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The Roya once walked the surface, on ancient plains where the Glommoths and Glommothas thundered in their thousands. In the subarctic fjords, their ancestors lived as nomads, and even now, the shepherd’s instinct still flows in their blood.
Within Roya society, three distinguished callings exists: the Shepherd, the Solsworn, and the Heliodic Six. Those recognized by the Soliskin become Shepherds, tasked with tending to the Exoswarm in their growth and renewal. Only those gifted in reckoning calendars and possessing a degree of resonance with both Soliskin and the Exostrider may enter the Solisylum, there to be named among the Solsworn. These Solsworns also stand as potential successors to the Heliodic Six.
Thus, gaining the acknowledgement of the Soliskin and Exoswarm is essential, whether one seeks to become a Shephered, a Solsworn, or one of the Heliodic Six. To the Roya, the Soliskin, the Exoswarm, and all living beings in Lahai-Roi hold profound importance. Respect for life and reverence for the world shaped by the Exostrider’s Reactor Drive is a lesson every Roya must master upon coming of age.
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Within the vast underground cavern of Lahai-Roi lies Bjartr Woods, one of the rare regions untouched by the ravages of Void Storm. It is here that the Roya built the Solisylum. In ordinary seasons, they guide the Exoswarm in their growth and migration, while during periods of intense Void Storm activity, they cease shepherding and lead the Exoswarm to shelter within the Solisylum.
When an Exoswarm reaches full maturity, it joins a great migration. Its final destination is the Exostrider slumbering in the forest lands. The Exoswarm offer up their components to repair this ancient mecha form.
Beyond safeguarding Exoswarm parts, the Solisylum also serves as the central hub of data and records. Roya from every settlement bring their observational data here, where the Heliodic Six and their assisting Solsworn compile and calculate it. Each season, they determine whether the Reactor Drive remains stable, how many new Exoswarm have emerged and matured, and how many have completed their return to the Exostrider.
Once this information is consolidated, the Heliodic Six establishes the next season’s calendar based on the Reactor Drive’s activity, thereby charting the future focus of all Royan life and work.
The Exoswarm are mimetic mechs, fragmented from the Exostrider’s own mecha form. They are indispensable for its eventual renewal and reconstruction.
For centuries unbroken, the Roya have guided the Exoswarm up from the depths to the frostlands, toward the site of the Exostrider’s slumber.
Before the Starward Riseway was constructed, the Roya had no choice but to climb treacherous cliffs of impossible heights, where overhanging slopes greater than ninty degrees were not uncommon. This perilous ascent is known among the Roya as the “Sky Ladder.”
When they finally crested the frostlands, Glommoths and Glommothas would come into view. Such formidable Exoswarm escort the Roya for the final leg of the journey, then return with the other Exoswarm to the slumbering Exostrider.
Royan mythology is woven with cycles of the old giving way to the new, and it is through this lens that they interpret both themselves and the world around them. In ages long past, the ancestors of the Glommoths, vast elephantine beasts, roamed these plains in great herds, carrying their lineage forward.
And now, the Exoswarm tread across the ice, returning the lives they were grated to the one who created them.