Akʔan

The world of Akʔan

Akʔan is a world with an unusual orbit: once per local year, it passes *through* its sun. This time, which lasts about a week and a half of earth time (nearly exactly three Akʔan sidereal days), is referred to by the Akʔana as the Longest Day, and has a special place in every culture on the planet.

Their sun, called the Blue Flame by locals, actually consists of nearly 100% mana, rather than the more conventional hydrogen and helium, and this means that life on Akʔan, which naturally evolved there, is accustomed to periodically being awash in vast amounts of mana. In fact, most life on Akʔan requires the Blue Flame's mana for reproduction: most species, including one of the two local sapient species, use vast amounts of mana in this process.

One or more Akʔana individuals (the use of the term individual here is important, for reasons that will become clear later) will take in large amounts of mana from the Blue Flame and use this for a type of fully-controlled shapeshifting, in which they grow additional limbs, heads, and other body parts. The extra parts from everyone involved will then be taken off (a normal ability of the Akʔana, which can be done at any time, not just during the Longest Day) and assembled into another Akʔana. When complete, the parts are "released" from their owners, and a new Akʔana is born, though the new individual possesses all the knowledge and memories of whichever donor(s) provided their brain(s). As Akʔana are effectively born fully-grown, there is little to no concept of a childhood, or an adulthood for that matter, in Akʔana societies. Rather, there's a period after one's "birth" of self-discovery and the formation of a new identity--a period which may be repeated multiple times, as identity is fluid in most Akʔana societies.

Families

An Akʔana Family is very different from the family structures in other worlds' societies. Rather, the Family is effectively a being in their own right, as the natural telepathy of the Akʔana allows many individuals to come together to form a sort of hive mind. All Akʔana are considered to be a member of some Family or another, even if that Family has only one member.

Trivia

The Blue Flame is actually the secondary star of its binary system; its primary is a red supergiant that Akʔana refer to as the Red Flame.