Have a look at a new OC and species being worked on :eyes:

There will be a more full ref version of it but I wanted to show I'm still alive AND working on Kael's universe lore among others!

Okay so this is a species I've been pushing away for years. They have been important in my own world building but I was never confident enough in my capacity to design to make it real. I always felt it was too difficult to make an alien species that is also meant to be quite terrifying and fit a certain, highly overpowered spot.

That spot being the big villains who created not only Kael, but Yr'ael, the dragons in their entirety in the lore, the celestials, etc... This big spacefaring civilisation called the Makers, ready to grab the planet and its famous moon for themselves.

The Makers, who decided to invade countless worlds from their Mothership as to grow their empire.

Well, these guys got some extra lore as of late. I was again in a mood full of inspiration and decided "Hey, why not.", which later lead to actually designing them.

Okay, time for lore! Again, I am not english native, so there will probably be mistakes! But I'll do my best!

The Valnarii:

Valnarii are amphibians of kaiju origin. With their advanced AI partners (the Astrocores), they can take on multiple forms at will. This process is done by having the Astrocore expand all over them as an armor, then rapidly mutate the Valnarii into a chosen beast. Such beasts are created by scanning them directly, keeping a pattern of them to a cellular level. They can also form alien weapons such as arm cannons or other ranged and melee ones!
Higher Astrocores allow the Valnarii to separate the features of a scanned creature, then mix and match with other features in order to create new and terrifying creatures and forms for war. (and other uses, of course)

The Valnarii are able to reach their Voalrii form for war without losing sapience with the help of their astrocore. Such forms vary heavily due to many different factors, but each is rather unique. From theropod, quadruped, to Leviathan, avian, etc...
Should a Valnarii try to become a Voalrii without their astrocore, they will likely lose themselves and become fully feral and enraged. In such case, the situation is lose-lose for both whoever is fighting them but also for the Valnarii itself.

The Valnarii's tendrils are extremely sensitive towards the tip. This sensitivity is used by the Valnarii to sense strange things invisible to the eye, but also to read the mind of anyone by approaching them closer to the brain of the victim.

Thanks to their advanced technology, the Valnarii can affect their physical appearance to a certain level, and make themselves unique and how they want to be.

The Lore:

Hailing from the far aquatic planet called Valnar in a faraway galaxy, the Valnarii are an amphibian species that were always really unusual. They didn't start as normal creatures, but as a rarity, a species that would be able to survive on its own fairly well, but would also make good use of a symbiotic relationship with another one, like servants. Using this relationship, they could get over their rare number and rapidly advance in term of evolution and tech.

Only hatched from an egg during a specific event, their numbers were and remained forever few, and for a good, natural reasons; the world could not handle them.

As the Valnarii age, they eventually reach a point in their life where a typical species might die of old age. This point is known as the Twilight Age, where the Valnarii will begin to transform into a creature known as "Voalrii", affectionately called "Citizen Of Space" in their tongue. The process starts with a rapid growth of their form and a loss of sapience. The Valnarii becomes colossal, animalistic, kaiju-like but generally harmless. Eventually, they leave Valnar and wander around the galaxy as space leviathans, reach a new world, or just leave the galaxy alltogether.
Not only that, but a Valnarii and Voalrii's blood are not only of one type, but multiples, with different effects. The dosage and power of the different bloods affect the abilities of a Valnarii and its final form as a kaiju. (They have multiple sets of veins, one for each blood.)

While a fantastic and unusual growth cycle for a species, it is hardly bearable form for a planet.

The Valnarii grew more advanced in their technology, crafting larger and better machines with the use of their little aquatic partners which would, in turn, be able to feed on the Valnarii's different bloods, which gave different, permanent mutations. It was a win-win situation.

As cities grew, and those partners' numbers did as well, the Valnarii saw their number only stagnate. Annoyed at this lack of growth in their own population, they eventually found the way to freeze their aging entirely, erasing the cycle and preventing any new Voalrii from being made.

With this victory, their numbers grew, albeit very slowly. This anti-aging process made them more confident in their abilities, but on the other hand, also gave them a growing fear of death. May it be themselves or their own. This grew a great, powerful bond among the few existing members of the Valnarii species, which became like family. They are a community, and will help eachothers no matter if they have talked before or not.

With their advancement in technology, they found the way to create life, synthetic, organic, mechanical, and eventually a perfect mix of all of them. Now using the ability to build new lifeforms, they found the use of their previous partners diminished. But thankful of their help, they did not push them away. They were offered a place in their cities, and even given the ability to be upgraded into creatures called "Astrocores". Astrocores are worm-like beings that go everywhere with a Valnarii partner, and take care of all the technological side of things, such as scanning areas, making estimations, taking over unknown techs, but also, later, affect the Valnarii directly, such as for shapeshifting.

Valnar's civilisation grew, and the Valnarii reigned as gods over the species that inhabited their walls. But their hunger was not satisfied, and they looked up to the stars. They saw the other planets, and wondered what was out there. Unfortunately, they did not have the best intentions in mind.

And the Valnarii sent their creations away to seek out other worlds, and take over them, build cities, grow their empire.

Unable to face this super advanced civilisation, the natives of the many planets were quickly forced to accept the occupation of these synthetic lifeforms, and like that, the Valnarii were made a feared force across the cosmos.

The Valnarii? Some of them were not okay with this decision of invading the other planets, but they were quickly told that it was to protect them from mad Voalrii, which are destructive forces, kaijus from outer space returning to cause mayhem on planets. While not completly wrong, it was really just used as an excuse for their unacceptable actions.

With a galaxy almost entirely under their control, the Valnarii reigned as even higher beings than gods. Still very few in numbers (in the hundreds), they barely ever went to any of these worlds! They would very rarely dispatch Valnarii soldiers, as they did not want to lose them. Most civilisations would only know the Valnarii's appearances from drawings made by their creations. Drawings on walls, or statues even!

Valnarii soldiers were terrifying. One alone had the power to level a whole continent given time. Multiple armies were not enough to take it down... This scared the other civilisations into not fighting back, as they knew that if they tried, the Valnarii might send their Valnarii army, and this meant a quick and destructive repression.

But eventually, something happened. On a far moon, in an important Valnarii facility, something broke out, and all the Valnarii within this lab turned into Voalrii. This started the Kaiju war, a battle between Valnarii and their former brothers and sisters. This war was won, but left a heavy toll on their mind.

Shattered by this event, the Valnarii grew even meaner towards everyone else. They began forcing the other planets to give their ressources for different reasons, starving them rapidly, and used them to build Arks.

Multiple arks were built, the Valnarii were going to other galaxies and enforce their rule too. This made many Valnarii question the very excuse of "defending other planets", they felt that this excuse fell apart if they were going to galaxies where the Voalrii might not even exist!

The arks did leave, but it left the Valnarii even fewer, and their numbers thin, aaaand a political turmoil as many Valnarii were unhappy with the decisions of their leadership.

The planets saw this as the opportunity, and together, rebelled! With all the worlds fighting back, the Valnarii rapidly lost the battle everywhere. This is where they made the decision to stand down and retire entirely.

All Valnarii were recalled to Valnar as their empire collapsed all around them, and cloaked the planet away, ending their rule once and for all.

Since then, Valnar has remained dormant, with the Valnarii living a rather good life. It has been a long time since their collapse, but still they are very few. An even fewer number of them decided to leave Valnar and discover the galaxy, mainly younger Valnarii who have a much nicer view on how to treat others, but with a strict code of "Do not intervene in the life of the natives."

They can merely observe, and observe they do, with a smile on their face.

And so the Valnarii, while still highly Xenophobic, are slowly getting better at not being absolute assholes that want to take everything.

But now, one of the Arks... well, it ended up going towards a certain galaxy, and decided to grow its empire.. Now called the Makers, this offshoot of Valnarii created the dragons on a far planet, hoping to obtain this magical moon for themselves, eventually. That is, until one of their creations, namely Artherion, put a stop to them and blew up their Mothership, formerly ark, into pieces.


_______

This one specifically is Vareel! He is a young Valnarii from Valnar who is going around the galaxy to discover and study all the fauna and flora with interest! He is not xenophobic, fortunately! He is from a new generation! He and his astrocore Vysiil do tend to break the code from times to times, and then, they get pulled back by force to Valnar for intervening in the life of other species.


_______

This AMAZING picture was drawn by the AMAZING  rollwulf ! I had this crazy idea for a species design with all the details and she managed to take all those crazy details and make something incredible!!

Art ©  rollwulf
Character and species ©  artherion