopolise their influence over the cities' expansion.

Continuing on what immediately follows the magocrats, or rather continues what they have previously established, 'the Eternal one'. I heavily suspect you might prefer to keep the details and thus the exact nature of the entity shrouded in mystery for the sake of storytelling, yet i can't help but to wonder what kind of creature it is, in a physical sense. I suppose asking for an eyewitnesses description would ultimately be futile, for based upon the capabilities of the entity at hand whatever description is given could be merely the result of a heavily manipulated ideal externally implanted. When, where, and most importantly, how did this entity possessing a semblance of localized omnipresence emerge, seemingly from the ether?

the way the eternal appears physically to most xshorians isnt as a creature or person that can be perceived in full, but rather as a feature of the landscape. most of its body can roughly be likened to roots or hyphae of alien flesh and extends throughout the three nest-cities, concentrated in inaccessible storage towers that dominate the skylines & further spread out with nodes of its consciousness in every building. as a concrete being rather than an overbearing presence, the eternal is extremely seldom witnessed - very few of those who've ever seen it up close have remained both alive and independently conscious, and all of these instances have been at its own discretion.

the topic of the eternal's origins is something i intend to cover in greater detail within a properly prepared exposition piece, but at its core, the eternal's overgrown physical form ultimately sprouted out from the body of a single xshorian larva into which an otherworldly soul belonging to a fragmentary aphylaxic spirit had been siphoned. its existence in the physical plane has largely been marked by the utter inadequacy of such a vessel and its constant struggle to bend it into accommodating its vastly overgrown soul, from which it derived an existential need to take the reins of xshorian society as its sole means of granting itself the resources necessary for its survival.

Whats your nation’s opinion on artwork which is very clearly against the government?

the eternal is generally regarded as a liberatory figure among the contemporary xshorian masses, due to its central role in dismantling the intensely stratified "magocracy" that came before it whereby cabals of the most psionically gifted ruled over the underclass with impunity through overt mental domination. of course the eternal itself has largely taken up this role in the aftermath, but by virtue of being a singular entity whose main interest in power & psychological manipulation lies somewhat beyond the scope of day-to-day politics, its influence is less acutely felt and its governance is relatively hands-off outside of challenges to its rule. inciting enmity towards it is generally viewed with suspicion, as such efforts are often seen to potentially be fronts for vengeful & dispossessed cabalists to retake their positions - while most of these have either surrendered or been killed by the eternal's hit squads, xshorian society and mind-space remain as staging grounds for the ongoing "silent war" between the eternal and its increasingly obscure rivals. it goes without saying that these views of the eternal as a liberator and protector against the magocracy are promoted by the eternal itself, being among its more proactive interferences on the xshorian psyche, though it would perhaps be inaccurate to characterise this as simply wholesale cognitive imposition.

tl;dr anti-eternal artwork wouldnt be directly overtly cracked down on, but it may be seen as a vector of cabalist psyops and regarded with caution and distance. this is arguably just the eternal's preferred way of cracking down on dissent given its substantial ability to directly influence public thought

How is society organized in BN?

for one, xshorian society has two major geographical distinctions, with fairly substantial differences between the sections of society that inhabit either of them. most xshorians inhabit the three megacities known as the "nests", where the vast majority of "above board" activity in xshorian society takes place, and likewise where almost all xshorians are born. beyond the nests across the continent that xshor controls, there exists a vast collection of outposts and bases connected by a largely ad-hoc transport network, which altogether is known as the "woven-strands". only a minority of xshorians know of its existence, and it is inhabited exclusively by those with a particular reason to be away from broader society, reasons which may range from closely studying wildlife to running insurrectionary cells. among those familiar with both the strands and the nests, residents of the latter are known as hivers or, more pejoratively, nestlings, and residents of the strands are known as weavers. the divide between these two groups is one of the major lines of differentation within xshor.

within the nests, life is organised in a very communal fashion, with what humans would think of as families being essentially absent. xshorians are not born to biological parents, but rather mass-grown into synchronous generational cohorts, with which they are raised through their childhood within the confines of a given hatchery complex. these cohorts are often disrupted towards the end of what xshorians consider "childhood", as its last stage consists of preparations to enter the telepathic gestalt and every initiate will be trained for precisely as long as it takes to get them adequately prepared, which may vary by months or years between individuals (as an aside, xshorians who complete this stage are considered to be "reborn", and count their age starting from this point onward). upon fully entering society, most xshorians take up residence in complex arcology-esque megastructures termed "hives", which are effectively smaller "city cores" within the overarching megalopolis of the nest, each one built around necessities such as habitation and agriculture with additional features growing around these. the populations of these hives are typically at least in the thousands, and both the societies within them and the structures themselves are continuously shaped to varying degrees by particular thought-patterns prevailing among their inhabitants, resulting in them often taking on a particular cultural character which is then reflected in the physical edifice. these can reach extremes in certain outlier groups forming hives for themselves, but thats a topic for another time.

in terms of stratification & specialisation, these occur to varying extents but in general are somewhat fluid, as xshorians are able to transfer knowledge between themselves with considerable ease. stratification by magical ability was once heavily prominent, but this has been undermined by the reigning deity/superintelligence known as the eternal, which has in its ascent significantly displaced this hierarchy and recentred the entire xshorian telepathic superstructure around itself alone, in doing so embedding its own psychic influence into everything comprising it. the precise nature, mechanisms, & effects of the eternal's reign are also a topic for another time, but it is worth mentioning that it isnt exactly a heavy-handed ruler, largely because of its inability to impose itself as one given how much of its cognitive power is dedicated to simply not dying. the most prevalent form of stratification & command structure in contemporary xshor essentially consists of pooling together a given group's "general will" and reflecting it back at them through a unified consciousness-aggregate, which then acts as a sort of central administrative authority over said group for a particular purpose or set thereof. any hive will typically have a central mind of this type, as will construction projects, factories, & so on, and these extensively communicate with other such minds as a way to coordinate society on a massive scale.

Any languages that are spoken in your nation, do they sound like human languages or something completely alien?

xshorians dont really speak to each other, or at least not in a way that sounds like anything. they can vocalise, but not quite as freely as humans owing to their throats being heavily deformed, and when they do it mainly takes the form of high-pitched shrieks, hisses, trills, and clicks. such sounds were part of their communication in their very early history, and still are among their larvae, but adults exclusively rely on telepathy and as such lack anything resembling a conventional linguistic structure, in fact largely forgetting the more vocal & somatic language of their infancy as a result of how cognitively demanding the adjustment to telepathy is. their telepathic language does have a structure of its own, albeit not in the same way - different types of ideas are communicated in significantly different "forms", routed through what could be thought of as numerous distinct "channels" of information layered alongside each other. a central stream of concrete concepts, underlined by relational signaling, permeated with emotional overtones, etc. all this is why ive written xshorian names as strings of english words rather than anything phonetically distinct - nest-primary, silver-moth-dust, etc. xshor itself is an exception to this, as the term arose in the aforementioned very early period as a means of rudimentary in-group signaling, and i have one character named rīḫ who specifically chose their name to be a meaningless shrieking noise.

Can miscommunication arrive and how?

one factor worth mentioning is that the auxiliary aspect of the aforementioned layered communication structure is largely reflexive, which results in xshorians being notably worse at lying to each other than humans are. attempts to suppress this typically result in a very blatant inexpressiveness, and to some extent there is a "socially legitimised" practice around this where lies of omission are told in an obvious manner as to communicate that the information being withheld is best left that way for everyone involved. doing this too often though will make one seen as shady and untrustworthy, and being generally less expressive may also create that sort of air around oneself to a lesser extent even if it might be unwarranted. generally speaking though xshorians are very extensively trained in the adoption of telepathy as they enter adulthood, on top of it having a lot of clarity and nuance built in, so miscommunications seldom occur

Would it be possible for a human (with help of machinery) to communicate in Xshorian?

telepathy can only be answered with telepathy, but humans and machines are both theoretically capable of doing such. the present attribution of telepathy to xshor isnt an inherent ability of theirs or inability of humans, but xshorians' biological & historical circumstances allowed them to come across it much more easily (and the wreathworms may have been "wired" in some way to make that happen). that said, as far as most of the setting is concerned telepathy remains a uniquely xshorian phenomenon, and every attempt xshorians have made and continue to make at establishing communications with humans involve trying to surmount this barrier in some way. this has thus far mostly consisted of entering the minds of human intermediaries to have them verbally speak out intended messages, but this is extremely poorly conducive towards building broad mutual trust & rapprochement and isnt used by anyone with an interest in such goals.

xshorians inherently possess a unique and rather troublesome physiological trauma response - they secrete "black tears", a viscous, tar-like substance originating from the symbiont in their heads, which leaks out through the orifices of their face or in especially severe instances through the pores of their skin. this process can be extremely painful, particularly in the latter cases, and worsens over time without treatment as the "tears" harden with exposure. when xshorians are on the verge of death this process happens at a rapid pace, eventually covering the face entirely. upon death, this then serves as a shroud from which a death mask of the deceased's face is molded & sculpted. these two masks become the physical remains of the dead, one pristine & finely wrought, the other a visceral crystallisation of pain. the body itself is butchered and typically fermented for six months, at which point a remembrance feast is held in the deceased's honour; some groups within xshorian society forgo the fermentation, instead eating their dead raw and without delay under the belief that they should be deconstructed & resorbed from as close to their life-state as possible.

continuing on this topic, the definition of what exactly a "xshorian" is will be stretched somewhat. this term commonly refers to xshor's most obvious inhabitants - the humanoid, symbiotic creatures that take part in the visible elements of society. this is not however a full picture, as xshor additionally encompasses a wide range of beings that are genetically almost identical to the aforementioned but are entirely unrecognisable as such in form as well as behaviour. perhaps the most notable of these are the "corpse-mothers", which in fact form the backbone of the entire collective.

born in the early stages of xshorian history, in times when they were either being actively exterminated by humans or living in the immediate aftermath of such exterminations, the corpse-mothers were formed from mass amalgamations of those on the verge of death, their growth and sustenance fed by the even greater abundance of the slain, as these two groups vastly outnumbered the living and healthy. these living piles of bodies were fused together in more ways than one - their consciousnesses joined together into a (somewhat) cohesive group-mind, containing the memories and thoughts of all those integrated within them. these continued to stand over the ensuing generations, as more bodies continued to be added year by year, repeatedly "rejuvenating" the whole with fresh components now consisting of those willing to subsume themselves. corpse-mothers are seen as archives of xshorian collective memory, going back to the beginnings of their existence, and contain depths of knowledge that is otherwise mostly lost. they are largely responsible for the rearing of xshorian young from birth to phylaxolysis.

while the wreathworm component of each xshorian is primarily concentrated in the head, it forms a certain measure of distributed consciousness as it implants & acclimates itself to the host body, with clusters of worm tissue in the limbs & chest acting as complementary neural ganglia to the central brain. aside from resulting in xshorians' bodily movements being noticeably somewhat different from those of humans, this also allows them to retain a degree of functionality in the event of dismemberment or decapitation. a severed limb that contains its associated ganglion will for a time act on its own until said ganglion starves out, and likewise if a xshorian's head is separated from its body both will have their respective "worm centres" take control and attempt either to reunite or simply to survive as long as possible. this duration can be extended somewhat by feeding on live prey, and should a disembodied xshorian limb or head be unable to find its home, it will make do with whatever similar body it can come across, attaching itself where it can and starving out the part it aims to replace until the latter falls off and the wreathworm integrates itself through the rest of the new host.

aside from allowing dismembered parts to retain some functionality, the wreathworm also acts as a sort of "backup life" in any situation where the overall body is unable to cohesively function, or in other words if the "human" component is incapacitated or "killed" while the wreathworm is not. in such a scenario the wreathworm assumes total control over all the body's functions, rather than being a cohesively integrated part of a full "shared" consciousness. a xshorian in such a state is able to last considerably longer than disembodied parts, and will likewise single-mindedly seek sustenance in order to stay alive; while the longevity of this behaviour depends on the damage done, given enough time and feeding, they may fully recover from this state of near-death.

the general structure of localised operations under the initiative is a four-step process consisting of ua/gv reconnaissance, followed by ahlf territorial incursion, fortification of secure positions, and lastly construction of logistical & economic infrastructure. this latter step can range from consolidation of transport networks for future missions by setting up supply & refueling stations, to establishment of resource extraction sites, industrial developments, & research bases, or even "reclaiming" such sites that were abandoned in the exodus. all of these more permanent, civilian-oriented projects are concentrated in the outlying islands & along the continental coastlines, with little major construction occurring further inland - and all are inhabited solely by workers & researchers on professional deployment, typically in some degree of coordination with the ahlf, as no permanent civilian presence has yet to be reestablished anywhere outside shajās.

the activities of the ahlf in the ruin belt are by and large non-combative, consisting mainly of identifying & clearing environmental hazards and assisting in mapping terrain - endeavours that are nonetheless often highly dangerous in such a treacherous environment. yet despite this apparent lack of a true, direct adversary, as the ahlf has increasingly moved further inland, this state of affairs has somewhat changed - the threats they face have been taking on a more organised character, accordingly growing in lethality and danger to further operations. the spread of such information is largely kept in check by an extensive military censor, with no specifics on ahlf operations leaving the military chain of command without its explicit approval, and aside from vague, general statements on overall progress, the civilian population is largely left in the dark on matters pertaining to the rbri.

as the threats faced by the ahlf have been evolving through the progression of the initiative, so has their approach in making further advances. the past six years have seen a lull in inland incursions on the front line, as the central military command has opted to focus on developing more substantial countermeasures to the growing threats before continuing its riskier operations. the effects of these plans have steadily reshaped the initiative-occupied territories over the course of this process, with the expansion of military black sites taking place under cover of a tightening information blockade, alongside an apparent rise in disappearances from the union mainland. while the precise nature of the developments taking place isnt widely known, over the past several months, the rate of advance incursions deeper into the ruin belt has reportedly been slowly increasing, albeit with little corresponding increase in consolidation of new positions.

There is some mention of a potential rapprochement occurring between Xshorians and Humanity, which naturally invites the question on what the relations are between the Xshorians currently, after near-cataclytmic events arising from interactions between the parties. You seem to elude to there being at least a modicum of trade occurring between the parties, particularly in the form of silk, which makes me wonder what does Xshor barter such goods for? Aside from a small hint pointing at firearms, what would the Xshorians possibly need from humanity? Truth be told, the land didn't strike me as one particularly interested in typical consumer goods.

relations between xshorians and humans are a somewhat complicated matter, and officially neither side is truly engaging in rapprochement as a matter of state policy. there is an uneasy peace in place since the end of the second plague war, which occurred without formal agreements - neither xshorians nor humans have established lines of communication at present (with debatable exceptions, but we'll get to that), and the last time the xshorians opened one for broad outreach was in their unilateral ceasefire declaration for said war, in which they also killed the crown prince of one of the displaced nations' royal family as part of their transmission mechanism. i might post something on that incident in the relatively near future, but in short, while it was successful at its intended purpose of ending the war, it has left humans with a deep and lasting fear of the very prospect of communicating with xshor.

regarding the current state of these relations in a practical sense, interactions between the two parties are concentrated in the ruin belt - the set of abandoned continents & other landmasses in between shajās in the southwest and the cradle in the northeast where the union & xshor reside respectively - amid the backdrop of the eponymous ruin belt reclamation initiative undertaken by the union. both humans & xshorians have some presence in these officially deserted lands, whether under orders from their respective governments or as clandestine & rogue elements, the latter being the main source of interactions & especially trade. the human side of these exchanges consists almost exclusively of weapons and human biomatter, in the form of live humans as well as corpses and organs, and in addition providing services such as espionage and research theft, while their contacts trade these for bodily augmentations, bespoke equipment & trinkets featuring xshorian technologies, psychoactive drugs, and safe passage guarantees through areas they control. xshorians are themselves not exactly able to communicate with humans - as adults, they transmit complex ideas exclusively through telepathy, something which humans generally lack. to get around this barrier, the rogue fleshmongers in the ruin belt use heavily modified human slaves as intermediaries, implanting them with simple psychic links through which they deliver their thoughts that the slaves then interpret and relay as spoken language. this is of course rather difficult to scale, and certainly poorly conducive to the formation of broader relations, hence its restriction to the very shadiest places & circles in errah.