The Shaping of Khevari
"We remember being full. That is the cruelest part. Not the emptiness itself, but the memory of what we lost."
THE PRESENCE
When Demons Were Whole
Before the Withdrawal, Demons served something vast. They called it the Presence, though names were inadequate. It filled them with purpose, with feeling, with an abundance that made individual emotion unnecessary. They were vessels, and they were content to be vessels.
The Presence didn't command in words. It guided through sensation, through knowing, through a fullness that left no room for doubt. Demons built their obsidian cities not because they chose to, but because the Presence flowed through them and building was what emerged. Their society was less a civilization than an expression of something greater.
The Presence
The Withdrawal
THE WITHDRAWAL
The Hollowing
Then it left. No warning. No explanation. One moment the Presence was everything; the next it was memory. Demons describe it as waking to find themselves empty, a hollowness where fullness had been, a hunger they had never learned to fill because filling had never been their responsibility.
The aftermath was chaos. Demons who had never needed to generate their own feelings suddenly couldn't stop trying. Some went mad. Some withdrew into catatonia. Some began the long work of learning to survive without what had sustained them.
What emerged was a race defined by absence. Demons today are hollow in a way other races cannot fully comprehend. They feel, but not enough. They want, but the wanting never stops. They feed on emotion from others because they cannot produce sufficient emotion themselves.
THE AGE OF MIGRATION
The Beastkin Confederation
Three thousand years ago, the nine Beastkin peoples signed the Confederation Charter, binding their disparate tribes into a loose alliance. It was born of necessity: the Fae were expanding, and individual tribes couldn't resist alone. The Charter has survived through precedent and pragmatism, tested but never broken.
The Dwarven Tunnels
The Dwarves have always been beneath. Their tunnel network predates written records, carved by following the stone's will rather than imposing their own. They mapped the continent from below before surface races knew what lay beyond their own territories. Their Tunnel Accords formalized what had always been true: the depths belong to those who listen.
Human Arrival
Humans came later, in small waves, settling where stronger races allowed them space. The Border Communities emerged not through conquest but through careful negotiation, surviving by being too useful to expel and too few to threaten. They learned to live in the margins, to trade with everyone, to owe no permanent allegiance.
THE CURRENT AGE
The Founding of Mura
Four hundred years ago, where Beastkin grasslands, human settlements, and Demon domains nearly touch, a trading post grew into something permanent. Mura was designed from the ground up for multi-species habitation: not beautiful, not elegant, but functional. A compromise made physical. The Mura Compact established it as neutral ground, and it has served that purpose ever since.
Rising Tensions
In recent decades, Demon interest in humanity has intensified. The old accommodations are fraying. The Ember Protocols that regulated Demon behavior outside the Domains are being questioned. A new generation of Demons argues that the current restrictions serve no one, that closer integration with humans would benefit both races.
Whether this means partnership or predation depends on who you ask.